girl slaves brought to Gor, incidentally, do not even know how to heel. Incredibly, they must be taught. They learn quickly, of course, in the collar, and subject to the whip.
I looked back, again, to the walls of Samnium. It had been spared the savageries of the war, doubtless because of its relationship with Cos. I then set out to the southeast. I did not look back. I was followed by Feiqa.
2 There Are Hardships in These Times
I looked up from Feiqa, moaning in my arms, clutching at me. I had heard a tiny noise. I thrust her back, and away, she whimpering. I reached to my knife, and stood up, in the darkness. I stood on the lowered circular floor, dug out of the earth, packed down and tiled with stone, behind a part of a wall. It was the remains of a calked, woven-stick wall. It was now broken and charred. I could see the dark sky, with the moons, over its jagged, serrated edge. I could hear the whisper of other leaves outside. They were blown to and fro, like dry, brittle, fugitives, on the small, central commons between the huts.
We had made our camp here, in the burnt, roofless, half-fallen ruins of one of the huts. It had given us shelter from the wind. The village had been deserted, perhaps, judging from the absence of crockery, household effects and furnishings, even before it had been burned. It stood like most Gorean villages at the hub of its wheel of fields, the fields, striplike, spanning out from it like spokes. Most Gorean peasants live in such villages, many of them palisaded, which they leave in the morning to tend their fields, to which they return at night after their day's labors. The fields about this village, however, and near other villages, too, in this part of the country, were now untended. They were untilled and desolate. Armies had passed here.
'Is there someone there?' asked a voice, a woman's voice.
I did not respond. I listened. 'Who is there?' she asked. The voice sounded hollow and weak. I heard the whimpering of a child.
I did not respond.
'Who is there?' she begged.
I moved a little in the shadows, slowly, and back and toward the center of the hut. In moving slowly, one tends to convey, on a very basic level, that one is not intending harm; to be sure, even predators like the larl occasionally abuse this form of signaling, for example, in hunting tabuk, using it for purposes of deception; more rapid movement, of course, tends to precipitate defensive reactions. In moving back I had also tended to reassure the figure in the doorway that I meant no harm, this movement, too, of course, had the advantage of ensuring me reaction space; in moving toward the center of the hut I made it possible for her to see me better, this tending too, one supposes, to allay suspicions; in this way, too, of course, I secured myself weapon space. These things seemed to be instinctual, or, at least, to be done with very little conscious thought. They seem very natural. We tend to take them for granted. It is interesting, however, upon occasion, to speculate upon the possible origins of just such familiar and taken-for-granted accommodations and adjustments. It seems possible they have been selected for. At any rate, they, or their analogues, are found throughout the animal kingdom.
The small figure stood just outside what had once been the threshold of the hut. It had come there naturally, it seemed, as if perhaps by force of habit, or conviction, although the door was no longer there. It seemed forlorn, and weary. It clutched something in its arms.
'Are you a brigand?' she asked.
'No,' I said.
'It is a free woman,' whispered Feiqa, kneeling on the blankets.
'Cover your nakedness,' I said. Feiqa pulled her tiny, coarse tunic about her self.
'This is my house,' said the woman.
'Do you wish us to leave?' I asked.
'Do you have anything to eat?' she asked. 'A little,' I said. 'Are you hungry?'
'No,' she said.
'Perhaps the child is hungry?' I asked.
'No,' she said. 'We have plenty.'
I said nothing.
'I am a free woman!' she said, suddenly, piteously.
'We have food,' I said. 'We have used your house. Permit us to share it with you.'
'Oh, I have begged at the wagons,' she said suddenly, sobbing. 'It is not a new thing for me! I have begged! I have been on my knees for a crust of bread. I have fought with other women for garbage beside the road.'
'You shall not beg in your own house,' I said.
She began to sob, and the small child, bundled in her arms, began to whimper. I approached her very slowly, and drew back the edge of the coverlet about the child. Its eyes seemed very large. Its face was dirty.
'There are hundreds of us,' she said, 'following the wagons. In these times only soldiers can live.'
'The forces of Ar,' I said, 'are even now being mustered, to repel the invaders. The soldiers of Cos, and their mercenary contingents, no matter how numerous, will be no match for the marshaled squares of Ar.'
'My child is hungry,' she said. 'What do I care for the banners of Ar, or Cos?' 'Are you companioned?' I asked.
'I do not know any longer,' she said.
'Where are the men?' I asked.
'Gone, she said. 'Fled, driven away, killed. Many were impressed into service. They are gone, all of them are gone.'
'What happened here?' I asked.
'Foragers,' she said. 'They came for supplies, and men. They took what we had. Then they burned the village.'
I nodded. I supposed things might not have been much different if the foragers had been soldiers of Ar.
'Would you like to stay in my house tonight?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said.
'Build up the fire,' I said to Feiqa, who was kneeling back in the shadows. She had put her tunic about her. Too, she had pulled up the blanket about her body. As soon as I had spoken she crawled over the flat stones to the ashes of the fire, and began to prod among them, stirring them with a narrow stick, searching for covert vital embers.
'Surely you are a brigand,' said the woman to me.
'No,' I said.
'Then you are a deserter,' she said. 'It would be death for you to be found.' 'No,' I said. 'I am not a deserter.'
'What are you then?' she asked.
'A traveler,' I said.
'What is your caste?' she asked.
'Scarlet is the color of my caste,' I said.
'I thought it might be,' she said. 'Who but such as you can live in these times?'
I gave her some bread from my pack, from a rep-cloth draw-sack, and a bit of dried meat, paper thin, from its tied leather envelope.
'There, there,' she crooned to the child, putting bits of bread into its mouth. 'I have water,' I said, 'but no broth or soup.'
'The ditches are filled with water,' she said. 'Here, here, little one.' 'Why did you come back?' I asked.
'I came to look for roots,' she said, chewing.
'Did you find any?' I asked.
She looked at me quickly, narrowly. 'No,' she said.
'Have more bread,' I said, offering it.
She hesitated.
