'They will wish to ascertain what person ordered slaves to attack a free man, an innocent fellow merely engaged in reporting a misdemeanor.'
'Begone!' she cried.
'Besides,' I said, 'if I disembowel a couple of these fellows, how will you get home? I do not think that you would care to walk through the streets, perhaps soiling your slippers.' The slippers were well worked, colorful and intricate with exquisite embroideries. Slave girls, on the other hand, commonly walk the streets, barefoot, sometimes with something on an ankle, usually the left, a few loops of cord, an anklet, bangles, a tiny chain, such things.
'Also,' I said, 'what were you doing here, accosting a male slave?'
'Oh!' she cried, in anger.
'Do you not think guardsmen will be interested in that?' I asked.
'Beast!' she said.
'But then perhaps you are a slave girl,' I said.
'Beast!' she said.
'Are you branded?' I asked.
'No!' she said.
'Why not?' I asked.
'Sleen! Sleen!' she cried.
'Then I gather you are not branded,' I said.
'No,' she said, 'I am not branded!'
'I see,' I said. 'Then you are an unbranded slave girl.'
'Sleen!' she wept.
'There are doubtless many of those,' I said.
'Sleen! Sleen!' she cried.
I reached to her veil, and tore it away, face-stripping her. She seized the veil in my hands but, as I held it, she could do nothing with it. Indeed, she could not, as she held the veil, even draw her hood more closely about her features. She looked at me in disbelief, in astonishment, in fury. Her features, though distorted by rage, were of interest. They were well formed, and exquisite. 'You are very pretty, slave girl,' I said.
She released the veil, cried out with misery, turned about in the palanquin, and threw herself down in it, covering her face with her hands, hiding it from me. Her head was now toward the foot of the palanquin, and her knees were drawn up. This well displayed her curves to me, even beneath the robes of concealment. 'You apparently have an excellent figure,' I said to her. 'It would be interesting to see how it might look in a bit of slave silk.'
'Take me home! Take me home!' she wept.
One of the free men with her, the one with whom I had earlier held converse, signaled to the bearers, and they lifted the palanquin. Soon it was on its way. He drew shut its curtains as it moved down the street. But I did not doubt but what he, too, before he drew shut the curtains, had formed some conjecture of his own on the lineaments within, and how they might appear if properly clad, in slave silk.
I glanced to the fellow kneeling there on the stones. 'You may rise,' I informed him.
He stood up.
'Kneel,' I said to him, sharply, angrily.
Immediately, startled, he went again to his knees.
The two fellows with him started forward, but I warned then back with a look. 'Do you not know who that is?' asked one of them.
'A slave,' I said. Then I turned to the slave. 'Let us now try this again,' I said. 'You may rise.'
'Yes, Master,' he said. 'Thank you, Master.'
He then rose properly to his feet, humbly, permitted.
More than one person about gasped.
I think, as well, that this was not a familiar experience for the fellow. The slave, of course, need not verbally respond to all such permission, and such, but it is expected that his behavior will be in accord with the decorums of obedience.
'You may continue on your way,' I said to the three of them, releasing them from the custody of my will.
'Come along,' said one of the two fellows to the slave. The three of them then, together, lost little time in making their way down Aulus street. I noted that the fellow had not responded deferentially to the summons to come along, but then, I did not think that was my business. If the two fellows were disposed to treat the slave as though he might not be a slave. I did not think that that need be considered my concern. The interaction had not taken place, with me, for example. Also, of course, I had upon occasion, though quire infrequently, to be sure, on this world, remarked an instance in which a slave had seemed to me at least minimally deficient in deferentially to a master. In such instances, of course, one does not desire to usurp the prerogatives of the master, even if he is a weakling. One may always hope that he will eventually understand what must be done, and reach for the whip. Needless to say, all Gorean slave girls find themselves sooner or later, perhaps after a renaissance of manhood in the master, or a new sale, or some change of hands, kept under perfect discipline. It is the Gorean way. Only one can be master. The fellow did turn once, and look back at me, as though puzzled, and then, with the others, he continued on his way. I suspect he had not been reminded that he was a slave for a very long time. Perhaps Appanius had let that slip his mind. In my opinion, that would have been a mistake. At any rate I had seen no reason for doing so, particularly in the light of my plans. I did not think it would take them long to reach Tarn Court. Also, as I had cut short the fellow's conversation with the free woman in the palanquin, I had surely saved them a little time. I neither expected, nor wished, thanks for this, however. Briefly I recollected the free woman in the palanquin. Surely I had given her something to think about. Perhaps she was now curious as to what she might look like on a sales block, or what the nature of the bids might be.
As Lavinia was cognizant of the usual itinerary of the fellow from the theater to the house of Appanius and she had gone about to Tarn Court, on the way, and was presumably stationed there, to the east, under the bowers, I took a similar route, rapidly striding. In this fashion I would appear to be moving in the direction opposite the fellow and his two companions. I could then renew my contact with them from a distance, discreetly observing the encounter between that party and a girl seemingly in the garments of the state slave. In a few Ehn I was on Tarn Court, following the fellow and his companions. Once off Aulus, and perhaps being confident that they were not followed, they had slowed their pace. Tarn Court is a wide street, or, at least, wide for a city street of Gor. Several blocks east of Aulus, before noon, it is the location of a vegetable and fruit market. In the areas of the market, stretching almost from the north to the south side of the street, the street is shaded by a large number of vine-covered trellises, cresting bowers, which provide protection for the produce and, later in the day, shade for pedestrians. Many Gorean streets, incidentally, are almost always in shade because of their narrowness and the encompassing buildings. A result of this is that one is not always clear as to the position of the sun and, accordingly, it is easy to lose one's orientation, even as to the time of day. The fact that not all Gorean streets have generally accepted or marked names can add to the confusion. To one who knows the area this presents little difficulty but to a stranger, or one unfamiliar with the area, it can be extremely confusing. Interestingly enough many Gorean municipalities intentionally resist the attempt to impose some form of rational order on this seeming chaos. This is not simply because of the Gorean's typical reverence for tradition but because it is thought to have some military advantage, as well. For example, portions of invading forces have upon several occasions, in one city or another, literally become lost in the city, with the result that they have been unable to rally, rendezvous, group and attain objectives. Cases have been reported where an enemy force has literally withdrawn from a city and some of its components have remained in the city, wandering about for a day or two, out of communication with the main forces. Needless to say, the military situation of such isolated contingents is an often unenviable one. More than one such group has been set upon and destroyed. To be sure, invaders usually supply themselves with fellows who are familiar with the city. It is illegal in many cities, incidentally, to take maps of the city out of the city. More than one fellow, too, has put himself in the quarries or on the bench of a galley for having been caught with such a map in his possession. I was about fifty yards behind the group of three fellows, who were sauntering east of tarn Court. For a long time I did not detect the presence of Lavinia. Then, some seventy yards or so ahead, and to the right, near a wall, before the eastern termination of the trellised area where the morning market is held,
