She threw back her head and laughed. 'I would die first,' she said.
'It is late now,' I said. 'I think we should sleep.'
'What is your name?' he asked.
'Tarl,' said I. 'Let that suffice.'
'Accepted,' he said, smiling. He would not pry further into my affairs. Doubtless he assumed I was bandit, fugitive or assassin.
I took Constance by the arm, and threw her to his feet. It was a simple act of Gorean courtesy.
Constance looked at me, wildly.
'Please him,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she whispered.
'Yes, slut,' called the free woman. 'Please him! Please him well, you stinking little slave!'
'My thanks, my friend,' said the fellow once from Teletus. He took Constance by the arm to one side and threw her on the grass beneath him.
In a few Ehn she crept to my side in the furs, shuddering. He was asleep.
I looked over at the free woman. She was struggling in the narrow leather which confined her. But she would be unable to free herself. She had watched in fury, and, I think, ill-concealed envy at the rapine which had been worked upon Constance.
I, in the light of the subsiding fire, watched the Lady Tina fight weeping with her bonds.
He had said that in the morning he would partially clothe her. I had not understood this.
I observed her struggling. I thought she would look well in a slave collar. Then I went to sleep.
'Hear it?' I asked.
It was early morning. Ram sat upright in the grass. I stood near the tam, which had returned in the night, its beak smeared with blood and the hairs from the small yellow tabuk, of the sort which frequent Ka-la-na thickets. I cleaned its beak and talons with dried grass. I had already saddled the beast.
Constance lay to one side, curled in the furs. The free woman, the Lady Tina of Lydius, too, slept, lying on her side, exhausted from her struggles of the night. The sky was overcast, and gray.
'Yes,' he said. 'Sleen.'
We could hear their squealing in the distance. There must have been four or five of the beasts.
'Master?' asked Constance, rubbing her eyes.
'It is sleen, in the distance,' I said. 'Get out of the furs, lazy girl.'
She was frightened.
'We have time,' I said.
'What weight can the tarn carry?' asked Ram.
'It is strong,' I said. 'It can carry, if need be, a rider and freighted tarn basket.'
'Might I then request passage?' he smiled.
'It is yours,' I said.
I rolled the furs in which Constance had lain, and put them across the back of the saddle, fastening the two straps which held them.
We could hear the sleen cries quite clearly now. I do not think they were more than a pasang away.
'This ring,' I said to Ram, pointing to a ring at the left of the saddle, 'will be yours.'
'Excellent,' he said.
'Come here, Constance,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said, running to me.
'Awaken, Lady Tina,' I heard Ram say. He was bending near her.
'Cross your wrists before your body,' I said to Constance. She did so and I lashed them together. I then carried her to the right side of the saddle and placed her left foot in a ring there, which I had wrapped with fur. Her tied wrists I looped over the pommel.
I, standing in the stirrup, looked over the fields. There were five sleen. They were about a half of a pasang away, excited, squealing, their snouts hurrying at the turf.
'I have an extra tunic here,' I said to Ram, throwing it to him.
'What are you doing?' demanded the Lady Tina.
He had taken the rags he had worn about his hips and was, with what had been her dagger, punching holes in them. Through these holes he threaded a strip of her belt. He knotted the rags about her hips. Because of the lovely flare of her hips, the smallness of her waist, the sweet, exciting swelling of her breasts, she would be unable, her hands tied behind her, to pull or scrape the garment from her.
'Is your modesty less offended now?' he asked. He slipped on the tunic which I had thrown him.
'What is that sound I hear?' she asked.
'Sleen,' he said.
'I do not understand,' she said, tremulously.
He cut the leather strips which had bound her ankles. 'You will now be able to run,' he said.
'I do not understand,' she said.
'You soon will,' he said.
I climbed to the saddle. Ram placed his left foot in the ring which I had designated and looped his left arm about the pommel of the saddle.
She struggled to her feet. 'Where are you going?' she cried.
'To Lydius, Lady Tina,' I informed her. I had not originally intended to go to Lydius, but I had acquired a girl in the fields. She was not yet branded. I would have her marked in Lydius.
The sleen were now within a few hundred yards of the tarn. I took the tarn straps in my left hand, the one- strap in my right.
Their squealing was loud. I could see them moving swiftly toward us.
Suddenly Lady Tina went white. 'Oh, no! No!' she cried. She tried with her bound wrists to tear away the rags which she wore but they, because of the knotted belt strip, were perfectly fastened upon her.
'No!' she screamed.
The rags she wore, of course, were rich and heavy with the scent of him who had been her quarry. Such rags would have been used to put the sleen on his track.
'No!' she screamed. 'No! They will tear me to pieces!'
The sleen were now no more than two hundred yards away. The squealing was wild now, as they caught sight of the bound girl in the field.
'They will tear me to pieces!' she wept.
'Run, Lady Tina,' suggested Ram.
'They will tear me to pieces!' she wept, screaming.
'It is the same chance,' said he, 'which I in your place would have had.'
The five sleen stopped now, tails thrashing, crouched down, shoulders high, heads low, eyes blazing. They were some fifty yards from the girl. Their nostrils were flared, their ears laid back against the sides of their broad, triangular heads. I saw the tongue of one darting in and out.
They crept forward, there must be no mistake of losing the prey.
The girl turned and fled, bound, the rag on her hips to the legs of the tarn. She knelt in the grass. She looked up, her eyes wild.
'Take me with you!' she wept.
'There is no room for free women here,' said Ram.
'But I am a slave!' she cried.
'Are you a natural slave?' asked Ram.
'Yes, yes,' she wept. 'I have known for years in my heart that I was truly a slave. I lack only the brand and collar!'
'Interesting,' said Ram.
'Make me your slave!' she wept.
'But perhaps,' said he, 'I do not want you.'
'Want me! Want me!' she begged.
'Do you acknowledge yourself a true slave?' asked Ram.
