Players of Gor

7 The Tent; I Slip from the Tent

"Oh!" she wept, clutching me, squirming, helplessly pressing her imbonded flesh against mine. "Yes! No, don't let me go!" she cried. "Don't spurn me, I beg you. Hold me! Hold me! Please!" Her creamy flesh was hot. She was covered with sweat. Even her long blond hair, cut somewhat shorter now, half covering her face, was wet. Her body, broken out and mottled, was like a map, one recollective of my attentions. It was covered with an intense, irregular geography of scarlet patches, the capillaries near the surface of the skin swelled with blood, the red color suffusing upward as though from a light within her, as though fires raged within her, just beneath her exposed, yielding, eager softness, witnessing her excitement and arousal. She clutched me, helplessly. "What you can do to me!" she cried. "what men can do to me! I love it! Please, Master, do not stop!" She threw back her head, her lips parted, her eyes closed. "Ohh!" she gasped. "Yes! Ohhh! Yes! Yes! Oh! Oh! Yes, Master! Yes Master! Continue, I beg you, with all my heart! I plead with you not to stop! Oh, Master! Yes, Master! Yes, Master!" I heard the sound of the chain on her ankle. "Oh, Master! Yes, Master!" she said.

The chain was about a yard long. It ran between the ankle ring, locked snugly on her ankle, and a long, heavy stake. The stake was driven deeply into the ground. About five inches of it showed above the surface. It was placed about a yard within, and to the left of, facing outward, the entrance to the small, striped tent. The girls was stripped, save for her ankle ring and collar. She lay on a mat, spread on a blanket, spread over the grass. She awaits within, to see who will open the flaps of the tent. That will be he who has paid her current use fee, that set by her master. We were some two hundred pasangs west of the fairgrounds, at the edge of the woods of Clearchus, just off the road of Clearchus.

"Oh, yes," she wept, clutching me. Her collar was a simple one. It read, "If you find me, return me to Boots Tarsk-Bit. Reward." Boots used such collars for all his slaves. "Aiii!" she cried, suddenly. My touch had been light. I saw that she was ready for more. She was in a condition of slave arousal. She looked a me, wildly. "Yes," I said. "There is more." She began to squirm and shudder. "We now begin again," I aid. "How can I feel more?" she wept. "You have not yet even experienced the fullness of a slave orgasm," I said. Then, in moments, building on her earlier sensitivity, I conducted her perforce to a height where she might sense, but not yet experience, a new horizon. I held her there, on the brink, for a time, as it pleased me, sometimes permitting her to subside a bit, and then again, when I wished, with the cruelty of the master, almost as though beckoning her, a command she could not refuse, bringing her back to the edge, where, almost in madness, she quivered and pleaded for release.

"Not yet," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she wept. The decision was mine. She was totally in my power. She was a slave.

"In any event," I had said to Boots Tarsk-Bit, a few days ago, "let me show you the girl."

"That would be very nice of you," he had said.

"Perhaps, too," I said, "you will change your mind."

"Never," he had said.

I had then conducted Boots to the area where the agents of Samos had his hundred girls on sale, sent out from Port Kar for vending during the Fair of En'Kara. I had checked the location earlier in the afternoon. It was among the southwestern sections of the Pavilion of Beauty, more specifically on the Shu-27 platforms. The girls were all on their hands and knees on the long, narrow platforms, uniformly positioned, facing outwards, a short chain on the neck of each, running down to individual rings anchored in the thick planks. They had been forbidden to speak among themselves. Agents of Samos walked here and there among them, with whips. "There is the girl," I said. She had not yet been sold. A white "holding disk" was wired to her collar. Some of the collars which had held women near her earlier were empty.

"You!" she had said, earlier, around noon, when I had first seen her there.

"You remember me?" I had said.

"A girl never forgets the first man who puts the whip to her," she had smiled.

"How are the sales going?" I had asked her.

"I do not really know, Master," she had said, "as we are kept in separate slave boxes, and are usually brought forth only to be exercised or exhibited. I myself was first put on display only this morning."

"I have seen some empty collars about, on the other platforms," I said.

"Perhaps the sales, then, are going well," she said. "I dare not turn my head to look. One girl was beaten fearfully for that, only an Ahn ago."

The matter of the empty collars was not an easy one to interpret. If there are no empty collars then customers may think that no one else in interested in the merchandise, perhaps that something might be wrong with it, and then go elsewhere. If there are only y a few girls left, and many empty collars, they may get the impression, perhaps mistakenly, that nothing much of interest is likely to be left. The ideal impression to convey to the customer is perhaps that you have marvelous merchandise for sale, that even now many people are interested and buying, that it is moving fast, and that if he sees a girl he wants, perhaps he should snatch her up before someone else does. If you see a female locked in her platform collar, with its chain, of course, and in a while you see the collar empty, it is not irrational to suppose that she has been sold. Sometimes a woman who has been sold is not immediately removed from the platform but only, in one way or another, marked "Sold." There are several ways in which this can be done. For example, she may be placed in a white hood bearing the word «Sold» in red letters, a red tag, bearing the inscription, "Sold," may be wired to her collar, or the word «Sold» may be simply written in grease pencil on her body, usually, by convention, on her left breast.

"I think the sales are not going as well as they might," I said.

"Master?" she asked, frightened.

"You were put out only this morning," I said. "That suggests that the goods are not moving as rapidly as they might. Too, it is my impression, from what I have seen here and elsewhere, that there is an unusual amount of high-quality merchandise available this spring. I suspect that many of the lots, even large lots, literal bevies of luscious slaves, chained together forty or fifty in a lot, may end up being simply purchased by slavers at rock-bottom prices, for purposes of later speculation."

She groaned. "I am afraid the masters will be displeased," she said.

Her apprehension was understandable. She was a slave.

"Are you interested in this slave?" asked one of the men on the platform, coming over, his whip in hand. I did not think he was of the house of Samos. I did not, at any rate, know him. He was probably a slaver's agent, licensed for work at the fair. There are many fellows who, seasonally, do this work. At other times they normally work in slaver's houses. He may, of course, have been one of the fellows on the fairs' permanent staff. there are four such fairs, administered by the merchants, held annually in the vicinity of the Sardar, those of En'Kara, En'Var, Se'Kara and Se'Var. The girl was immediately very still, and very quiet, on all fours.

"I think I can find a buyer for her," I said.

"Who?" he asked.

"Come now," I said. "Let us not be naive."

"Do you want a commission?" he asked. "We are very careful about that sort of business."

"No," I said.

"Ah," he said, pleased. What he feared, of course, particularly since he did not know me, is the trick of two friends cooperating in the purchase of a slave. One attempts to obtain a finder's commission from the merchant which he then, of course, turns back to his friend, the buyer. In this way, the salve is purchased more cheaply. AS it was, since I was not bargaining for a commission w2ith him, he presumably supposed that I would obtain a finder's fee from the buyer. Some people actually make their living in this way, acting as buying agents, providing services such as locating rare slaves for collectors and filling the "want lists" of rich men.

"I would appreciate it, however," I said, "if you would put a 'hold' on her until, say, the eighteenth Ahn."

"Impossible," he said. "Look at her. See the curves, the lines." He tapped her with the whip. "Superb slave meat."

"I cannot get the buyer here until then," I said.

"Ten copper tarsks, to hold her until then," he said.

"Absurd," I said.

"It is refundable," he said.

"Under what conditions?" I asked.

"That you bring your buyer to the platform before the eighteenth Ahn," he said.

"What if he doesn't want her?" I asked. Actually, I was pretty confident he would want her.

"I will not hold you responsible for that," he said. "I will still give you back your tarsks."

"Good," I said. I then gave him the ten copper tarsks. His reasonableness in this matter, I suspect, was due at least in part to the slowness of the market. Indeed, some of the girls in the market, I suspected, would go for as little as that same ten copper tarsks.

"Hold still, Girl," said the man to the girl. I watched him while he, crouching down beside her, wired a circular, white tag, a holding disk, to her collar. He had placed his whip behind her. Some men place the whip where the slave can see it, noting its heavy-leather blades or coils, that she may understand its menace. Others, like this fellow, place the whip behind her, where she does not know precisely where it is, but knows very well that it is there. The second placement is perhaps, generally somewhat more to be dreaded by the female. There are no hard-and-fast rules in this sort of thing. Much can depend on the girl, on her intelligence and imagination, on the stage of her training, on the specific occasion in question, and so on. Sometimes it is desirable to have the female look very closely and clearly on the whip and, at other times, it is better for her merely to understand that it is in her immediate vicinity, somewhere, and that she may not, now, turn about to determine its specific location.

The tag on its wire now dangled some four inches below her collar. It had been one of several such tags in a small bag hooked to his belt. It had an inked «Eighteen» on it. Some of the white tags were blank, and might be written on. The red tags carry the inscription "sold." A black tag is sometimes used to indicate that a girl is ill. A yellow tag sometimes indicates that a girl is not to be sold without prior consultation with the slaver. Tags are sometimes, too, used to indicate distinctions among slaves, at least among slavers themselves, being correlated to the classes or grades of slaves. For example, a brown tag commonly signifies a low slave, such as a mere kettle-and-mat girl or a pot girl, little more than female work slaves, and so on, whereas a gold tag commonly signifies a much higher grade of slave, usually a trained pleasure slave or a dancer. There is, however, to be perfectly honest, no absolutely uniform color coding in these matters. different houses have their own conventions. It is unusual, incidentally, for a woman to be tagged in a regular market, except in so far as she might be marked «Sold» or have a «Hold» put on her. It is not hard in a Gorean market, for example, where the women are usually stripped, or will be stripped for they buyer's inspection, to see who is most beautiful or interesting. Too, of course, women in such a market can be literally made to display their beauty and pose and perform in various ways for the viewers. This, too, makes it easier to make choices amongst them.

One form of tagging is fairly common, however, during sales, and that is tagging during auctions, or in preparation for large sales, as when the girls are in exhibition cages, before being brought, usually serially, later, before the public. This form of tagging is the sales disk. It bears the girl's lot number on it. It is usually wired to her collar. This provides not only the seller with a convenience, helping to make certain his records remain clear, but it can be h elpful to the buyer also, who may then, presumably already having established his interests, perhaps in virtue of commands earlier addressed to the lovely chattels in the exhibition cages, simply bid by number.

I regarded the girl. She was quite beautiful, in all fours on the platform, the short chain on her neck descending to its ring in the heavy planks. There was a white disk dangling from her collar. She would be held until the eighteenth Ahn. The slaver's man was now again on h is feet. He had retrieved his whip.

I turned away.

"I know wear a holding tag, Master," she said to the slaver's man. "May I break position?"

I heard the lash fall upon her. "Forgive me, Master!" she cried.

How stupid her question had been. Did she not know that the prospective buyer might not prove to be interested in her, and that she might in the meantime, by lax postures or attitudes, be discouraging other occurrences of interest; too, what of the other slaves and the aesthetic integrity of the display line; too, the prospective buyer might appear earlier than was anticipated. Too, did she think her discipline would be relaxed because someone might be interested in her? No! It would be trebled!

"Ah!" had cried Boots, later, about the seventeenth Ahn, when he had first seen her. "But wait! She wears a holding disk!"

"Do not fear," I had said, "It is for your inspection that she is being held."

"Oh?" said Boots.

"I arranged it," I said.

"Let us take a look at her," said Boots.

In the end Boots got her for two silver tarsks. This is a high price for an untrained slave but, to be sure, all things considered, she was an excellent buy. Too, she seemed ideal for Boots's purposes. She would doubtless make a splendid "golden courtesan" and, after performances, there was little doubt but what she would prove popular in the sex tents. Too, getting her for two silver tarsks, though perhaps somewhat more than Boots cared to pay, left him a full three silver tarsks, the residue of his profit from the sale of the Brigella. Three silver tarsks would surely tide him over, and his company, until the next performances, presumably to take place somewhere other than on the fairgrounds.

"I do not know what I shall do without my Brigella," moaned Boots, preparing to pay the slaver's man.

"Look at it this way," I said. "You are at least getting a golden courtesan."

"There are more Brigella roles," said Boots.

"Well, this girl is not a Brigella," I said.

"True," lamented Boots.

"Perhaps you should not have sold your Brigella," I said.

"I needed the money," said Boots.

"Two silver tarsks," said the slaver's man.

"The price is steep," said Boots. "Could we not reconsider the matter?"

"Two silver tarsks," said the man.

"Would you care to make it double or nothing, on the basis of some wager of your choosing, such as in cups and pebbles?" he asked.

"Two," said the man.

"I have the cups and a pebble, by some stroke of luck, in my wallet," said Boots.

"Two," said the fellow. This game, like many such games, of various types, involves guessing. Small, inverted metal cups are used. A coin, pebble, or small object is supposedly placed beneath one of the cups. They are then moved about, rapidly. The odds are with the "house," so to speak, particularly if the coin or pebble is not placed under one of the cups. I was already familiar with Boots's skill in slight-of-hand manipulations from Port Kar. "Two," repeated the man. Boots then paid him. The slaver's man, of course, was well pleased with the sale. It was a good price, and it was a particularly good one for a slow market.

I had no difficulty in recovering m ten copper tarsks, put down to hold the girl for Boots's later inspection.

"Are you pleased with your buy?" I asked Boots later, when we were leaving the market, the girl following behind us, heeling us, her wrists tied behind her back with a string.

"She was pretty expensive," said Boots.

"But you are pleased, are you not?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Are you grateful?" I asked.

"Eternally, undyingly," he assured me.

"Perhaps you would consider granting me a favor," I said.

"Just ask," he said.

"I would like to join your troupe," I said.

"No," he said.

"I thought you just said to 'just ask'," I said.

"You are correct," said Boots. "That is exactly what I had in mine, that you should just ask, only that, and nothing more. Now, where are my wagons?"

"You are a hard man," I said.

"Yes," he said, "I am a grim fellow. But one does not attain my heights by being soft."

"Your wagons are in that direction," I informed him.

"Thank you," he said.

"You will not reconsider?" I asked.

"No," said Boots, "and what am I to do without a Brigella?"

"I do not know," I said.

"I am ruined," said Boots.

"Perhaps not," I opined, hopefully.

"Are you a business man?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"I will thank you, then," said Boots, "to have the decency to refrain from forming an opinion on the matter."

"Sorry," I said.

"Do you know where I can find a Brigella?" he asked.

"Perhaps you could buy one," I said.

"Not just any girl can be a Brigella," he said.

"I suppose not," I said.

"I am ruined," he said.

"At least you now have a golden courtesan," I said, "and I expect that she will prove profitable in the tent as well."

"Perhaps," said Boots.

"I would like to join your troupe," I said.

"It is out of the question," said Boots. "Now, where are those wagons?"

"That way," I said.

"Thank you," he said.

"More to the left," I said.

"Thank you," he said.

"You would not have to pay me!" I called out, after him.

"No, no," he said, waving his hand, "it is out of the question." He then continued on his way, muttering about Brigellas, expenses, free women, fate, elusive wagons and the woes that sometimes afflict honest men.

Security in Brundisium, I had learned earlier from Boots, was tight. I wondered why this might be. I was curious to know, too, why at least some in that city seemed to have an interest in Tarl Cabot, or Bosk, of Port Kar. Much seemed to me mysterious in Brundisium. It might be an interesting place to go visiting, I thought. Too, it had been a long time since I had gone hunting. I was sorry that I had not been able to join Boots's troupe. None, I thought, would be likely to suspect a lowly member of a group of strolling players. It would have been a superb cover. Tomorrow, before nightfall, I suspected, Boots's wagons would leave the fair, probably heading west, probably on the road of Clearchus. It is a dangerous road. There was no law against two traveling it. Boots had disappeared now among the booths and stalls of the fair.

"Please, let me yield!" she whispered. "I beg to be permitted to yield! Please, Master, let me yield! Please, Master! Please, Master!"

I looked down into her eyes. She looked up at me, through her hair, wildly, piteously.

"No," I said.

She moaned. She tried to control her breathing. Her beauty was held tense, rigid, almost motionless. I heard the tiniest sound of the chain on her ankle. the collar, the flat, snug, unslippable band on her throat, locked behind the back of her neck, was lovely.

We were some two hundred pasangs west of the fairgrounds, at the edge of the woods of Clearchus, just off the road of Clearchus. I had traveled for the last few days in the vicinity of the troupe of Boots, but not really with it. We had traversed the woods of Clearchus, Boots losing little time in the business, without incident. He had, this afternoon, at the edge of the woods, for local villagers, given his first performances since the fair, from which, as we had anticipated, he had been duly expelled, that following from various complaints lodged with the fair's board of governance by a certain free woman, the Lady Telitsia of Asperiche. He had also, given the supposed gravity of his offenses, been fined three silver tarsks and publicly flogged.

He had not been in a good mood that evening. Such things, of course, are not that unusual in the lives of players. Worse, perhaps, two of his company had joined another troupe, taking advantage of an opportunity at the fair, the fellows who commonly played the comic father and the comic pedant. Boots was now trying to make do with his Chino and Lecchio, two other fellows, his Bina and his new "golden courtesan." Things were so bad that he had, this afternoon, actually interspersed his dramatic offering with what were more in the nature of variety or carnival acts. One must make do as one can.

Fortunately his Chino was an accomplished juggler and his Lecchio was excellent as a comic tight-rope walker. Boots himself was very skillful in the matter of slight-of-hand and magic. Indeed, his dilapidated, oval-roofed wagons seemed a veritable repository for all sorts of wondrous paraphernalia, much of it having to do with matters of illusion and legerdemain. This multiplicity of skills, incidentally, is not all that uncommon with players. Most of them, too, it seems, can do things like play the flute or kalika, sing, dance, tell jokes, and so on. They are generally versatile and talented people.

Boots's player, incidentally, the kaissa player, the surly, masked fellow, called usually "the monster" in the camp, remained, too, with the troupe. He remained, as far as I could tell, from what I had heard this afternoon, consistently and insolently adamant to Boots's please that he manage to lose a game once in a while, if only for the sake of business, or, at the least, make an effort to play a bit less well. Nonetheless, even as it was, he did make some contribution to the welfare of the troupe. His kaissa games, for what it is worth, usually brought in a few coins. There was something I wanted to talk with him about, sometime.

"Please, Master," whimpered the girl.

"Are you ready?" I asked.

"Yes, yes, yes!" she said, tensely.

"'Yes' what?" I asked.

"Yes, Master!" she said, helplessly, tensely.

"Very well," I said. "You may yield."

"Aiii!" she screamed, wildly, inarticulately, in release, in relief, in animal gratitude. Then she cried, "Oh! Oh!" and thrashed beneath me. "Oh!" she cried. "Oh!" She clutched me, desperately. Her legs, with a rattle of the chain, locked about me. "Oh!" she cried. Her fingernails dug deeply into my back.

Then again she could speak. "I yield me!" she cried. "I yield me to you, Master! I am yours! I am yours, yours, yours! Oh, yes, I am yours, yours." She clung then to me, sobbing and gasping. I heard the chain on her ankle.

"Your yielding," I said, "was satisfactory-for a new slave."

She looked at me wildly, and then moaned softly, continuing to cling helplessly to me.

"There are, of course," I said, "infinite horizons and varieties of such responses, ranging from ravishings in which the slave, by one means or another, is driven almost to the point of madness by the pleasures inflicted upon her, ravishings in which the master, in his cruelty, and despite her will, forces her relentlessly and helplessly to, and beyond, ecstasy, giving her no choice but to accept total sexual fulfillment, to putting her helplessly to lengthy and gentle services, warm and intimate, in which her slavery and condition are well brought home to her."

"Sometimes, too, I gather," she whispered, "the slave must serve in varieties of manners regardless of her desires of the moment or will."

"Of course," I said.

"she is at the master's disposal, completely, for all forms of work and duties."

"Yes," I said.

"She is to be diligent and obedient in all things," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"That, too," she whispered, "is rewarding and gratifying."

"Really?" I said.

"Yes," she whispered. "Very much so."

"Interesting," I said.

"The being of the slave, like the being of the master," she said, "is a totality."

I lay on my back, looking up at the ceiling of the tent. She was right, of course. These things are totalities, modes of being. Too, I knew, from my own experience, that nothing fulfills maleness like the mastery. He who would be a man must be a master. he who surrenders his mastery surrenders his manhood. I wondered what those who flocked like sheep to their own castration received in recompense for their manhood. I supposed it must be very valuable. But it this were so, why did they feel it necessary to shrill so petulantly at others, those who scorned them and had chosen different paths?

I could hear Boots outside the tent. He was a few yards away, around the campfire with Chino and Lecchio. "Lamentations!" cried Boots. "Surely we are ruined! Surely we shall all starve!

There are not two copper tarsks in the coin kettle! What hope is there these days for artists such as we! That the skilled and famous company of Boots Tarsk-Bit, actor, promoter and entrepreneur, that company whose performances are commanded by high cities and ubars, the finest theatrical company on all Gor, should be forced to resort to mere carnival acts, that it should have to stoop to jugglery and somersaults, to mere tricks and illusions, to entertain village bumpkins, solid, noble fellows though they may be, is almost too much to bear. What shall be our fate first, I wonder, to merely starve in simple dignity or to perish in shame from such humiliation?"

"You are wrong about at least on thing, Boots," said Chino.

"Can it be?" asked Boots.

"Yes," said Chino. "There are more than two copper tarsks in the coin kettle."

"Oh?" said Boots.

I heard coins shaking in a metal kettle. "Listen," said Chino. "There is at least a silver tarsk's worth here."

"Are you sure?" asked Boots.

"Count it yourself," said Chino.

"Yes," said Boots. "Ah! Ah, yes. I did not realize my skills with magic were still that mysterious and baffling. Very good. Excellent, excellent. Excellent, indeed! You did well also, of course, Chino, my friend, and you, too, Lecchio. Well, it is as I always say, a bit of variety is a good thing. And one cannot always be too serious about art, you know. Upon occasion one should take a respite form even high drama. Too, excessive significance is not always good for the digestion. Also, we still need a Brigella, and desperately. I think, accordingly, that it will not be amiss if, upon occasion, particularly in somewhat less enlightened and more remote locations, we intermix a dash of legerdemain and prestidigitation, as well as a bit of carnival hilarity, prankery, and such, the sort of things that you folks are good at, with our nobler offerings. To be sure, we will still remain fundamentally true to the theater, for we are primarily, when all is said and done, serious actors. Too, our reputation depends on it. What do you think? I am glad that you agree."

I lay on my back, looking up at the ceiling of the tent. I felt the girl's cheek against my thigh. I remembered when she had been the free woman, Rowena of Lydius, whom I had first seen in the house of Samos. How proud she had been! She was now a contented slave, a girl who had been named «Rowena» at a man's thigh.

"The somersault on the rope was very good," Boots was telling Lecchio. "You should try to do it twice."

Boots's little Bina was chained in another tent. I thought perhaps I might try her sometime.

"Perhaps even three times, and backwards," Boots was saying.

I smiled to myself. He was talking, of course, about Lecchio's somersaults. The little Bina was very pretty, but I thought, rather clearly, she had not yet been brought to slave heat. I had gathered, from various tiny indications, back at the fair, and this afternoon, that Boots was not altogether satisfied with her. As a collared slave, I feared, she had much to learn. Too, she seemed to have a nasty streak in her. More than once I had heard her deride the "monster." In this I think she showed little judgment. He, at least, was free, whereas she, though she seemed not to fully understand it, was imbonded.

"It was funny, too," said Boots, "when you fell off the rope. Perhaps you should include that in the act."

"I did not do it on purpose," said Lecchio. "I am out of practice. I nearly broke my neck."

I supposed I might as well soon depart from the neighborhood of Boots's company. Surely there seemed little point in continuing any longer in its vicinity. My own small camp was within two hundred yards. To be sure, there was little there but a bedroll, some supplies and weapons, purchased at the fair. I had not seen fit to purchase a shield or spear, or even a bow, with sheaf arrows. Such things, I feared, might mark me as one to be reckoned with, or watched, on perhaps familiar with weapons. I supposed I would arouse enough suspicion in the neighborhood of Brundisium as it was, coming to their city as a lone male with no obvious business. I did have a sword and I had also purchased a set of Tuchuk quivas, their famed saddle knives. The set consists of seven knives, one for each of the seven sheaths in the Tuchuk saddle. They are balanced for throwing. I was rather skillful with them. I had learned their use long ago in the lands of the Wagon Peoples, or, as some think of them, on the plains of Turia. I must soon leave the tent. I must return to my own small camp. I must get a good night's sleep, and start out early in the morning.

"Ho!" I heard Boots call, suddenly. "Who is there?"

I was suddenly alert. It was a bit late now. The performances had been over for some hours. I was not at all sure that villagers or travelers would be about at this time.

"What is wrong?" asked the girl, sensing the change in me.

"Be silent," I said.

"Who are you?" called Boots. There was no answer. Whoever it was had not identified themselves.

I slipped into my tunic and picked up my sword, in its scabbard, the belt looped about the scabbard.

"Come forward," called Boots. "I know you are out there. Do not be afraid. Identify yourselves. Come into the light."

"If they wish to know if one was with you," I said to the girl, "tell them that he fled."

"What is going on?" she said.

I cautioned her to silence, holding my finger across my lips. This is a very natural gesture. I do not know if the gesture, considered as a Gorean gesture, had an independent development, or if, specifically, somewhere in the remote past, it had an Earth origin. There are many Gorean gestures, of course, some of which are very similar to Earth gestures and some of which are not. Another way of warning an individual to silence, incidentally, is to touch the fingers twice, lightly, to the lips. The origin of that gesture, as far as I know, is uniquely Gorean. I looked back at the female. Her lip trembled. She was frightened. She wanted desperately to speak. She could not speak, of course. She was a slave. She had been silenced. I lifted up the back of the tent, and inspected the terrain behind it. I would take my leave in this fashion. I looked back once more at the girl. She was kneeling, looking after me, frightened. She would remain, of course, exactly where she was. The chain on her ankle would see to that. How beautiful they are in collars. I then slipped from the tent.