'You seem evasive,' I observed.
'Perhaps,' he admitted.
'Your coffle,' I said, 'is striking, an assemblage of chained beauties. Yet Ithink there seems a rather clear distinction between the first three girls andthe last seven, and, if I may say so, between the first and the second two.'
'Yes,' he said, 'that is true. Observe the last seven girls. Do you know theirnature? Do you know what they are?'
'What?' I asked.
'Pack animals,' he said. 'They are pack animals.'
'I thought they might be,' I said. The fellow's itinerary now seemed clear tome. No more than two kaiila, I remembered he had said, may be brought in by anygiven white man.
'And the first girl,' I asked, 'is she, too, to be a pack animal?'
'She, too, will serve as a pack animal,' he said, 'as will they all, but,ultimately, I have a different disposition in mind for her.'
'I see,' I said.
'She will be worth five hides of the yellow kailiauk to me,' he said.
'Then you will make a splendid profit on her,' I said.
'Yes,' said he. A robe of yellow kailiauk, even in average condition, can bringas much as five silver tarsks.
I looked at the red-haired girl in the coffle, the former MillicentAubrey-Welles. She did not even know she was the subject of our conversation.
'And what of these other two?' I asked, indicating Ginger and Evelyn.
'By means of them I can communicate with the red-haired girl,' he said. 'Intheir barbarous tongue they can make clear to her, and quickly, the nature ofher condition, and the efficiency, intimacy and totality of the services thatwill be required of her. Too, they can teach her some Gorean, which will keepthem all busy, and help me train her.'
'I see,' I said.
He adjusted the remainder of the chains and collars on his shoulder. He had notcome to the sales barn, apparently, knowing exactly how many girls he wouldpurchase. It is difficult to anticipate such things accurately, of course,particularly when buying in lots. Much depends on what is available and whatturns out to be the going prices, on a given night. 'The treks can be long,' hesaid.
'Treks?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said.
'I note,' I said, 'that all of these girls are barbarians, even the second andthird girl. Why have you not purchased some Gorean girls for your pack train?'
'For pack animals it is surely more appropriate to use meaningless barbariansthan Gorean girls,' he said.
'Of course,' I granted him.
'But there is, of course,' he grinned, 'another reason, as well.'
'What is that?' I asked.
'These barbarian girls will march along in their coffle as ignorant and innocentas kaiila,' he said.
'Whereas?' I asked.
'Whereas,' he grinned, 'Gorean girls might die of fear.'
Ginger and Evelyn moaned.
'These slaves,' I said, indicating the two former tavern girls, 'seem nottotally ignorant.'
'Even these slaves,' he said, indicating Ginger and Evelyn, ',who seem sotransfixed with terror, do not even begin, I assure you, to have any idea as towhat might lie before them.'
The two girls shuddered. Their will, of course, was nothing. They, like theanimals they were, must go where their masters pleased.
'I take it that you, with your pack train, intend to enter the Barrens,' I said.
'Yes,' said he.
'Tomorrow morning?' I asked.
'Yes,' said he.
'You are, then, a trader?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said.
'I have sought along the perimeter for one named 'Grunt',' I said.
'That is known to me,' he said.
'None seemed to know of his whereabouts, or clearly', I said.
'Oh? ' he said.
'I found that unusual,' I said.
'Why?' he asked.
'This fellow, Grunt,' I said, 'is presumably a well-known trader. Does it notseem strange, then, that no one would have a clear idea as to his location?'
'That does seem a bit strange,' agreed the fellow.
'It is my thought,' I said, 'that this fellow, Grunt, has many friends, that heinspires loyalty, that these friends desire to protect him.'
'If that is so,' he said, 'then this Grunt, in at least some respects, must be alucky man.'
'Do you know him?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said.
'Do you know where he is?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said.
'Do you think you could direct me to his whereabouts?' I asked.
'I am he,' he said.
'I thought so,' I said.
9 We Cross the Ihanke
'It is here,' said Grant, turning about on his kaiila. 'See the wands?'
'Yes,' I said. We were now some two pasangs east of Kailiauk.
'Here is one,' said Grunt, 'and there is another, and another.'
'I see,' I said, shading my eyes.
The grass was to the knees of the kaiila. It came to the thighs of the slavegirls, in brief one-piece slave tunics, of brown rep-cloth, with deep cleavages,in throat coffle, bearing burdens on their heads.
The wand before us was some seven or eight feet high. It is of this height,apparently, that it may be seen above the snow, during the winter moons, such asWaniyetuwi and Wanicokanwi. It was of peeled Ka-la-na wood and, from its top,there dangled two long, narrow, yellow, black-tipped feathers, from the tail ofthe taloned Herlit, a large, broad winged, carnivorous bird, sometimes in Goreancalled the Sun Striker, or, more literally, though in clumsier English,Out-of-the-sun-it-strikes, presumably from its habit of making its descent and. strike on prey, like the tarn, with the sun above and behind it. Similar wands Icould see some two hundred yards away, on either side, to the left and right.
According to Grunt such wands line the perimeter, though usually not in suchproximity to one another. They are spaced more closely together, naturally,nearer areas of white habitation.
Grunt now turned back on his kaiila to look out, eastward over the broad grassesand low, rolling hills. The terrain beyond the wands did not appear muchdifferent from the terrain leading up to them. The hills, the grass, the archingblue sky, the white clouds, seemed much the same on both sides of the wands. Thewands seemed an oddity, a geographical irrelevance. Surely, thrust in the earth,supple in the wind, with the rustling feathers, they could betoken nothing ofsignificance. The wind was fresh. I shivered on the kaiila.
