would have been extremely difficult to detect. Similarly, from the. position of the flotilla we would be, of course, specks upon a larger speck, for most practical purposes invisible. I had never seen glasses of the builders in the palace of Bila Huruma. Shaba, however, I was sure, from Anango, would possess such an instrument. It would make him difficult to approach.
'This is the woman, Tende,' called Kisu, facing his distant enemy, shouting against the roar of the falls, pointing to Tende. 'She was to have been your companion! I took her away from you! I made her mine! I now exhibit her naked before you as my slave!'
'He cannot see you or hear you!' shouted Ayari.
'That does not matter,' laughed Kisu. He gave Tende a happy slap below the smell of the back.
'Oh!' she cried.
'Dance, Tende!' said he. He began to sing and clap, looking downriver.
'That is a slave song!' she cried.
He stopped clapping and singing, and regarded her.
'There are white slaves present, Master!' she cried.
He looked upon her sternly.
'I dance, my master,' she cried, frightened. She flexed her legs, freeing her body to move, and extended her arms gracefully to the right, the right arm further advanced than the left.
'Is she free?' asked Ayari.
'No,' said Kisu.
'Have her put her arms over her head, wrists back to back,' said Ayari.
'Do so,' said Kisu.
Tende complied. 'How lovely that is,' said Kisu.
'I have seen it done in Schendi,' said Ayari. 'it is one of the ways in which a slave may begin a dance.'
I smiled to myself. That was true. The lovely posture which Tende had just assumed was undeniably one of the initial postures of certain slave dances. It is widely known on Gor, of course, not just in Schendi. It is, for example, quite familiar in Port Kar and, far to the southeast of that port, and somewhere far to the north and east of our present position, in the Tahari. Slave dances, of course, may begin in dozens of ways, sometimes even with the girl roped or chained at a man's feet. I looked at Tende. To be sure, only a slave dance could begin from such a posture. No free woman, for example, would dare to place herself in such a position before Gorean free men, unless perhaps, weary of her misery and frustration, she was begging them, almost explicitly, to put her in a collar. There are many stories of Gorean free women, sometimes of high caste, who, as a lark or in a spirit of bold play, dared to dance in a paga tavern. Often, perhaps to their horror, they found themselves that very night hooded and gagged, locked in close chains, lying on their back, their legs drawn up, fastened in a wagon, chained by the neck and ankles, their small bodies bruised on its rough boards as they, helpless beneath a rough tarn blanket, are carried through the gates of their city.
'Are you ready, Slave?' asked Kisu.
'Yes, Master,' said Tende.
I am fond of slave dances. It is hard for a woman to be more beautiful than when she dances her beauty as a slave before masters. But then a woman can be Incredibly beautiful in almost all attitudes and postures. It is strange that the men of Earth are so seldom aware of the subtler beauties of women, but then they have not seen them in their full femininity, as slaves. A woman can be very beautiful simply greeting her master, head down, at the door to his chambers. She can be very beautiful in doing so small a thing as pouring his wine, eyes downcast, gracefully, as his slave. Perhaps she is a bit more beautiful, however, when she kneels helplessly before you, or lies piteously at your feet supplicating you to satisfy her slave needs. Perhaps she is most beautiful when she, collared in your arms, cries out in orgasm, acknowledging you as her master.
'Dance, Slave,' said Kisu.
'Yes, Master,' said Tende.
Tende then, obedient to her master's command, as Kisu clapped his hands and sang, danced on a flat rock in the Ua river, danced before Bila Huruma, so far away, her master's enemy, from whom she had been stolen.
She danced well.
I observed the eyes of the blond-haired barbarian who, with Alice, knelt on the rock. The eyes of the blond-haired barbarian, gazing on the exhibited slave, shone with excitement. How beautiful Tende was. And how stimulating it was to the blond-haired barbarian to realize that a man could force a woman to do this sort of thing.
Kisu continued to clap his hands. He continued to sing, the strains of a melodic slave song.
Dancers bring high prices on Gor. Some slavers specialize in dancers, renting them, and buying and selling them. Two such houses in Ar are those of Kelsius and Aurelius. Some say that the finest dancers on Gor are found in Ar; others say that they are found in Port Kar, and others that they are in the Tahari, or in Tuna. These controversies, I think, are fruitless. I have been in many cities and in each I have found marvelous dancers. The matter is further complicated by the buying and selling of girls and their shipment, as merchandise, among cities. A dancer has usually had many masters; her fair throat has been graced by many collars. In some cities if a dancer is not thought to have been sufficiently pleasing she is thrown to the patrons of the tavern to be torn to pieces or beaten. If she is thought to have been sufficiently pleasing she may be auctioned, for the period of an Ahn, to the highest bidder.
'Enough!' called Kisu, happily. Tende stopped dancing. He then, to her surprise, with a leather strap, as she stood on the rock overlooking the falls, tied her hands behind her back. He then took her by the hair, bent her over, and waded her back to the shore. We followed him, I stopping to look once more downriver, at the tiny objects so far away, yet objects I knew to be filled with men.
Kisu and I thrust the canoe into the shallow water. As I held it he placed Tende on her knees in the canoe. He then crossed and tied her ankles. He then took two lengths of rope. He tied them both on her neck and then took the free end of one and tied it to a thwart forward of her position and the free end of the other and tied it to the thwart aft of her position, thus fastening her between these two thwarts.
'Master?' she asked.
'That should hold you,' he said.
That was an understatement. Kisu tied well.
'Why are you placing me under such great security, Master?' she asked.
'Bila Huruma is now behind us,' he said. 'You will not, now, go running back to him.'
She put back her head and laughed. 'Oh, Master!' she protested.
'What is wrong?' he asked.
'I do not wish to run away from you,' she said.
'Oh?' he asked.
She looked at him. 'Do you not know, by now, my Master,' she asked, 'that Tende is your conquered slave?'
'No chances will be taken with you, Slave,' he said.
'As my master wishes,' she said, putting her head down.
I saw then, as I think that Kisu did not, that the proud Tende, who had been so haughty and cold, was now naught but a surrendered love slave. I smiled to myself. She was now, indeed, politically worthless.
'What of the remains of the fire?' asked Ayari. 'Should we not dispose of such evidence of this brief encampment?'
'No,' said Kisu. 'Leave it.'
'But it will mark our trail,' said Ayari.
'Of course,' said Kisu. 'It is my intention that it do so.'
We then moved the canoe, wading beside it, with the exception of Tende, fastened within it, out into the river.
Kisu,waist deep in the water, turned to lock back, over the falls. He lifted his fist and shook it. 'Follow me, Bila Huruma!' he cried. 'Follow me, Bila Huruma, if you dare!' His voice was almost indistinguishable against the roar of the waters. He then lowered his fist and slipped into the canoe, taking his place at the stern. Ayari and Alice entered the canoe. I then slipped into the canoe and, taking the blond-haired barbarian under the arms, drew
