I looked back again. Iwoso was squirming madly in the sack. Did the well-tied little thing really think she could free herself? Did she not know she had been tied by a warrior, Hci, of the Kaiila? But there is a simple way to stop such squirming. One increases the speed of the kaiila. I did so.
When I came to the end of the thoroughfare I turned the kaiila in a broad circle, not to foul the lines to the sacks, and began to retrace its length, even more quickly.
The sacks into which the girls had been inserted, naked and bound, were slave sacks. They were extremely stout, heavy sacks and heavily, and doubly, sewn. The intent of this is to make them sturdy leather prisons, containers from which a girl cannot escape and in which she is absolutely helpless. A consequence of the thickness of the material and the sturdiness of the construction, of course, is that the sack, almost inadvertently, affords the girl a great deal of protection. Neither Iwoso nor Bloketu would sustain skin or body damage as a result of what was being done to them. And certainly we would not have wanted them marked. Most men prefer soft smooth slaves. Indeed, in the cities, some slaves are even shaved or depilated.
I turned the kaiila about, again, at the far end of the thoroughfare or promenade, that long, dusty avenue between the Yellow-Knife lodges, and began to make my way back, once more, along its length.
I looked back. Dust, from the paws of the kaiila, was billowing behind me. Let the girls fight for breath. I grinned. I wished that I were within the coup system. Surely some sort of high coup would be involved, dragging a high lady of the Yellow Knives, one of their own proud free women, in a sack, up and down, back and forth in their own promenade lane, like a common slave girl. Surely that would be worth at least a feather or some sort of marking on a feather.
I increased my speed.
I wondered if Iwoso had speculated on why their heads had been left uncovered, or why we had not inclosed one girl completely and left the head of the other free, why we had treated the slave and the free woman identically. Slave girls, when being transported in sacks, for example, on wagons or on the shoulders of men, are usually completely within the sack, it being tied shut over their head. This helps keep the girl in ignorance as to her whereabouts and what is going on about her. This is thought suitable for slaves. She is also, after having been in a sack for a time, likely to be extremely grateful to he who releases her and very fearful that he might, if displeased with her, return her to it. Also, of course, many sorts of commodities on Gor are transported in this fashion. In the cities, of course, when inserting girls within sack bonds, it is common to observe a difference, where it exists, between a slave and a free woman. Commonly a slave would be inclosed completely in the sack and a free woman, if no risk were involved in doing it, would be bound in the sack only from the neck down. This kind of difference in binding, or shackling, in which the free woman wears easier or more comfrotable bonds than the slave, is in deference to the status of the free woman. When she, too, is enslaved, then, of course, she and the slave will be likely to wear identical bonds. To be sure, much depends on context.
For example, if the two sacks were to be dragged in the dust behind tharlarion then it might be the case that the free woman, for her greater comfort, would be inclosed completely in the leather confinement and the slave would be bound only from the neck down, this once again and again to the determent of the slave, observing the distrinction in not be familiar with binding distinctions in bindings beween the. Iwoso, of course, would presumably not be familiar with binding distinctions in the cities. Had she, thus, been bound more leniently than Bloketu, particularly since she was being bound by Hci, who seemed to bear her great hatred, she might have become suspicious. Thus we left the heads of both of the girls uncovered. This fitted in well, incidentally, with common practices among the red savages in dragging slaves about for, say, punishment or sport.
The heads of the slaves are usually left free. Similarly they are seldom gagged. In these ways they provide greater amusment for the spectators. Their expressions may be the more easily seen and their cries for mercy, or promises of better service, or assurances of reformed behavior, or even of perfect behavior, may be the more clearly heard. Sometimes the young men organize races in which slave girls are dragged behind kaiila. When the young men set themselves to the developement of such plans small slave girls in a camp, particularly white ones, tend to become afraid, for they know that they are not much weight for a kaiila to pull.
I turned the kaiila in a wide circle at the end of the prominade, the bags, like swift, twin plows, taut on their ropes, throwing up two trails of dust.
By now it seemed to me that Iwoso wold have had time to expel her gag.
I had hoped that I had loosened it sufficiently.
I looked back. The bags and ropes were covered with dust. I slowed my speed a little.
Suddenly there was a wild screaming from behind me, and a wild crying out, in what I assumed must be Yellow Knife.
I stopped the kaiila for a moment. It had certainly taken her long enough to get the gag out of her mouth.
Iwoso was sitting up in her sack, her head between its handles. She leaned forward, screaming. Such noise, I was confident, would soon rouse much of the camp.
I then, in order to be near the far end of the promenade, that nearest the open prairie, moved the kaiila appropriately down the long track between the lodges. By the tension on the rope attached to the handles of her sack Iwoso was then jerked backwards and again, almost horizontal, was being dragged behind me in the dust. This time, however, she as screaming wildly. I thought it well to hasten the kaiila, to convince hr that I might be alarmed. I saw more than one Yellow Knive warrior emerging from a lodge. They, I noted, like warriors of the Kaiila, and of the red savages generally, apparently slept naked. The slaves of such warriors, too, are often slept naked, particularly when they are within arm's reach of their masters.
At the end of the promenade, by the last few lodges, I again stopped the kaiila.
From this point I could easily escape into the night.
'Please be silent, Lady Iwoso!' I called to the Yellow-Knife maiden.
She saw fit, however, as I had conjecutred, to ignore my suggestion, well-intended though it might have been.
I could now see more than one man running after us. I was more worried about those I could not see, who might be busy unhobbling kaiila behind their lodges.
Some men and women, too, stood near the nearby lodges, as though trying to grasp what might be taking place.
I permitted Iwoso, for a few moments more, to sit there behind me in the dust, tied in her sack, crying out. I was pleased to note that she was uttering a comlexity of verbiage and, thus, was presumably not merely attempting to summon help. She seemed to be intent upon communicating someting of consequence to the Yellow Knives. I did not speak Yellow Knife but I was resonably confident as to what the main content of her message would be. This was a message, too, which I was confident she would wish to deliver for, in delivering it, she would be attempting to lay the groundwork for her eventual, if not immediate, rescue.
'That will be sufficient, Lady Iwoso,' I told her, in Kaiila, and then, with perhaps an overly dramatic gesture, but one whose effect was not lost on the Yellow Knives, I threw aside the robe I had worn. It landed, happily, on a Yellow Knife who was charging from the side, causing him to lose his balance and fall. I kicked back into the flanks of the kaiila and the anilam bolted forward. Iwoso was again jerked to the near-horizontal, that position approved for females being dragged in a slave sack, and was, in an instant, speeding cooperatively behind me. A Yellow Knife warrior lunged wildly for the sack but fell short, sprawling in the dust. I had timed it rather well. A few yards out into the prairie I did stop again. I looked back. The camp was well astir. I heard shouts of rage. Men were running about. Then I again urged my kaiila into the night, drawing the two sacks behind me in the grass. I did not have time to dally. I had two women to deliver, one to Cuwignaka and one to Hci.
I must make it to a certain flat, barren rock. The mode of their delivery we had rehearsed several times, under similar conditions, with Mira. I could not hope, of course, in the ordinary run of things, to outdistance pursing Yellow-Knife kaiila, certainly not with so short a start and drawing the weight of two such deliciously packed slave sacks. We did not want to cut the sacks free, of course. We wanted what was in them.
I heard cries behind me.
Persuit was closer than I liked.
In a few Ehn I arrived at the rock, urging my kaiila up its sloping face. It scrambled, slipping, but then caught its footing, and attained its summit, some forty feet above the level of the plain.
The three moons were full, and beautiful.
I dismounted and pulled the two slave sacks across the stone to my feet. I removed the rope by means of
