'You do not think there will be serious trouble, do you?' pressed one of the men.
'No,' said Bares, 'I do not think so.' He looked after the disappearing tarnsmen. 'There is a party in Vonda which wishes war,' said Bares, 'but, as I understand it, there is little sympathy elsewhere in the confederation for conflict with Ar.'
'But what of Marlenus of Ar, her Ubar?' asked one of the men.
'He does not need trouble with the confederation,' said Batas. 'He has his hands full these days with Cos and his troubles in the valley of the Vosk.' There was a reference to the rivalry of Ar and Cos for the markets and resources of the broad regions drained by the Vosk. Both states desired to extend their hegemony into these areas. Small cities and towns, usually ruggedly independent, even belligerently so, along the river, such as Ven and Turmus, found themselves, to their discomfort, half coerced by armed might, half enticed with alliances and treaties, embroiled in the struggles of major powers.
'Hah!' laughed Bares. 'How clever you scoundrels are! You engage me in conversation, and then, you shirkers, you dally in the performance of your fitting and lowly labors! Do you think you are free persons who may stop to pass the time of day? No, you are collared brutes! Now work, you neckringed sleen, if you would live to see the sunset, work! Work!'
Laughing, with a will, we turned again to our labors.
'Away!' cried Bares, waving his cloak at a tharlarion, browsing near the posts. It blinked, and turned away, its huge tail twitching.
Later in the morning, on the dusty road outside the posts, a two-wheeled cart passed, drawn by a small tharlarion, driven by a single driver. Behind it, her neck tied by a rope to the back of it, in a brief slave tunic, her hands braceleted behind her back, walked a slave girl. She turned, as she walked, to regard me. Our eyes met. She smiled, shyly. I grinned. She was a slave. Suddenly she hurried two or three steps forward and then, with the slack in her rope which she had gained, she turned suddenly to face me. She strained at the bracelets, twisting her body. Then, suddenly, flexing her legs, she thrust her lower abdomen toward me and kissed at me with her lips. I grinned. She quickly turned then and hurried that she might not be pulled from her feet by the rope. It had been a slave girl's gesture. I tossed a kiss after her. Too, she did not wish to alert her master to her action. He, however, stopped the tharlarion wagon and looked around. But he saw her only docilely behind his wagon, his rope on her neck, her wrists fastened behind her back in his bracelets, her head down. He looked at me, and I bent to my work. In a moment the wagon was moving forward again. I lifted my head. I saw the girl looking back. She pursed her lips and kissed to me. I brushed her a kiss in the Gorean fashion. She then turned about and followed her master's wagon.
'She wanted to be had by you,' said Bares.
I said nothing.
'She presented her body to you as though to that of a rape master,' he said. 'Interesting,' he said, 'for you are only a collared slave.'
I said nothing, but bent to my work. I did consider, however, the power which a free man might have over a slave girl.
I saw Taphris glaring at me. She was angry. I did not doubt but what the Mistress would hear of my interlude with the passing slave.
Bares was relieved at the edge of the southeast meadow at noon, and he, wanting help later in the incubation shed, returning to the stables, took me with him. Taphris, leaving the waterskin with the work crew, followed us.
'Who is the captain of the mercenaries who fly for Vonda?' I asked. 'Is it such men as Terence of Treve or Ha-Keel, once of Ar?' These were two well-known mercenary captains. Others were Oleg of Skjern, Leander of Farnacium and William of Thentis.
'Vonda does not pay so high,' he had smiled. 'It is one called Artemidorus.'
'Artemidorus of Cos?' I asked.
'Yes,' had said Bares.
'Vonda plays with fire,' I remarked.
'Perhaps,' said Bares. Though such a captain as Artemidorus was a free captain, certainly the sympathies of Cos would ride with him. Too, if there were trouble it would not go unnoticed by those of Ar that they were dealing with Cosians.
'It seems a potentially dangerous choice,' I said.
'Even if Vonda were willing to afford such men as Terence or Ha-Keel,' said Bares, 'it is unlikely they would be willing to take saddle in her behalf. Terence, being of Treve, would not be eager to ride against Ar. Such an action could precipitate a new expedition into the Voltai by the tarnsmen of Ar.' Several years ago I knew there had been war between Ar and Treve. The tarnsmen of Treve, over the snow-capped crags of the scarlet Voltai range, had turned back the squadrons of Ar. It had been one of the fiercest, bloodiest taro battles ever fought in the history of the planet. Ar had never forgotten that she had been checked in the Voltai, nor had Treve forgotten the cost of having done so. Terence, I conjectured, would not be willing to ride against Ar unless he had removed the insignia from his helmet and shield. It did not seem likely he would do so. Men of Treva commonly disdain to conceal their identity. 'And Ha-Keel,' said Bares, 'though he was banished from Ar, would not, I think, care to ride against her.'
Ha-Keel had been banished from Ar. It had been a matter of murder. A woman had been involved. He had captured, raped and enslaved her, then selling her. 'Be sold as the slave you are,' he had said to her. It was said, however, in the fang years since his banishment, that Ha-Keel had never forgotten Ar, or the woman. He had never found her again, of course. It is difficult to trace a female slave. They often change names and masters.
'I understand,' I said.
'What I fear,' said Bares, 'is that it is no accident that Artemidorus was given fee in this matter.'
'You see in that a desire on the part of those in Vonda who favor war with Ar an artifice to provoke a full- scale conflict between Cos and Ar, a conflict in which Cos and the SaIerian Confederation would then find themselves natural allies?'
Bares looked at me, soberly. 'Of course,' he said. 'Yet I think neither Cos nor Ar, nor the confederation, truly desires a full-scale war.'
'They could be maneuvered into it, perhaps,' I said, 'by those who do.'
'It is possible,' said Bares. 'Matters are delicate' He looked south. 'Kaissa,' he mused, 'is sometimes played for high stakes.' Kaissa is an intricate board game popular on Gor.
Bares then regarded Taphris. 'The pretty spy accompanies us,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' I said.
Taphris looked down, reddening.
'After you and Jason have been swilled and watered,' he said, 'we are going to the sewing shed.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'Can you sew, Taphris?' he asked.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'I am glad there is something you can do,' he said, 'which is appropriate for a female slave.'
'Yes, Master,' she said, angrily.
'Chain them,' said Bares.
'Yes, Master,' I said.
I had, in the afternoon, not speaking, watched the girls, including Taphris, sew. They were lovely.
Bares, after the ringing of the bar for the fourteenth Ahn, had looked occasionally out the window, judging the position of the sun.
How skilled, too, were the girls, even though they had worked only on common girth cloths. How swift and nimble were their fingers, how fine and exact their work. How rude and clumsy would have been the large hands of a man for such work, and how delicate and perfect for it were the small, lovely hands of females.
I had seen Bares again look through the window. It had then been shortly before the fifteenth Ahn.
I had looked again at the girls, their scanty garments and collars, with the dependent chain loops.
How marvelous it is to be on a world where such lovely, delicious creatures may be owned.
'Chain them,' had said Bares.
