placed, to get the yellow, half-gourd dipper.
We watched her.
'She is pretty,' said Barus.
'Yes,' I said.
'It is a pity she is not to be raped,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' I said.
She filled the half-gourd dipper.
'It will not be difficult to get rid of her when we wish,' said Barns. 'Kenneth has already intimated to the Mistress that she has the makings of an excellent stable slut.'
'I see,' I smiled.
'Soon the Mistress will fear to trust her in the stables, where you are,' he said.
'I see,' I said.
'Two of the sluts in the kennels have been whining for you,' said Barns.
'Might I inquire which ones?' I asked.
'Tuka and Claudia,' he said. 'And I do not think Peliope or Leah would much mind having your hands on them either.'
I shrugged.
'They sweat in their chains,' he said.
'I wish I could have them,' I said.
'It is not the wish of the Mistress,' he said.
'Your drink, Master,' said Taphris.
He looked at her and, suddenly, frightened, she fell to her knees. She put her head down. She pressed the yellow, rough-skinned half-gourd, brimming with water, deep into her belly. Then she lifted the yellow side of the gourd to her lips and, lingeringly, turning her head, kissed it; then she lifted it to him with both hands, her head down between her extended arms.
Barus took the gourd and drank. He had seen that the Mistress' spy had served him well.
He held the cup. 'Are you under perfect discipline, Taphris?' he asked.
'Yes, Master,' she said, trembling.
'It did not seem so this afternoon,' he said.
'Forgive me, Master,' she said, trembling. 'Please do not have me slain.' Taphris, a Gorean slave,girl, knew that she was at the complete mercy of free persons. Barns, as one of the Mistress' slave keepers, could kill her, or have her killed, at a whim. The Mistress, she knew, could always send another spy to the stables, perhaps Pamela or Bonnie, other house slaves. Neither Pamela nor Bonnie, incidentally, were Earth girls, though they wore Earth- girl names. Such names, as I have mentioned, are often used as slave names on Gor.
Taphris kept her head down.
'Do not kneel me with those sluts!' she had cried out, angrily.
The other girls, kneeling in a circle, referred to as sluts by one who was herself obviously only a stable slut, even to the rag and collar, cried out in protest, in outrage.
'Kneel,' had said Barus.
'Yes, Master,' had said Taphris, and she had knelt, taking her place in the circle.
She had not been pleased, but she had obeyed.
The other girls, I had seen, had glanced at one another. The outburst of Taphris had not been punished. She had not been slapped until she cried out for mercy, or kicked, or disrobed or beaten. Obviously, in some way, she was special. Barus, I had seen, had been angry.
'Sew,' he had said, irritably.
He threw the girls feed sacks. To Tuka he gave a pair of scissors. To all of them he gave a needle and thread. The sacks were to be used to make girth cloths for the expected hatchlings.,
The incident had occurred in the sewing shed, which has a large window. The stitching on the sacks is opened, and then the sacks are cut into appropriately sized strips, which are then joined and hemmed. Commonly this is a pleasant time for the girls, kneeling on cloths on the wooden floor, sewing and chatting, but today they were quiet and, heads down, worked and did not speak. The finished girth cloth is about ten feet in length and a yard in width. Taphris, too, sewed. She had a slight smile about her lips. The cloth of feed sacks, incidentally, though it is a coarse cloth, is seldom used for slave garments. The wool of the hurt is usually used for male slave garments; it absorbs perspiration well; and rep-cloth is commonly used for female slave garments; it is quite thin and clings well to the curves of the female body.
'We are going to chain them, with the exception of Taphris by the fifteenth Ahn today,' Barus had told me.
'The guests of the Mistress,' I had said, 'I have been told, would not begin to arrive until after dark.'
'We think not,' said Barus. 'But some might arrive early. Some of these guests, at least, are apparently of refined sensibility. The Mistress does not wish to embarrass or offend them by the sight of stable sluts on the premises.'
'If the guests are male I do not think they would be embarrassed or offended,' I said.
'Perhaps not,' smiled Barus.
'Why are the guests of the Mistress arriving after dark?' I asked. 'It is unusual, is it not, to travel on Gorean roads at night?'
'Yes, it is unusual,' said Barus, 'particularly in times like these, what with the tense political situation existing between Ar and the Salerian Confederation. That is a situation in which many spears may mix the brew.' It was a Gorean saying. The political situation was indeed complex, and might, by various parties, allies and enemies, and others, and even bystanders, be diversely influenced or exploited.
'I trust the guests will arrive safely,' I said.
'I think they will,' said Barus. 'They are doubtless well fixed and can afford armed escorts.'
'But why, in any case, should they choose to arrive after dark?' I asked.
'I do not know,' had said Barus.
I had, in the afternoon, not speaking, watched the girls sew. They were lovely.
Barus, after the ringing of the bar for the fourteenth Ahn, had looked occasionally out the window, judging the position of the sun.
Early in the morning we had been in the southeast meadow, Barus, and I, and others in a work crew of male slaves. Taphris, too, had been with us, ostensibly to carry water. We had been placing sharpened posts, leaning inward, braced with abutments, at the edge of the meadow. These serve to keep the ponderous tharlarion which graze in the meadow confined.
'Look!' had called Barns, pointing upward.
Overheard we had seen some one hundred and twenty-flue tarnsmen. They were moving generally southward. We could see their spears, mounted at the right stirrup, like needles, at the distance, and the shields, seeming small and round. The pennon of the standard bearer, long and narrow, fluttering back some twenty feet from his spear, was that of Vonda. Yet Vonda, herself, I knew, did not have tarnsmen. The men were mercenaries.
'It is a patrol,' said the man next to me.
'It is large for a patrol,' I said.
'I have been working on the fencing for the last four days,' said the man. 'I have seen them four times before. They return usually before dark.'
'Doubtless Ar, too, has mounted such patrols,' said another man.
'Yesterday,' said yet another, 'I saw a single tarnsman, flying northeast. He might have been a scout of Ar.'
'Do you think there will be trouble?' asked a man of Bares.
'There has already been trouble,' said Bares, 'skirmishes in border areas, in disputed territories.'
'But such things have occurred before, have they not?' asked a man.
'Yes,' said Bares.
'And nothing ever came of it,' said a man.
'No,' said Bares.
