I put down my head.
'I am going to sell you,' he said.
'I know,' I said, 'master.'
'Leave, Slave,' he said.
'Yes, Maser,' I said.
I did not weep until I returned to the shed.
I felt the knots of my wrists being checked, and I winced, as they were tightened. Then my throat, by the straps, was drawn back tighter against the wicker, and this bond, too, was tightened. The other girls, too, winced in protest, some crying out.
I had asked one thing of Rask of Treve, before, stripped, I had entered the tarn basket.
'Free Ute,' I had asked him.
He had looked at me strangely. Then he had said. 'I will.'
Ute, freed, might then do what she wished. she might go to Rarir, or Teletus, I supposed. But I knew that she would seek out one named Barus, of the Leather Workers, whose name she had often moaned in her sleep. I did not even know his city.
'Into the basket,' had said the man who would fly the tarn.
'Yes, Master,' I had said to him. I was no longer the slave of Rask of Treve. I now belonged to this stranger, to whom I, and the others, had submitted ourselves. It was he, now, who held absolute power over my life and body. There was now a fresh, but locked, steel collar on my throat.
The man now was checking the knots at the lid of the basket. It was tight. Our ankles were bound together at the center of the basket; our wrists were bound behind our back, to the wicker; our throats were independently secured, the knots outside, keeping us in place. He had finished his lunch. We were stripped, helpless slave girls, his.
I had been sold for nine pieces of gold.
The man mounted to the saddle of the tarn. The tarn screamed and began to beat its wings. Then the basket jerked forward, on its leather runners, and skidded across the clearing, and then, swung below the tarn.
I was on my way to the market.
I was sold from the great block of the Curulean, in Ar, for twelve pieces of gold, purchased by the master of a paga tavern, who thought his patrons might enjoy amusing themselves with me, a girl who wore penalty brands.
I served for months in the paga tavern. Among those I served were guards, formerly of the caravan of Targo. They were kind to me. One was the fellow whom I had fought, by the fire, but to whom I must now completely yield. Another was the guard who had escorted me to the house of the physician, whom I had once provoked. Another was the one who had caught me, when I had fled from the hut in the forest, and returned me to Targo. And there, too, were others, even he who had driven the slave wagon in which I had been often confined; even he who had first harnessed me to the tongue of Targo's one wagon, when I had first been captured by him. after serving them completely I would press them with questions of Targo, and the other guards, and their slaves. They told me much. Targo had recovered many girls, and was now rich. He was intending another trip northward, though not to do business with Haakon of Skjern. The men I served, Targo's men, and others, who might have me for the price of a cup of paga, I gave much pleasure, and from them, too, I received much pleasure. But none of them were Rask of Treve. That master had won the heart of the slave girl who was Elinor Brinton. She could not forget him.
Then one night I heard, 'I will buy her,' and I stood transfixed with fear. I could scarcely pour the paga into his cup. The bells on my ankles and wrists rustled. I felt his hand on the bit of diaphanous yellow silk I wore in the tavern. 'I will buy her,' he said. It was the small man, who had touched me intimately when I had lain bound in my own bed on Earth, the small man who had threatened me in the hut in the northern forests, who had been the mountebank, the master, I had thought, of the strange beast, the terrible beast. It was the man who had wanted me to poison someone. I knew not who.
His hand was now locked on my wrist. I had not escaped him. 'I will buy her,' he said. 'I will buy her.'
The small man bought me for fourteen pieces of gold. I was taken, on tarnback, braceleted and hooded, to the city of Port Kar, in the delta of the mighty Vosk. In a warehouse, near the piers, I knelt, head down, at their feet.
'I will not serve you,' I said.
The small man was there, and the beast, squatting, shaggy, regarding me, and, too, to my surprise, Haakon of Skjern.
'I have felt the iron,' I said. 'I have felt the whip. I will not kill for you. You may kill me, but I will not kill for you.'
They did not beat me, nor threaten me.
They lifted me by the arm, and dragged me to a side room. I screamed. There, his wrists bound by ropes to rings, stood a bloodied man, head down, stripped to the waist.
'Eleven men died,' said Haakon of Skjern,' but we have him.'
The man lifted his head, and shook it, clearing his vision. 'El-in-or? he said. 'Master!' I wept.
I pressed myself to him.
He regarded them. Then he said to me, 'I am of Treve. Do not stain my honor.' By the hair I was dragged from the presence of Rask of Treve, and his head, again, fell forward on his chest.
The door closed.
'In time,' said the small man, 'you will receive a packet of poison.' I nodded, numbly. Rask of Treve must not die! He must not die!
'You will be placed in the house of Bosk, a merchant of Port Kar,' he said. 'You will be placed in the kitchen of that house, and you will be used to serve his table.'
'I can't,' I wept. 'I cannot kill!'
'Then Rask of Treve dies,' said the small man. Haakon of Skjern laughed. The small man held up a tiny packet. 'This,' he said, 'is the poison, a powder prepared from the venom of the ost.'
I shuddered. Death by ost venom is among the most hideous of deaths. I wondered how it was that they could so hate this man, he called Bosk of Port Kar.
'You will comply?' asked the small man.
I nodded my head.
'Wine, El-in-or!' cried Publius, master of the kitchen of Bosk of Port Kar. 'Take wine to the table!'
Numbly, shaking, I took the vessel of wine. I went to the door of the kitchen, and went through the hallway, and stopped before the back entrance to the hall. It had not been as hard as I had feared to be entered into the house. I was sold, for fifteen pieces of gold, to the house of Samos, a slaver of Port Kar. Samos himself was abroad upon Thassa, in ventures of piracy and enslavement, and it was through a subordinate that I was purchased. Publius, the kitchen master of the house of Bosk, drunken, in a dicing match, in a paga tavern of Port Kar, had learned that there was an interesting girl, newly brought to the house of Samos, one who had been trained in the pens of Ko-ro-ba, one who wore the brand of Treve. It was also said that she was beautiful. Publius, who would, upon occasion, need new girls in the kitchen, as others were given away or sold, was intrigued. I suspect he seldom had the opportunity to chain trained pleasure slaves to the wall of his kitchen after the completion of the evening's work.
The subordinate, though in the absence of Samos, thinking to please him, sold me to Publius for only fifteen pieces of gold, which price he had paid. I was thus, in effect, in part, a gift to the house of Bosk from the house of Samos. The house of Bosk and the house of Samos, it seemed, stood on good terms, the one with the other. Both Samos and Bosk, it seems, were members of the Council of Captains, the sovereign power in Port Kar.
I liked the house of Bosk, which was much fortified, spacious and clean. I was not badly treated, though I was forced to do my work perfectly. My master, Bosk, a large man, very strong, did not use me. His woman was the striking, beautiful Telima, from the marshes, a true Gorean beauty, before whom I felt myself only an Earth woman and a slave. There were other beauties in the house; slender, dark-haired Midice, the woman of a captain, Tab; large, blond-haired Thura, the woman of the great peasant, master of the bow, Thurnock; and short, dark-eyed Ula, woman of silent, strong Clitus, once a fisherman of the isle of Cos. Too, there was a slender, strong youth, a seaman, whose name was Henrius, said to be a master of the sword. There was too a free dancing girl, a beauty with high cheekbones, named Sandra, who much pleased herself with the men of Bosk, and earned much moneys in the doing of it. She had been taught to read by another girl, also free, of the Scribes, a thin, brilliant girl, whose name was Luma, who handled much of the intricate business of the great house. And, too, of course, there were many lovely slaves. I was somewhat uneasy. Only too obviously Bosk had an eye for beauty. But he did not use me. His affections, and his touch, were for Telima. How superb she must have been, to have held him among such girls. A Gorean girl, who has a first-rate man, and wishes to keep him, fights for him. There are generally girls, collared girls, only too eager to take her place.
'Hurry with the wine!' cried Publius, from the kitchen, looking after me. Then he disappeared in the kitchen.
I took the packet of poison from my rep-cloth kitchen tunic, and dissolved it in the wine. I had been told there was enough there to bring a hundred men to an excruciating death. I swirled the wine, and discarded the packet.
It was ready.
'Wine!' I heard from the hall.
I hurried forward, running toward the table. I would serve none but Bosk, he first and he alone. I did not wish more blood on my head.
I stopped halfway to the table. The feasters were watching me.
Rask of Treve must live!
I had recalled how Haakon of Skjern had laughed over his captive.
I asked myself, would he, Haakon, such a mortal enemy, release Rask of Treve, even if I keep my bargain.
I feared he would not, and yet what choice had I. I must trust them. I had no choice.
I did not wish to poison anyone. I knew nothing of such work. I had not been a good person, but I was not a murderess. Yet I must kill.
I remembered, briefly, irrelevantly, that my mother had once poisoned my small dog, which had ruined one of her slippers. I had loved that tiny animal, which had played with me, and had given me the affection, the love, which my parents had denied me, or had been too busy to bestow. It had died in the basement, in the darkness
