“Almost never,” she said. “But I know that he is fully capable, as he has demonstrated, of whipping me. Should I not be pleasing, I know that I, as a slave girl, will be lashed.”
“You live under the threat of the whip?”
“Yes,” she said. “And the threat is not empty.” She looked at me. “He is strong enough to get what he wants out of me. He knows it. And I have learned it. He is strong enough, if I do not please him, to lash me.”
“How do you find this?” I asked.
“Meaningful,” she said, “- and thrilling!”
“You seem to enjoy being dominated by a male,” I said.
“I am a woman,” she said. She looked down. “I have discovered feelings I never knew I had,” she said. She looked up. “I have discovered, in the arms of a strong, uncompromising man, how fantastic, how deep and glorious is my female sexuality.”
“You do not speak as a woman of Earth,” I observed.
“I am a Gorean slave girl,” she said, kneeling straight, touching her earrings.
“It seems to me,” said I. “you care for your master.”
“If not restrained by his command,” she said, boldly. “I would lick the dust from his boots!”
Suddenly she looked about. She, too, now, saw the dust. She recognized the raiders were returning. Her eyes, suddenly, were frightened.
“You must flee!” she said. “They may kill you if they find you here!”
“I have not finished my tea.” I said.
“Is it-is it,” she said, standing, uncertainly, “your intention to do harm to my master?”
“I have business with him.” I said, simply.
She backed away. I set the tea down on the sand, between two mats, beside me. I did not think it would spill. She took another step backward. I reached to the side, to pick up a length of chain which lay there, one of several, doubtless ready for securing slaves, anticipated perhaps as prizes from the afternoon’s caravan raid. Alyena turned, and, with a cry, fled from the tent, toward the dust. The length of chain, hurled from my hand, bola-like, caught her about the ankles, whipping about, and she, in a flurry of skirt and blond hair, sprawled, hands outstretched, to the dust. In an instant I was on her, kneeling across her back, my left hand across her mouth, pulling her head up, painfully, and back. I then put my right hand swiftly over her mouth, before she could cry out, and, my left hand in her hair, pulled her to her feet and dragged her back into the tent. I looked about, and found some materials at hand, which I kicked together into a pile on the mats. I then put her on her back on the mats, and, kneeling across her body, transferring my left hand from her mouth, I thrust a scarf, wadded, jeep into her mouth, then fastened it there with several turns of sash, using the extra length of the sash, tying it, to blindfold her. I then threw her on her stomach. With a length of strap I tied her hands behind her back, and, with another scarf, crossed and bound her ankles. I then threw her to the back of the tent, on the right side, which is that side of the nomad’s tent reserved for the possessions of men.
I then went and stood near the entrance of the tent. My kaiila was tethered in the rear.
First over the rise, on his kaiila, with the two girls tethered, stumbling, exhausted, feet bleeding, to the pommel, was the leader. Instantly he saw me and was alert. He cried out to his men. They deployed, circling. I saw the scimitar, lifted, in the hand of the leader.
Unlooping, swiftly, with his left hand, the tethers of the prisoners from his pommel, he threw the straps to one of his men. Behind them I could see the captured pack kaiila. There were nine men, not including the leader. The leader’s kaiila reared. I saw it was his intention, not dismounting, to ride the kaiila against and through the tent, it striking against the beast’s forequarters. It would be ripped from its pegs, the frame shattered, but he, leaning down from the saddle, would have his stroke.
I lifted the water bag from the pole, where it hung outside the entrance of the tent.
One of the men cried out with rage.
I lifted the bag, drinking deeply. I replaced the plug and put back the bag, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. The leader resheathed his scimitar and lightly, dismounted.
I returned to the mats, sat again cross-legged upon them, and picked up my small glass of tea, which I had not yet finished.
He entered the tent, bending down.
“Tea is ready.” I said to him.
He went to the back of the tent and, with a knife, freed Alyena of her restraints. She looked up at him, terrified. But he was not irritated with her.
It is nothing for a man to overpower a female.
“Serve us tea,” he said.
Trembling she measured him a tiny glass of tea. His men stood outside, wary.
“The tea is excellent,” I said.
In sharing their water I had made myself, by custom of the Tahari, their guest.
9 Zina, a Beautiful Traitress, is Dealt With in the Fashion of the Tahari
“Chain the two prisoners,” said the leader of the raiders, to one of his men.
He then looked at me.
One of the men came into the tent and picked up the chains, which had lain, coiled, on the mats, in readiness. One length of chain he retrieved from the dust, where I had hurled it, snaring the fleeing Alyena by her ankles.
“Kneel,” said one of the men.
“No, Hassan!” cried one of the girls. The other girl, she, who had torn at her hair, when captured, knelt. The girl who had, when captured, looked disbelievingly at the bonds on her wrists, stood, angry, defiant.
She came and stood before him, naked in the tent, on the mats. Her body was covered with sweat. The legs, from the thighs down, were covered with dust, dark in her sweat, and scratched by the myriad thrusts of brush through which, tethered, she had been dragged at her captor’s stirrup.
“It was I, Zina,” she said, “who, for a tarn disk of gold, betrayed the caravan into your hands, giving you its inventory, its schedule, its route!”
Such matters, I knew, were usually carefully guarded in the Tahari, even in times of relative peace.
The other girl cried out in anger at her, but did not dare rise. “Chain her,” said Hassan, indicating the kneeling girl. One of the men, from behind, put ankle rings on her, joined by about a foot of chain. I heard the two, heavy snaps of the locks. He then unbound her wrists and coiled the tether. Before her body he locked her wrists in three-link slave bracelets.
“In the sun,” said Hassan to two others of his men. They departed and, shortly, returned with a heavy, pointed stake. It was some four feet in height, some four inches in diameter. One man held the stake and the other, with a heavy hammer, drove it deeply, firmly, into the earth, until only some two inches of it were visible. At this end, fastened to a bolted band, fitted into a groove at the termination of the stake was a metal ring. The man who had held the stake then took a snap collar, with chain and snap lock, about a yard in length, and secured the girl, on her knees, by the neck, to the stake.
“Free me!” demanded the girl, Zina.
“Free her,” said Hassan.
One of his men took the binding fiber from her wrists.
“Pay me!” she demanded.
At a gesture from Hassan, one of the men, from a small coffer to one side, drew forth a golden tarn disk, and gave it to the girl. She clenched it in her hand.
“Give me clothing,” she said.
“No,” said Hassan.
She looked at him, frightened.
“You have been paid,” he said. “Go.”
She looked about herself, fearfully. She looked at the tarn disk.
“Give me water,” she said.
“NO,” he said.
“I will buy it,” she said, frightened.
“I do not sell water,” he said. “Go.”
“No!” she wept.
“Go.” he said.
“I will die in the desert,” she cried. The golden tarn disk glinted in her hand.
“I betrayed the caravan to you!” she cried.
“You have been paid,” he said.
She looked from man to man, into the eyes of each. Her lip trembled. “No,” she whispered. “No!”
She looked at Alyena, who knelt beside the tea, looking down at the mats, not daring to raise her eyes. Alyena’s shoulders shook. Her breasts, pendant, were sweet, loose, inside the rep-cloth blouse. The naked girl knelt beside her, frantic, timid, and reached out to touch her shoulder.
“Plead for me,” begged Zina.
“I am only a slave,” wept Alyena.
“Plead for me!” begged Zina.
Alyena, anguished, tears in her eyes, looked at Hassan, her Master. “I plead for her, Master!” she cried.
“Leave the tent or be lashed, Slave,” said Hassan.
Alyena leapt to her feet, weeping, and fled from the tent.
