'Ah well,' said Targo, 'how is one to know?' He tossed the cords to the rug before the girl.
'I have no more slave whips,' said Targo, shrugging his shoulders sadly, 'but your sword belt will do as well.'
'I' m sure it will,' I said, handing back the collar and camisk. Targo looked puzzled.
'Bring her the clothing of a free woman,' I said.
Targo' s mouth dropped open.
'— of a free woman,' I repeated.
Targo squinted at the Pleasure Rack at the side of the tent, perhaps looking for perspiration stains on the straps.
'Are you sure?' he asked.
I laughed and spun the fat little fellow about and, with one hand on the collar of his robes and the other hand firmly affixed south of the collar, flung him stumbling toward the exit of the tent.
He caught his balance there and, earrings swinging, turned to regard me as though I might have lost my senses. 'Perhaps Master is making a mistake?' he suggested.
'Perhaps,' I admitted.
'Where,' asked Targo, 'in the camp of a legitimate slaver do you expect me to find clothing suitable to a free woman?'
I laughed, and Targo smiled and left.
I wondered on how many nights free women, bound captives, had been thrown to his feet to be assessed and purchased, how many free women had in his camp exchanged their rich garments for a camisk and an ankle ring on his chain.
In a few moments Targo stumbled back into the tent, his arms bulging with cloth. He threw it down on the rug, puffing. 'Take your pick, Master,' he said, and backed out of the tent, shaking his head.
I smiled and looked on Lara.
The girl had risen to her feet.
To my surprise she went to the tent flaps and closed them, tying them shut on the inside.
She turned to face me, breathless.
She was very beautiful under the lamp, against the rich hangings of the tent.
She picked up the two yellow cords and, holding them in her hands, knelt before me in the position of the Pleasure Slave.
'I am going to free you,' I said.
Humbly she held the cords up for me to accept, her eyes bright, entreating, raised to mine.
'I am not of Tharna,' I said.
'But I am,' she said.
I saw that she knelt upon a scarlet rug.
'I am going to free you,' I said.
'I am not yet free,' she said.
I was silent.
'Please,' she begged, '- Master.'
And so it was that I took the cords from her hand, and in the same night Lara who had once been the proud Tatrix of Tharna became according to the ancient rites of her city my slave girl — and a free woman.
Chapter Twenty-Three: RETURN TO THARNA
Outside the camp of Targo, Lara and I climbed a small hill and stood on its crest. I could see before me, some pasangs away, the pavilions of tha Fair of En' Kara, and beyond those the looming ridges of the Sardar, ominous, black, sheer. Beyond the Fair and before the mountains, which rose suddenly from the plains, I could see the timber wall of black logs, sharpened at the top, which separated the Fair from the mountains.
Men seeking the mountains, men tired of life, young idealists, opportunists eager to learn the secret of immortality in its recesses, would use the gate at the end of the central avenue of the Fair, a double gate of black logs mounted on giant wooden hinges, a gate that would swing open from the centre, revealing the Sardar beyond.
Even as we stood on the hill I could hear the slow ringing of a heavy, hollow tube of metal, which betokened that the black gate had opened. The sad, slow sound reached the hillock on which we stood.
Lara stood beside me, clad as a free woman but not in the Robes of Concealment. She had shortened and trimmed one of the gracious Gorean garments, cutting it to the length of her knees and cutting away the sleeves so that they fell only to her elbows. It was a bright yellow and she had belted it with a scarlet sash. Her feet wore plain sandals of red leather. About her shoulders, at my suggestion, she had wrapped a cloak of heavy wool. It was scarlet. I had thought she might require this for warmth. I think she thought she might require it to match her sash. I smiled to myself. She was free.
I was pleased that she seemed happy.
She had refused the customary Robes of Concealment. She maintained that she would be more of a hindrance to me so clad. I had not argued, for she was right. As I watched her yellow hair swept behind her in the wind and regarded the joyful lineaments of her beauty, I was glad that she had not chosen, whatever might be her reason, to clothe herself in the traditional manner.
Yet though I could not repress my admiration of this girl and the transformation which had been wrought in her from the cold Tatrix of Tharna to the humiliated slave to the glorious creature who now stood beside me my thoughts were mostly in tha Sardar, for I knew that I had not yet kept my appointment with the Priest-Kings.
I listened to the slow, gloomy tolling of the hollow bar.
'Someone has entered the mountains,' said Lara.
'Yes,' I said.
'He will die,' she said.
I nodded.
I had spoken to her of my work in the mountains, of my destiny which lay therein. She had said, simply, 'I will go with you.'
She knew as well as I that those who entered the mountains did not return. She knew as well as I, perhaps better, the fearful power of the Priest-Kings.
Yet she had said she would come with me.
'You are free,' I had said.
'When I was your slave,' she had said, 'you could have ordered me to follow you. Now that I am free I will accompany you of my own accord.' I looked at the girl. How proudly and yet how marvelously she stood beside me. I saw that she had picked a talender on the hill, and that she had placed it in her hair.
I shook my head.
Though the full force of my will drove me to the mountains, though in the mountains the Priest-Kings waited for me, I could not yet go. It was unthinkable that I should take this girl into the Sardar to be destroyed as I would be destroyed, that I should devastate this young life so recently initiated into the glories of the senses, which had just awakened into the victories of life and feeling.
What could I balance against her — my honour, my thirst for vengeance, my curiosity, my frustration, my fury?
I put my arm about her shoulder and led her down from the hillock. She looked at me questioningly.
'The Priest-Kings must wait,' I said.
'What are you going to do?' she asked.
'Return you to the throne of Tharna,' I said.
She pulled away from me, her eyes clouding with tears. I gathered her to my arms and kissed her gently.
She looked up at me, her eyes wet with tears.
'Yes,' I said, 'I wish it.'
