Players of Gor

6 I Renew an Acquaintance; I Am Considering Venturing to Brundisium

"Disgusting! Disgusting!" cried the free woman, one veiled and wearing the robes of the scribes, standing in the audience. "Pull down your skirt, you slave, you brazen hussy!"

"Pray, do withdraw, noble sir, for you surprise me unawares, and of necessity I must improvise some veiling, lest my features be disclosed," cried the girl upon the stage, Boots Tarsk-Bit's current Brigella. I had seen her a few days earlier in Port Kar.

"Pull down your skirt, slut!" cried the free woman in the audience.

"Be quiet," said a free man to the woman. "It is only a play."

"Be silent yourself!" she cried back at him.

"Would that you were a slave," he growled. "You would pay richly for your impertinence."

"I am not a slave," she said.

"Obviously," he said.

"And I shall never be a slave," she said.

"Do not be too sure of that," he said.

"Beast," she said.

"I wonder if you would be any good chained in a tent," he said.

"Monster!" she said.

"Let us observe the drama," suggested another fellow.

"Though I be impoverished and am clad in rags, in naught but the meanness of tatters," said the Brigella to Boots Tarsk-Bit, he on the stage with her, he in the guise of a pompous, puffing, lecherous merchant, "know, and know well, noble sir, that I am a free woman!"

This announcement, predictably, was met with guffaws of laughter from the audience.

"Take the scarf from about her throat!" hooted a;man. "See if there is not a steel collar beneath it!" On Gor, as I have perhaps mentioned, most of the actresses are slaves. In serious drama or more sophisticated comedy, when women are permitted roles within it, the female roles usually being played by men, and the females are salves, their collars are sometimes removed. Before this is done, however, usually a steel bracelet or anklet, locked, which they cannot remove, is placed on them. In this way, they continue, helplessly, to wear some token of bondage. This facilitates, in any possible dispute or uncertainty as to their status or condition, a clear determination in the matter, by anyone, of course, but in particular by guardsmen or magistrates, or otherwise duly authorized authorities.

This custom tends to prevent inconvenience and possible embarrassment, for example, the binding of the woman and the remanding of her to the attention of free females, that she may be stripped and her body examined for the presence of slave marks. In such an event, incidentally, it behooves the girl to swiftly and openly confess her bondage. Free women despise slaves. They tend to treat them with great cruelty and viciousness in general, and, in particular, they are not likely to be pleasant with one who has been so bold as to commit the heinous crime of impersonating one of them. There is no difficulty in locating or recognizing the slave mark in a girl's body. It, though small and tasteful, if prominent in her flesh. It is easily located, perfectly legible and totally unmistakable. It serves its identificatory purposes well. It, in effect, is part of her. It is in her hide.

Normally when a girl plays upon the stage, even if she is nude, the brand is not covered. Usually, if she is playing the role of a free woman it is simply "not see," so to speak, being ignored by the audience, in virtue of a Gorean theatrical convention. If a great deal is being made of the freedom of the woman in the play, as is not unusual in many dramas and farces, the brand is sometimes covered, as with a small, circular adhesive patch. The removal of this patch, conjoined perhaps with a collaring, for example, may then suggest that the female has now been suitably enslaved. The covering of the brand, thereby suggesting that for the purposes of the play and the role it does not exist, or does not yet exist, is another Gorean theatrical convention.

There are many such conventions. Carrying a tarn goad and moving about the stage in a certain manner suggests that one is riding a tarn; a kaiila crop, or kaiila goad, and a change of gait suggests that one is riding a kaiila; a branch on the stage can stand for a forest or a bit of a wall for a city; standing on a box or small table can suggest that the hero is viewing matters from the summit of a mountain or from battlement; some sprinkled confetti can evoke a snow storm; a walk about the stage may indicate a long journey, of thousands of pasangs; some crossed poles and a silken hanging can indicate a throne room or the tent of a general; a banner carried behind a «general» can indicate that he has a thousand men at his back; a black cloak indicates the character is invisible, and so on.

"Are you truly free?" inquired Boots Tarsk-Bit, with exaggerated incredulity, in the guise of the merchant, of his Brigella.

"Yes!" she cried, holding her skirt up about her face, it clenched n her small fists, to veil herself with it. There was laughter then, doubtless not only at the preposterousness of the situation but, too, at the incongruity of so obvious a slave, such a lovely Brigella, enunciating such a line.

"Boots puffed across the stage, as though to obtain a better vantage point.

"Tal, noble sir," she said.

"Tal, noble lady," said he.

"Is anything wrong?" she inquired.

"I would say that there is very little wrong, if anything," he said.

"Have you never seen a free woman before?" she asked.

"This farce is an insult to free women!" cried the free woman in the audience, she in the blue of the scribes.

"Have you never seen a free woman before?" repeated the Brigella.

"Generally I do not see so much of them," Boots admitted, as the merchant.

"I see," said the Brigella.

"Often not half so much," said Boots.

"Insulting!" cried the free woman.

"But I expect I see more of you than most," he said.

"Insulting! Insulting!" cried the free woman.

"Are you dismayed that I do not receive you properly?" asked the Brigella.

"I should be pleased," Boots assured her, "if it were your intention to receive me at all, either properly or improperly."

"What lady could do otherwise?" she inquired.

"Indeed!" Boots cried enthusiastically.

"I mean, of course," she said, "that I apologize for having to veil myself so hastily, making such swift and resourceful use of whatever materials might be at hand."

"I effect nothing critical," he assured her.

"Then you do not think the less of me?" she asked.

"No, I admire you. I admire you!" he said, admiring her.

"And thus," she said, "do we free women show men our modesty."

"And you have a very lovely modesty," affirmed Boots, admiringly.

"Oh!" she cried, suddenly, as though in the most acute embarrassment, and, crouching down, hastily pulled her skirt down about her ankles.

"I thought you were a free woman," exclaimed Boots.

"I am!" she cried. "I am!"

"And you go face-stripped before a strange man?" he inquired.

"Oh!" she cried, miserably, leaping up, once more pulling her skirt up, high about her face, using it once more to conceal her features.

"Ah!" cried Boots, appreciatively.

"Oh!" she cried in misery, thrusting her skirt down as though in great embarrassment.

"Face-stripped!" cried Boots, as though scandalized.

Up went the skirt.

"Ah!" cried Boots. "Ah!"

"What is a poor girl to do!" cried the Brigella. "What is a poor girl to do!"

The skirt's hem, clutched in her small hands, she moaning with misery and frustration, leapt up and down, again and again, in ever-shortening cycles until she held it, frustratedly, between her bosom and throat. In this fashion, of course, to the amusement of most of the crowd, it concealed neither her "modesty," so to speak, nor her features.

It must be understood, of course, to fully appreciate what was going on, that the public exposure of the features of a free woman, particularly on of high caste, or with some pretense to position or status, is a socially serious matter in many Gorean localities. Indeed, in some cities an unveiled free woman is susceptible to being taken into custody by guardsmen, then to be veiled, by force if necessary, and publicly conducted back to her home. Indeed, in some cities she is marched back to her home stripped, except for the face veil which has been put on her. In these cases a crowd usually follows, to see to what home it is that she is to be returned. Repeated offenses in such a city usually result in the enslavement of the female. Such serious measures, of course, are seldom required to protect such familiar Gorean proprieties. Custom, by itself, normally suffices.

Social pressures, too, in various ways, contribute to the same end. An unveiled woman, for example, may find other women turning away from her in a market, perhaps with expressions of disgust. Indeed, she may not even be waited upon, or dealt with, in a market by a free woman unless she first kneels. It would not be unusual for her., in a crowded place, to overhear remarks, perhaps whispers or sneers, of which she is the obvious object, such as "Shameless slut," "Brazen baggage," "As immodest as a slave," "I wonder who her master is," and "Put a collar on her!" And if she should attempt to confront or challenge her assailants, she will merely find such remarks repeated articulately and clearly to her face.

Slaves, incidentally, are commonly forbidden facial veiling. Their features are commonly kept naked, exposed fully to public view. In this way they may be looked upon by men, even casually, whenever and however they might be pleased to do so. That the Earth girl commonly thinks little of this exposure of her features, incidentally, is one of the many reasons that many Goreans think of her as a natural slave. For a Gorean girl that she is now, suddenly, no longer entitled to facial veiling, unless it pleases the master to grant it to her, is one of the most fearful and significant aspects of her transition into bondage. Her features, in all their sensitivity and beauty, so intimate, personal and private to her, so revelatory of her deepest and most secret thoughts, feelings and emotions, are now exposed to public view, to be looked upon, and read, by whomsoever may be pleased to do so.

It is interesting to note that even some Earth girls on Gor, after a short while, tend to become sensitive to this sort of thing. It is usually interpreted by both sorts of girls, then, for a time, as a part of the «shame» of the collar. In a little longer while, of course, neither sort of girl, the Gorean girl or the Earth girl now sensitive to the subtler implications of facial exposure, thinks anything more about it, or at least not normally. Both have now learned that they are now naught but slaves, and that that is all there is to it. No longer do they aspire to the prerogatives of the free woman. Their exposure, their human legibility, so to speak, like their obedience, service, love and discipline, is part of their condition. In a sense they find it liberating. It frees them from the temptations of deceit, pretense and restraint. Seldom now do they think, among themselves, of the «shame» of the collar. Rather now, in their place in the perfection of nature, yielded fully, helplessly, choicelessly, if you like, submitted at the feet of men, their deepest sexuality and needs recognized, attended to and fulfilled, they tend to think of its joy. No longer do they aspire to the privileges and prerogatives of the free woman; let her continue to live in her house of inhibition and convention; let her have her frigidities, jealousies and shams; they have found something a thousand times more precious, their meaning, their significance, their happiness, their joy, their fulfillments, their collars.

"What am I to do?" called the lovely Brigella to the crowd, the hem of her garment clutched up about her neck. her lovely lips pouted. It seemed she was almost in tears. How seemingly distraught she was, how seemingly dismayed she was with her dilemma!

"Kneel down!" called a man jovially.

"Take off your clothes!" called another.

"Lick his feet!" suggested another.

"Slave!" said the free woman, coldly, imperiously, obviously addressing the Brigella, and in no uncertain terms.

"Mistress," responded the girl immediately, frightened, breaking out of character, turning about and kneeling down. She had been addressed by a free woman.

"Head to the boards!" snapped the free woman.

Immediately the girl put her head down to the boards. She trembled. Such women are totally at the mercy of free persons.

"Are you the owner of this slave?" asked the free woman of Boots Tarsk-Bit.

"yes, Lady," he said.

"I suggest that she be beaten," she said.

"Perhaps an excellent suggestion," said Boots Tarsk-Bit. "as she is a lave, but have you any special reason in mind, not that one needs one, of course."

"I do not care for her performance," said the free woman.

"It is difficult to please everyone," Boots admitted. "But I assure you that if I, her master, am not fully satisfied with her performance, I will personally tie her and see that she is well whipped."

"I find her performance disgusting," she said.

"Yes, Lady," said Boots.

"And I find it an insult to free women!" said the free woman.

"Yes, Lady," said Boots, patiently.

"Let's see the rest of the play," said a man.

"So beat her!" said the free woman.

"I see no reason to beat her," said Boots. "She is doing precisely what she is suppos4ed to be doing. She is obeying. She is being obedient. If she were not being obedient, then I would beat her, then I would see to it that she were suitably and lengthily lashed."

"Beat her!" demanded the free woman.

"Shall I beat her?" inquired Boots of the crowd.

"No!" called a man.

"No!" shouted another.

"On with the play!" shouted another.

"Have you a license for this performance?" inquired the free woman.

"Have mercy on me, Lady," said Boots. "I am come on hard times. Only yesterday I had to sell my golden courtesan, just to make ends meet."

It is difficult to run a Gorean company of Boots's sort without a golden courtesan. That is one of the major stock characters in this form of drama. That character occurs probably in fifty to sixty percent of the farces constituting the repertory of such a company. It would be like trying to get along without a comic merchant, a Brigella, a B9ina, a Lecchio or a Chino. I already knew of Boots's difficulty. I had learned of it yesterday evening. Indeed, I had already seen fit, for reasons of my own, to engage in certain actions pertinent to the matter.

"Have you a license?" pressed the free woman.

"Last year I did not have one, admittedly, due to some fearful inadvertence," admitted Boots, "but I would not risk that twice at the Sardar Fair. I have settled my debts here. Indeed, no sooner had I settled one than I seemed that a thousand creditors, guardsmen at their backs, descended upon me, like jards upon an unwatched roast. At the point of their steel I became enamored with the satisfactions attendant upon the pursuit of punctilious honest. And destitution, when all is said and done, is doubtless a negligible price to pay for so glorious a boon as the improvement of one's character."

"You do have a license then?" she asked.

"I had to sell my golden courtesan to purchase one," said Boots.

"You have one then?" she asked.

"Yes, kind lady!" said Boots.

"It is my intention to see that it is revoked," she said.

"Good," said one of the men. "Go off, and see to it."

"Get on with the play!" called another.

"Have mercy, kind lady," begged Boots.

"I do not think that I will see fit to show you mercy in this matter," she said.

"Take the clothes of the scribe female and put her under the whip," said a man.

"Enslave her," growled another.

"Silence, silence, rabble!" she cried, turning about, facing the crowd.

"Rabble?" inquired a fellow. Assuredly the crowd was composed mostly of free men.

"Rabble!" said another fellow, angrily.

"Beasts and scum!" she cried.

"Enslave her!" said a man.

"Get her a collar," said a man. "She will then quickly mend her ways."

"Take off her clothes," said another. "Bracelet her. Put her on a leash."

"I have bracelets and a leash here," said a man.

"Put them on her," said another. "Conduct her to an iron worker."

"I will pay for her branding," said another.

"I will share the cost," said another.

"I am Telitsia, Lady of Asperiche," she said. "I am a free woman. I am not afraid of men!"

I smiled to myself. She was perfectly safe, of course, for she was within the perimeters of the Sardar Fair. How brave women can be within the context of conventions! I wondered if they understood the artificiality, the fragility, the tentativeness, the revokability of those subtle ramparts. Did they truly confuse them with walls of stone and the forces of weaponry? Did they understand the differences between the lines and colors on maps and the realities of a physical terrain? To what extent did they comprehend the fictional or mythical nature of those castles within which they took refuge, from the heights of which they sought to impress their will on worlds? Did they not know that one day men might say to them, "The castle does not exist," and that they might then find themselves once again, the patience of men ended, the folly concluded, the game over, struck to their place in nature, gazing upward at masters? Asperiche, incidentally, is an exchange island, or free island, in Thassa. It is south of Teletus and Tabor. It is administered by merchants.

"Let us continue with the play," suggested a man, irritably.

"yes, yes," said others. "On with the play!" "Continue!" "Get on with the play!"

"I understand that your Brigella is good," said a man. "I want to see her, fully."

The Brigella trembled, but she, still kneeling, could not lift her head from the boards. She had not yet received permission to do so. She did not, accordingly, know who it was who had expressed interest in her. I had little doubt, however, that she would now perform marvelously, that she would not play superbly to the entire crowd, that she would now make a special effort to be a deliciously skillful and juicily appealing in her role as possible. Someone was out there, doubtless with money in his wallet, who might be interested in spending it one her, buying her. This doubtless thrilled her, and pleased her vanity. It is a great compliment to a woman to be willing to buy her. It is then up to the girl to see that the man gets a thousand times his money's worth, and more. I licked my lips in anticipation.

"With your permission, Lady Telitsia?" inquired Boots, addressing himself politely to the haughty, rigid, proud, vain, heavily veiled, blue-clad free female standing in the front row below the stage.

"You may continue," she said.

"But you may find what ensues offensive," Boots warned her.

"Doubtless I will," she said. "And have no fear, I shall include it in my complaint to the proper magistrates."

"You wish to remain?" asked Boots, puzzled.

"Yes," she said, "but do not expect a coin from me."

I smiled. The Lady Telitsia was obviously as interested in seeing the rest of the play as the rest of us. I found this interesting.

"The simply beneficence of your presence, that of a noble free woman, is in itself a reward far beyond our deserving," Boots assured her.

"What is he saying," asked a man.

"He is saying that she is more than we deserve," growled a fellow.

"That is true," laughed a man.

"She could be taught to be pleasing," said a man.

"True," said a man.

"That might be amusing," said a man.

"You may continue," said the Lady Telitsia, loftily, to Boots Tarsk-Bit, ignoring these remarks.

"Thank you, kind lady," he said. He then turned to the Brigella. "Girl!" he snapped. His demeanor toward the Brigella was quite different from that toward the free woman. She, of course, was a slave. She leaped to her feet, clutching her skirt's hem again about her neck.

"Shameless," said the free woman.

The Brigella anxiously surveyed the crowd, trying to guess who it might be who had expressed interest in her. It could, indeed, have been any one of several men. Then she smiled prettily and flexed her knees. It was very well done. I think she probably made every man in the audience want to get his hands on her. She then, pouting and affecting her expression of dainty, ladylike consternation, resumed her character in the interrupted farce.

"Continue," signaled Boots Tarsk-Bit, himself returning to his comedic role.

"If I lift my skirt it seems I must reveal my modesty to a stranger," she wailed to the audience, "whereas should I lower it I must then, it seems, face-strip myself before him as brazenly as might a hussy! Oh, what is a poor girl to do?"

" myself, putatively, lovely lady, have in my pack the answer to your very problem," announced Boots.

"Pray, tell, good sir," she cried, "what might it be?"

"A veil," said he.

"That is just what I need!" she cried.

"But it is no ordinary veil," he said.

"Let me see it," she begged.

"I wonder if you will be able to see it," he said.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"But, of course, you will be3 able to see it," he said, "for you are obviously a free woman!"

"I do not understand," she said.

"It is a veil woven by the magicians of Anango," he said.

"Not them!" she cried.

"The same," he agreed solemnly. Anango, like Asperiche, is an exchange, or free, island in Thassa, administered by members of the caste of merchants. It is, however, unlike Asperiche, very far away. It is far south of the equator, so far south as to almost beyond the ken of most Gorean, except as a place both remote and exotic. The jungles of the Anangoan interior serve as the setting for various fanciful tales, having to do with strange races, mysterious plants and fabulous animals. The "magicians of Anango," for what it is worth, seem to be well known everywhere on Gor except in Anango. In Anango itself it seems folks have never heard of them.

"And it is the special property of this veil," Boots solemnly assured the girl, "that it is visible only to free persons."

"It would not do then to wear it before slaves," she said.

"Perhaps not," said Boots, "but then who cares what slaves think?"

"True," she said. "Let me see it! Let me see it!"

"But I have it here in my hand," said Boots.

"How beautiful it is!" she cried. There was much laughter. The device of the invisible cloth, or invisible object, a stone, a sword, a garment, a house, a boat, supposedly visible only to those with special properties, is a commonplace in Gorean folklore. This type of story has many variations.

Boots h held the supposed cloth up, turning it about, displaying it.

"Have you ever seen anything like it?" asked Boots.

"No!" she said.

"It is so light," he said, "that one can hardly feel it. Indeed, it is said that slaves cannot even feel it at all."

"I must have it!" she cried.

"It is terribly expensive," he warned her.

"Oh, woe!" she cried.

"Perhaps you have ten thousand gold pieces?" he asked.

"Alas, no!" she cried. "I am a poor maid, with not even a tarsk bit to her name."

"Alas, also," said Boots, gloomily, proceeding to apparently fold the cloth. He did this marvelously well in pantomime. He was very skillful. "I had hoped to make a sale," he added.

"Could you not cut me off just a little piece?" she asked.

"A thousand gold pieces worth? he asked.

"Alas," she wept. "I could not afford even that."

"To be sure," he said, "the veil is quite large, containing easily enough cloth to conceal an entire figure."

"I can see that," she said.

"Stinting on their work is not allowed by the magicians of Anango," he said.

"Everyone knows that," she said.

"In any event," said Boots, "surely you would not be so cruel, so heartless, so insensitive, as to suggest that I even consider using the scissors, that cruel engine, those divisive knives, upon so wondrous an object."

"No!" she cried.

"I wish you well, lady," said Boots, sadly, preparing to return the veil to his pack.

"I must have it!" she cried.

"Oh?" asked Boots.

"I will do anything to obtain it!" she cried.

"Anything?" asked Boots, hopefully.

"Anything!" she cried.

"Perhaps," mused Boots, "Perhaps-"

"yes!" she cried. "Yes?"

"No, it is unthinkable!" he said.

"What?" she begged, eagerly.

"Unthinkable!" announced Boots.

"What?" she pressed.

"For you are a free woman," he said.

"What?" she cried.

"It is well known that men have needs," he said, "and that hey are lustful beasts."

"I wonder what he can have in mind?" asked the girl of the crowd.

"And I have been a long time upon the road," he said.

" I grow suspicious," she said.

"And I know that you are a free woman," he said.

"My suspicions deepen with every instant," she informed the crowd.

"And that the beauty of a free woman is a commodity beyond price."

"My mind races," she kept the crowd informed. There was laughter. IN a sense what Boots was saying was correct. The beauty of a free woman was a commodity beyond price. This was not because there was anything special about it, of course, buy only because it was not for sale.

"And so I wonder," said Boots, "if in exchange for the wondrous veil I might be granted the briefest of peeps at your priceless beauty."

"It is far worse than I thought," cried the girl in dismay to the crowd.

"Forgive me, lady!" cried Boots, as though in horror at the enormity of what he had suggested.

"Yet," said the girl to the crowd, "I do desire that object mightily."

"I must be on my way," said Boots, resignedly.

"Stay, good sir. Tarry but a moment," she called.

"Yes?" said Boots.

"Would a glimpse of but an ankle or a wrist do?" she inquired.

"I hesitate to call this to your attention," said Boots, "but as you may not have noticed, as you are not hosed and gloved, such bold glimpses are already mine."

"My beauty, as that of a free woman, is priceless, is it not?" she asked.

"Of course," he said.

"Suppose then," she said, "that for your briefest of peeps you give me the ten thousand gold pieces of which you spoke, as a mere gesture of gratitude, of course, as the values involved are clearly incommensurate, and the veil, as well."

"Your generosity overwhelms me," cried Boots, "and had I ten thousand gold pieces I would doubtless gladly barter them for such a vision, but, alas, alack, I lack that mere ten thousand pieces of gold!" Boots turned to the crowd; "So near," he said, " and yet so far."

There was much laughter.

The free woman in the audience turned to me. "That line," she said, "was well delivered."

"Yes," I agreed.

"Can you see the veil?" one of the men in the audience asked her.

"Of course," she said. I saw that the female had an active wit. She had not fallen into his trap. There was laughter. She seemed highly intelligent. I supposed, then, other things being equal, that she might be capable of attaining at least the minimum standards of slave adequacy. I wondered if she were attractive. It was not easy to tell, robed and veiled as she was. It would have been easier to tell had she been in slave silk, or nude in a collar.

Boots, I saw, had followed this small exchange from the stage.

"Nine thousand pieces of gold, then," called the Brigella to Boots.

He returned his attention to the stage.

"Eight thousand?" she asked, hopefully.

Boots, with a great flourish, shook out the magic veil and displayed it shamelessly, so cruelly tempting her, awing her with its splendors.

"How marvelous it is!" she cried. "Oh! Oh!"

"Well," said Boots, seemingly folding the cloth, "I must be on my way."

"No, no!" she said. "Five thousand? One thousand!"

"Oh, curse my poverty," cried Boots, "that I cannot take advantage of so golden an opportunity!"

"I must have it," she wailed to the audience, "but I do not know what to do!"

Many were the suggestions called out to the bewildered Brigella from the audience, not all of which were of a refined nature. This type of participation, so to speak, on the part of the audience is a very familiar thing in the lower forms of Gorean theater. It is even welcomed and encouraged. The farce is something which, in a sense, the actors and the audience do together. They collaborate, in effect, to produce the theatrical experience. If the play is not going well, the audience, too, is likely to let the actors know about it. Sometimes a play is hooted down and another must be hastily substituted for it. Fights in the audience, between those who approve of what is going on and those who do not, are not uncommon. It is not unknown, either, for the stage to be littered with cores and rinds, and garbage of various sorts, most of which have previously, successfully or unsuccessfully, served as missiles. Occasionally an actor is struck unconscious by a more serious projectile. I do not envy the actor his profession. I prefer my own caste, that of the warriors.

"May I make a suggestion?" inquired Boots.

"Of course, kind sir," she cried, as though welcoming any solution to her dilemma.

"Disrobe in private," he suggested, "and while disrobing consider the matter. Then, if you decide, in your nobility, to deny me even the briefest of peeps, what harm could possibly have been done?"

"A splendid suggestion, kind sir," she said, "but where, in this fair meadow, at the side of a public road, will I find suitably privacy?"

"Here," said Boots, lifting up the veil.

"What?" she asked.

"As you can see," said Boots, "it is as opaque as it is beautiful."

"Of course," she said.

"You can see it, can't you?" he asked, suddenly concerned.

"Of course! Of course!" she said.

"Then?" asked Boots.

"Hold it up high," she said.

"Boots obliged. "Are you disrobing?" he asked. The men in the audience began to cry out with pleasure. Some struck their left shoulders in Gorean applause.

"Yes," called the Brigella.

She was quite beautiful.

"I shall mention this in my complaint to the proper magistrates," said the free woman from her position near the stage.

"Are you absolutely naked now?" asked Boots, as though he could not see her.

"Totally," she said.

"A silver tarsk for her!" called a fellow from the audience. The Brigella smiled. It must have been he, then, who had expressed a interest in her.

"A silver tarsk, five!" called another fellow.

"A sliver tarsk, ten!" called another.

These offers clearly pleased the Br9igella. They attested her value, which was considerable. Many women sell for less than a silver tarsk. Too, the fellows bidding all seemed strong, handsome fellows, all likely masters. There was not one of them who did not seem capable of handling her perfectly, as the slave she was. I suspected that this Brigella was not destined to long remain a member of the troupe of Boots, Tarsk-Bit.

"Do not interrupt the play," scolded the free woman.

"And not a tarsk-bit for you, lady," laughed one of the men.

The Lady Telitsia of Asperiche stiffened angrily and returned her attention to the stage. "You may continue," she informed the players.

"Why thank you, lady," said Boots Tarsk-Bit.

"Are you being insolent?" she asked.

"No, lady!" exclaimed Boots, innocently.

"She should be whipped," said a man.

The Lady Telitsia did not deign to respond to this suggestion. She could afford to ignore it, disdainfully. she was not a slave. She was a free woman, and above whipping. Too, she was perfectly safe. She was on the protected ground, the truce ground, of the Sardar Fair.

"Here I stand by a public road, stripped as naked as a slave," said the Brigella, confidently, to the audience, "but yet am perfectly concealed by this wondrous veil."

"Are you truly naked?" asked Boots.

"See?" she said to the crowd.

"To be sure!" called one of the men, one of the fellows who had bidden on her.

"Yes," she called out to Boots.

"But how can I know if you are truly naked?" inquired Boots, ogling her.

"You may take my word for it," she said, haughtily, "as I am a free woman."

"With all due respect, noble lady," said Boots, "in a transaction of this momentous nature, I believe it is only fair that I be granted assurances of a somewhat greater magnitude."

"What would you wish?" she asked.

"Might I not be granted some evidence of your putative nudity?" he inquired.

"But, sir," she said, "I have not yet decided whether or not to grant you your peep, that moment of inutterable bliss for which you will, willingly, surrender the wondrous veil to me in its entirety."

"Do not mistake me, kind lady," cried Boots, horrified. "I had in mind only evidence of an ilk most indirect."

"But what could that be?" she inquired, dismayed.

"I dare not think on the matter," he lamented.

"I have it!" she cried.

"What?" he asked, winking at the crowd.

"I could show you my clothing!" she cried.

"But of what relevance might that be?" asked Boots, innocently.

"If you detect that I am not within it," she said, "then might you not, boldly, infer me bare?"

"Oh, telling stroke, bold blow!" he cried. "Who might have conjectured that our problem could have succumbed to so deft a solution!"

"I bundle my clothing," se said, "and place it herewith beneath the edge of the veil, that you may see it."

There was much laughter here, at the apparent innocence of this action. This was extremely meaningful, of course, in the Gorean cultural context. When a female places her clothing at the feet of a man she acknowledges that whether or not she may wear it, or other garments, or even if she is to be clothed at all, is dependent on his will, not hers. Boots, in effect, in the context of the play, had tricked her into placing her clothing at his feet. This is tantamount to a declaration of imbondment to the male.

"Hold up the veil," said Boots to the Brigella.

"Why, good sir?" she asked.

"I must count the garments," said Boots, seriously.

"Very well," she said. "Oh, the veil is so light!"

"It is exactly like holding nothing up at all," Boots granted her.

"Exactly," she said. Boots then made a great pretense of counting the garments. The Brigella turned to the audience, as though holding up the cloth between herself and them. "He is so suspicious, and has such a legalistic mind," she complained. Meanwhile Boots thrust the garments into his pack.

"I trust that all is in order," said the Brigella.

"It would seem so," said Boots, "unless perhaps you are now wearing a second set of garments, a secret set, which was cleverly concealed beneath the first set."

"I assure you I am not," she said.

"I suppose even in matters this monumentous," said Boots, "there comes a time when some exchange of trust is in order."

"Precisely," said the Brigella.

"Very well," said Boots.

"I do not see my clothing about," said the Brigella to the crowd, "but doubtless it is hidden behind the veil."

"Then!" cried Boots.

"Yes," she said, "you may now, if you wish, infer, and correctly, sir, that behind this opaque veil I am bare."

"Utterly?" he asked.

"Utterly," she said.

"Oh, intrepid inference!" cried Boots. "I can scarcely control myself!"

"You must struggle to do so, sir," she said.

"Hold the veil higher," said Boots. "Higher, lest I be tempted to peep over its rippling, shimmering horizon, daring to look upon what joys lie beyond. Higher!"

"Is this all right?" she asked.

"Splendid!" said Boots.

She now stood with the veil raised high above her head with her arms spread. This lifted the line of her breasts beautifully. Women are sometimes tied in this posture in a slave market. It is a not uncommon display position.

"Ah!" cried Boots. "Ah!"

"The sounds you utter, sir," she said, "would almost make me believe, could I but see them, which, of course, I cannot, that your facial expressions and bodily attitudes might be those of one who looked relishingly upon me."

"Yes," cried Boots, "it is my active imagination, conjecturing what exposed beauty must lie perfectly concealed behind the impervious barrier of that heartless veil."

"And I am a free woman," said the girl to the crowd, "not even a slave." There was laughter. All that she wore now, in actuality, not in the context of the play, of course, in which she was, by convention, understood to be utterly naked, was her collar, concealed by a light scarf, and a circular adhesive patch on her left thigh, concealing her brand.

"Ah!" cried Boots.

"I had best not permit him more than the briefest of peeps," she said, to the audience, "lest he perhaps in rapture go out of his sense altogether."

Boots pounded his thighs.

"Imagine what it might be if he could truly see me," she said.

"Let me, dear lady," said Boots, "hold the veil. Though it be as light as noting itself, yet, by now, your arms, if only from their position, must grow weary."

"Thank you, kind sir," she said. "Do you have it now?"

"Of course," said Boots, as though astonished at her question.

"Of course," she said, lightly. "I just did not wish you to drop it."

"There is little danger of that," he said. "I mean, of course, I will exercise considerable caution in its handling."

He now held the cloth up between them.

"Have you given some thought to the matter of whether or not you will permit me the peep of which we spoke so intriguingly earlier?" he asked.

"Keep holding the veil up high," she said. "Perhaps I will consider giving some thought to the matter."

Suddenly, with a cry of apprehension, looking down the road, Boots snapped away the cloth and whipped it behind his back, seeming to stuff it in his belt, behind his back. "Oh!" she cried in horror, cringing and half crouching down, trying to cover herself as well as she could, in maidenly distress. "What have you done, sir? Explain yourself, instantly!"

"I fear brigand approach," he said, looking wildly down the road. "Do not look! They must not see the wondrous veil! Surely they would take it from me!"

"But I am naked!" she cried.

"Pretend to be a slave!" he advised.

"I," she gasped, in horror, "pretend to be a slave?"

"Yes!" he cried.

"But I know nothing," said the Brigella, in great innocence, to the audience, "of being a slave."

There was laughter.

"What you know nothing of," said the free woman to her, "is of being a free woman, meaningless slut."

The Brigella at one time or another had doubtless been a free woman. Accordingly she would presumably know a great deal about being a free woman. On the other hand she did not dare respond to the free woman, for she was now a slave.

"Would you rather be apprehended by the brigands?" inquired Boots of the Brigella. "They might be pleased to get their capture cords on a free woman."

"No!" she cried.

"Kneel down," he said, "quickly, with your head to the dirt!"

"Oh, oh!" she moaned, but complied.

"That way," he said, "they make you for a mere slave, perhaps not worth the time it might take to put you in a noose and the time it might take to transport you to a salves point, and me for a poor merchant, perhaps not worth robbing. Here they come. They are fierce looking fellows."

"Oh," she moaned, trembling, "oh, oh."

"Do not look up," he warned her.

"No," she said.

"No, what, Slave?" he said, sternly.

"No, Master!" she cried.

There was laughter. He now had her kneeling naked at his feet, addressing him as «Master». In the Gorean culture, of course, this sort of thing is very significant. Indeed, in some cities such things as kneeling before a man or addressing him as «Master» effects legal imbondment on the female, being interpreted as a gesture of submission.

There was now great laughter for, strolling across the stage, swinging censers, mumbling in what was doubtless supposed to resemble archaic Gorean, in the guise of Initiates, came Tarsk-Bit's Lecchio and Chino. In a moment they had passed.

"Those were not brigands," cried the girl, angrily, looking up. "They were Initiates!"

"I am sorry," said Boots, apologetically. "I mistook them for brigands."

She leaped to her feet, covering herself with her hands, as well as she could. "You may now give me the veil, sir," she said, angrily.

"But you have not yet given me my peep," protested Boots.

"Oh!" she cried angrily.

"Consider how you are standing," said Boots, "half turned away from me, half crouched down, and holding your legs as you are, and with your hands and arms placed as they are, such things seem scarcely fair to me. Surely you must understand that such things constitute obstacles uncongenial, at the least, to the achievement of a peep of the quality in question."

"Oh! Oh!" she cried.

"It is a simple matter of bargaining in good faith," said Boots.

"Sleen!" she cried.

"Perhaps we could get a ruling on the matter from a praetor," suggested Boots.

"Sleen! Sleen!" she cried.

"I see that I must be on my way," said Boots.

"No!" she cried. "I must have that wondrous veil!"

"Not without my peep," said Boots.

"Very well, sir," she said. "How will you have your peep? What must I do?"

"Lie down upon your back," he said, "and lift your right knee, placing your hands at your sides, six inches from y our thighs, the palms of your hands facing upwards." He regarded her. "No," he said, "that is not quite it. Roll over, if you would. Better. Now lift your upper body from the dirt, supporting it on the palms of your hands, and look back over your shoulder. Not bad. But I am not sure that is exactly is. Kneel now, and straighten your body, putting your head back, clasping your hands behind the back of your head. Perhaps that is almost it."

"I hope so!" she cried.

"But not quite," he said.

"Oh!" she cried in frustration.

"Sometimes one must labor, and experiment, to find the proper peep," he informed her.

"Apparently," she said.

Boots, the, it seemed always just minimally short of success, continued dauntlessly to search for a suitable peep. In doing this, of course, the female was well, and lengthily, displayed for the audience.

She was incredibly beautiful. The men cried out with pleasure, some of them slapping their thighs.

"Disgusting!" cried the free woman.

I myself considered bidding on the Brigella. She was incredibly, marvelously beautiful.

"Disgusting!" cried the free woman.

"It is you who are disgusting," said one of the men to the free woman.

"I?" she cried.

"Yes, you," he said.

The free woman did not respond to him. She stiffened in her robes, her small hands clenched in her blue gloves. How antibiological, petty, and self-serving were her value judgments.

"Look," cried Boots to the Brigella, in his guise of a merchant. "Someone is coming!"

"You will not fool me twice, you scoundrel, you cad!" she replied from her knees.

"I think it is a woman," said Boots.

"What?" she cried, turning about, half rising, and then collapsed back in confusion, in misery, to her knees. She looked up at Boots, wildly. "It is Lady Tipa, my rival, from the village," she said. "She cannot be allowed to see me like this. What, oh, what, shall I do? Where can I hide?"

"Quickly," cried Boots, "here, beneath my robes!"

Swiftly, on her knees, wildly, knowing not what else to do, the girl had scrambled to Boots. IN a moment she was concealed beneath his robes, on her knees, only her calves and feet thrust out from beneath their hem.

"I see, sir," said the newcomer, who was understood to be the free woman, the Lady Tipa, but was presumably Boots's Bina, usually the companion and confidant of the Brigella, "that you well know how to pout a slave through her paces."

"Why, thank you, noble lady," said Boots.

"I did not get a good look at her as I approached," said the Bina. "Is she pretty?"

"Some might think her passable," said Boots, "but compared to yourself her beauty is doubtless no more than that of a she-urt compared to that of the preferred slave of a Ubar."

The Brigella churned with rage beneath Boots's robes. She dared not emerge, of course.

"What is wrong with your slave?" asked the Bina.

"She burns with desire," said Boots.

"How weak slaves are," said the Bina.

"Yes," said Boots.

"I am looking for a girl from m y village," said the Bina. "I was told, by two fellows, peddle4s, I think, whom I take to be of the merchants, that she may have come this way."

"Could you describe her?" asked Boots.

"Her name is Phoebe," said the Bina, "and were she not veiled it would be easier to describe her to you, as she is frightfully homely."

The girl under Boots's robes shook with fury.

"Still," said the newcomer, "you might have been able, nonetheless, to recognize her. She is too short, too wide in the hips and has thick ankles."

At this there was more churning beneath Boots's robes.

"Surely there is something wrong with your slave," said the Bina.

"No, no," Boots assured her.

"What is she doing under there?" asked the Bina.

"She begged me piteously to be permitted to give me the kiss of a slave that I, in my weakness, at last yielded to her entreaties."

There was much furious stirring then beneath the robes.

"How kind you are, sir," said the Bina.

"Thank you," said Boots.

There was a muffled cry, as of rage and protest, from beneath the robes.

"Did she say something?" asked the Bina.

"Only that she begs to be permitted to begin," said Boots.

The robes shook with fury.

"Surely there is something wrong with her," said the Bina.

"It is only that she is suffering whit need," said Boots.

"Though she is naught be a meaningless slave," said the Bina, "she is yet, like myself, a female. Please be kind to her, sir. Let her please you."

"How understanding you are," marveled Boots. "You may begin," he said to the concealed girl.

The robes shook violently, negatively.

"What is wrong?" asked the Bina.

"She is shy," said Boots.

"The slave need not be shy on my account," said the Bina. "Let her begin."

"Begin," said Boots.

The robes again shook violently.

"Begin," he said.

Again there seemed a great commotion beneath his robes.

Boots then, with the flat of his hand, with some force, cuffed the girl concealed under his robes. Instantly she knelt quietly. "Lazy girl, naughty girl," chided Boots. The tops of her toes, as she knelt, beat up and down in helpless frustration. "I see that I shall have to draw you forth and beat you," she said.

"Look!" cried the Bina. "She begins!"

"Oh, she does, doesn't she?" said Boots. "Oh, yes!"

"What a slave she is!" cried the Bina. "How exciting! How exciting!"

"To be sure," agreed Boots. "Ah! Yes! Ohhh! To be sure! Eee! Yes! Quite! Oh! Yes! Oh! Oh! To be sure! Eee! Yes! Oh! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Ohhh, yes, yes, yes." Boots then wiped his brow with his sleeve.

"Has she gone?" called out the Brigella, after a time, her voice muffled from beneath his robes.

"Yes," said Boots.

The Brigella, as the Lady Phoebe, extricated herself, on her knees, from the robes of Boots Tarsk-Bit. She turned about, still on her knees. "Tipa!" she cried in horror.

"I thought you had gone," said Boots.

"Phoebe!" cried the Lady Tipa.

"Tipa," moaned Phoebe, in misery.

"Phoebe!" cried the Lady Tipa, in delight.

"Tipa!" pleaded Phoebe.

"Phoebe on her knees, as naked as a slave, on a public road, crawling out of a man's robes!" laughed the Bina, pointing derisively at her. "How shameful, how outrageous, how marvelous, how delicious, how glorious!"

"Please, Tipa," pleaded Phoebe.

"You are the sort of girl who should have been whipped and collared at puberty!" said the Bina.

The free woman in the audience stiffened at these words. These words seemed to have some special meaning for her. She shook her head and clenched her small fists in the blue gloves.

"You have always been a slave," said the Bina.

"I am a free woman," wailed the Brigella.

"Slave, slave, slave!" laughed the Bina. "This story will bear a rich retelling in the village," she said hurrying away.

"I am ruined," wailed the Brigella, rising to her feet, wringing her hands. "I cannot bear now to return to the village and, if I did, they would put a chain on me and sell me."

"Perhaps not," said Boots, soothingly.

"Do you not think so, sir?" she asked.

"It might be a rope," he said.

"Ohhhhh," she wailed. "Where can I go? What can I do?"

"Well," said Boots, "I must be on my way."

"But what shall I do?" she asked.

"Try to avoid being eaten by sleen," said Boots. "It is growing dark."

"Where are my clothes?" she begged.

"I do not see them em about," said Boots. "They must have blown away."

"Take me with you!" she begged.

"Perhaps you would like to kneel and beg my collar?" he asked. "I might then consider whether or not I find you pleasing enough to lock it on your neck."

"Sir," she cried, "I am a free woman!"

"Good luck with the sleen," he said.

"Accept me as a traveling companion," she urged.

"And what would you do, to pay your way on the road?" he asked.

"I could give you a kiss, on the cheek, once a day," she said. "Surely you could not expect more from a free woman."

"Good luck with the sleen." said he.

"Do not go," she begged. "I am willing, even, to enter into the free companionship with you!"

Boots staggered backwards, as though overwhelmed. "I could not dream of accepting a sacrifice of such enormity on your part!" he cried.

"I will. I will!" she cried.

"But I suspect," said Boots, suspiciously, musingly, regarding her, "that there may be that in you which is not really of the free companion."

"Sir?" she asked.

"Perhaps you are, in actuality, more fittingly understood as something else," he mused.

"What can you mean, sir?" she asked.

"Does it not seem strange that you would have fallen madly in love with me at just this moment?"

"Why, no, of course not," she said.

"Perhaps you are merely trying to save yourself from sleen," he mused.

"No, no," she assured him.

"I fear that you are tricking me," he said.

"No!" she said.

"In any event," he said, "you surely cannot expect me to consider you seriously in connection with the free companionship."

"Why not?" she asked, puzzled.

"A naked woman," he asked, skeptically, "encountered beside a public road?"

"Oh!" she cried in misery.

"Do you have a substantial dowry?" he asked. "An extensive wardrobe, wealth, significant family connections, a high place in society?"

"No!" she said. "No! No!"

"And if you return to your village I think you will find little waiting for you there but a rope collar and a trip in a sack to the nearest market."

"Misery!" she wept.

"Besides," he said, "in your heart you are truly a slave."

"No!" she cried.

"Surely you know that?" he asked.

"No!" she cried.

"I do not even think you saw the wondrous veil," he said.

"I saw it," she said. "I saw it!"

"What was its predominant color?" he asked, sharply.

"Yellow," she said.

"No," he said.

"Red!" she said.

"No!" he said.

"Blue, pink, orange, green!" she cried.

"Apparently you are a slave," he said, grimly. "You should not have tried to masquerade as a free woman. There are heavy penalties for that sort of thing."

She put her head in her hands, sobbing.

"I wonder if I should turn you over to magistrates," he said.

"Please, do not!" she wept.

"I will give you another chance," he said, reaching behind his back, to where he had supposedly hidden the veil at the first sight of the supposed brigands. "Now," he said, thrusting forth his hands, "in which hand is it?"

"The right!" she cried.

"No!" he said.

"The left!" she wept.

"No," he said, "it is in neither hand. I left it behind my back!"

"Oh, oh!" she wept.

"On your knees, Slave," he said, sternly.

Swiftly she knelt, in misery.

"Do not fret, girl," said Boots. "Surely you know that you have slave curves."

"I do?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "In any event, you are far too beautiful to be a mere free companion."

"I am?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "Your beauty, if you must know, is good enough to be that of a slave."

Here several of the men in the audience shouted their agreement.

"Is it?" she asked, laughing.

"Yes," said Boots, struggling to keep a straight face.

"Good!" laughed the Brigella.

There was more laughter from the audience.

"Mind your characterizations!" called the free woman in the audience.

"Forgive me, Lady," said Boots, trying not to laugh.

"Forgive me, Mistress," said the Brigella.

"Continue," said the free woman.

"Are you in charge of the drama?" inquired a man.

The free woman did not deign to respond to him.

"Will you not then accept me as a free companion, noble sir?" called the Brigella to Boots, in his guise as the merchant.

"It is the collar for you, or nothing," said Boots, grandly.

There was a cheer from the men in the audience.

"Though I may be a slave in my heart," cried the Brigella, leaping to her feet, "I am surely not a legal slave and thus, as yet, am bond to neither you nor any man!"

"Many are the slaves who do not yet wear their collars," said Boots, meditatively, and then suddenly, turned about and, to the amusement of the men in the audience, to sudden bursts of laughter, started directly at the outspoken, troublesome, arrogant free woman standing in the front row, below the stage. He could not resist turning the line in this fashion, it seemed.

"Sleen! Sleen! she cried.

There was much laughter.

"is it true that you are as yet merely an uncollared slave?" asked a man of the free woman.

"He is a sleen, a sleen! cried the free woman.

"I must soon be on my way, " said Boots to the Brigella, chuckling, trying to return to the play. He was well pleased with himself.

"Go!" she said, grandly, with a gesture.

"If you wish," he said, "you may kneel and beg my collar. I might consider granting it to you. I would have to think about it."

"Never!" she said.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"I shall return to the village and take my chances," she said.

"Very well," he said, "but watch out for those two fellows approaching. I fear they may be slavers."

"They appear to be peddlers, merchant, to me," she said.

"They do seem so," admitted Boots. "But that may be merely their disguise, to take unwary girls unaware."

"nonsense," she said. "I know a peddler when I see one."

"At any rate," he said, "let us hope that they are no worse than slavers."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I heard there were two feed hunters in the vicinity," he said.

"What is a feed hunter?" she asked.

"One who hunts for feed, of course," said Boots.

"Feed?" she asked.

"Usually for their sleen," he said, "They are pesky, careless, greedy fellows, little better than scavengers, in my opinion. They will settle for almost anything. They are particularly pleased when they can get their ropes on a juicy girl."

"Surely there are better things to do with a girl than feed her to sleen," she said.

"It probably depends on the girl," said Boots.

"No!" she cried.

"I am inclined to agree with you, though," said Boots, "all things considered, but then, of course, I am not a feed hunter."

"You are trying to frighten me," she said.

"Have it your own way," said Boots.

"You have fooled me already today, perhaps many times," she said. "Do not seek to do it again!"

"Have it your own way," said Boots.

"I wish that my clothes had not blown away," she said.

"Yes," said Boots. "That was too bad."

"I am on my way," she announced.

"Good luck!" he called.

She then, in accordance with a common Gorean theatrical convention, trekked about the stage in a circle, while Boots withdrew to one side. In a moment, of course, she had come into the vicinity of the two aforementioned fellows, they entering from the other side of the stage. So simply was the scene changed. These two fellows, of course, were Boots's Chino and Lecchio, now largely garbed in tatters of yellow and white, the colors of the merchants.

"Greetings, noble merchants," said the girl.

"Hah!" snarled the Chino to his fellow, Lecchio. "Our disguises are perfect! She takes us for merchants!"

"Would you please step aside, good sirs," she said. "I desire to pass."

"It is warm today," said Chino.

"True," she said.

"But even so," he said, "it seems you are somewhat lightly clad."

"My clothes, I fear, blew away," she said.

"That is what they all say," said Chino.

"That is not really what they all say," said Lecchio, scratching his head, through the hood. "Some say other things. One said her clothes were dissolved by magic in the bushes. That must have been frightening for her, to have had her clothes dissolved by magic in the bushes."

"No," protested the girl.

"Doubtless they were torn from your body in a recent hurricane," said Chino.

"No!" she cried.

"Removed from your body by an ardent suitor, then, who neglected to replace them?" asked Chino.

"No!" she cried.

"Eaten in a moment by ravenous insects?"

"No!"

"You were attacked by cloth workers with scissors, who desired to replenish their stores?"

"No!"

"Magic?" asked Lecchio.

"No, no!" she cried. "It is as I told you. They just blew away!"

"Do not lie to us, Girl," said Chino, sternly.

"Girl?" she asked.

"This morning," said Chino, "you were simply sent forth stripped."

"Sent forth?" she asked.

"Yes," said Chino, folding his arms.

"I think that you are under a grave misapprehension, sirs," she said, righteously. "Simply because I might be somewhat lightly clad this evening, do not mistake me for a slave."

"Do I understand you correctly?" asked Chino. "Have we the honor of being in the presence of a free woman?"

"Yes," she said.

"You mean that no one owns you, that you are totally unclaimed?"

"Yes," she said, proudly.

"Excellent!" said Chino.

"Wonderful!" said Lecchio.

"Sirs," she asked, "why is it that you are drawing forth coils of stout ropes from beneath your robes?"

"Why to bind your pretty arms to your sides, and to put a good rope on your neck, my dear," said Chino.

"I do not understand!" she said.

"She will make a juicy morsel for our sleen, will she not, Lecchio, my friend?" inquired Chino.

"That she will," agreed Lecchio.

"You are feed hunters!" cried the girl in horror.

"What is a feed hunter?" asked Lecchio of Chino.

"That is exactly right, my dear," Chino confirmed her darkest suspicions.

"But you cannot feed me to sleen!" she cried.

"You are free to be taken," Chino informed her. "It is all perfectly legal. You are neither claimed nor owned."

"But I am a slave in my heart!" she cried.

"That is not good enough," said Chino. "All free women are merely uncollared slaves."

AT this line more than one man in the audience turned to look at the veiled free woman in the audience, she of the scribes. She, however, of course, her back stiff, pretended not to notice that she was the object of this rather obvious attention.

"Oh, misery, misery!" cried the Brigella.

"You do not have a legal master," said Chino. "Thus you are eminently qualified for sleen feed. Come now. Do not be difficult. Let us get these ropes on you."

"No, no!" she cried, and, turning, sped away. AS she again retraced the circle on the stage, this time hastily, suggesting her journey, Chino and Lecchio watched her depart. "We must soon begin our fierce pursuit," Chino informed the audience.

In a moment or two the Brigella had again reached the vicinity of Boots Tarsk-Bit who turned about, congenially enough, effecting some surprise at the sight of her. "Greetings," he said.

"I kneel before you as a naked slave," cried the girl. "I beg your collar! I beg your collar!"

"Your head is rather high," said Boots.

Immediately the girl put her head to the ground.

"I wonder how you would look on your belly," said Boots.

Immediately she lay on her belly before him.

"My sandals are rather dusty, from the road," said Boots.

Immediately the girl began to lick his feet and sandals, cleaning them.

"You may kiss them, as well," Boots informed her.

Immediately the girl began to add fervent kisses to her ministrations.

"Did you wish to speak to me?" inquired Boots.

"I beg your collar!" she said hoarsely. "I beg your collar!"

"You may kneel before me, with your knees spread," said Boots.

The men in the audience cried out with pleasure. The Brigella was so beautiful! Too, a woman is so marvelously vulnerable and attractive in this position. It is no wonder that it is a portion of a common position of a Gorean pleasure slave.

"Now," said Boots, "what was it that you wanted to speak to me about?"

"I want your collar," she said. "I beg it!"

"I have given some thought to this matter," said Boots, "and I have decided against it."

"No!" she cried.

"Yes," he said. "I have decided that, after all, you are a free woman."

"No, I am not," she said. "I am only a miserable slave, a rightful slave, one pleading for her collar."

"How can I know that you speak the truth?" he asked, thoughtfully.

"I am prepared to offer any evidences that you might suggest," she said.

There was a cheer from the men in the audience.

The Brigella laughed.

"Are you?" asked one of the men in the audience to the free woman in the audience.

"Get her on her knees naked, too," said another man of her.

"With her knees spread, and well," added another.

"Collar her," said another.

"Give her a taste of the whip," said another.

"Teach her quickly to lick and kiss," said another.

"Teach her what being a woman is all about," said another.

"Did you not see?" asked the free woman. "She laughed! She lost her characterization!"

"It is sometimes hard to keep one's characterization in such a play," I said.

"Perhaps," she said.

"Do not be too hard on her," I said. "She is only a slave."

"Slaves are to be shown no mercy," said the free woman, coldly.

"Do I detect that you are critical in some respects of her performance?" I asked. The Brigella seemed to me to be very talented.

"She is undoubtedly quite good," said the free woman, "but many of her lines, I think, could have been better handled, or at least differently handled, particularly in this form of farce, more broadly, both verbally and gesturally."

"Interesting," I said.

"May we have Lady Telitsia's permission to continue," inquired Boots, not too pleased with the interruption.

"You may continue," she said.

"Thank you," he said. "You are very kind." He then returned his attention to the Brigella. "No," he said. "I am sure you are a free woman, not a slave."

"No, no!" she said. "I am a slave! I swear it! I swear it!" She cast a wild glance back over her shoulder. AS yet, supposedly, Chino and Lecchio were not in sight.

"It is true," said Boots, "that at one time I thought you might be a slave."

"Yes!" she said.

"But I think I was wrong," said Boots.

"No, no," she said. "You were right! You were right!"

"You are a slave, really?" asked Boots.

"yes," she said. "I am really a slave! I swear it!" Again she looked over her shoulder.

"You do have slave curves," admitted Boots.

"Yes, yes!" she cried.

"Very well," said Boots. "I acknowledge, unqualifiedly, with no reservations whatsoever, uncompromisingly, that you are a slave."

"Collar me!" she cried.

"I think," said Chino to Lecchio, at the other side of the stage, "that it is nearly time for us to begin our fierce pursuit."

"Surely you must understand," said Boots to the Brigella, "that two quite different matters are under consideration here. One is whether or not you are a slave, a matter which has now been settled in the affirmative, and the other is whether or not I might be interested, in the least, in having you as my own slave."

She looked at him in disbelief.

"Not every man wants to own every slave," he said, "or, at least, it would not be too practical for a fellow to own every slave, for that would be a great many slaves."

"Please," she begged.

"Too, slaves can be expensive. One must feed them and, if one wishes, find them a rag to wear."

"Our fierce pursuit begins," announced Chino to the audience, and Lecchio began to describe a circle about the stage, carefully, bending over, hesitating now and then, apparently tracking the lovely fugitive.

"Disciplinary devices, such as whips and chains, too, can be expensive," said Boots.

"I fear they are coming!" she cried, turning back from looking over her shoulder.

"Who?" asked Boots.

"Oh, no one," she said.

"Oh," said Boots.

"I am at your feet, a naked supplicant," she said. "I entreat you, implore you, to show me mercy! Deign, in your graciousness, to consider my humble petition!"

"What was it again," asked Boots. "I fear it may have slipped my mind."

"Make me your slave!" she cried. "I beg to be made your slave!"

"Oh, yes," said Boots. "That is it. Have you had any experience?"

"That is her, up ahead, I think," called out Chino to Lecchio.

"No!" she wept.

"Then perhaps you should apply to another master," said Boots.

"Train me!" she said. "We must all start somewhere! I will be zealous and obedient!"

"I think you are right," said Lecchio to Chino, looking in the direction of Boots and the Brigella.

"Put your collar on me, please!" cried the Brigella. "There is little time!"

"I will give you my answer in the morning," said Boots.

"No," she cried. "No, please, no!"

"Or next week," he said.

"No!" she cried.

"Yes," said the Chino. "I am sure it is she. Let us hurry. We can have our ropes in her in a moment!" They then, apparently, began to hurry. To be sure, their new haste was largely a matter of marking time in place. Yet one had the distinct impression, in the lovely conventions involved, that they were getting closer and closer.

"Do you think you can be pleasing?" asked Boots. Free companions, after all, can be anything. But slaves must be pleasing.

"Yes," she cried, "yes!"

"Good," said Boots. "I shall let you know in the morning or in a few days."

"No!" she cried.

"Why not?" asked Boots.

"Then you would miss a night's pleasure," she said, desperately, wildly, "or perhaps even my use, at your slightest whim, for a few days!"

"That is true," mused Boots.

"Yes! There she is!" cried Chino to Lecchio. "Let us rush upon her! In an instant we will have her helpless in our bonds!"

"Oh, collar me, Master!" she cried. "Please, please, Master!"

"What did you call me?" asked Boots.

"Master, Master!" she cried.

"Oh, very well," said Boots.

Swiftly she thrust her neck forward, lifting her chin. Boots stood between her and the audience and seemed to reach into his pack. He seemed then to withdraw something from the pack and, in a moment, to fasten it on her neck. In this instant, of course, he had removed the scarf from about her neck, that concealing h er collar. He then stepped back. Lo, there was steel on her neck! There was a cheer from the men in the audience.

"We have you now!" cried Chino, he and Lecchio arriving on the scene, ropes in hand.

"Who are you fellows?" called Boots. "What do you want?"

The Brigella, now collared, trembling, cowered beside Boots, clinging to one of his legs.

"Do not question us," said the Chino. "Our profession is a dark one. I dare not mention it lest you faint in fear."

"Assassins!" cried Boots.

"Far worse," said the Chino.

"Feed hunters!" cried Boots, aghast.

"The same," said Chino.

"The very same," said the Lecchio, grimly.

"I am surprised, actually," said the Chino, "that you have heard of our profession, as it is not well known."

"I, myself," said the Lecchio, "heard of it but moments ago."

"I heard that two such rascals as yourselves were about," said Boots. "What do you want here?"

"Her!" said the Chino, pointing dramatically, menacingly, at the Brigella. She shrank back in fear.

"Her?" inquired Boots.

"Yes!" said the Chino. "Now if you will be so kind as to step aside, we will get our ropes on her."

"Hold, rogues!" said Boots.

"What is wrong, sir?" inquired Chino.

"You cannot have her," said Boots.

"WE have been hunting her for some time," said Chino. "She is our legitimate prey. It is all quite legal. We are honest fellows. We are entitled to her. Now please do not interfere. Come no, little vulo, put your head in this noose."

"Desist!" cried Boots.

"What is wrong now?" asked Chino.

"Apparently," said Boots, "you are under the delusion that this is a free woman, one that my simply be picked up, like a larma in a field, for whatever purposes you might please."

"Of course," said Chino.

"She is not a free woman," said Boots.

"What!" cried Chino.

"Observe her pretty neck," said Boots.

"It is collared!" cried Chino.

"Yes!" said Boots.

"She is a slave!" said Chino.

"Yes," said Boots.

"Ah, well, an unclaimed slave is almost as good as a free woman," said Chino, reaching forth again with the noose.

"Stop!" cried Boots.

"What now?" inquired Chino.

"Yes, what now?" inquired Lecchio.

"This woman is both claimed and collared," said Boots.

"What!" cried Chino.

"What?" asked Lecchio.

"Are you thieves?" asked Boots.

"No!" cried Chino.

"No?" asked Lecchio.

"No!" cried Chino.

"No!" said Lecchio, righteously.

"Then desist, scoundrels," said Boots, "for this woman is my property!"

"Is it true?" asked Chino.

"Yes, Masters," she said, "it is true. I am his property. He is my master. He owns me. I belong to him, legally and completely, in all ways, fully!"

"There are, of course, two of us," said Chino, menacingly.

"I do not fear you!" said Boots. "Be off, you scurvy scamps, lest I feed you to your own sleen!"

"I did not know we had any sleen," said Lecchio to Chino.

"Be gone, scamps, scoundrels, rogues!" cried Boots, with a vast, wild threatening gesture. Immediately Chino and Lecchio, in apparent terror, scampered away.

"You have saved me!" cried the Brigella.

"Yes," said Boots.

"I wear your collar," she said. "I am now yours, truly, you know."

"Why, yes," said Boots, interested. "That is true, isn't it?"

"Yes, Master," she said.

"And then anything may be commanded of you," mused Boots, "absolutely anything, anything whatsoever, and you must obey, instantly and perfectly."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Assume," said he, "standing, partly crouching, the position of a free woman, zealous to conceal her beauty."

"Yes, Master," she said. There was much laughter as she, the already-so-much-exposed slave, assumed this coy, silly position, one often associated with timid, scandalized, shocked, surprised free women. Indeed, it was the same as that which she had often assumed earlier in the farce, when she had supposedly been such a free female.

"Now, for the merest instant," said Boots, "move your hands away, and then replace them, instantly, immediately, as they were."

She complied. If one had not been watching closely, one might have missed the action.

"Yes, yes!" cried Boots ecstatically. "Oh, bliss! Bliss! That is it! That is it!"

"What?" she asked.

"A peep!" cried Boots. "A marvelous peep!"

"That is all?" she asked.

"Yes!" he cried, joyfully.

"Give me then," she cried, suddenly, "the wondrous magic veil!"

"Alas," cried Boots. "I cannot. It would be incorrect to do so."

"How so?" she asked.

"What I negotiated for, as you may recall," said Boots, "was a peep at the beauty of a free woman, not a peep at the beauty of a mere slave."

"Oh, oh!" she said, in misery.

"If that were all one wished," said Boots, "one could go to the nearest market, to see girls naked in their chains." That was true, I supposed. That is how girls are normally displayed in such markets, incidentally, that and in cages.

"But I am the same woman!" she protested.

"That is not really true," said Boots, "for you are now a slave." That sort of thing, incidentally, in its way, is true. A woman collared is quite different from a woman uncollared. The collar works a wondrous transformation in a woman, psychologically, sexually and humanly. She is then vulnerable; she must then obey. She is no longer the same. She has then no choice but to be a total female. She becomes a thousand times more interesting, exciting and desirable.

"Even though I am a slave, Master," she said, "yet do I strongly desire it. I have been through so much! Please let me have it!"

"My benevolence may perhaps yet prove my undoing," said Boots, reaching into his pack.

"I begin already," said the Brigella to the audience, "to sense that slaves may have ways and wiles wherewith to achieve their ends which are denied to free women."

"I have it here," said Boots, supposedly withdrawing it from his pack, "but you, of course, now that you are a slave, will not be able to see it."

"To be perfectly honest with you, Master," she said, "for I am your slave and no longer dare lie to you, I could not see it before either."

"No!" cried Boots.

"Yes," she said, putting down her head, "it is true."

"It is perfectly fitting then," he said, "Slave, that you are now in your collar."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Even though you are a slave, yet still do you desire the wondrous veil?" he asked.

"Yes, Master!" she said. "Now," she said to the audience, "I am at last to have my way. You see, in the end, it is I who win. What does it matter that I am a slave? I am to obtain the wondrous veil."

Boots seemed to be folding up the veil, neatly.

"How clever I am," said the Brigella to the audience. "My patience is now to be rewarded. How simple are men! How easy it is to obtain my way with the wiles of a slave! I did not know that before. The wondrous veil is now to be mine! Thus it is that I, with my beauty, can conquer men!"

"Here," said Boots.

She, still on her knees, rising from her heels, reached eagerly for the veil. "Oh!" she cried, in disappointment, for Boots, at the last moment, had jerked it back.

"I forgot," said Boots.

"What is wrong?" she asked.

"I cannot give you the veil," he said.

"Why not?" she wailed.

"You are a slave," said Boots. "You can own nothing. It is you who are owned."

"Oh!" she cried, in misery.

"Back on your heels," he snapped. "Spread your knees! Hands on thighs! Back straight! Chin up!"

"Oh, oh," she moaned, but swiftly complied. "He reminds me well that I am a slave," she said to the audience. "I had thought to conquer men but instead I find that it is I who am h elpless, that it is I who am conquered, and totally."

At this moment Chino and Lecchio reappeared, now with their peddler's packs.

"Beware, Master," cried the girl. "The feed hunters have returned!"

"Greetings, Boys," said Boots.

"Greetings," said Chino and Lecchio to Boots.

"Do you know these men, Master?" asked the girl, not daring to rise from her knees.

"I mistook you for feed hunters earlier," said Boots to the new arrivals. "I see now that you are my old buddies, with whom I have been traveling these roads for weeks."

"The collar is locked on my neck!" said the girl to the audience, struggling with the collar. "It is truly on me. I cannot remove it!"

"A pretty vulo," said Chino, scrutinizing the girl.

"A juicy pudding," said Lecchio.

"I am now only a slave!" cried the girl to the audience.

"I am now going to toss the wondrous veil up into the air," said Boots. "Let it blow away on the winds, traveling to I know not where." He then tossed it up, lightly, into the air.

"Master!" protested the girl.

"There it goes!" said Boots.

"Master!" said the girl.

"It was in such a fashion that I received it," said Boots. "Surely it is only right that I should let it fly away, back into the clouds and winds, perhaps even back to Anango."

"But why would you let it go?" asked the girl, in misery.

"It has served its purpose," said Boots.

"Its purpose?" asked the girl.

"yes," said Boots. "It has served to catch me a pretty, greedy little slave, on who by tomorrow morning will be in no doubt as to the nature of her many utilization."

"Surely you have not tricked me!" she cried.

"Shoulder my pack," said Boots.

"And mine," said Chino.

"And mine," said Lecchio.

The girl then, with great difficulty, struggling, bending under the weight, staggering, shouldered the three packs.

"Hurry, lazy girl!" called Boots, leaving the stage with Chino and Lecchio. "I did not know we had any sleen," Lecchio was saying to Chino. "Where could they be?"

"I wonder if I have been tricked," said the girl to the audience. There was much laughter. "In any event," she said, "I am now in the collar and that is all there is for it!"

"Hurry, hurry, lazy girl!" called Boots from off-stage.

"I must go now," said the girl. "Oh, these packs are heavy. But I must bear them as best I can. I am a slave now, and if I am not pleasing, I will be beaten!"

She then turned about and, staggering under the weight of the packs, left the stage.

In a moment Boots, smiling, reappeared on the stage, with Chino and Lecchio, and the Brigella, too, now freed of her preposterous burden. "Noble free woman, and noble gentlemen, of the audience," said Boots, "the Magic Veil of Anango, presented by the players of Boots Tarsk-Bit, actor, promoter and entrepreneur extraordinary! We thank you for you consideration!" There was much applause. Boots, and the Chino and Lecchio, smiling, bowed, again and again. The Brigella, at a sign from Boots, knelt on the stage. She would take her bows on her knees, of course, for she was a slave.

"Bina!" called Boots, gesturing to the side of the stage. The Bina, then, in her garments of a free woman, she who had played the brief role of Lady Tipa, the fellow villager of the Lady Phoebe, emerged onto the stage. "Off with those absurd impediments to our vision," said Boots, jollily, to her. She removed her veil and threw back her hood, shaking loose her dark hair. She was an exquisite little slave, but not a match for the Brigella in beauty. She would not, at least, I supposed, have brought as much as the Brigella on a slave block. I remembered her, too, from Port Kar.

"Come, come," said Boots, her master. She then pulled down her robes, about her shoulders, and then stripped herself to the waist. She had small, well-formed, exquisite breasts. On her neck was a collar of steel. "Off with them, mow, completely," said Boots, gesturing to the robes she had clutched about her hips. "Kneel." She thrust the robes down about her ankles and knelt then on the boards, beside the Brigella, before the audience. Boots gave her an almost unnoticeable kick with the side of his foot and she spread her knees before the audience. I could see that she was reluctant to do this. Perhaps she had been a slave less long than the Brigella. But now both of them knelt identically before the audience, backs straight, back on their heels, chins up, stark naked in their collars, their knees spread, slaves.

"Our little Bina!" said Boots, showing her off. "thank you, noble free woman and noble gentlemen! Remember poor Boots and his company! Be generous!" Some coins, mostly copper, rattled to the stage. I myself gave a couple of copper tarn disks. I had much more money, my own, and some more I had helped myself to at the camp of the Lady Yanina, before I had freed her prisoners and burned the camp, but I had no wish to advertise the current weight of my purse at the fair. It is one thing to do this in a city where one, and one's financial status, is reasonably well known, and quite another, as you may well imagine, to do it in a strange place before strangers.

"Thank you, noble people, splendid patrons of the arts," called Boots. "Thank you!" The Chino and Lecchio gathered up the coins, handing them to Boots, who took them and deposited them somewhere inside his robes, perhaps into the lining or a hidden pocket. The girls, here at the fair, were not passing through the crowd with copper bowls, perhaps because they had both been in the play. At any rate, even when they had done this in Port Kar, they had not, of course, been handling or touching the coins, only the bowls in which the coins were collected. The only female performers who customarily gather up the coins thrown to them for their masters are dancers, who usually perform alone, except for their musicians. They tuck the coins in a bit of their silk, if they have been permitted any. Given the nature of their silk, which is usually diaphanous, and the general scantiness of their garb, and the publicness of their picking up the coins, there is little danger that they could conceal a coin, even if they dared to do so. A slave girl, you see, is generally forbidden to so much as touch a coin without permission. This does not mean, of course, that they may not be sent to the market, and given coins for errands, and such. For an unaccounted for coin to be found in a slave girl's possession, or among her belongings, can be cause for severe punishment. She might even be fed to sleen.

"Lout!" called the free woman.

"Yes, noble lady?" said Boots, coming forward.

"Your plays are insulting to free women!" she cried. "I have never been so insulted in my life!"

"Have you seen them all?" asked Boots. "There are more than fifty."

"No," she said. "I have not seen them all!"

"We cannot perform them all without a full company, of course," said Boots. "I am short-handed at the moment. I do not even have a golden courtesan. There are frequent changes in the repertory, of course. We make up new ones, and sometimes we feel it best, temporarily or permanently, to drop out old ones, ones that do not then seem as good or which do not seem to play as well any longer. One improvises about given ideas or themes, and then, performance by performance, a play is built. To be sure, much always remains open to invention, to innovation, to constant revision, to impromptu spur-of-the-moment contributions, and so on. One must always be ready, too, to capitalize on such things as local color, current happenings, the current political situation, popular or well-known figures, the prejudices of a district, and so on. Local allusions are always popular. They can occasionally get you in trouble, of course. One must be careful about them. It would not do to be impaled. You seem highly intelligent. Perhaps you could help us."

"Do you think that all free women are no better than slaves!" she cried.

"I would suppose that women are all pretty much of a muchness," said Boots.

'Oh!" she cried in fury.

"Take yourself," he said. "How would you look stripped and in a collar, and under a whip? Do you think you would behave much differently, then, than any other slave? Indeed, have you ever stopped to think about it? Have you ever wondered, secretly perhaps, whether or not you might have what it takes to prove to be even an adequate slave?"

"I am a free woman," she said, icily.

"Forgive me, Lady," said Boots.

"I will, before nightfall, and you may depend upon it," she said, "lodge my complaint with the magistrates. By tomorrow noon, you will be closed, forbidden to perform at the fair."

"Show us mercy, Lady," said Boots, "we are a traveling company, a poor troupe in desperate straits. I have had to sell even my golden courtesan!"

"I do not care," she said, "if you must sell all your sluts!"

"The Fair of En'Kara is the greatest of all the fairs," he said. "It comes but once a year. It is important to us! We need every tarsk-bit we can make here."

"I do not choose to show you mercy," she said, coldly. "Too, I shall see to it that you are fined and publicly whipped. Indeed, if you are not gone from the fairgrounds by tomorrow evening, I shall also see to it that your troupe is disbanded, and that your goods, your wagons, your clothes, your sluts, everything, is confiscated!"

"You wish to see me ruined?" he said.

"Yes!" she said.

"Thank you, gracious lady," he said.

She spun about, and with a movement of her robes, lifting them a bit from the dust, took her leave. She had on golden sandals. Boots Tarsk-Bit and myself, as she left, considered her ankles. I did not findem bad, and I suppose Boots Tarsk-Bit did not either. They would have looked well in shackles.

"It seems I am ruined," said Boots Tarsk-Bit to me.

"Perhaps not," I said.

"How shall I make even enough money to clear my way form the fair?" he asked.

"Sell me, Master," said the Brigella, kneeling on the stage, radiant, flushed and excited. There were several fellows, some five or six of them, standing before the stage, some of them leaning forward with their elbows upon it. Any one of them, I supposed, as I had conjectured earlier, would be capable of handling her superbly. Gorean men do not compromise with their slaves; the girls obey, and perfectly. She knew she was valuable; how straight she knelt; how proud she was, naked and in her collar.

"What am I offered?" asked Boots, resignedly.

"Two silver tarsks," said a man.

"Two?" asked Boots, surprised, pleased. The girl cried out with pleasure. That is a high price for a female on Gor, where they are plentiful and cheap.

In a few moments the Brigella, her small wrists braceleted behind her, had taken her way from the area, eagerly heeling, almost running to keep up with him, her new owner, a stalwart, broad-shouldered, blond-haired fellow. The first thing he had done after making her helpless in his bracelets had been to pull the small, circular adhesive patch from her left thigh. she wore the common Kajira brand, the tiny staff and fronds. She had gone for five silver tarsks.

"A splendid price on her," I congratulated Boots.

He stood there, dangling her collar in his right hand. "I am ruined," he said, glumly. "whatever shall I do without a Brigella?"

"I do not know about your Brigella," I said, "but I think I might be able to help you with another of your problems."

"Do I not know you from somewhere?" asked Boots.

"We met some days ago, briefly, in Port Kar," I said.

"Yes!" he said. "The carnival! Of course! You are a captain, or officer, are you not?"

"Sometimes, perhaps," I said.

"What do you want of me?" asked Boots, warily.

"Do not fear," I smiled. "I am not in hire to pursue you, nor am I interested in collecting bills."

"I fear," said Boots, "that I may be indebted to you in the matter of five silver tarsks in Port Kar. I have them here." He held out his hand with the five silver tarsks, accrued by moments earlier form the sale of the Brigella.

"It was six, not five," I said.

"Oh," said Boots.

"If I had anything to do with them," I said, "to which I do not admit, of course, let us consider them merely as copper-bowl coins, coins such as might be gathered in the pursuit of your normal activities."

"But six silver tarsks," he said.

"You may consider them, if it makes it easier for you," I said, "as a gratuitous contribution to the arts."

"I accept them, then, in the name of the arts," said Boots.

"Good," I said.

"You have no idea how that arrangement assuages the agonies of conscience with which I might otherwise have been afflicted." said Boots.

"I am sure of it," I said.

"Thank you," said Boots.

"It is nothing," I said. "Happy carnival."

"To be sure," he said. "Incidentally, did you enjoy the show?"

"Yes," I said.

"I wonder if you forgot to express your appreciation," asked Boots, rather apologetically.

"No," I said.

"It was an excellent performance," he said.

"Here is another copper tarsk," I said. "That makes three."

"Thank you," he said.

"You are quite welcome," I said. I watched the tarsk disappear somewhere in his robes.

"Now," he said, "as I recall you were mentioning that you might be able to help me with some problem."

"Yes," I said. "As I mentioned, I do not think I can help you with your Brigella problem, at least certainly now, but I think I do know where you might be able to get your hands on a splendid candidate for a 'golden courtesan. "

"A slave?" asked Boots.

"Of course," I said.

"Can she act?" asked Boots.

"I do not know," I admitted.

"My girls must double as tent girls," he said.

"About her potentiality as a tent girl," I said, "I have no doubt."

"My girls, you understand," said Boots, "are not ordinary girls. They must be extraordinarily talented."

"She is blond, and voluptuous," I said.

"That will do," said Boots.

"You could always teach her to act," I said.

"That is true," said Boots. "And fortunately I am a master teacher. And if she should prove sluggish in her lessons, I will unhesitantly encourage her with the whip."

"Exactly," I said.

"Where is she?" he asked.

"One advantage to getting her," I said, "is that I think that she, being a relatively new slave, may be fairly cheap. I doubt that she would cost you, at the most, even given her beauty, more than two silver tarsks. You would then have three silver tarsks left over."

"Where my I find this slut?" he asked.

"She is for sale, I believe, at this very fair," I smiled.

"This is the Fair of En'Kara," he said. "There are thousands of girls for sale here, in the care of hundreds of owners."

"I know the very platform on which stripped, and in her collar and chain, she awaits her first buyer," I said.

"Perhaps you would be so good as to impart this information," said Boots.

"It would probably be difficult for you, by tomorrow evening, by which time, I gather, you may be taking y our leave from the fair, to locate her."

"Particularly," said Boots, "if we are attempting to get in an extra performance or two.

"Precisely," I said.

"What do you want?" asked Boots.

"You have a fairly regular itinerary in your travels, do you not?" I asked.

"Sometimes," said Boots, warily. "Sometimes not. Why?"

"Surely you have some notion of your plans for the next few months," I said.

"In what way?" asked Boots.

"You have some notion of the villages, the towns, the cities you plan to visit," I said.

"Perhaps," said Boots.

"I am interested particularly in one given city," I said, "a port on the coast of Thassa, one south of the Vosk's delta."

"Yes?" he said.

"Brundisium," I said.

"She is a staunch ally of Ar," he said. "We will be visiting her late in the summer."

"Good," I said.

"Why?" he asked.

"I am interested in joining your company," I said.

"What could you do?" he asked.

"Odd jobs, heavy work," I said.

"Security at Brundisium is very tight," he said. "They have become, in the last two years, for some reason, very suspicious of strangers. It is difficult to get access into the city, other than her closed-off wharves and trading places."

"A troupe such as yours might do so, however," I speculated.

"We have performed in the main square," he admitted, "once even in the courtyard of the palace itself."

"Let me join your company," I said.

"You are merely interested in obtaining admittance to Brundisium," he said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Where might I get my chain on this female," he asked, "she whom you think might be found acceptable as a 'golden courtesan'?"

"Among the hundred new slaves of Samos of Port Kar," I said, "chained on the Shu-27 platforms in the southwestern sections of the Pavilion of Beauty."

"Has she a name?" asked Boots.

"Probably not now," I said. "But she had been given a name, or at least a house name, in the house of Samos, in Port Kar."

"What was it?" asked Boots.

"Rowena," I said.

"Thank you," said Boots. "You have been very helpful."

"Now, what about my proposal," I said.

"What proposal?" he asked.

"About my joining your company," I said.

"That?" he said.

"Yes," I said.

"Out of the question," he said.