'Your accent is not of Ar,' she said.
'I would hope not, in this camp,' I smiled.
She used a tiny fire maker and set fire to the leaves and twigs. She blew on the small flame, encouraging it.
We could smell cooking fires about. It was near dusk.
'Your plans have not proceeded as you hoped?' she asked.
'I do not complain,' I said. 'Things might have proceeded better than they have, but they have gone much as I expected they would.
She added sticks to the small flame.
The first portion of my plan had been to reach Ar's Station as swiftly as possible, which meant, in effect, to do so on tarnback, and in such a way as to gain immunity from the attentions of Cosian tarn patrols. That I had managed. The patrols, which were thick in the vicinity, given my habiliments and accouterments, and my brandished pouch, presumably a diplomatic one, had taken me for a courier. Also, although I had not planned it, the presence of the blindfolded, braceleted girl before me, apparently a capture, presumably picked up enroute, and doubtless soon to be collared, added to the effect. The ears of the delicate Phoebe must have burned as she heard the snapping of wings near us and the shouting of ribald, raucous jests, of which her beauty and its probably disposition were the subject. At times I had even received an escort, which happily, at their patrol limits, had been suspended.
I had hoped, of course, somehow, ideally, to be able to enter Ar's Station on tarnback. As I had feared, however, this had not been possible. Even my garb as a courier had not permitted me access to the airspace over Ar's Station. I had been immediately pursued and fired upon by flights of Cosian tarnsmen. I had made the attempt in the afternoon and again in the evening of the first day I had arrived in the vicinity of Ar's Station. Had it not been for the strength of the bird and my start I might have been downed over the city. I had escaped the second time only with considerable difficulty, by taking my way over the citadel and harbor, past the chained rafts closing the harbor, and across the Vosk itself, eluding my pursuers only after a long run, under the cover of darkness.
In these attempts I had, of course, not taken Phoebe. I had no wish to risk a quarrel's penetrating that beauty, which properly refined and improved, would, in my opinion, not have shamed even the central block of the Curulean. Too, her weight, slight as it was, might have made the difference between falling to pursuers and eluding them.
I had, accordingly, before these excursions, sat her down, closely, before a small tree, her legs on either side of it. I had then tied a rope on her left ankle, looped the rope about another tree, a yard or so away, and brought it back, to tie about her right ankle. I did this is such a way, adjusting the length of the rope, that though her legs were forced to be rather extended, they were also permitted to flex enough for comfort. I then pushed her belly against the bark and braceleted her arms about the tree. The extension of her legs, of course, was such that she could not reach the ropes on her ankles with her braceleted hands. It also, of course, made it impossible for her to rise to her feet. I had sat her down there, and she would remain there, sitting, and as I had placed her. The location of the tree was close enough to the road that she might, if I had not returned by morning, call out, attracting attention to herself, thus saving herself, even if, at the same time, making it almost certain that soon thereafter her thigh would know the fiery kiss of slave iron, and her neck the clasp of a master's collar.
She built up the fire.
I watched her.
She unfolded and adjusted a single-bar cooking rack, placing it over the fire. From this she suspended a kettle of water. The single bar, which may be loosened in its rings, and has a handle, may also function as a spit. 'And what did you do today?' I asked.
'I knelt in a body hood,' she said.
'It was only a sack,' I said.
'It served,' she said.
The sack I had drawn over her was an improvised body hood. There are several varieties of body hoods on Gor, which is not surprising in a society in which slavery, and particularly female slavery, is an essential ingredient. Most body hoods are made of leather or layers of stout canvas. I have seen at least one in which two layers of canvas were sewn about a lining of linked chain. They may be fastened by means of such devices as cords, straps and laces. They may be tied shut or locked shut.
The prisoner is entered into some body hoods from the back, her legs being placed through openings in the lower portion of the hood, the hood then being pulled up and, from the back, lacked shut. Most of these hoods do not have openings for the arms, but some do. In most hoods the arms are confined within the hood, either free within the hood itself or bound or braceleted within it. Some hoods are open at the bottom, and fastened on the prisoner by means of thongs or straps, often looped about the thighs. Others are constructed in such a way that they may be opened at the bottom, for the master's convenience. Sometimes the hood is thrust up and fastened about the prisoner's waist. The typical hood provides hand and arm security with the advantages of the blindfold. Most body hoods, unlike many common slave hoods, do not have provisions for an internal gag. The prisoner, of course, may be gagged before being hooded. The body hood, like the slave hood, tends to keep a female docile. This may be a particular advantage early in her training, when she may not yet fully understand her new nature and its meaning. Another advantage of the body hood is that it is intriguing and attractive on a woman, baring her legs but usually, unless the arms are also intriguingly bared, concealing the rest of her, this sort of thing exciting male interest, and yet in virtue of the predominant concealment afforded, making her seizure less likely than if she lying about more exposed in common hoods.
Slavers, in moving their wares through the streets, sometimes place them in body hoods. To be sure, it is more common to throw a cloak or sheet, which might be of various lengths, over their heads, this usually being fastened on them by means of a cord or strap looped once or twice about the neck and fastened under the chin. In many cities free women object to the marching of naked slaves through the streets. Still, even though the girls may be covered with cloaks or sheets, the men will usually come to watch, and call out to them, and jeer, and such. It is understood, of course, that the girls, beneath those cloaks or sheets, are slave naked. It is sometimes very trying, though also perhaps very instructive, for a new slave, perhaps a woman of a conquered city, to be marched thusly through the streets, stung with pebbles, pinched and slapped, subjected to the most intimate forms of raillery, jocosity and abuse. 'Do you object?' I asked.
'No,' she said, suddenly, quickly. Then she put herself on her belly, on the dirt floor of the small tent, before me. She lifted her head, looking up at me. 'When,' she asked, 'may I use the word 'Master' truly to you, in all honesty?' 'But you are a free woman,' I said to her.
'I beg the collar!' she said.
'Is that not an unusual request for a free woman?' I asked.
'My freedom is now a mockery,' she said. 'After what you have done to me these past two nights, how could I even thing of being free? Do you think that that delusion can be meaningful to me any longer?'
'You have then learned something about yourself?' I said.
'Yes,' she said. 'I have learned that I should be branded, that I should be in a collar!'
I smiled.
'Do not frustrate me,' she begged. 'Let me be what I truly am, in all honesty!' 'The porridge water should be salted,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said, and crawled to the front of the tent.
'Salt it lightly,' I said. She was learning to serve.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
The days I had spent here had not been fruitless. I had muchly reconnoitered. I had thought that perhaps I might have been able to ascend the walls of Ar's Station on one of the scaling ladders, in a morning attack, but I had soon thought the better of it. Resistance was still such that few Cosians could reach the parapets, and those who did were usually driven back. Whereas I supposed it was possible that I might enter the city in this way this modality of ingress seemed dubious at best. It was difficult to see how my projects would be furthered if, while attempting to identify myself and explain my mission, I were to be cut open with a boat hook. Similarly I was not interested, in the midst of friendly overtures, in receiving a bucket of flaming oil in the face or, say, being struck from a ladder by a roofing tile brought from the interior of the city. I had also considered trying to enter the city through its main gate, in the confusion, when it opened for sorties by the defenders. There had been no sorties,
