Captive of Gor

12 I Gather Berries

How good it was to be out of the slave wagon!

Standing in the grass, in the sunlight, I stretched, and laughed.

I wore my new camisk. I was much pleased.

I had sewn it in the wagon, the first day out of Ko-ro-ba. My old camisk, long ago, had been burned near the compound of Targo.

I suppose girls of Earth might find the camisk a shameful, scandalous garment, but I was much pleased to have it. We had not been permitted camisks in the pens of Ko-ro-ba. In the stinking straw they might have been soiled. Also, it is thought by slavers that it is, upon occasion, good for a girl to find herself naked and behind bars. But now the dimly lit cells, the steel and cement, the stomach-wrenching heat and dampness, the close, foul air, the soiled straw, the stink, the crowding, the heavy bars, were behind us. Sometimes free women fall desperately ill when brought to the pens. Inge and I had vomited for more than an hour after we had been forced into the pens, and locked in our cells. But now the pens were behind us.

I stretched again.

It was a day in the early summer, the second day of En'Var. In the chronology of Ar, that city for which we were bound, it was said to be the year 10,121. I could feel the grass at my calves, the sun on my face and arms and legs, the warm, fresh, root-filled earth beneath my bare feet.

I was happy. I lifted my face to the sun and closed my eyes, letting its warmth and light bathe my face and closed eyes.

Elinor Brinton, the rich girl of Earth, was happy.

I felt the pull of the strap on my throat, and opened my eyes. By a long, leather strap, some ten feet in length, I was fastened by the neck to Ute. We were picking berries.

Elinor Brinton, the Gorean slave girl, quickly bend down and, with her fingers, pulled berries from the twigs of a small bush, and put them in her leather bucket.

Ute had her back to me, and the guard, too. He, drowsy, was leaning on his spear.

We were perhaps a pasang from the caravan. I, by standing on my tip toes in the grass, on the low hill on which we were gathering berries, could see the squarish tops of the wagons, with their blue and yellow canvas coverings. We were nine days out of Ko-ro-ba.

It would be weeks before we could reach Ar, where we would be sold. I was pleased with the summer's day, and the breezes.

Surreptitiously, I moved, picking berries here and there, closer to Ute. She was not facing me, nor was the guard.

My hand darted into her leather bucket and seized a handful of berries, and quickly put them in my own. Neither she nor the guard noticed. Ute and the guard were stupid.

I slipped one of the berries into my mouth, taking care that no juices showed on my lips or face.

How clever I was.

How good it was to have the stench of the pens behind us!

I bent down and rubbed my ankles, and then stretched my legs. I ached from riding in the slave wagon. Girls are given only a foot of chain fastened to their ankle rings, which is looped about the central bar, locked in place, in the slave wagon. There are only some folds of canvas to serve as a cushion between your body and the hard boards of the wagon. But now I was out and, save that I was tethered to Ute, could move as I wished. How good it was to have the stench of the pens behind us! How good it was to be out of the slave wagon!

I, Elinor Brinton, formerly a rich girl, now a slave on a distant planet, was happy.

I had more than one reason, too, I reminded myself, to be happy.

I laughed.

I recalled the morning we had left Ko-ro-ba.

We had been called from our cells well before dawn. Each of us had then been forced to eat a large bowl of heavy slave gruel. We would not be fed again until that night. In the courtyard of the pens, under torchlight, with brushes we were forced to scrub the stink of the pens from our bodies. We were than admitted to the wagons. We sat in the wagons, five to a side, our feet toward the center. The central slave bar was then locked into place. A guard then entered the wagon, with ten sets of chains and ankle rings, over his shoulder. Beginning at the front of the wagon, backing toward the back, girl by girl, he fastened us to the bar. He then slipped from the wagon, and lifted up the back gate of the wagon, shoving its bolts in place, securing it. The canvas was then tied down. We found ourselves alone with ourselves, in the darkness, chained in the wagon. "Hi!" cried our driver, and we felt the wagon, creaking, begin to move. We were merchandises on our way to Ar.

The caravan, wagon by wagon, made its way slowly toward Ko-ro-ba's Street of the Field Gate, which is the southernmost gate of the city.

But we had been unable to move as rapidly as we had wished. the streets, even at that hour, were crowded. We could sense that there was a holiday atmosphere. "What is it?" I had asked Inge.

"I do not know," she had said.

We heard the driver cursing and shouting at the crowds, but we could make little progress.

Indeed, other wagons, we gathered, merchant wagons and those of peasants, too, were blocked in the streets. Foot by foot we moved toward the Street of the Field Gate, and then, at last, came that street.

In the wagons, with the canvas tied down, chained, we listened to the crowds. By this time it was full daylight outside, and much light filtered through the wagon canvas. We could see one another quite clearly.

The girls were excited.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I do not know," said Inge angrily.

I cursed the canvas.

We heard music in the distance, trumpets, drums and cymbals. We looked at one another, scarcely able to restrain ourselves.

"Move to one side and stop, said a voice outside, one who spoke with authority. Our wagon pulled over to one side of the broad avenue, Ko-ro-ba's Street of the Field gate.

We felt crowds surge about the wagon. The music was coming closer.

There was much shouting.

"It is the catch of Marlenus!" cried a man.

My heart leapt.

I turned about, kneeling, twisting the ankle chain, and dug with my fingers under the edge of the rain canvas.

The drums, the cymbals, the trumpets, were now quite close.

I lifted up an edge of the canvas and peeped through.

A hunt master, astride a monstrous tharlarion, holding a wand, tufted with panther hair, preceded the retinue. He wore over his head, half covering his face, a hood formed of the skin of the head of a forest panther. About his neck there were twined necklaces of claws. Across his back there was strapped a quiver of arrows. A bow, unstrung, was fastened at his saddle. He was dressed in skins, mostly those of sleen and forest panthers.

Behind him came musicians, with their trumpets, and cymbals and drums. They, too, wore skins, and the heads of forest panthers. Then, on carts, drawn by small, horned tharlarion, there came cages, and poles of trophies. In certain of the cages, of heavy, peeled branches lashed together, there snarled and hissed forest sleen, in others there raged the dreadful tawny, barred panthers of the northern forests. From the poles there hung the skins and heads of many beasts, mostly panthers and sleen. In one cage, restlessly lifting its swaying head, there coiled a great, banded hith, Gor's most feared serpentine constrictor. It was native only to certain areas of the forest. Marlenus' hunting must have ranged widely. Here and there, among the wagons, leashed, clad in short woolen skirts, heavy bands of iron hammered about their throats, under the guard of huntsmen, cowled in the heads of forest panthers, walked male slaves, male outlaws captured by Marlenus and his hunters in the forest. They had long, shaggy black hair. Some carried heavy baskets of fruits and nuts on their shoulders, or strings of gourds; others bore wicker hampers of flowers, or carried brightly plumaged forest birds; tied by string to their wrists.

The other girls, too, watched excitedly, all of them coming to my side of the wagon, wedging among us, lifting up the rain canvas, peeping out.

"Aren't the male slaves exciting," said one of the girls.

"Shameless!" I scorned her.

"Perhaps you will be hooded and mated with one," she hissed back.

I struck her. I was angry. It had not occurred to me, but what she said was true. If it should please my master, I could, of course, be mated, as easily as a bosk or a domestic sleen.

"Look at the huntsmen!" breathed Lana, her eyes bright, her lips parted. Just at that moment one of the cowled huntsmen, a large, swarthy fellow, looked our way and saw us peeping out. He grinned.

"I wish such a man would hunt me," said Lana.

"I, too," said the Lady Rena, excited.

I was startled that she had spoken so. Then I recalled that she, too, was only a female slave. The Lady Rena of Lydius, like the rest of us, was only a naked girl, a slave, chained in a wagon, destined for the touch of a master. I rejoiced that I did not have their weaknesses.

I peeped again through the tiny opening between the canvas and the wooded side of the wagon.

More carts were going by, and more huntsmen and slaves. How proud and fine seemed the huntsmen, with their animals and slaves. How grandly they walked. How fearful they appeared, in skins, cowled in the heads of forest panthers, with their hunting spears. They did not bear burdens. They led or drove those that did, inferior, collared, skirted men, slaves. How straight walked the huntsmen, how broad their backs, how straight their gaze and high their head, how large their hands, how keen their gaze! There were masters! They had made slaves even of men! What would a mere woman be in their hands?

I detested them. I detested them!

"Ute," said Inge, "how would you like such a master?"

"I am a slave," said Ute. "I would try to serve him well."

"Ah, Ute," breathed Inge. "You have never forgotten your leather worker, who sold you."

Ute looked down.

"What of you, El-in-or?" taunted Inge, though she was of the scribes. "I detest them," I told her.

"You would serve such a one well," Inge informed me. "He would see to that." I did not answer her.

Inge was now looking again, out of the tiny opening between the canvas and the wood. "I want to be owned," she said. "I want to be owned."

"You are of the scribes," I whispered to her.

She looked at me. "I am a slave girl," she said. "And so, too," she added, not pleasantly, "are you." She looked at me. "Slave," she said.

I struck at her, but she caught my hair and pulled my head down to the canvas. I could not reach her hair, nor could I disengage her fists from mine. I was helpless, and held painfully. "Who is the most slave in the wagon?" challenged Inge.

I wept, trying to pull her hands from my hair.

"Who is the most slave in the wagon?" repeated Inge, angrily. She gave my hair a vicious yank, twisting my head on the canvas. I lay twisted among the other girls, chained. Inge knelt. "Who is the most slave in the wagon?" repeated Inge again, again yanking my hair, twisting it.

"El-in-or," I whispered. "El-in-or!"

"Let us all hear who is most slave in this wagon," said Inge.

"El-in-or!" I cried out, in pain, weeping. "El-in-or!"

When Inge released me, I scrambled back from her. I had no desire to fight her. I looked at her. There was triumph in her eyes. Every muscle in her body seemed vital and alive. I sensed then, knew then, that she had been waiting a long time for such an encounter. She had wanted a pretext to fight me. I now knew I could no longer bully Inge.

"Let us fight!" she challenged.

"No," I said. "No." I shook my head.

I had thought myself stronger than Inge. I now realized that I was not. I had, as I thought I could with impunity, struck at her. Then, suddenly, cruelly, decisively, she had bested me. I looked at her. The shining eyes, the vital body, her eagerness to fight. I lowered my eyes, my head. Inge's days of being bullied by me were now at an end. Suddenly I was afraid of her. I had thought myself able to beat her, if I might choose, but now I knew that she, if she chose, could beat me. I had been clearly bested, and I sensed that I could be again, if she wished. I was now frightened of Inge. I hoped that she would not bully me. Almost immediately I sensed the shift of power in the wagon, among the girls. I no longer ranked as high as I had, and Inge ranked higher. I sensed that Inge was regarded with new respect, suddenly, and I, who had often been the bully, the aggressor, would henceforth be regarded with little or no respect. That made me angry.

Then we heard more music from outside, as more musicians, near the end of the retinue, approached. A girl from the other side of the wagon squeezed between Ute and I. "Get back," I snapped at her.

"Be quiet," she said.

"Look!" cried Ute.

There was, outside, the snap of a whip.

There was a great shout from the crowd.

I pressed closer to the opening, looking out. More carts of sleen and panthers, with huntsmen and slaves, were passing.

Then I heard the snap of the whip again.

The crowd gave another shout.

"Look!" cried Inge.

And then we saw it.

A cart was passing, flanked by huntsmen and slaves, bearing their burdens of gourds, flowers, nuts and fruits. On the cart, horizontally, parallel to the axles, there was a high pole, lashed together at the point of their crossings. It was a trophy pole, with its stanchions, peeled, formed of straight branches, like the other trophy poles, from which had hung the skins of slain animal. Only standing below this pole, alone on the cart, her skins knotted about her neck, her wrists bound behind her back, her hair fastened over the pole, holding her in place, was a beautiful panther girl, stripped, her weapons, broken, lying at her feet. I recognized her as one of the girl's of Verna's band.

I cried out with pleasure.

It was the first of five carts. On each, similarly, wrists bound behind her back, stripped, her hair bound cruelly over a trophy pole, stood a panther girl, each more beautiful than the last.

I heard the blare of the trumpets, the clash of the cymbals, the pounding of the drums. The men shouted. Women cursed, and screamed their hatred of the panther girls. Children cried out and pelted them with pebbles. Slave girls in the crowd rushed forward to surge about the carts, to poke at them with sticks, strike them with switches and spit upon them. Panther girls were hated. I, too, wished I could rush out and strike them and spit upon them. From time to time, guards, huntsmen, with whips, would leap to the cart and crack their whips, terrifying the slave girls, who knew that sound well, back from the carts, that they might pass, but then the slaves would gather again, and rush about the following cart, only to be in turn driven back again. Standing outside the range of the whip they would then spit, and curse and scream their hatred of the panther girls.

"Slaves are so cruel," said Ute.

Cart by cart passed.

"Look! cried Inge.

We now heard the snap of whips again, but this time the leather blades fell upon the naked backs of girls.

"Look!" cried Lana, pleased.

A huntsmen came now, holding in his hand five long leather straps, dragging behind him five panther girls. Their wrists were bound before their bodies, lashed tightly. The same strap that lashed their wrists, I saw, served, too, as their leash, that held in the huntsman's grip. Like the girls bound by the hair to the trophy poles, on the carts, these were stripped, their skins knotted about their necks.

Behind them there walked another huntsman, with a lash. He would occasionally strike them, hurrying them forward.

I saw the lash fall across the back of the blond girl, she who had held my leash in the forest, who had been so cruel to me. I heard her cry out, and saw her stumble forward, bound, in pain. I laughed.

Behind this first group of five girls there came a second group, it, too, with its huntsman holding the leashes, dragging his beautiful captives, and another following behind, occasionally lashing them forward.

How pleased I was. There had been fifteen girls, five on the carts, and two of the tethered groups! All of Verna's band had fallen captive!

There now came a great shout, and I squeezed even further forward in the wagon, to peep out.

Then the crown became suddenly quiet.

One last cart approached. I could hear its wheels on the stones before I could see it.

It was Verna. Beautiful, barbaric Verna!

Nothing, save her weapons, had been taken from her. She still wore her brief skins, and about her neck and on her arms, were barbaric ornaments of gold. But she was caged.

Her cage, mounted on the cart, was not of branches, but of steel. It was a circular cage, between some six and seven feet in height, flat-bottomed, with a domed top. Its diameter was no more than a yard.

And she was chained.

Her wrists were manacled behind her body, and a chain led from her confined wrists to a heavy ring set in the bottom of her cage.

Her head was in the air.

She was manacled as heavily as might have been a man. This infuriated me. Slave bracelets would hold her, as they would any women!

How arrogant and beautiful she seemed!

How I hated her!

And so, too, must have the other slave girls in the crowd, with their switches and sticks.

"Hit her!" I screamed through the canvas.

"Be quiet!" cried Ute, in horror.

"Hit her!" screamed Lana.

The crowd of slave girls swarmed forward toward the cart with their sticks and switches, some of them even leaping upon it, spitting, and striking and poking through the bars of the high narrow cage.

I saw that the domed top of Verna's cage was set with a ring, so that the cage might be, if one wished, hung from the branch of a tree, or suspended from a pole, for public viewing. Doubtless Marlenus had given orders that she be exhibited in various cities and villages on the route to Ar, his prize, that she might thus, this beautiful captive, an outlaw girl well known on Gor, considerably redound to his prestige and glory. I supposed that she would not be enslaved until she reached Ar. Then, I supposed, she would be publicly enslaved, and perhaps by the hand of Marlenus himself. The slave girls swarmed about the cage, poking, and striking with their switches, and spitting and cursing. Their abuse was endured by Verna. It seemed she chose to ignore them. This infuriated them and they redoubled their efforts. Verna now flinched with pain, and her body was cut and marked, but still she would not lower her head, nor did she deign to speak to, or recognize in any way, her foes.

Then there was a roar of anger from the crowd and, to my fury, men began to leap, too, to the cart, but to hurl the slave girls from the cage. And huntsmen, too, angrily, now leaped to the cart, striking about them with their whips. The slave girls screamed, and fled from the cart. Men seized them, and disarmed them of their sticks and switches, and them threw the girls to the stones at their feet, where they cowered, at the sandals of free men, and then the men ordered them from the street. The girls leapt up and, weeping, terrified, fled away, humiliated, chastened slaves.

I was angry. I wished that I might have had a stick or switch. How I would have beaten Verna! I was not afraid of her! I would have beaten her well, as she deserved!

How I hated Verna!

Her cart was now moving away, drawn by the small, horned tharlarion. In her cage, manacled, Verna still stood proudly. Her head was still in the air, her body straight, her gaze level and fixed. She gave no sign that she had noticed either those who had so rudely assailed her, or those who had protected her from them. How arrogant and superior she seemed!

How I hated her, and hated her!

A spear butt struck at the wood of the wagon, near where we peeped out. We drew back, frightened. The canvas was then tied down again. We were alone with ourselves again, closed in the wagon.

We heard the drums, the trumpets and clashing cymbals growing fainter, down the street, as the retinue continued on its way.

"Hereafter," said Inge, "El-in-or will address each of us in this wagon as Mistress."

I looked at her in anger. "No," said Ute, to Inge.

"Yes," said Inge.

"That is being cruel to El-in-or," said Ute.

"We shall treat El-in-or exactly as she deserves," said Inge.

The other girls, except Ute, and Lana, who perhaps feared she might be similarly treated, agreed.

"You will be treated exactly as you deserve, won't you?" asked Inge, looking at me.

I did not answer her.

"Is that not true, El-in-or?" asked Inge, sweetly.

I bit my lip.

"Is it not true?" pressed Inge. Her voice was not pleasant.

"Yes," I whispered.

"Yes, what?" asked Inge. Her voice was hard.

"Yesa€”Mistress," I said.

The other girls, even Lana, laughed.

"Move your feet," said the girl across from me.

I looked at Inge. Her eyes were hard.

"Yes, Mistress," I said. I moved my chained ankles. I hated Inge, and Lana, and Ute, and all of them!

The girls laughed.

We felt the wagon again begin to move, once again resuming its journey toward the Field Gate. Once again we were goods, female slaves, on our way to be sold in Ar.

But I had been forced to acknowledge myself most slave in the wagon. I was more slave then they!

I was forced even to address them as Mistress!

I was furious.

Angrily, in the field, in the sunlight, more than a pasang from the wagons, on the route to Ar, I picked berries, snapping them from their twigs and throwing them into the bucket.

The sun and the grass, and the breezes, were doubtless as pleasant as they had been, but I was not now in much of a mood to enjoy them. I recollected with satisfaction my witnessing of the captivity of Verna, the Panther Girl, but I recollected with much less satisfaction what had occurred in the slave wagon, when Inge had so decisively bested me; when I had learned that she could beat me, if she pleased, and would, should it please her; when I, a former bully among them, had so suddenly lost my status with them; when Inge, whom I now feared, forced me, and cruelly, to address her, and the others, with the exception of Ute, though slaves themselves, by the title of Mistress, as though it was only I among them who might be the slave! Moreover, to my fury, the other girls of the caravan, hearing of this, and thinking it a great joke, were quick to demand of me the same dignity.

"Address them as Mistress," said Inge, "or I will beat you."

I wanted to be sold in Ar, to be free of them! I wanted to be a pampered, perfumed girl, with jewels and cosmetics and silks, the pet and favorite of an indulgent master, whom I might control. I wanted the luxuries, and the sights and pleasures of Ar! I wanted to be an envied slave!

I had bowed my head to Inge.

I would have a very pleasant life, as a manipulative, kept female. The only difference between myself and the kept girl of Earth, I speculated, was that I would not be able to choose who it was that would keep me. I would be purchased. What a fool I was! I did not yet know what it was to be a Gorean slave girl. "Yes, Mistress," I had said to Inge, humbly, hating her.

"You many now kiss my feet," she informed me.

My fists clenched. Her eyes flashed.

I did so. I was afraid of her. The other girls about laughed. And so I called them Mistress. I wanted to be free of them all!

I was miserable.

But two girls I did not address as Mistress, Ute, who did not wish it, and Lana, in whose case, for reasons of her own, Inge did not insist upon it. I wanted to get swiftly to Ar, and to be sold, to be free of them all! I wanted to begin my new and pleasant life.

I looked at Ute. "Ute," I said.

Ute turned in the strap, from picking berries.

"Yes, El-in-or?" she said.

"When will we reach Ar?" I asked.

"Oh, not for many days," she said. "We have not yet even come tot he Vosk." The Vosk is a great river, which borders the claims of Ar, on the north. Ute then returned to her picking of berries. Neither she nor the guard were watching, so I stole some more of her berries for my bucket. Two I had placed in my mouth, carefully, that no sign that I had tasted them be evident. I looked up. The sky was bright and blue, and the white clouds scudded swiftly by. I was wearing a camisk. I was out of the pens, out of the slave wagon. The air was warm and clear. I was not particularly displeased.

Moreover, I had had an opportunity to be revenged on Verna, before whom I had demonstrated my superiority and lack of fear.

It had happened five days out of Ko-ro-ba.

The Merchants have, in the past few years, on certain trade routes, between Ar and Ko-ro-ba, and between Tor and Ar, established palisaded compounds, defensible stockades. These, where they exist, tend to be placed approximately a day's caravan march apart. Sometimes, of course, and indeed, most often, the caravan must camp in the open. Still, these hostels, where they are to be found, are welcome, both to common merchants and to slavers, and even to travelers. Various cities, through their own Merchant Law, legislated and revised, and upheld, at the Sardar Fairs. The walls are double, the interior wall higher, and tarn wire is strung over the compound. These forts do not differ much, except in size, from the common border forts, which cites sometimes maintain at the peripheries of their claims. In the border forts, of course, there is little provision for the goods of merchants, their wagons, and such. There is usually room for little more than their garrisons, and their slaves. I hoped I would not be a slave girl in a distant border fort. I wanted to reside in a luxurious city, where there would be many goods, and sights and pleasures. I wanted to wear my collar in great Ar itself.

Five days out of Ko-ro-ba, we had stopped at one of these Merchant Fortresses. Inside the interior wall, girls are sometimes permitted to run free. They cannot escape, and it pleases them.

One wagon at a time, for a given interval, Targo permitted his girls, in wagon sets, to enjoy freedom of movement. How I ran inside the large fortress. Then I cried out, "Lana! Lana!"

"What?" she asked.

"Look!" I cried.

Over against one long wall of the stockade was the camp of the huntsmen of Marlenus. They had left Ko-ro-ba after us, but they had traveled more swiftly. Lana and I, and some of the other girls, ran to look at the cages of sleen and panthers, and the trophies. Lana laughed at the cages of male slaves. She and I went to them, with others, too, to taunt them.

We would come close to the cages, and when they would reach for us, we would jump back.

"Buy me!" I laughed.

"Buy me! Buy me!" laughed the others.

One of the men reached his hand for Lana. "let me touch you," he begged. She looked at him, contemptuously. "I do not permit myself to be touched by slaves," she said. She laughed scornfully. "I will belong to a free man, not a slave."

Then she walked away from him, as a slave girl, taunting him.

He shook the bars in anger.

"I, too," I informed him, "will belong to a free man, not a slave." Then I, too, walked away from him, showing him the contempt of a slave girl. I heard him cry out with rage, and I laughed. We looked, too, at the sleen and the panthers, and the skins, and the great, captive hith.

Verna's girls, the fifteen of them, stripped, were housed, crouching and kneeling, in small, metal cages. We threw dirt on them, and spat at them. I was particularly pleased to abuse the blond-haired girl, who had held my leash in the forest. I found a stick and poked her through the bars.

She snapped and snarled at me, like an animal, and reached, clawing, through the bars for me, but I was too quick for her.

I poked her again and again, and threw dirt on her, and laughed.

"Look!" said Lana.

I left the blond-haired girl.

We stopped before Verna's cage.

There were some of the huntsmen about, but neither Lana nor I feared them. They were not, we noted, much interested in what we did.

That gave us courage.

"Greetings, Verna," said I, boldly.

She was no longer manacles, but she was, I noted, securely confined in the cage. The cage itself was now hung from a pole, rather like a high trophy pole. Its floor was about six inches off the ground.

I looked up at her.

She looked down at me.

I would have preferred to have looked down upon her, but she was a taller woman than I, and, of course, the cage was suspended somewhat off the ground. "Perhaps you remember me?" I asked.

She looked at me, saying nothing.

"It was I, incidentally," I informed her, "who, in Ko-ro-ba, first cried out to the slave girls to strike you. It was I who instigated their attack." She said nothing.

"It is to me," I informed her, "that you owe that beating." Her face was expressionless.

I still held the stick with which I had poked the blond-haired girl, she who had held my leash in the forest.

I struck out with it, upsetting the pan of water in her cage, emptying it. The water ran over the small, circular floor of the cage, and some of it dripped out, falling to the ground.

Still Verna made no move.

I walked about the cage. Verna could not watch both myself and Lana. She did not turn to follow me. Behind the cage I reached in and stole the food she had in the cage, two larma fruit lying, split, on its metal floor. I bit into one and tossed the other to Lana, who, too, ate it.

When we had finished the fruit, Lana and I discarded the skin and seeds. Verna still watched us, not moving.

I was angry.

Suddenly I struck at her with the stick, and she flinched, but did not cry out. Lana threw dirt on her.

Then I seized the cage and, on its chain, spun it about. The chain twisted, and then the cage turned. Lana and I, laughing, spun the cage back and forth, and when I could I struck Verna through the bars. We struck her, and spat on her, and threw dirt on her.

There were huntsmen nearby but they did not restrain us. We had much sport. Then we let the cage hang still. Verna had her eyes closed. She held the bars. She swallowed.

After a time she opened her eyes.

We, for some minutes more, continued to abuse her, with sticks and dirt, and our spittle and our insults. She made no response.

I was not afraid of her. I had never been afraid of her.

Then we heard one of Targo's guards calling us. It was time for us to be returned to our wagon, and for another set of girls to be freed, to enjoy the liberty of the compound. I gave Verna another blow with the stick.

"Can't you say anything?" I screamed. I was infuriated that she had not cried out, that she had not groveled, that she had not wept for mercy.

We heard the guard call again.

"Hurry," said Lana, "or we will be beaten!"

I gave Verna one last blow, a stinging stripe across the shoulder, with the stick.

"Can't you say anything?" I screamed at her.

"You have pierced ears," she said.

I cried out in anger, and turned, throwing away the stick, and ran back to the wagon.

I threw another berry into the bucket.

"Ute," I said.

Ute turned again, to regard me.

"Speak to Inge," I said to her. "Tell her not to be cruel to me." I did not wish to address the girls of the chain as Mistress.

"Why do you not speak to her yourself?" asked Ute.

"She doesn't like me," I said. "She would beat me."

Ute shrugged.

"She likes you, Ute," I pressed. "Speak to her for me. Ask her not to make me call the other girls Mistress. I do not wish to do so. They are only slaves!" "We are all slaves," said Ute.

"Please, Ute," I begged.

"All right," said Ute. "I will ask her."

Ute then turned away, and continued to pick berries. It was now late in the afternoon. We were perhaps a pasang and a half from the distant wagons. From the hill on which we now picked berries I could see them. It would be time for the evening meal soon.

I looked about to see if the guard was watching. He was not.

My bucket was no more than half full.

Ute had put her bucket behind her and was picking berries about a yard ahead of it. Her back was to me. Ute was such a stupid little thing. I put my finger under the wide strap knotted about my throat, which tethered me to her. Then I crept close and took two handfuls of berries from her bucket and put them in mine.

I kept some to put in my mouth.

Then, as I put the berries in my mouth, I thought I heard something. I looked up, and back. Ute, too, and the guard, at the same time, heard it. He cried out and, angrily, began to run back toward the wagon.

Ute saw them before I did, in the distance. I had heard only sound, vague, from far off, like a myriad snappings, and shrill, wind-borne screams.

"Look!" cried Ute. "Tarns!"

In the distance, in a set of four, long, narrow, extended "V's", there came a flight of tarnsmen. The first «V» was lowest in altitude, and in advance of the other three; the second was second lowest, and in advance of the other two, and similarly for the third and fourth. There were no tarn drums beating. This was not a military formation.

"Raiders!" cried Ute.

I was stunned. What seemed most clear to me, and most incomprehensible, was that our guard left us. He had run back toward the wagons. We were alone! "There must be more than a hundred of them!" cried Ute.

I looked up.

"Down!" she cried, and dragged me by the arms to a kneeling position on the grass.

We watched them strike the caravan, in waves, and turn and wheel again, discharging their bolts.

The bosk were being cut loose and stampeded. There was no effort to turn the wagons in a single defensive perimeter. Such a perimeter had little meaning when the enemy can strike from above. Rather, men, hauling on the wagon tongues and thrusting with their shoulders, were putting the wagons in a dense square, with spaces between them. This formation permits men to conceal themselves under the wagons, the floors of the wagons providing some protection above them. The spaces between the wagons provides opportunity at the attackers, and gives some protection against the spreading of fire, wagon to wagon. In many of the wagons there were still girls chained, screaming. Men there tore back the covering of blue and yellow canvas, that they might be seen.

"Unchain them!" cried Ute, as though someone might here. "Unchain them!" But they would not be unchained, unless the day went badly for the caravan, in which case they would be freed and, like the bosk, stampeded.

In the meantime their bodies served as partial cover for the defenders under and between the wagons.

The raiders wanted the girls. Indeed, that was the object of their enterprise. Accordingly, unless they wished to destroy the very goods they sought, their attack must be measured, and carefully calculated.

Swiftly the formation of tarnsmen wheeled and withdrew.

"The attack is over," I said.

"They will now use fire," said Ute.

I watched with horror as, in a few moments, again the sky filled with tarns, and the beating of wings and the screams of the great birds.

Now, down from the skies rained fiery quarrels, tipped with blazing, tarred cloth wound about the piles.

Wagons caught fire.

I saw defenders unchaining screaming girls. One's hair was afire.

The girls huddled under the wagons, many of them burning.

I saw a defender forcing the head of the girl whose hair burned into the dirt, extinguishing the flames.

I saw two girls now fleeing across the grass, away from the wagons. Tarnsmen now struck the earth, leaping from their birds, to the east of the wagon square and, swords drawn, rushed among the burning wagons.

The clash of steel carried dimly to the hill, where Ute and I watched. "Unbind me!" cried Ute. The straps we wore about our throats were broad, and the strap, too, that joined us. But, about the throat, the broad strap, for each of us, was perforated in two places, and it was by means of narrow binding fiber, passed several times through the performations and knotted, that it was fastened to our throats. The guard had knotted the binding fiber, tightly.

My fingers fought at the knot, futilely, picking at it. I was upset. I could not loosen it.

"I cannot see to untie the knot," cried Ute. "Untie it!"

"I can't!" I wept. "I can't!"

Ute pushed me away and began to chew at the leather strap, desperately, holding it with her hands.

I wept.

Not all the tarnsmen had dismounted. Some still rode astride the great birds, though the birds stood now on the grass.

I saw men fighting between the wagons, some falling.

I saw one of the tarnsmen, yet mounted on his tarn, remove his helmet and wipe his forehead, and then replace the helmet. He was their leader. I could not fail to recognize him, even at this distance.

"It is Haakon!" I cried. "It is Haakon of Skjern!"

"Of course, it is Haakon of Skjern!" said Ute, biting at the strap, tearing at it with her fingers.

Now Haakon of Skjern stood in the stirrups of the tarn saddle, and waved his sword toward the wagons. More warriors dismounted now and rushed among the wagons.

Several of the wagons were now flaming. I saw men rushing about. Two girls fled from the wagons, across the fields.

There must have been more than a hundred tarnsmen with Haakon. When he had come to Ko-ro-ba, he had had little more than forty men, if that many. Others, mercenaries, he must have recruited in the city.

His men outnumbered those of Targo, considerably.

The sounds of blades carried to where we knelt. I was terrified. Ute was savagely tearing at the strap with her teeth.

Then, suddenly, from under the burning wagons, across the fields, there fled dozens of girls, running in all directions.

"He's driven the girls out," cried Ute, furiously. She jerked at the strap. She had not been able to chew it through. She looked at me, savagely. "They had not see us," she said, "We must escape!"

I shook my head. I was afraid. What would I do? Where would I go?

"You will come with me or I will kill you!" screamed Ute.

"I'll come, Ute!" I cried. "I'll come!"

I now saw the tarnsmen returning from the burning wagons, racing to their tarns. They had no interest, or little interest, in the wagons or the supplies. In Targo's gold they might have had interest but they would have to spend men to obtain it. Meanwhile the real treasure was escaping.

Targo, a rational man, and a brilliant slaver, had chosen to purchase his own life, and that of his men, and the safely of his gold, by the flight of the slave girls.

It had been a desperate measure, and one not willingly adopted by a merchant. It was clear evidence that Targo had recognized the seriousness of his predicament, and the odds by which he was outnumbered and the probable result of continuing the engagement.

"Come, El-in-or!" screamed Ute. "Come!"

Ute pulled with both her hands on the strap that bound us together and I, choking, stumbling, fled after her.

We turned once.

We saw tarnsmen, in flight, riding down running girls, the tarns no more than a few feet from the grass, beating their wings, screaming.

Often a tarn would clutch the girl in its talons and alight. The tarnsmen would then leap from the saddle and force the bird's talons from its prey, binding the hysterical girl's wrists and fastening her to a saddle ring, then remounting and hunting another. One man had four girls bound to his saddle. Another would fly low and to the side of the running girl, and a beat of the tarn's great wings would send her rolling and sprawling for a dozen yards across the grass. Before she could arise, the tarnsman would be upon her, binding her. Another would strike the victim in the small of her back with the butt of his spear, felling her, numbing her, for the binding fiber. Others, flying low and to the side, roped the girls as they ran, using their slender ropes of braided leather, familiar to tarnsmen. Such warriors do not even deign to dismount to bind their fair prisoners. They haul them to the saddle, in flight, there securing them, stripping them and fastening them to the binding rings.

It is a favorite sport of tarnsmen to streak their tarns over an enemy city and, in such a fashion, capture an enemy girl from one of the city's high bridges, carrying her off, while the citizens of the city scream in fury, shaking their fists at the bold one. In moments her garments flutter down among the towers and she is his, bound on her back across the saddle before him, his prize. If he is a young tarnsman, and she is his first girl, he will take her back to his own city, and display her for his family and friends, and she will dance for him, and serve him, at the Collaring Feast. If he is a brutal tarnsman, he may take her rudely, should he wish, above the clouds, above her own city, before even his tarn had left its walls. If he should be even more brutal, but more subtly so, more to be feared by a woman, he will, in the long flight back to his city, caress her into submission, until she has no choice but to yield herself to him, wholly, as a surrendered slave girl. When he then unbinds her from the saddle rings, she, so devastatingly subdued, well knows herself his.

I saw Rena of Lydius running, frantic, from the wagons, in her camisk. I saw a tarnsman wheel his tarn after her.

She fled.

Rena of Lydius was being hunted!

I put my hand before my mouth.

The wide, swiftly closing loop of braided leather fell about her running body. The tarn streaked past her, only a few feet overhead. The rope jerked tight. She screamed. She was jerked from her feet into the air, screaming, a dozen feet above the rushing grasses beneath her, and then was dragged to the saddle. I saw her clutching the tarnsman, terrified. With a small knife he cut the binding fiber that belted her camisk. The camisk now flew behind her, like a cape, about her neck, whipped by the wind. He resheathed his knife. He then threw the camisk from her. He gestured that she should lie on her back across the saddle in front of him, crossing her wrists and legs. She, terrified, did so immediately. He then secured her.

I screamed.

The strap that bound me to Ute jerked on my neck, and I fell.

"Hurry!" cried Ute. "Hurry!"

I scrambled to my feet and, following Ute, fled.