“Tomorrow night,” said Vinca, “you are to give the wine to as many of the panther girls as is possible.” Mira, blindfolded, kneeling before the harshly spoken Vinca, put down her head. “Yes, Mistress,” she whispered.
Vinca put her hands in her hair and shook it. “We can pick you up again when we want you,” she said. “Do you understand?” Mira nodded, miserably.
“Are you a docile, obedient slave?” asked Verna.
“Yes, Mistress,” said Mira. “Yes!”
“Bring skins,” said Vinca, “that we may now disguise this slave as a panther girl.” Mira was unbound and helped into skins. They were the same which had been taken before from her.
Her wrists were then bound again behind her back and I regagged her. The bottles of wine, brought by one of the paga slaves, were slung, knotted, about her neck.
When we were close to her camp I removed the blindfold from her eyes. She looked at me, piteously. In her eyes there was still the fear of the sleen. “I shall show you where your guards are placed,” I said.
“Then, with your skills, you should be able to return undetected to your place in the camp.” She nodded, tears in her eyes.
I took her by the arm and, nearing the camp, by gesture, showed her the placement of the two guards. She nodded. We then went to a place from which, with care, she should have no difficulty in re-entering the camp.
We knelt together in the foliage. The wine was still tied about her neck. I knelt behind her. I unbound her hands. I removed from her mouth the heavy gag. I threw it into the brush.
She did not turn to look at me. “Was it to you,” she asked, “that I submitted in the forest? Is it you whose slave I am?” “Yes,” I said.
She turned to face me.
I suddenly removed her skins from her.
I took her in my arms, a slave girl.
I did not untie the wine from about her neck.
“Can you hear me?” cried the man of Tyros. “Can you hear me?”
I, of course, made no answer.
“If any man of Tyros falls,” he cried, “ten slaves will die!”
Scarcely had his words been uttered when he, himself, fell, an arrow from the great bow lost in the yellow of his tunic.
I had not accepted their terms.
“Then, Slaves,” cried a man, blade uplifted, “die!”
But he struck no one. The great bow did not permit him. When the chain moved again it took its way over his body. No longer was there the threat of slaying slaves. No man was willing to strike the first blow. Sarus, leader of the men of Tyros, ordered several but none would strike, not wishing themselves to fall. “Then strike them yourself!” shouted one of his insubordinate men.
Sarus slew the man himself, with his sword, but he, Sarus, did not then move to strike the slaves. Rather he looked angrily, anxiously, into the forest, and then turned away. “Faster!’ he cried. “March then faster!” The slave chain again moved.
Once more the men from Ar, led by Marlenus himself, their Ubar took up their song. It rang through the forests.
After the tenth hour, the Gorean noon, I slew no more, for I wished their confidence and their hope, to mount. Before the tenth hour I had felled fourteen. That morning, given the history of their march, was perhaps, by them, felt to be their darkest, their most helpless. That afternoon would be for them, by contrast, by my intention, one of gradually increasing elation, of growing, leaping hope, for that afternoon, and that evening, too, no more arrows strode forth, telling, from the green concealments of the leafed branches. Perhaps I was no longer with them. Perhaps their stalker had tired. Perhaps he had give up the chase, the hunt.
They marched long that day. It was late when they made their camp.
They were buoyant, and the mood was one of celebration. I watched my slave, Mira, smiling, jesting and pouring wine for many of the panther girls of Hura’s band.
The hour was late. It would be dawn in four Ahn. The drug was a strong one. It had been intended for the bodies of men, not the smaller bodies of women. I did not know the duration of its effect in a woman. Mira had, under Vinca’s strict questioning, told us that it would render a man unconscious for several Ahn, usually a half a day.
My own slave coffle, unknown to the men of Tyros and the girls of Hura, was camped not more than two pasangs away.
It might be necessary to waken some of Hura’s girls forcibly from the drug. We did not wish to lose too many hours.
I decided I would need sleep, and so left the vicinity of the camp of the men of Tyros and the girls of Hura.
In examining baggage discarded along the trail, abandoned in flight, I had found little of interest. It was mostly furs and clothing. Three furs I had brought back to Vinca and the other two paga slaves, that they might be comforted from the hard ground and protected from the cold forest nights. I brought no furs for Ilene or the other slaves. The panther girls, chained together, had one another for warmth, and the tarpaulin. Ilene had nothing. When she grew too miserable she would creep to my side for warmth. I would then use her. Her responses were becoming rapid, deep and organic, almost spontaneous. A slave girl is best either when she is often used, or when she has been deliberately, for some time, deprived. A free woman may go days or weeks without the touch of her companion. For a slave girl, who has learned her collar, this would be almost unspeakable misery. Two nights without a master’s touch would be agony for her. Slave pens are often filled with girls, second and third collar girls, begging to be sold. Sometimes their sales are even postponed that their desperation, piteous and supplicatory, their longing to surrender their small bodies, their softness, and beauty, to the hard, strong arms of a master, may be more evident on the block. It is interesting to note a woman, in the process of her vending, who attempts, out of self-hatred, or hatred of men, or pride, to conceal this deprivation, this need. In the hands of a skilled auctioneer she is forced to reveal, incontrovertibly, her passionate latencies, the suppressed pleadings of her womanhood for a master’s touch. Before the auctioneer closes his hand on a price for her, it will be clear to all in the market, including the woman, that her beauty is truly for sale, and fully. Also among the discarded baggage I had found some tunics of Tyros. I had selected one and taken it to my camp. I thought that perhaps, at some time, it might prove useful.
17 I Add Jewels to the Slaver’s Necklace
I strode among the unconscious bodies of panther girls. They slept late. I would not, in the future, allow them that luxury.
“Add them to the slave chain,” I told Vinca.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
From our coffle we had separated eight girls and chained them in pairs, left ankle to right ankle, running the Harl ring chained of one to the second welded ring on the Harl ring of the other. They were thus double chained and separated by about a yard. Each pair was under the command of one of my slaves. Even Ilene in her slave silk, had a switch, and was given her pair of girls to command. She struck them with the switch. “Hurry, Slavs!” she told them.
The chained work slaves, under their switches, began to gather up the unconscious panther girls and carry them and place them on the grass in a line, their feet at, and vertical to, what would have been an extension of the coffle line.
“I am glad there are more slaves,” said the blond girl, in her ankle ring. “That way there will be less for us to carry.” I had thoroughly scouted out the camp and surrounding area.
I looked about. Once more there was the sign of a rout. This morning the men of Tyros had doubtless awakened pleased and confident, eager to be again on their way to the sea. Then, to their horror, and that of the girls of Hura, it had been impossible to rouse many of the panther girls, indeed, all who had last night drunk of Mira’s proffered wine.
The girls would have been deeply unconscious. They would have responded to nothing, save perhaps with a twist of their bodies and an almost fevered moan. The men of Tyros, as I had expected, had not elected to remain at the camp, to protect and defend the girls until they had regained consciousness. They did not know but what this event had been the prelude to a full attack. They did not know the number nor nature of their enemies. They desired to preserve their own lives. Further, they did not elect to impede themselves and their chain by carrying them. Some, I expected, perhaps high girls in Hura’s band, had been carried by their sisters of the forests. Most, however, had been abandoned, left behind with the tenting and baggage.
I saw two slaves dragging another girl by, under the supervision of the dark-haired paga slave.
I heard a switch fall twice. Ilene had beaten her girls. They were dragging another fair prisoner. “Hurry!” scolded Ilene. They did not fear her. They feared Vinca. Accordingly they obeyed Ilene perfectly. She exulted in her absolute control of two other girls. She struck then again. “Hurry!’ she cried. I looked down at two of the unconscious girls. They had gone to sleep after the wine, warmed and drowsy. They would not have known it was drugged. When they awakened they would expect it would be morning and they would resume their march. They doubtless would be startled, upon awakening, to find themselves stripped, members of a slave chain, their fair ankles locked in Harl rings. Suddenly I was alert. I detected in one of the small, narrow, open tents, abandoned, a movement.
Giving no sign I continued as before, looking about the camp. Then, when my presence was concealed by the side of the tent, I slipped into the brush. In a few moments I discovered, kneeling in the tent, her back to me, with drawn bow, a panther girl. She had been pretending to be drugged, but had not been. she had had as yet no opportunity for a clean, favorable shot. She could not risk a miss. Other tents, and moving women, had been between us. I admired her, muchly. What a fine, marvelous, brave woman she was. Others had fled. She had stayed behind, to defend her fallen sisters of the forest.
It, of course, had been her mistake.
From behind I took her by the arms. She cried out with misery.
I bound her hand and foot.
“What is your name?” I asked, as I fastened he knots on her wrists, behind her back.
“Rissia,” she said.
I carried her to where the other girls lay and put her on the grass among them. I then looked again about the camp. I found a girl over whom a blanket had been thrown. I had her, too, carried to a place in the line.
“Return the work slaves to the coffle,” I said.
