Fighting Slave of Gor

21 THE INCUBATION SHED

I was naked and sweating profusely. It is hot in the incubation shed.

"The Mistress seems in a good mood," I said.

"Shhh," Bares, who was stripped to the waist, cautioned me. "Listen." He put his ear down to the warm sand.

I joined him, listening. Beneath the warm sand, say a foot below the surface, we heard a tiny noise, a scratching.

"It will be coming out soon," said Bares, grinning, straightening up.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Taphris," said Bares, "put more sticks in the flame ditch."

She looked at us. She was naked. Bares had made her remove her clothes in the incubation shed. She was covered with sweat. Her flesh, in the light from the flame ditch, it almost encircling the buried clutch before us, glowed reddishly. Girths cloths lay at hand. These, sewn from feed sacks, are used to dry and wrap the hatchlings. Snout straps, too, coiled, used to secure their jaws, also lay nearby.

"I should not have to do this work," said Taphris.

"Get on your hands and knees," said Bares. "Carry the sticks, one by one, in your mouth."

"Yes, Master," she said, angrily. I smiled to myself to see the Mistress' spy, commanded by a free man obeying.

"It is too bad she is not to be used," said Bares. "She needs raping"

I shrugged. What Bares said was doubtless true.

"Kenneth, too, is displeased with her," said Bares to me. "One can scarcely make a move in the stables without knowing that the little she-sleen is going to report it to the Mistress."

I nodded.

We watched Taphris, on her hands and knees, carry a stick to the edge of the flame ditch and, shutting her eyes, drop it in, then quickly drawing back. She then looked at us.

"Continue, Slave," said Barns.

"Yes, Master," she said, returning on her hands and knees to the box for another stick.

"It is irritating, having such a spy about," said Barus. "Too, she thinks she is important. She thinks she is still a house girl, and not a stable slut. Her presence in the stables is not good for the discipline of the other girls."

That was true. If she were not to be whipped and chained, and disrobed and raped, as might be the others, and for no obvious reason, such as being the favorite of one of the keepers, a reason a slave girl can understand, then puzzlement, and perhaps even consternation and dissension, might soon manifest itself in the kennels. The other girls might then soon want the same privileges. And if such matters were allowed to proceed unchecked soon half-naked slave girls might aspire to the pretensions of free women, desiring to be the mistresses of their own clothing and bodies. But matters, of course, would never be permitted to reach that point. Long before that point was reached the leather would have been removed from its nail in the whipping shed.

"We must do something about Taphris," said Barns.

I shrugged. It seemed to me now, objectively, that Taphris was under sufficient discipline. She was crawling about, naked, on her hands and knees, carrying sticks in her mouth, feeding the slow fires in the flame ditch. To be sure, it had for a moment this afternoon seemed otherwise.

"Taphris," said Barns, sharply.

"Yes, Master!" she said, startled.

"Bring water," he said.

"Yes, Master," she said. She got to her feet and went to the side of the shed, where the water bucket was placed, to get the yellow, half-gourd dipper.

We watched her.

"She is pretty," said Barus.

"Yes," I said.

"It is a pity she is not to be raped," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

She filled the half-gourd dipper.

"It will not be difficult to get rid of her when we wish," said Barns. "Kenneth has already intimated to the Mistress that she has the makings of an excellent stable slut."

"I see," I smiled.

"Soon the Mistress will fear to trust her in the stables, where you are," he said.

"I see," I said.

"Two of the sluts in the kennels have been whining for you," said Barns.

"Might I inquire which ones?" I asked.

"Tuka and Claudia," he said. "And I do not think Peliope or Leah would much mind having your hands on them either."

I shrugged.

"They sweat in their chains," he said.

"I wish I could have them," I said.

"It is not the wish of the Mistress," he said.

"Your drink, Master," said Taphris.

He looked at her and, suddenly, frightened, she fell to her knees. She put her head down. She pressed the yellow, rough-skinned half-gourd, brimming with water, deep into her belly. Then she lifted the yellow side of the gourd to her lips and, lingeringly, turning her head, kissed it; then she lifted it to him with both hands, her head down between her extended arms.

Barus took the gourd and drank. He had seen that the Mistress' spy had served him well.

He held the cup. "Are you under perfect discipline, Taphris?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," she said, trembling.

"It did not seem so this afternoon," he said.

"Forgive me, Master," she said, trembling. "Please do not have me slain." Taphris, a Gorean slave,girl, knew that she was at the complete mercy of free persons. Barns, as one of the Mistress' slave keepers, could kill her, or have her killed, at a whim. The Mistress, she knew, could always send another spy to the stables, perhaps Pamela or Bonnie, other house slaves. Neither Pamela nor Bonnie, incidentally, were Earth girls, though they wore Earth-girl names. Such names, as I have mentioned, are often used as slave names on Gor.

Taphris kept her head down.

"Do not kneel me with those sluts!" she had cried out, angrily.

The other girls, kneeling in a circle, referred to as sluts by one who was herself obviously only a stable slut, even to the rag and collar, cried out in protest, in outrage.

"Kneel," had said Barus.

"Yes, Master," had said Taphris, and she had knelt, taking her place in the circle.

She had not been pleased, but she had obeyed.

The other girls, I had seen, had glanced at one another. The outburst of Taphris had not been punished. She had not been slapped until she cried out for mercy, or kicked, or disrobed or beaten. Obviously, in some way, she was special. Barus, I had seen, had been angry.

"Sew," he had said, irritably.

He threw the girls feed sacks. To Tuka he gave a pair of scissors. To all of them he gave a needle and thread. The sacks were to be used to make girth cloths for the expected hatchlings.,

The incident had occurred in the sewing shed, which has a large window. The stitching on the sacks is opened, and then the sacks are cut into appropriately sized strips, which are then joined and hemmed. Commonly this is a pleasant time for the girls, kneeling on cloths on the wooden floor, sewing and chatting, but today they were quiet and, heads down, worked and did not speak. The finished girth cloth is about ten feet in length and a yard in width. Taphris, too, sewed. She had a slight smile about her lips. The cloth of feed sacks, incidentally, though it is a coarse cloth, is seldom used for slave garments. The wool of the hurt is usually used for male slave garments; it absorbs perspiration well; and rep-cloth is commonly used for female slave garments; it is quite thin and clings well to the curves of the female body.

"We are going to chain them, with the exception of Taphris by the fifteenth Ahn today," Barus had told me.

"The guests of the Mistress," I had said, "I have been told, would not begin to arrive until after dark."

"We think not," said Barus. "But some might arrive early. Some of these guests, at least, are apparently of refined sensibility. The Mistress does not wish to embarrass or offend them by the sight of stable sluts on the premises."

"If the guests are male I do not think they would be embarrassed or offended," I said.

"Perhaps not," smiled Barus.

"Why are the guests of the Mistress arriving after dark?" I asked. "It is unusual, is it not, to travel on Gorean roads at night?"

"Yes, it is unusual," said Barus, "particularly in times like these, what with the tense political situation existing between Ar and the Salerian Confederation. That is a situation in which many spears may mix the brew." It was a Gorean saying. The political situation was indeed complex, and might, by various parties, allies and enemies, and others, and even bystanders, be diversely influenced or exploited.

"I trust the guests will arrive safely," I said.

"I think they will," said Barus. "They are doubtless well fixed and can afford armed escorts."

"But why, in any case, should they choose to arrive after dark?" I asked.

"I do not know," had said Barus.

I had, in the afternoon, not speaking, watched the girls sew. They were lovely.

Barus, after the ringing of the bar for the fourteenth Ahn, had looked occasionally out the window, judging the position of the sun.

Early in the morning we had been in the southeast meadow, Barus, and I, and others in a work crew of male slaves. Taphris, too, had been with us, ostensibly to carry water. We had been placing sharpened posts, leaning inward, braced with abutments, at the edge of the meadow. These serve to keep the ponderous tharlarion which graze in the meadow confined.

"Look!" had called Barns, pointing upward.

Overheard we had seen some one hundred and twenty-flue tarnsmen. They were moving generally southward. We could see their spears, mounted at the right stirrup, like needles, at the distance, and the shields, seeming small and round. The pennon of the standard bearer, long and narrow, fluttering back some twenty feet from his spear, was that of Vonda. Yet Vonda, herself, I knew, did not have tarnsmen. The men were mercenaries.

"It is a patrol," said the man next to me.

"It is large for a patrol," I said.

"I have been working on the fencing for the last four days," said the man. "I have seen them four times before. They return usually before dark."

"Doubtless Ar, too, has mounted such patrols," said another man.

"Yesterday," said yet another, "I saw a single tarnsman, flying northeast. He might have been a scout of Ar."

"Do you think there will be trouble?" asked a man of Bares.

"There has already been trouble," said Bares, "skirmishes in border areas, in disputed territories."

"But such things have occurred before, have they not?" asked a man.

"Yes," said Bares.

"And nothing ever came of it," said a man.

"No," said Bares.

"You do not think there will be serious trouble, do you?" pressed one of the men.

"No," said Bares, "I do not think so." He looked after the disappearing tarnsmen. "There is a party in Vonda which wishes war," said Bares, "but, as I understand it, there is little sympathy elsewhere in the confederation for conflict with Ar."

"But what of Marlenus of Ar, her Ubar?" asked one of the men.

"He does not need trouble with the confederation," said Batas. "He has his hands full these days with Cos and his troubles in the valley of the Vosk." There was a reference to the rivalry of Ar and Cos for the markets and resources of the broad regions drained by the Vosk. Both states desired to extend their hegemony into these areas. Small cities and towns, usually ruggedly independent, even belligerently so, along the river, such as Ven and Turmus, found themselves, to their discomfort, half coerced by armed might, half enticed with alliances and treaties, embroiled in the struggles of major powers.

"Hah!" laughed Bares. "How clever you scoundrels are! You engage me in conversation, and then, you shirkers, you dally in the performance of your fitting and lowly labors! Do you think you are free persons who may stop to pass the time of day? No, you are collared brutes! Now work, you neckringed sleen, if you would live to see the sunset, work! Work!"

Laughing, with a will, we turned again to our labors.

"Away!" cried Bares, waving his cloak at a tharlarion, browsing near the posts. It blinked, and turned away, its huge tail twitching.

Later in the morning, on the dusty road outside the posts, a two-wheeled cart passed, drawn by a small tharlarion, driven by a single driver. Behind it, her neck tied by a rope to the back of it, in a brief slave tunic, her hands braceleted behind her back, walked a slave girl. She turned, as she walked, to regard me. Our eyes met. She smiled, shyly. I grinned. She was a slave. Suddenly she hurried two or three steps forward and then, with the slack in her rope which she had gained, she turned suddenly to face me. She strained at the bracelets, twisting her body. Then, suddenly, flexing her legs, she thrust her lower abdomen toward me and kissed at me with her lips. I grinned. She quickly turned then and hurried that she might not be pulled from her feet by the rope. It had been a slave girl's gesture. I tossed a kiss after her. Too, she did not wish to alert her master to her action. He, however, stopped the tharlarion wagon and looked around. But he saw her only docilely behind his wagon, his rope on her neck, her wrists fastened behind her back in his bracelets, her head down. He looked at me, and I bent to my work. In a moment the wagon was moving forward again. I lifted my head. I saw the girl looking back. She pursed her lips and kissed to me. I brushed her a kiss in the Gorean fashion. She then turned about and followed her master's wagon.

"She wanted to be had by you," said Bares.

I said nothing.

"She presented her body to you as though to that of a rape master," he said. "Interesting," he said, "for you are only a collared slave."

I said nothing, but bent to my work. I did consider, however, the power which a free man might have over a slave girl.

I saw Taphris glaring at me. She was angry. I did not doubt but what the Mistress would hear of my interlude with the passing slave.

Bares was relieved at the edge of the southeast meadow at noon, and he, wanting help later in the incubation shed, returning to the stables, took me with him. Taphris, leaving the waterskin with the work crew, followed us.

"Who is the captain of the mercenaries who fly for Vonda?" I asked. "Is it such men as Terence of Treve or Ha-Keel, once of Ar?" These were two well-known mercenary captains. Others were Oleg of Skjern, Leander of Farnacium and William of Thentis.

"Vonda does not pay so high," he had smiled. "It is one called Artemidorus."

"Artemidorus of Cos?" I asked.

"Yes," had said Bares.

"Vonda plays with fire," I remarked.

"Perhaps," said Bares. Though such a captain as Artemidorus was a free captain, certainly the sympathies of Cos would ride with him. Too, if there were trouble it would not go unnoticed by those of Ar that they were dealing with Cosians.

"It seems a potentially dangerous choice," I said.

"Even if Vonda were willing to afford such men as Terence or Ha-Keel," said Bares, "it is unlikely they would be willing to take saddle in her behalf. Terence, being of Treve, would not be eager to ride against Ar. Such an action could precipitate a new expedition into the Voltai by the tarnsmen of Ar." Several years ago I knew there had been war between Ar and Treve. The tarnsmen of Treve, over the snow-capped crags of the scarlet Voltai range, had turned back the squadrons of Ar. It had been one of the fiercest, bloodiest taro battles ever fought in the history of the planet. Ar had never forgotten that she had been checked in the Voltai, nor had Treve forgotten the cost of having done so. Terence, I conjectured, would not be willing to ride against Ar unless he had removed the insignia from his helmet and shield. It did not seem likely he would do so. Men of Treva commonly disdain to conceal their identity. "And Ha-Keel," said Bares, "though he was banished from Ar, would not, I think, care to ride against her."

Ha-Keel had been banished from Ar. It had been a matter of murder. A woman had been involved. He had captured, raped and enslaved her, then selling her. "Be sold as the slave you are," he had said to her. It was said, however, in the fang years since his banishment, that Ha-Keel had never forgotten Ar, or the woman. He had never found her again, of course. It is difficult to trace a female slave. They often change names and masters.

"I understand," I said.

"What I fear," said Bares, "is that it is no accident that Artemidorus was given fee in this matter."

"You see in that a desire on the part of those in Vonda who favor war with Ar an artifice to provoke a full-scale conflict between Cos and Ar, a conflict in which Cos and the SaIerian Confederation would then find themselves natural allies?"

Bares looked at me, soberly. "Of course," he said. "Yet I think neither Cos nor Ar, nor the confederation, truly desires a full-scale war."

"They could be maneuvered into it, perhaps," I said, "by those who do."

"It is possible," said Bares. "Matters are delicate" He looked south. "Kaissa," he mused, "is sometimes played for high stakes." Kaissa is an intricate board game popular on Gor.

Bares then regarded Taphris. "The pretty spy accompanies us," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

Taphris looked down, reddening.

"After you and Jason have been swilled and watered," he said, "we are going to the sewing shed."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Can you sew, Taphris?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"I am glad there is something you can do," he said, "which is appropriate for a female slave."

"Yes, Master," she said, angrily.

"Chain them," said Bares.

"Yes, Master," I said.

I had, in the afternoon, not speaking, watched the girls, including Taphris, sew. They were lovely.

Bares, after the ringing of the bar for the fourteenth Ahn, had looked occasionally out the window, judging the position of the sun.

How skilled, too, were the girls, even though they had worked only on common girth cloths. How swift and nimble were their fingers, how fine and exact their work. How rude and clumsy would have been the large hands of a man for such work, and how delicate and perfect for it were the small, lovely hands of females.

I had seen Bares again look through the window. It had then been shortly before the fifteenth Ahn.

I had looked again at the girls, their scanty garments and collars, with the dependent chain loops.

How marvelous it is to be on a world where such lovely, delicious creatures may be owned.

"Chain them," had said Bares.

"Yes, Master," I had said.

The girls looked up at me, Tuka, Claudia, Peliope, Leah and Taphris.

"Tuka," I said, "open the sewing cabinet and replace the scissors on their peg; Claudia, replace the needles in the pin cushion in the cabinet; Peliope, replace the thread spools on the spool spindles in the cabinet; Leah, fold the girth cloths; Taphris, place the girth cloths on the table near the window. When you have finished your tasks, kneel by the door, in the order of descending height."

"Yes, Master," they said, for I, even though only a slave, had been placed in authority over them.

In a few moments I went to the sewing cabinet. The scissors were on their peg. I counted the needles. Five had been returned to the pin cushion. And the five spools of thread, I counted them, were residing on their spool spindles. I shut the sewing cabinet. Barus locked it. He picked up the folded girth cloths from the table near the window. "I shall meet you in the incubation shed," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"On your feet," I said to the girls.

Taphris looked over her shoulder to Barus. "Surely," she said, "I am not to be chained"

He thought for a moment. He shrugged. He nodded at me. "Do not chain her," he said, "at least for the time" If she were chained, held by her collar in the kennel, confined by a linkage of steel, how could she keep her eye on me?

She tossed her head. "I am an exception," she said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"The rest of you," I said, "to your kennels, hurry!" I clapped my hands.

"Yes, Master," said the girls, with the exception of Taphris, scurrying from the sewing shed.

I glanced at the sun. They would be in the kennels well before the fifteenth Ahn.

I snapped the heavy lock, on its chain, on the collar loop of Tuka.

The girls had hurried to their kennels before me. When I arrived there I found them waiting, kneeling on the boards of their kennels, before their chain rings, in the position of pleasure slaves, back on heels, heads up, hands on thighs, backs straight, knees wide.

"Take your hands off her," said Taphris. My left hand had strayed to her right thigh, and my right hand to her left hip. It is hard to keep one's hands off a female slave. They have been made to be handled, and mastered.

"That slave," snapped Taphris to Tuka, referring to me, "is not to be pleasured. It is the will of the Mistress."

"But what of my pleasure, my needs?" asked Tuka.

"Be silent, slave," snapped Taphris.

"Yes, Mistress," said Tuka, for she sensed that Taphris had power with the Mistress. Taphris was not even being chained.

"Scream, squirm, sob, bite at your chain, tear with your fingernails at the floor of your kennel, if you wish," advised Taphris, smiling. "I am sure the Mistress will not object to that."

"Yes, Mistress," moaned Tuka.

Angry, I went then to Claudia and locked her chain on her collar.

"You have chained me," she whispered.

I grinned at her. "Yes," I said. Her breasts heaved. On Gor it is generally understood that a man who chains a woman has full rights over her.

"Master," she whispered to me.

"Slave," I said to her.

"Yes, Master," she whispered.

"Do not fraternize with the sluts," ordered Taphris.

I then, in turn, secured Peliope and Leah in their kennels. Both drew in their breath briefly, briefly, too, closing their eyes, when the heavy lock was closed about their collar loops. They then looked at me, the weight of the chain dragging down their collars. I saw that either, at a snap of my fingers, would have thrown themselves on their backs on the boards before me.

"Do not dally," said Taphris, "or I shall make a report of it to the Mistress."

I rose to my feet.

"Surely you have tasks to perform," she said.

"I must go to the incubation shed," I said. "I think it will be quite warm there, perhaps even uncomfortable: You need not accompany me there."

"I will come with you," she said.

I looked at her. "Very well," I said. "Doubtless something can be found for you to do there."

"I am not to be used for the pleasure of men," she said.

I turned about and left the kennel shed. I heard the bare feet of Taphris pattering after me. I heard, too, Tuka cry out with misery, jerking at her chain. I heard the other girls, too, moan. Then I had left the shed, Taphris with me. I paused only long enough to bar the door, from the outside.

On the way to the incubation shed, I heard the ringing of the bar which signified the arrival of the fifteenth Ahn. The stable sluts, with the exception of Taphris, were now shut away from the sight of the Mistress' guests, should they arrive early. They would not now be seen during the visit of the guests unless the guests should request to look upon them.

In the incubation shed, Bares, looking down at Taphris, held the half-gourd cup. "Are you under perfect discipline, Taphris?" he had asked.

"Yes, Master," she had said, trembling.

"It did not seem so this afternoon," he had said.

"Forgive me, Master," she had said, trembling. "Please do not have me slain" Taphris, a Gorean slave girl, knew that she was at the complete mercy of free persons. Bares, as one of the Mistress' slave keepers, could kill her, or have her killed, at a whim. The Mistress, she knew, could always send another spy to the tables, perhaps Pamela or Bonnie, other house slaves. Neither Pamela nor Bonnie, as I have mentioned, were Earth girls, though they both wore Earth-girl names. Such names, as I have mentioned, are often used as slave names on Gor.

Taphris kept her head down.

"We know you are the Mistress' spy," said Bares.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Serve Jason water," he cried.

"Jason!" she cried.

He handed her the cup formed from the yellow half-gourd. She looked down at it, clutched in her hands. "Do you wish me to repeat a command?" he asked.

"No, Master!" she cried and leaped to her feet, hurrying to the water, in its wooden bucket, at the side of the shed. Quickly she returned with the half-gourd brimming full. She looked at Bares, and then she knelt before me, and pressed the half-gourd into her naked belly, head down, then lifted it to her lips, and lingeringly kissed it, then proffered it to me, kneeling, arms extended, trembling, head down between her arms.

"Speak," I told her.

"I bring you drink, Master," she said.

I took the cup and drank, looking upon her. How fit she seemed, in her place in the order of nature, naked, kneeling before a man. At this point it is common to rape the female.

"Let me throw her to her back in the sand," I begged Bares.

She shrank back, regarding Bares. At his least word or gesture, the smallest token of his permission, she knew she would be raped.

She trembled.

"No," said Bares, at last, regarding her, "she is not to be used for the pleasure of men, and the Mistress has given strict orders that you, unless receiving her explicit permission, are to be denied the pleasures of slut sport."

I turned away and, furious, helpless, an aroused, collared slave, struck with the side of my fist at the wall of the incubation shed.

"Return the dipper to the bucket, Taphris," I heard. I had, in fury, cast the dipper down to the sand. Bares had not reprimanded me.

"Yes, Master," I heard.

I sobbed in anger at the wall.

When I turned about Taphris, again, had been set about her homely duties, naked, on her hands and knees, carrying the sticks in her mouth, of feeding the fires in the flame ditch. I glared at her. How right she seemed for seizing and raping. She did not dare to meet my eyes.

"Here, Jason," said Bares. "Come here! Listen!"

I went to where he now knelt in the sand. The sand there began to sink down slightly. I saw it stir. Then, suddenly, the horny snout of a tharlarion thrust up from the hot sand. Its eyes blinked. Its tongue darted in and out of its mouth, licking sand from about its jaws. Its head was some eight inches in width.

"Snout strap," said Bares.

I picked up one of the long, leather, coiled snout straps lying at hand.

The head of the tiny hatchling, some eight inches wide, some foot or so in length, was now fully emerged from the sand. I saw one clublike foot, clawed, strike up out of the sand. It hissed.

I looped the snout strap about its jaws and tied them shut. It squirmed and half pulled itself from the leathery casing which had contained it, drawing it up, half out of the sand.

"Girth cloth, Taphris!" called Bares.

Together Bares and I drew the hatchling out of the sand. With my foot I thrust back the clinging shell.

"Watch out for the tail!" said Bares to Taphris. She stepped back.

Bares and I threw the hatchling on its back and, rolling it, then, wrapped its torso in the folds of the girth cloth. This tends to protect it against the tunnel air when it is carried to the nursery. I bent down and, with the help of Bares, got the hatchling to my shoulders. The head, with its strapped-shut jaws, rotated on the neck, some two feet in length. It struck against my thigh. The young beast weighed, I conjecture, some one hundred and forty to one hundred and fifty pounds. Bares slid back the bolt and lifted up the large trap door at one side of the shed and I, carefully, in the light of the fires of the incubation shed, descended the dirt ramp. At the bottom the tunnel, in its center, is floored by a set of single boards, laid end to end. This permits it to be traversed in the darkness. One need only keep one or both feet on the board. With the help of the boards, and a bit of practice, usually following a torch the first time, it is not difficult to find one's way about the tunnels in the darkness. Strings, depending from the ceiling, through which one brushes, indicate side tunnels. Inclines indicate exits. The strings contain knots on the side on which the side tunnel occurs. If one encounters, as in side tunnels, approaching the main tunnel, a fully knotted, dependent wall of strings, then one knows that a left-and-right branching is imminent. This occured in the tunneling under the domain of the Lady Florence only where the main tunnel was approached.

"Jason," called Kenneth, from the shed above me.

"Yes, Master," I said, turning, on the ramp, the hatchling quiet, puzzled, on my shoulders.

"When you have delivered the hatchling to the nursery, return to the incubation shed. Doubtless other eggs will hatch this night."

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Tomorrow you may rest," he said.

I was puzzled. "Yes, Master," I said.

"Jason," said he.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Tomorrow night you are to report to the house."

I did not understand this.

"You were right earlier," he said, "when you suggested that the Mistress seemed in a good mood. She is."

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Her guests are arriving this evening, most, it seems, under the cover of darkness," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"She is looking forward to tomorrow evening," he said. "She has planned, it is rumored, an exotic entertainment for them."

"I am to report to the house tomorrow evening?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Am I to be implicated in this entertainment?" I asked.

"It is not impossible," he said.

"Do you know its nature?" I asked.

"No," he said, "but I can well conjecture what it may be."

I stood in the tunnel, puzzled.

"The hatchling must not chill," he said. "Get it to the nursery."

"Yes, Master," I said, and turned away.

"Wait, Master!" I heard Taphris cry.

I turned about, again, and saw her, drawing her tiny slave rag over her head, carefully descending the ramp, her small feet leaving prints in the incline's dust.

I turned away again and strode down the tunnel.

I heard the trap door close above and behind us. The tunnel was immediately plunged into total darkness.

I began to traverse the tunnel, toward the nursery, keeping my right foot on the center board.

"Wait, Slave!" she cried, peremptorily.

But I did not wait. I knew the tunnel well.

"Wait, Slave! Wait, Slave!" she cried angrily. Then I heard her stumbling in the darkness, half running to follow me.

"I am furious that Bares made me kneel to you!" she cried. "I am in the Mistress' favor! I am in the Mistress' favor! I am a house slave, a house slave! I am not a stable slut! I am a house slave!" continued down the tunnel.

"I am a house slave!" she cried.

Taphris was a bother, a nuisance. I was tired of being followed about by her. Kenneth and Barus, too, were weary of her constant spyings and reportings to the Mistress. They would not have been displeased to rid the stables of her.

"Wait, Slave!" she cried.

I considered putting the hatchling down and turning on Taphris, raping her in the darkness of the tunnel to within an inch of her life. But I did not do so. It was not that I feared the Mistress. It was rather that I did not want the hatchling to become chilled. I had stood the vigil of its hatching. I felt responsibility for it. Too, I respected it. It was a free animal. It was not a slave.