me.
'You raped that girl,' she said, angrily.
'Not really,' I said. 'She was paying for a drink of water which I had brought to her.'
'Beast,' she said.
I said nothing for a moment
I looked at her. She was in the nearest coffle of eleven girls, one of two coffles fastened to the bar at the back of the palanquin. She was the tenth girl in her coffle. The coffle chain had its own collars, rounded and rather loose, which lay below the common collars of the girls; they could not, of course, be slipped. They were similar to what I have learned are called Turian collars.
'You are very beautiful,' I said. I stood more closely to her.
She tossed her head. 'Doubtless did you have me at a similar disadvantage,' she said, 'I would have been subjected to the same treatment.'
I put my hands on her tunic. It had parted somewhat, apparently, in her walking, following the palanquin. Her hands fastened as they were, behind her, she could not draw the garment closed. Briefly I wanted to rip it down from her shoulders. She was woman enough to understand this. She shuddered. Then I drew it together more closely, that the loveliness of her small breasts might be the better concealed.
'You would strip and rape me on the street, if you could, wouldn't you?' she asked.
I wanted to take her in my arms. But I did not know, truly, she fastened as she was, how to do this. Secured as she was she could be taken in one's arms only as a captive or slave girl. That, of course, scarcely seemed proper in the context.
'Wouldn't you?' she asked.
'No,' I said, 'of course not.'
'Oh,' she said.
'You are not a Gorean girl,' I said.
'That is true,' she said.
I looked down at her. 'You are looking quite well,' I said. It was true. I had never seen her before looking so relaxed and beautiful. And yet she stood before me, helpless in chains. Slavery, of course, reduces tensions in a woman.
'You are looking well yourself,' she said.
'I see that you are a display item,' I said.
'Yes,' she smiled.
'If I owned you, I would show you off, too,' I said.
'Beast,' she smiled.
'You are wearing a white ribbon,' I said.
'So are you,' she said.
'I am not white silk,' I smiled.
'The ribbon is only to match my tunic,' she said. 'I am not truly white silk.'
'Do you wish to speak in English?' I asked. 'Would it be easier?'
She looked about, uneasily. The other girls were not paving us attention. 'No,' she said, continuing in Gorean. We had both spoken, naturally, in the language of,our masters. Masters do not care to hear slaves speak in tongues they do not understand. The slave learns the language of the owner, and learns it well. Her Gorean was quite good. Mine, I thought, was better. Surprisingly, perhaps, we had spoken together in Gorean without really considering the matter. I do not think this was simply because we feared to irritate or offend passing Goreans, who tend to view languages other than their own as barbarous, or because slaves are expected to use a speech intelligible to their masters, but because, for most practical purposes, Gorean had become our language. I am sure, however, we could have conversed readily in English, had we so chosen. After a brief period of readjustment we would have become again at ease in it.
'I was white silk on Earth,' she said.
'I did not know that,' I said.
'It is scarcely the sort of thing a girl publicly discusses on Earth,' she said.
'I suppose not,' I said. Such information, of course, would be publicly brandished to buyers in a slave market. 'Who first took you?' I asked.
'I do not know,' she said. 'I was hooded and thrown naked to keepers. I was raped and handed about, passed from brute to brute. They did with me what they pleased.'
'I understand,' I said. Her ravishing would have been thorough, accomplished by Gorean men. I looked at her. She was beautiful. I envied the brutes who had enjoyed her.
'I was then,' she said, 'though a girl of Earth, ready to be trained as a slave.'
'Of course,' I said. I did not press her on the nature of her training.
'I was trained in the House of Andronicus,' she said, 'and sold in Vonda.'
'I, too, was in the House of Andronicus,' I said. 'I was later purchased by Tima, a slaver, mistress of the House of Tima. I was sold from the market of Tima. That is also in Vonda.' I looked at her. 'Were you naked, and auctioned?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said. 'And you?'
'I, too,' I said.
She shrugged. 'We are only slaves,' she said. I looked at her. I realized she had been trained to give pleasure to men. She was beautiful. She would do it well. This pleased me. I envied the lazy brute in the palanquin who owned her. I wished that I owned her. But, of course, I reminded myself, she was not a Gorean girl. She was of Earth.
'You therel' I heard. 'What are you doing there?'
I backed quickly away from the, girl. I turned. I saw one of the servants, near the side of the palanquin, with a whip, gesture me angrily away. Then he turned again to talk with his fellows.
'Who is your master?' I called to the girl.
She looked at me, frightened, and now stood very straight, facing the back of the palanquin.
'Fearful slave,' I said, angrily. She was afraid to speak.
'To whom do you belong?' asked a blond girl, she who was last in the coffle line.
'My Mistress is the Lady Florence of Vonda,' I said.
'You belong to a woman?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said.
'I do not believe it,' she said.
'It is true,' I said.
'You are a silk slave?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said.
'I was once free,' she said. She shrugged her shoulders, moving her wrists in the bracelets.
'Now you serve men well,' I said.
'Of course,' she said.
'Who owns you?' I asked.
'Beware,' she said. 'Strabar is coming!'
'Stand where you are!' I heard.
I turned about. The servant, with his whip, approached me. He stopped some dozen feet or so from me. 'Do not move,' he said.
I stood still.
He turned to the girls. 'Which of you wenches dared to speak to this slave?' he asked.
The girls were silent.
'It was this one, wasn't it?' he grinned, touching the small, exquisite, dark-haired girl witb whom I had been engaged in converse with his whip. She shuddered.
'It was she whom I accosted,' I said. 'If there is blame here. it is mine, not hers.'
'Bold slave,' he smiled.
'We are of the world called Earth,' I said to him. 'We knew one another there'
'It is not permitted for you to speak to her,' he said.
