known, are often used on Gor as slave names.
'Why should he listen to you?' she asked, suddenly, looking down at me.
'I am sure he trusts me,' I said.
'Can you do this?' she asked.
'You must understand,' I said, 'that he may not even be at the fair.'
'That is true,' she said, angrily. 'Too, he might be there, and you might miss him.'
'If he is there, I think I will be able to determine it,' I said.
'How so?' she said.
I shrugged. 'I know him,' I said. 'Too, I think I know certain of his favorite places.'
'Excellent!' she said. 'It might just work!' She regarded me. 'If I let you out of my sight,' she said, 'I think I shall put you in close chains. It should then be easy to recover you.'
'In such chaining I could barely move,' I said. 'It would certainly not facilitate my inquiries at the fair.'
'Then two of my men must accompany you, surreptitiously.' she said.
'This Bosk, I assure you,' I said, 'is commonly an observant fellow. I doubt that he would fail to detect the presence of two loiterers in our vicinity.'
'Then it is the chains for you, Brinlar!' she said, angrily.
'As you wish,' I said, 'but it would not seem likely to Bosk, surely, that a well-intentioned compatriot of Port Kar would be likely to approach him in close chains, would it?'
'No,' she said, irritably, 'it would not.'
I shrugged.
'Too, in many of the places Bosk might frequent,' I said, 'it would even be difficult to gain admittance in chains. I would be dismissed as no more than a slave.'
'If I permit this service,' she asked, 'what would you wish in return?'
'Perhaps Mistress might consider granting me freedom from her captivity,' I suggested.
'No,' she said. 'It is my intention to enslave you, with the others. But if you perform this service for me you might find favor in my eyes. I might even be tempted to treat you with somewhat greater indulgence than you might otherwise deserve. I might even keep you a personal tent slave. I might even give you pretty clothes to wear.'
'Mistress is generous,' I said.
'What assurance have I,' she asked, 'that you will, whether successful or not, keep the rendezvous?'
'You have my word on it,' I said, 'as a free man.'
'I think we can do better than that,' she said. 'If you do not return, your fourteen compatriots, one by one, one each Ahn, will be slain.'
'I will return,' I said.
'Word of your treachery will reach Port Kar,' she added. 'men will hunt you. Too, sleen will be put upon your trail. Too, in the vicinity of the fair, your description will be circulated, as that of an escaped slave.'
'Mistress has surely given me many reasons to return,' I said.
'I think so,' she said.
'But surely, she, in her modesty, has overlooked at least one significant motivation,' I said.
'What is that?' she asked.
'That I would wish to look once more upon her beauty,' I said.
'You flatterer, Brinlar!' she laughed. 'But you are not the first man who has been entrapped in the toils of my beauty. I have lured many, as it pleased me, to their downfall.'
'Mistress is so beautiful,' I said, 'that she could almost be a slave.'
'It is true,' she said.
'In the morning, then,' I said, 'I shall go to the fair, to see if I may find this Bosk of Port Kar.'
'Arrange with him, if you should encounter him,' she said, 'to be at the inn of Ragnar at the eighteenth Ahn. I shall, in the meantime, send word to Flaminius to meet me there at the nineteenth Ahn. That will give me time to effect the capture, strip and chain the captive, and change into my prettiest clothes, ready to welcome Flaminius as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.'
'And tonight, Mistress?' I asked, anxiously.
'Tonight,' she said, imperiously, 'you will be hooded and chained, as usual, within the entrance to my tent. I am to be touched only if I please, and exactly as I please.'
'Yes, Mistress,' I said. I saw that she still feared me, and herself, and, I think, men generally. She had not yet been able to cope with the sensations which I had induced in her. This is not surprising in a free woman. To be sure, such sensations can be terribly frightening to a free woman. They whisper to her of slavery. She is terrified to say «yes» to them, with all she knows this means, but aches and longs to do so, and will not be whole until she does.
'Hurry, Brinlar!' she said. 'Hurry! Pick up the things!'
'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
'Until tomorrow!' she said. 'Until tomorrow!'
'Yes, Mistress,' I said, 'until tomorrow.'
5 What Occurred in the Inn of Ragnar; I Will Return to the Camp of the Lady Yanina
I pounded on the door of the old inn of Ragnar, now closed, on the old west road. It lies in the midst of certain other buildings, mostly now, too, closed and dark. I heard a movement behind one of the boarded-up windows. It was a bit past the seventeenth Ahn. The door opened a crack.
'It is Brinlar,' said a voice, that of one of the men of the Lady Yanina. 'I did not think you would return,' he said to me.
'He is a fool,' said another of her men, from just within.
'He fears the sleen,' said another.
'Let him in! Let him in!' said the voice of the Lady Yanina.
I was admitted into the dark vestibule of the inn, and the door was closed behind me.
'Were you successful?' asked the Lady Yanina, anxiously.
'Yes,' I said.
'Marvelous!' she whispered.
'He is intrigued,' I said. 'He is eager to meet you. He is particularly impressed that you are so attracted to him that you, though a free woman, will serve him in the modalities of the slave.'
'Superb!' she said. 'The gullible fool!'
'He will be here at the eighteenth Ahn,' I said.
'Marvelous, Brinlar,' she said. 'Marvelous! It is all going perfectly!' AS my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I could see that her five men were here. I had thought they would be. I knew they were not at the camp. I had stopped at the camp on the way back from the fair. I had wished to pick up some things. The 'work chain,' heavily chained, secured between two trees, had not been guarded. They were unimportant to her now, I supposed. She wanted all of her men here. I could see, too, that she wore some form of belted robe. She was not veiled. 'What are you carrying?' she asked.
'Some wine, and things,' I said. 'I took the liberty of stopping by the camp on the way back from the fair. I thought perhaps you might care for some refreshments. The wait until the nineteenth Ahn, and the arrival of your colleague, Master Flaminius, might be long. You might be hungry.'
'You are a dream, Brinlar,' said the Lady Yanina. 'You are a treasure!'
'May I make a suggestion, Mistress?' I inquired.
'Of course,' she said.
'I would, if I were you, light a small lamp or two, illuminating the main hall and perhaps the selected alcove. This should suggest an atmosphere of delicate openness to Bosk of Port Kar, encouraging him to believe that he is eagerly awaited. The darkness of a seemingly deserted inn might appear ominous, perhaps suggesting a trap.'
