Prize of Gor

Chapter 27 WHAT OCCURRED IN THE FIELDS

This was now the second day, following the morning departure from the camp outside Brundisium. Portus Canio, Fel Doron, and their small company, including he known as Bosk of Port Kar, and Marcus of Ar’s Station, were moving eastward, away from the camp which had been outside Brundisium, not southeastward, toward Ar. Presumably, on the likely Cosian assumption that their enemies might be of Ar, then those enemies might naturally be expected to move toward that city, and, consequently, one supposed that Cosian searches, and attempts to apprehend fugitives, might be largely directed to the southeastern routes, say, eventually to the Viktel Aria and such. Altogether, matters had proceeded rather as the conspirators had planned. Initially there had been a tarn pursuit of the trussed, gagged Tersius Major, he tied upright in a tarn saddle, clad as had been Selius Arconious. Accordingly the Cosian search for Selius Arconious had been at least temporarily abandoned. Some Ahn later, somewhat before morning, several tarns had been released from holding cots and sped from the camp, this being taken in the darkness as the unexpected departure of enemies of Cos and Tyros. A large pursuit had been soon mounted. Whereas the fate of Tersius Major was at this time unknown, one supposed that, in an Ahn or so, the pursuit of the riderless tarns would be resolved, the tarns taken in hand, or, at least, that it would have been determined that most of them, for they would have scattered, had been riderless. By the time, several pasangs away, the nature of the diversion was understood, the flighted tarns being regained, or it being understood that most, if not all, had been riderless, it had become morning and the vast camp, bit by bit, shortly after dawn, had been broken, the thousands of men, their goods, their wagons, and animals, including slaves, then wending their many ways toward their countless destinations. With them, of course, as unhurried, as unnoticed, as others, had gone Portus Canio, Fel Doron and those accompanying them.

So they had left the camp the preceding morning, and it was now in the late morning of the second day.

Ellen was now in a brief, sleeveless slave tunic of brown rep-cloth. No longer was she back-braceleted. Her wrists were now crossed and thonged before her, and she was following Fel Doron’s tharlarion-drawn wagon, a tether running from the wagon to her thonged wrists.

When she sensed Selius Arconious’s eyes upon her she walked especially well.

“She-sleen,” he said.

“Master?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I wish you were free, for I would muchly enjoy enslaving you.”

“Alas, Master,” said Ellen, “I am already a slave.”

“And mine,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” smiled Ellen.

“How do you like your garment?” he asked.

“It is not my garment, but the property of my master,” said Ellen. “As master knows, a slave may own nothing.”

“But perhaps you are pleased to be permitted to wear a garment?”

“Yes, Master. A slave is grateful that her master permits her a garment.”

“It may be removed at my whim,” he said.

“Of course, Master,” she said.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“It is rather short, is it not, Master?” she asked.

“Beware,” said he, “lest it be further shortened, or removed entirely.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“Master made me beg prettily enough for it last night,” said Ellen.

She had been unbraceleted shortly after leaving the camp yesterday morning, and had, of course, prepared the midday meal, and, later, the evening meal for the men. After that, and the cleaning up, and the kissing of, and turning down, and preparation of, the sleeping blankets of the men, he had thrown a bit of cloth to the ground near her. “Master!” she had cried, delightedly. But when she had crawled toward it, not having been permitted to rise, he had kicked it farther away from her. He had played with her for a time in this manner, and had then had her go to her belly before him and lick and kiss his feet. He then permitted her to crawl to the garment, pick it up in her teeth and crawl back to him, and then be before him on all fours, lifting her head to him, beggingly, the garment between her teeth. Would he permit it to her? There had been beseeching tears in her eyes. He had then said, “Very well,” and she had bellied again, tearfully, gratefully, the bit of cloth, now damp, still clutched between her teeth, pressing the side of her face against his bootlike sandals. She had then been permitted to draw it on.

“So do you like it?” he asked.

“Very much,” she said.

“You look well in it,” he said.

“If I look well in it, then I particularly like it,” she said.

“It conceals your defects,” he said.

“Oh?” she said.

“Not that it conceals much of anything.”

“My defects, Master?” she asked, warily.

“Yes,” he said. “Your figure is too exciting, and too lusciously beautiful, and, thus, when one looks upon you it is hard to keep one’s mind on serious matters.”

“I would think,” she said, “that a slave would long for such defects.”

“Well, in any event, they certainly improve her price,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“But you are not worth twenty silver tarsks,” he said angrily.

“Master paid twenty-one,” she said.

“Your master is an idiot,” he said.

“A slave dare not contradict her master,” said Ellen.

“You would actually be of interest,” he said, “if you were not stupid.”

“It is hard to have everything, Master,” said Ellen.

“You should be whipped,” he said.

Ellen was silent then. She wondered if some slaves were whipped because the master was angry at them, resentful of the mesmerizing fascination which such a lovely creature might exercise over them, that they might be furious at a suspected weakness they thought they might detect within themselves, a fear that they might melt, that they might succumb to the power and beauty of such a vulnerable, delicious, beautiful, owned creature. Was the slave to be punished for her own attractiveness, and beauty, for which men were muchly responsible, for that attractiveness and beauty which, despite whether she approved of it or not, her bondage had surely bestowed upon her?

****

Perhaps a word might be here inserted, briefly, as a “beauty bestowed by bondage” might seem to some an unfamiliar concept. First, as I think has been clearly indicated from time to time men, slavers, for example, have criteria. Not every woman is regarded as “collar worthy.” Not every woman is “slave desirable.” Have you not wondered, sometime, for example, if you are attractive enough, desirable enough, to be a slave? The acquisition of slaves is seldom a random matter. Selections are usually involved, often severe and rigorous selections. Some obvious criteria, among several others, are beauty, intelligence, and a latency, at least, for arousable, helpless passion. The captor may, of course, upon occasion, balance out a multitude of features, aspects, qualities or attributes. Women are, of course, complex and various. For example, to take a very simple case, a woman who is less beautiful but more intelligent is more likely to find herself in the chains of a master, subject to his whip, than one who is more beautiful but less intelligent. To be sure, the ideal of the slaver is to find all his desiderata conjoined, as they, fortunately for him, so often are. Commonly the beautiful woman is intelligent, at least latently passionate, and so on. One might note, in passing, that the usual Gorean taste in women tends to favor the statistically natural or normal woman, the lovely, nicely figured woman of average height and weight, who as a slave fits nicely in a man’s arms, as opposed to the more unusual “model types,” who tend to be awkward, scrawny and breastless. Sometimes Earth girls in the pens ask where are the beautiful women, and only later come to understand that it is they who are the truly beautiful women, the ones ruthless men have selected for collars. To be sure, some “model types” are also brought to Gor, and they, too, in turn, will learn to well serve masters, in the kitchens and in the furs.

But to return to the “beauty bestowed by bondage,” understand that that the free woman scouted for bondage is almost always beautiful to begin with. Thus, it is not surprising that she will make a beautiful slave. But how is it that she will become even more beautiful in bondage? A number of things are involved, and only three will be mentioned, and but briefly. First, collared and “slave clad,” women are beautiful. The collar enhances their beauty not simply as a lovely ornament, attractive on any woman, but even more by its meaning, that its wearer is a slave, that she is merchandise. It thus adds dimensions of meaningfulness and stimulation to her appearance, both aesthetically and psychologically. Too, being “slave clad” enhances a woman’s beauty. Imagine, for example, seeing a woman in a severe, sober business suit and then seeing her revealed in a slave tunic. She is suddenly a hundred times more attractive. Second, the slave is commonly trained, at least to some extent. She learns to walk as a slave, move as a slave, kneel as a slave, speak as a slave, behave as a slave, and so on. She becomes obedient and deferent. She is graceful and feminine. All these things enhance her beauty. Lastly, and most important, as she learns her collar and is mastered, she comes to understand that she is a woman, deeply and truly, and in a sense far more profound than that of merely the attractions of her delicious lineaments, which have called her so to the attention of men, and have had their indisputable role in bringing her to the slaver’s platform, to the chains of a market. Gone then are the false starts and distractions, the conflicts and confusions, the dissonances consequent upon the imposition of false images, of political contrivances engineered by manipulators and haters. She has come home to herself. She has at last fulfilled the ancient template of her needs. She is now herself, at one with her nature. In bondage she finds her meaning and fulfillment. She has found happiness where she had never thought to look for it, in a collar. And happy, radiant, at one with herself, she has become more beautiful. In such ways then one might speak of the “beauty bestowed by bondage.” If a woman would be beautiful let her seek her master, and his collar.

****

Or was it that a lashing might be no more than merely another prosaic mnemonic device, one among many, reminding the slave, lest she might forget it, that she was truly a slave. Certainly, from the slave’s point of view there is little doubt that being subject to the lash of her master is a confirmation, in her own mind, as in that of others, like the collar and brand, of her condition. Interestingly, too, though Ellen feared the lash, and would go to great lengths to avoid it, she, in the complex subtleties and ambiguities of the master/slave relationship, in which she was so obviously implicated, and despite her constant explicit reassurances to herself that she must hate her master, the virile, arrogant, masterful beast, Selius Arconious, found it necessary to attempt to suppress within her own mind a frequent, poignant, astonishing refrain, “I want to be whipped. I want to be whipped. I love him. I love him. I want him to whip me. I love him. I want him to whip me.” Doubtless there were subconscious depths and mysteries here which eluded superficial explanations, which eluded the facile, at-hand, convenient, shallow categories of the ideologically conditioned understanding, which defied political mockeries of human nature, a reference to realities which lay deeply, restlessly, in the being of a species, realities which were perhaps born before the dwelling in caves, before the hunting of great, lumbering, tusked beasts, before the nurturing of sparks, and the lifting in triumph against the darkness, in a hairy paw, a burning brand.

“I think Master likes me,” said Ellen.

“Beware,” he said.

“Nights ago at the dancing circle,” said Ellen, “I recall that I was to be whipped. But Master saved me. My master is thoughtful, and kind. He rescued me. He bought my strokes from the scribe. A slave is grateful.”

“If I were you, slave,” said he, “I would not be too grateful.”

“Master?” asked Ellen.

“Watch,” said he. “Watch the skies.” Then he walked about her, and went beside the wagon. Ellen was troubled. Then she was mildly perplexed. Then she straightened her body, and walked well. Then she smiled. The thongs were on her wrists. She heard the tharlarion grunt. The wagon wheels creaked. They continued on their way.

In the next two or three days, sometime, presumably depending on the trekking, they should reach the vicinity of “the place of concealed tarns,” at which point Bosk, he of Port Kar, and Marcus, he of Ar’s Station, would leave the group, presumably proceeding thence to the rendezvous point. Portus Canio and the others, then, would presumably turn southeast, toward Ar, hoping to reach the great southern road, the Viktel Aria, Ar’s Victory.

****

The next morning Ellen was permitted to ride in the back of the wagon. She was in her tunic, and back-braceleted. She was lying mostly supine, nestled in bedrolls and blankets, in the wagon bed. About her were some tarpaulins, these covering various boxes and bundles, housing utensils, supplies and such. She was warm, and drowsy from the creaking and rocking of the wagon, and she opened her eyes a little, squinting against the morning sun. She was grateful for having been permitted to ride, and, as for the back-braceleting, slaves must expect such things. She did not think that they feared she might steal a biscuit. She thought, rather, that they merely enjoyed seeing her thusly. It surely made it difficult to keep the tunic down about her thighs, but it could be managed somewhat by a bit of judicious, if embarrassing, squirming. And the men seemed to enjoy that. Men are beasts, thought Ellen, who enjoy the discomfiture of a bound woman, aesthetically and otherwise, one put totally at their mercy, in accord with their imperious will. Back-braceleted, the slave knows herself helpless. Indeed, a common point of back-braceleting is just that, to impress her vulnerability and helplessness upon her. This also tends to be arousing to a woman. But Ellen’s master, for whatever reason, had not made use of her. This puzzled her, and troubled her, for she knew that her body, if not her mind, longed to serve his pleasure. Certainly her body eagerly, plaintively willed to be put to his slave use. It might be mentioned in passing that, whatever may be the ideological point of encouraging antimenite fantasies of martial prowess on a politicized world, for example, in popular entertainments, fantasies themselves, such fantasies have little grounding in reality, and, if acted upon, may have tragic consequences. Incidentally, the penalties for a slave’s striking, or attempting to strike, a free person are severe. They range from death to such lesser penalties as the amputation of a foot, the breaking of the teeth out of a jaw, and such. Women on Gor, whether slave or free, are in no doubt, on some level at least, that nature, for whatever reason, has made men their masters.

Ellen struggled to sit up.

Then she struggled to her knees, and then to her feet, trying to hold her balance in the wagon.

There seemed no mistaking the spots in the sky.

“Masters!” she cried.

Her shout instantly drew the attention of the men who, sheltering their eyes, followed her gaze.

“Do not break,” said Portus Canio. “Do not seize weapons. Keep your places. We are innocent travelers, returning home. We have nothing to fear. Pretend that you have not seen them.”

“They may pass over,” said a man.

“They may be merchants, carriers of precious commodities, too rich to risk on the ground. They may have no concern with us,” speculated Fel Doron.

The men kept their position about the wagon, facing in the direction of the trek. Fel Doron, who held the reins of the tharlarion, spoke soothingly to it. “On, gently now, you fat, beautiful gross wart. On, on, slowly, gently.”

“Ellen,” said Portus Canio, not looking at her, “down. Sit. Sit in the wagon, facing backward. Keep us informed. Tell us what you see.”

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen, frightened.

“Continue as you were,” said Portus Canio to Fel Doron.

“On, ugly beauty,” said Fel Doron, quietly.

“They do not seem to be approaching, Master,” said Ellen. “They may be circling, far off.”

“Then they are not merchants,” said a man.

“Have they seen us?” asked Portus Canio.

“I do not know, Master,” said Ellen.

“I saw five,” said Portus Canio. “How many do you see?”

“I count five,” said Ellen, slowly.

“Are they tarnsmen?” asked a man, looking forward.

“Are there tarn baskets?” asked another.

“I think so,” said Ellen. “It is hard to tell.”

“They would then be merchants,” said a man.

“If they are tarnsmen, there would be only five then,” said a man.

“They could reconnoiter, and summon others,” said another man.

“Can you see if there are tarn baskets?” asked another.

“Yes,” said Ellen, suddenly. “As they just veered, I am sure there are tarn baskets!”

“Then they are civilians, merchants,” said a man.

“That may not be true,” said Portus Canio, grimly.

“There could be four or five men to a carrier,” said Fel Doron, softly.

“That could be twenty or more,” said a man, apprehensively.

“Can you see banners, weaponry?” asked Portus Canio.

“It is too far away,” said Ellen.

“What are they doing now?” asked Fel Doron, looking forward, over the broad, scaled back of the draft beast in the traces.

“I am not sure they see us,” said Ellen. “Their interest may be in something behind us.”

“We will continue on our way,” said Portus Canio.

“What is behind us?” asked Fel Doron.

“Stand,” said Portus Canio.

Ellen struggled to her feet, bracing her leg against the side of the wagon bed. “I see only the grass, bending in the wind, clouds, the horizon, Master,” she said.

“What of the tarns and carriers now?” asked a man.

“They are smaller now,” said Ellen. “I think they are going away.”

“I do not understand this,” said Portus Canio. “If they are merchants, they would not circle, but continue on their way. If they were tarnsmen, or soldiery, one would expect them to approach, to alight and inquire into our identity and destination.”

“They may not have seen us,” said a man, “and, come to the perimeter of their search range, turned back.”

“Perhaps,” said Portus Canio.

Ellen, looking back, could see the wake of the wagon wheels in the tall grass. She had little doubt but what so remarkable a feature might be detectable from a height, and much more easily than from a position on the ground, unless one were in the actual wake of the wagon itself.

Portus Canio swung himself over the side of the wagon, and stood upright beside her for several Ihn, looking backward. He shaded his eyes. From the height of the wagon he could see much farther than was possible from the level of the ground. Too, he was some twelve to fourteen inches taller than the slave. He could see, of course, the twin tracks in the grass behind them, which would mark, for several hours, the passage of the wagon.

He then lifted Ellen from her feet, holding her for a moment, and looked down into her eyes. She felt the strength of his hand in the softness behind the backs of her knees, and his other hand at her back. She trembled slightly, held helplessly off her feet, knowing herself in his power. She held her legs together, demurely, her head down, slightly bowed, turned to the side, her toes pointed, emphasizing the curvature of her calves. As a slave girl she had been taught to hold herself in this position when carried in that fashion. She knew substantially what she looked like. She had observed herself in the large wall mirrors of the training room when she had been new to a collar, being carried in exactly that way by instructors or guards. This posture of the body, she knew, is extremely provocative, as it is intended that it should be. She wondered what some of her arid, shrill, frustrated, sex-starved feminist colleagues would have thought of her, if they could have seen her being carried in that fashion, as a half-naked, braceleted slave girl. She did not care. They knew nothing of what it was to be a woman, and to belong to men. Let them go their own way, she thought. And let them cry out, if they would, if they could manage nothing better, in tragic, unsatisfied need, and clutch, and drench, their pillows with desperate tears, tears of helpless frustration, envying her, and wondering why they knew no men, wondering why no one would put a collar on them.

Portus Canio growled softly, held her for a moment, then laughed softly, and then placed her gently on the blankets in the wagon bed. He wants me, thought Ellen. Someone wants me! Someone thinks I am of interest! Indeed, it had been Portus Canio who had bought her off the shelf of Targo in Ar, in the Kettle Market! She stole a glance at Selius Arconious. He was dark with fury. She smiled, and turned her head aside, innocently, pretending not to notice.

“Keep watch, behind us, and to the sides,” said Portus Canio.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

But they saw nothing more of tarns and tarnsmen, or merchants, or aerial soldiery that day.

They continued on their way.

Perhaps the next day, or the day following, they might reach the neighborhood of the “place of concealed tarns.” It was in that vicinity that Bosk of Port Kar and Marcus, of Ar’s Station, were expected to leave the group, and the group itself to turn toward the Viktel Aria, and, eventually, Ar. She did not know. Such things were not discussed directly with slaves, nor did she feel it was her option to inquire. She did, of course, as she could, and as unobtrusively as possible, listen to the conversations of the masters. As is well known, there is a Gorean saying to the effect that curiosity is not becoming in a kajira. On the other hand, who has ever heard of a kajira who was not inquisitive, and quite so? After all, what do the beasts expect? We are females, and slaves.

She gathered that things might be afoot in Ar.

It was rumored that Marlenus of Ar, the Ubar of Ubars, as some thought him, had returned to Ar. Mercenary garrisons, deprived of their pay, become restless. Revolution in the city, it seemed, might be soon enkindled.

That day Bosk of Port Kar twice called halts. This was for no reason that she understood. After calling the second halt, he had stood on the wagon bed, near her. He paid her no attention, but looked about. She remained very still. He frightened her. She did not dare to meet his eyes. Was this, she wondered, because she was now no more than a meaningless, braceleted, collared, half-naked slave on Gor, or was it rather simply because she was a female? But she speculated that even if she had met him on Earth, among others, in a civilized setting, or one of those settings called “civilized,” perhaps at a cocktail party, she in sophisticated garmenture, in heels, perhaps in pearls, she might have felt similarly, been similarly frightened. Would she have been able to stand poised before him? She thought not. She thought, rather, she would have looked into his eyes, even in such a room, in such a place, at such a time, and comprehended in his gaze the calm fires of command. She was sure she would have understood, even there, on some level, even in such an unlikely place and time, that she was looking into the eyes of a master, one who could detect, and knew how to deal with, the slave in her. She would have trembled, even there. Oh, she would have smiled, and chatted, for a moment, and looked away, and laughed lightly, perhaps a little hysterically, and negotiated the room, withdrawing, but knowing that his eyes were still upon her, undressing her, idly measuring her for chains.

At his bidding, after the second halt, after he had descended from the wagon bed, the trek was slowed.

She would have feared to belong to him. She sensed he had suffered many cruelties, and perhaps betrayals. She did not think she would wish to be the man, or woman, who might have dared to betray such a man.

He seemed to her taciturn, and dangerous.

Twice from her position in the wagon bed, as the wagon had rolled on, she had seen him standing to one side, his head lifted, as though testing the wind for some subtle scent.

That night they made no fires.

After she had kissed, and opened, and prepared the blankets of the men, her master’s last, as was proper, she lay down beside him, her master, at his thigh. He did not bracelet her again, nor did he fix slave hobbles on her ankles. “I could run away,” she thought to herself. “Does he want me to run away?” She squirmed, and turned to her back, looking up at the moons. “Or is he so arrogantly sure of me, that he knows I would not dare to run away? To be sure, there is nowhere to run. There are the dangers of the grasslands, of animals, of starvation, of thirst, the danger of another collar, the danger of recapture and punishment, punishments whose severity I dare not even contemplate.” She touched her collar, and fingered the delicate scaring of her brand. “There is no escape for the Gorean slave girl,” she thought, “and that is exactly what I am, and all that I am, only that, and nothing more.” She turned back, gently, smiling, to his thigh, and kissed it, softly, that he not awaken. “Why do you not use me, Master?” she whispered. “Am I not pleasing? Are you truly my master? If you are my master, why do you not show me that you are my master? I am ready. Prove to me that you are my master. I beg it. Teach me, Master, that I am your slave.”

“So you beg slave use, like a she-sleen in heat,” he said.

“Never,” she said suddenly, startled, softly, embarrassed. “Certainly not, Master!”

“You are an Earth woman?”

“Yes, Master.”

“And Earth women do not beg for their use?”

“Perhaps some who are slaves do, Master,” she said, “for they are helpless, and cannot help themselves.”

“But you do not so beg?”

“No, Master, of course not!” she said.

“Go to sleep,” he whispered.

“I did not know you were awake,” she said. “Forgive me, Master,” she whispered.

“Go to sleep,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“And you are a little icicle from Earth?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“You did not seem such in the camp,” he said.

“The camp, Master?”

“The festival camp, outside Brundisium.”

“Oh,” she said.

“It might be interesting,” he said, “to turn you into a squirming, begging slave.”

She dared not speak. She choked back a sob of need.

Later they slept, she closely beside him, her head at his thigh.

****

In the morning Ellen awakened abruptly, to the stirrings and shouts of men.

“I do not see them,” she heard.

“Where are they?”

“They are not here.”

“They are gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes!”

“Is their gear missing?”

“Yes!”

The cries of the men were not those of alarm. The cries, rather, were those of surprise, of bewilderment, of consternation.

“They left the camp.”

“When did they leave?”

“Sometime last night.”

“In what watch?”

“We do not know.”

“How could they leave without detection by the watch?”

“They are Warriors,” said a man.

“Like shadows, like serpents, as silent as the leech plant bending toward its prey,” said another.

“Where are they?”

“Who knows?”

“Where did they go?”

“Who knows?”

“Why did they leave?” asked a man of Portus Canio.

“I do not know,” said Portus Canio.

Selius Arconious was no longer at her side. She struggled to her feet, and wiped the grit of sleep from her eyes.

“Why did they leave?” pressed a man, again.

“I do not know,” said Portus Canio.

She saw Selius Arconious near the wagon. Fel Doron was standing in the wagon bed, scanning the endless grass about them. The tharlarion was not in harness, but hobbled nearby, grazing.

“What did they know that we do not?” asked a man of Portus Canio.

“I do not know,” said Portus Canio.

“Why did they permit us to make so little ground yesterday?” asked another man of Portus Canio.

“One does not question such men,” said Portus Canio.

“Let us track them!” said a man, angrily.

“They are of the Warriors,” said Portus Canio. “There will be no tracks, no trail that we could follow.”

“Had we sleen!” said a man.

“Yes, of course,” said Portus Canio. “— had we sleen.”

“But we do not,” said another man.

“Let us try to track them!” said the man.

“Feel free to do so,” said Portus Canio.

“I do not think I would care to follow such men, even had we sleen,” said another.

Portus Canio’s original interlocutor turned white. “True,” he said, in a frightened whisper.

“Why did they leave?” asked a man, anew.

Portus Canio did not respond.

“Why do you think they left?” asked the man.

“Harness the tharlarion,” said Portus Canio. “We are breaking camp.”

Selius Arconious returned to his bedding, and looked down, into the puzzled, frightened eyes of his slave, the Earth girl, Ellen.

“Master?” she asked.

“Bosk of Port Kar and Marcus of Ar’s Station,” said he, “are not now in the camp. They left under the cover of darkness, last night. They informed no one. We do not know why they left, or where they have gone. Gather up my things, and help the others. We will be leaving soon. Stay close to the wagon.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

****

It had not been more than an Ahn since the harnessing of the tharlarion and the breaking of the camp than Portus Canio called the halt.

Ellen, unbraceleted, barefoot, in her tunic, had been walking beside the wagon, on its left side, as one would face forward.

Portus Canio was not the only one who had caught the scent. Men glanced warily at one another.

Portus Canio climbed to the wagon box, beside Fel Doron, and stood, facing backward, shading his eyes. “Yes,” he said.

Fel Doron had caught the scent first, perhaps because of his height on the wagon box. “Portus!” he had called.

Selius Arconious had lifted his head, facing backward, nostrils flared, testing the wind, a moment later.

Ellen, the wagon stopped, climbed one of the large, bronzeshod rear wheels, and, clinging to the side of the bed, her bare feet on a heavy, wooden, rounded spoke, looked backward.

It was a scent she had experienced once before, on Targo’s sales shelf in the Kettle Market, though then it had been so suddenly, so unexpectedly, upon her, almost stifling, almost overwhelming, so hot, so suddenly close and terrible.

There was no mistaking it, that scent, though now it was distant, and faint, a whisper on the wind. It was the same.

“Arm yourselves,” said Portus Canio.

A man removed a cylindrical bundle, tied with cord, from the wagon bed, and undid the cord, spilling bladed weapons on the grass. They were seized up. Another man removed two crossbows from beneath a canvas cover. In a moment these devices were set, the metal bands curved back, the cables tautened; quarrels were fitted to guides.

“Free the spears,” said Portus Canio.

Two spears, suspended in slings at the sides of the wagon, were drawn free.

Ellen, from her place on the wheel, looked wildly at Selius Arconious, who, looking backward, was unaware of the anxiety of her regard.

He had availed himself of one of the weapons, a gladius, light, wicked, short-bladed, double-edged.

“They are tracking,” said Portus Canio. “If they were hunting they would approach from downwind.”

“Praise the Priest-Kings,” said a man.

“Have they seen us yet?” asked a man.

“I would not think so,” said Portus Canio. “But they will have a sense of our distance, from the freshness of the scent.”

“What men are with them?” asked a man.

“It cannot be told at present,” said Portus.

“Let us flee,” said a man.

“If they are this close to us, it is unlikely they are afoot,” said Selius Arconious. “Look about,” he encouraged Portus Canio.

Portus Canio, standing on the wagon box, looked then to all sides of the wagon, to each barren, windswept horizon.

“When danger seems to threaten from one quarter,” said a man, “it is well to fear all quarters, and most that from which it seems to threaten least.”

“I see nothing,” said Portus Canio. “Wait! I think I see men, behind us!”

“Are there standards, banners?”

“No.”

“Have they seen us?”

“I cannot tell,” said Portus Canio.

“Are they Cosians?”

“I do not think so,” said Portus Canio.

“Cosians would be tarnborne, would be aflight, surely,” said a man.

“Brigands, then,” said another.

“Yes, brigands,” said another.

“I think they have seen us,” said Portus Canio.

“How many are there?” asked a man.

“Six men,” said Portus Canio, slowly.

“There is nothing to fear then,” said a man. “There are nine of us.”

“They are not alone,” said Portus Canio, slowly. “There is something else, something with them.”

“What?” asked one of the men.

“I do not know,” said Portus Canio. “I truly do not know. They are large, lumbering things, yet they move swiftly, they are ungainly and yet graceful, they are huge, and dark. By the Priest-Kings they move swiftly. There are five of them, I think. Yes, five. I do not know what they are. I have never seen anything like them! I have never seen anything move like that. I do not know if they have two feet or four feet. Truly, I do not know! It is not clear, as they move. Ho! One is stopped! It is standing, upright! Upright! It is pointing. By the Priest-Kings, it is huge. It is pointing this way! Now it is again on all fours. These things are coming this way, the men, too. The men are on tharlarion, the things with them are not. They run beside the tharlarion, easily, in their strange gait, as tireless beasts of some sort!”

Ellen trembled. She felt ill. She was miserable. She felt a coldness in the pit of her stomach. Why did she not rejoice? Was she not to be rescued from the grasp of he whom she feared and hated, her cruel master, Selius Arconious? She had little doubt then, though she could not yet see them, who followed them. As property, as slave, she knew she was subject to seizure and theft. She could be seized and carried away with no more compunction, no more consideration or thought, than would be accorded to a verr or tarsk, two other forms of domestic animal.

“Can you see the sleen?”

“Yes, there are two. They are running, now fastened on long leashes, straining forward, excited now, before two of the riders.”

Ellen descended from the wheel, and sank down, on her knees, beside it. She clung to the spokes, that she might not collapse to the grass.

“Hit the sleen first,” said Portus Canio to the two bowmen. “They will be the most dangerous. You two with spears defend the bowmen while they prepare their bows for a second flight.”

“The sleen will not be most dangerous unless they are set upon us,” said Selius Arconious.

“Let us see what they want,” said a man. “They may be travelers returning from the great camp. They may wish company. They may be lost. They may want to join us, for mutual protection. If they are brigands, let them look about. Let them see that we do not have enough for them to risk war. If they wish to fight, we will fight. But I do not think that they will care to risk their lives for some biscuits, some blankets, a slave, a wagon, a tharlarion.”

“They may not have the tharlarion,” said a man.

“No,” said another.

Ellen put her cheek against the spoke of the wagon wheel, better understanding her worth on this world. Lovely female slaves strive desperately to please, well aware of their abundance in this economy. She recalled the steam and misery, the cruel labors, of the laundry in the house of Mirus. Gor has many such employments for the inept and less than fully pleasing.

She stood up then, clinging to the bronzeshod wheel.

“Tal!” called Portus Canio, pleasantly enough, from before the bench of the wagon box, where he stood.

Ellen saw the six riders, on tharlarion, in the hands of two of which were the leashes of two gray hunting sleen, which crouched down, their rear haunches trembling, as though readying themselves for a charge. Their hunt had been successful, and they were now ready for a reward, a feeding.

“By the Priest-Kings,” whispered a man, regarding the five beasts who, some yards apart, were in advance of the riders.

Ellen recognized one of the beasts, he spoken of as Kardok. She knew that it, and at least some of the others, could speak, or, at least, make sounds which might, with some transpositions, be understood as Gorean, at least by those she had taken to be their masters, or, better, by at least one of them, for only one of them, she recalled, had seemed to translate for the beasts.

“In the matter of the quarrels,” said Portus Canio, softly, to the two bowmen, one on each side of the wagon, “use your discretion.” He was viewing the five beasts, who doubtless appeared far more awesome to him now, at a distance of a few yards, than they had when they were a quarter of a pasang away.

Ellen saw Kardok’s ears lift slightly, the great body stiffen. Though the men on tharlarion, the strangers, doubtless heard nothing, she had little doubt but what Portus Canio’s soft remark, little more than a whisper, had been clearly audible to the beast. She feared, too, it might have been fully intelligible to that gross, shaggy auditor.

“Tal!” repeated Portus Canio.

He was not answered.

Mirus urged his tharlarion, a swift, bipedalian tharlarion, forward. He was then something like seven or eight yards from the wagon, some two or three yards before the line of his fellows, the beasts and the two sleen.

He looked about and, in a moment, noted Ellen, she standing beside the wagon, on its left side, facing him. She was in the brief tunic which had been permitted to her by Selius Arconious, was barefoot, and collared. The tunic was very short, and sleeveless. Such tunics are designed to well reveal the slave, and leave little to the imagination, only enough to encourage the master to tear it from her. She had little doubt that she was quite fetching in the garment. Surely Mirus seemed pleased with what he saw. Too, there was a collar on her neck. This, she knew, too, had its effect on men. Not only did it serve as an attractive adornment, rather like a necklace, contrasting with, and setting off, the slim, lovely, rounded softness of her throat, but she could not remove it. It was locked on her, publicly and obviously. It proclaimed her property, slave. Thus, on the symbolic level, where human sexuality luxuriates, thrives and flourishes, and aside from the obvious identificatory conveniences of Merchant Law, it was far more than a lovely piece of jewelry; it enhanced her beauty not only aesthetically but symbolically, overwhelmingly, devastatingly meaningfully. It speaks to him, who sees it on her throat, and it speaks to her, about whose throat it is snugly clasped. It tells them both that she belongs to men.

“You do not return my greeting,” said Portus. “I find this unmannerly, even surly. What do you want here? We are poor men, but note that we are armed men. What do you seek?”

Mirus smiled.

“If you need food we will share some bread, your due in the hospitality of the wilderness, but you must then be on your way.”

“Or,” said Selius Arconious, “you could butcher and roast one of your shaggy friends.”

Ellen shuddered. She had little doubt but what the dark beasts were themselves carnivorous.

“Though,” said Selius Arconious, “I expect their meat would be tough.”

Most of the shaggy beasts did not respond to this, but one ran its long, dark tongue about its lips. Ellen saw the canine fangs glisten in the saliva, “It can understand, too,” she thought to herself.

“What do you seek?” asked Portus, again, this time not pleasantly. He was, after all, Gorean.

“Ask the slave,” suggested Mirus.

Portus Canio, puzzled, looked to Ellen.

“I fear, Master,” she said, “it is I whom they seek.”

“Why?” asked Portus.

“Wait,” said Selius Arconious, “I know you. You are the fellow who bid against me at the auction, and I was fool enough not to let you have this worthless bit of collar fluff. How rash I was! Surely you must have suspected how often I have regretted that lapse, that catastrophe of indiscretion.”

“Permit me to be even more foolish,” said Mirus. “I am prepared to take her off your hands now.”

“But misery and woe,” said Selius Arconious, “even if I were to give her to you for nothing, I would be cheating you. For she is less than worthless. I may be a poor businessman, but I am not a dishonest fellow. You may not have her.”

“Oh?” said Mirus, seemingly amused.

“She is not for sale,” said Selius Arconious.

“But she could, of course, be sold,” said Mirus. Ellen did not doubt but what that remark was for her benefit, to remind her of what she was on this world.

To be sure she needed no reminding.

She well understood her status on this world, and had long understood it, that she was goods, a shapely commodity with which men might do as they wished.

“Of course,” said Selius Arconious, “as she is a slave.”

“I said nothing about buying,” said Mirus.

Ellen heard the men move restlessly.

“Do not think we do not know you,” said Mirus. “We recognize you as the tarnster who paid for a slave with Cosian gold, from the mint at Jad.”

“I do not know from whence it came,” said Selius Arconious. “That seems to me quite mysterious. I merely found it.”

“Where?”

“Here and there.”

“We have no Cosian gold,” said Portus Canio. “If you wish to look about, do so. Otherwise, be off. Our patience grows short.”

“Then they have put it somewhere,” snapped one of the men behind Mirus. It was the first time he had spoken. Ellen had sensed, from some days ago, in the tent, that he stood high in the group, perhaps amongst the top two or three, at least amongst the men.

“I have little interest in the Cosian gold,” said Mirus. “That is the concern of Cos. But know that the Cosians are interested in you, tarnster, and some others here, if I am not mistaken, who escaped chains in the festival camp. There is a reward out for you, tarnster, and for your fellows, if I am not mistaken. Cos would like to know your whereabouts. Tarn patrols abound. They may be signaled. Give me the slave, and we will leave.”

“You have brought five men, and five beasts, and two sleen, to regain a single slave?” asked Portus Canio.

Mirus shrugged. “They wished to accompany me. I, alone, with a sleen, would have been enough.”

“We are nine men,” said Portus Canio, puzzled.

“I have this,” said Mirus, reaching within his robes.

Ellen cried out in misery.

“Perhaps the slave can explain it to you,” said Mirus.

In the hand of Mirus, brandished, glinting, there shone the grayish steel of an automatic pistol.

“Beware, Masters!” cried Ellen. “It is a weapon!”

“Surely an unlikely weapon,” said Selius Arconious. “It seems blunt for a knife, and small for a club.”

“Perhaps he stabs melons with it,” said one of the fellows at the wagon.

“And you draw the juice out through the hole?” speculated another.

“It might do to give an urt a headache, if you hit it hard enough,” suggested another. “Perhaps that is what it is for.”

“No, no, please, Masters!” cried Ellen. “I know what that is! I have seen such things! I do not know a word in Gorean for it. I do not think there is such a word. But it is dangerous. It can kill, kill! Believe me! It is a bow, a bow, or like that, or like a sling. It ejects pellets, stones, small knives, or however you can understand this! Try to understand what I am saying! Please! It is dangerous! It can kill! It is like lightning! Like lightning! I know! Please believe me, Masters!”

“Shall I demonstrate?” asked Mirus.

He was greeted by silence.

“I have no wish to kill anyone,” said Mirus, “but I am prepared to do so, if necessary.”

At this point the five men behind him loosened their outer riding robes, brushing them back over the left shoulder. Revealed then, in their keeping, sheathed, or, better, holstered, were similar devices. They did not move to draw them. The convenience, and stolid, latent menace of the devices, however, to any who understood them, was obtrusively evident.

“You cannot stand against them, Masters!” wept Ellen. “Give me to them!”

“This is called a gun, or a pistol,” said Mirus. “Now you have words for it. Now it is real to you.”

“Do not hurt them, Master!” wept Ellen. “I will go with you!”

“You will not ‘go with us’,” said Mirus. “You will be taken with us, whether you wish it or not, bound across a saddle, as the property slut you are.”

“That is theft,” said a man.

“Yes,” said Mirus.

Ellen moaned, softly, miserably.

Mirus regarded her, amused. “Are you standing in the presence of free men?” he asked.

“Forgive me, Master,” sobbed Ellen, and knelt.

“Spread your knees, slave girl,” said Mirus.

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen. “Forgive me, Master.”

“Do you want to go with them?” asked Selius Arconious.

Ellen looked up at him, tears in her eyes, her lip trembling, her body shaking. Though Mirus was now muchly Gorean, he, as she, was once of Earth, and thus there would be some commonality between them. He might understand something of her feelings, her fears. Might he not pity her, if only eventually, a former woman of his world, now a slave, helpless in her collar, as it might not occur to a Gorean to do? And did she not fear Selius Arconious whom she was sure would not be slow with the whip, should she prove in the least displeasing? And did she not hate Selius Arconious, for his coldness, his indifference and arrogance? And was not Selius Arconious a primitive barbarian, and not a cultured gentleman? And was he not a mere tarnster, whereas Mirus was apparently well placed and surely wealthy.

“Do not respond,” said Selius Arconious. “The question was foolish. I regret it. You have nothing to say in this matter. Your feelings, sleek little collared animal, are of no interest or importance. They are completely irrelevant. These matters have to do with men. And they will be decided by men, not livestock.” Then he turned to Mirus, who was astride the tharlarion. “Why do you want her?” he asked.

“I owned her once, and ridded myself of her,” said Mirus. “It was an act of vengeance, in its way, which I need not explain to you, and an act of contempt. Too, she was not of much interest then. But she is different now. I can see that. Very different. She has learned her collar. She now knows who her masters are.”

“And you want her?” said Selius Arconious.

“Yes,” said Mirus.

“You may not have her,” said Selius Arconious.

Ellen looked up, startled, at Selius Arconious, who paid her no attention.

“I do not think you understand,” said Mirus. “I am prepared to kill for her.”

“So, too, am I,” said Selius Arconious, evenly.

“Master!” breathed Ellen.

“Quiet, slut,” said Selius Arconious.

“Yes, Master,” whispered the slave. She knew then he was her master, totally.

“Or until I tire of her,” said Mirus.

“Of course,” said Selius Arconious.

“It seems,” said Mirus, lifting the weapon in his hand, “that a demonstration is necessary.”

He leveled the weapon at the chest of Selius Arconious.

“Please, no, Master!” cried Ellen, leaping up, wildly, unbidden, and interposing her body between the muzzle of the weapon and the body of Selius Arconious.

Mirus’s eyes narrowed.

“What are you doing?” asked Selius Arconious. “Who gave you permission to rise?”

Miserably, Ellen sank to her knees before him.

“Interesting,” said Mirus. “That was a test.” He looked about. “The tharlarion will do,” he said. The muzzle of the weapon swung toward the weighty, placid beast, browsing in the traces.

“It is an innocent beast, Master,” begged Ellen. “Please do not kill it, Master!”

Mirus laughed. “Look,” said he. “See the back of the wagon, the corner.”

He then pulled the trigger twice, and there were two shattering reports that carried over the grasslands. Wood and splinters exploded from the back of the wagon. A rear corner of the vehicle was blown away. An acrid smell of burnt powder hung in the air.

Several of the men in the party of Portus Canio cried out in alarm, and astonishment. Others stood near the wagon, shaken, bewildered. “It is lightning,” said a man.

At a gesture from Mirus one of the men behind him dismounted. Mirus gestured to Ellen, motioning her forward. “Come to your ropes, slave girl,” he said.

“That is a forbidden weapon,” said Portus Canio.

“By whom?” asked Mirus.

“By the Priest-Kings,” said Portus Canio.

“There are no Priest-Kings,” said Mirus.

“Blasphemy,” whispered one of the men at the wagon, frightened.

“Do you believe in Priest-Kings?” asked Mirus.

“I do not know,” said Portus Canio. “I think so.”

“At one time, long ago,” said Mirus, “on another world, for this is not my native world, as you have probably conjectured from my speech, I thought there might be something to such suppositions, suppositions pertaining to Priest-Kings, and even repeated conjectures pertaining to such matters.” Here Mirus regarded Ellen, and she looked away, frightened. She did not wish to be beaten for looking too boldly into the eyes of a master. She recalled that he had, in the house on Earth, recounted certain views pertaining to unusual alien beings, perhaps what were now being spoken of as “Priest-Kings.” Had there ever been such, truly? If so, were there still such? And if there were such, had they any interest or concern with human beings? And the facts of the world, as any set of facts, she knew, might be susceptible to a variety of plausible explanations. Indeed, the hypothesis of Priest-Kings did not seem necessary. Perhaps other aliens had brought some humans to this world, and then departed. Perhaps an ancient technological civilization on Earth had colonized this world, before slipping unnoticed, with its devices, perhaps intentionally, from the pages of history. Perhaps it had succumbed to geological upheavals, or other natural catastrophes, perhaps meteoritic bludgeonings from space, eradicating entire species, or from sun flares which might scald a world, or from an uprooting which might produce a moon and leave behind a vast basin to be filled with water and brine. Perhaps there had been a preemptive strike by cautious aliens, unwilling that the cosmos should entertain a nascent competitor. Perhaps it had perished of some hastening, virulent disease specific to a species, which then, its hosts vanished, must itself perish. Or perhaps it had simply been overrun, as so many civilizations, by barbarous primitives. Many things might have occurred. She scarcely remembered his remarks, so confused and frightened she had been. She did remember, clearly, that she had been ankleted, literally ankleted. In her training, of course, she had heard some of the instructrices speak of Priest-Kings but she herself had been taught no prayers or ceremonies pertaining to them. She had once inquired about them, but she had been informed that such matters were not the concern of animals, and she, of course, as a slave, was an animal. And a stroke of the switch had then encouraged her to return her attention to her lessons, in how to please men. It had seemed to her that allusions to such beings, and what they did, and so on, were mythical, the sort of thing which might be expected in primitive cultures, utilized to explain natural phenomena, such as the winds, the rains, the seasons, the tides, and such. And the existence of Gor she took as a natural given, however it might be explained. Slaves, incidentally, as other animals, verr, tarsks, and such, are not permitted within the precincts of the temples, lest the temples be profaned.

“But here, on this world, I have come to realize the baselessness and fatuity of such speculations,” said Mirus. “We have no evidence whatsoever of the existence of Priest-Kings, nor have we encountered any who have such evidence. It is clear, now, that the myths and legends of Priest-Kings have been invented by the caste of Initiates, in order to exploit superstitious terror and live as parasites on the earnings of others.”

“Few would deny that the caste of Initiates are parasites,” said Portus Canio, who held no great brief for that caste. Supposedly the caste of Initiates praised Priest-Kings, offered regular and special sacrifices, interceded with them on behalf of men, interpreted their will to men, and such. Famines, plagues, floods, storms, meteors, comets, eclipses, earthquakes, lightning, and such would all receive their interpretations, and would be dealt with by means of prayers, spells, mystic signs, the brandishing of fetish objects, the ringing of anointed, consecrated bars, and such. Ritual performances, ceremonies, and such, abounded. Most cities had their temples. High Initiates might receive gold from Ubars, low Initiates copper from the poor.

“It is obvious,” said Mirus, “that this world exists, for we are upon it. But what is not obvious is an explanation for its nature and location. To be sure, similar puzzles might exist with respect to any planet, or world.”

“The Priest-Kings,” suggested Portus Canio.

“Such puzzles,” said Mirus, “are not well resolved by recourse to childish legends.”

Portus Canio was silent.

“One of the interesting things about this world,” said Mirus, “though you would have no reason to be aware of it, is that it seems to be characterized by certain gravitational anomalies. These are presumably connected with the core of this world, or with its relation to Tor-tu-Gor. These anomalies, however, though mysterious in their way, are doubtless of a natural origin.”

“I do not understand,” said Portus Canio.

“I am willing to suppose that something, call it Priest-Kings, if you wish, might once have existed, long ago, but, if so, they are gone by now, and are at best a vanished race, an extinct species somehow recalled obscurely in legends, myths and lore.”

“And so there are no Priest-Kings?” said Portus Canio.

“Blasphemy,” again whispered one of the men at the wagon, he who had spoken earlier.

“Precisely,” said Mirus. “There are no Priest-Kings.”

“You have loosed lightning,” said Portus Canio. “Have you released such lightning before?”

“Several times,” said Mirus, “here and there, and in hunting.”

“Then,” said Portus Canio, “the Priest-Kings will know of it.”

“This is the world of the Priest-Kings,” said a man. “They have forbidden men such things.”

“There are no Priest-Kings,” said Mirus. “If there were Priest-Kings they would have acted, to enforce their so-called laws. But there are no Priest-Kings, as we see, and the laws have a simple explanation, namely, an attempt to preclude an ever-increasing efficiency of engineered carnage.”

“Which by comparison makes the weapons we carry all the more formidable in their power,” said one of the men behind Mirus.

“Yes,” grinned another.

Yes, Ellen thought, it makes sense, the nonexistence of Priest-Kings. If there were once such things, they are now no more. If there were such, their presence would surely have been manifested by now.

Thus they do not exist.

“Perhaps there are no Priest-Kings,” said one of the men at the wagon.

“Do not speak so,” whispered another, frightened.

Mirus then returned his gaze to Ellen, who knelt facing him, Selius Arconious standing behind her.

“Will it be necessary to repeat a command, slave girl?” asked Mirus.

Numbly, in misery, Ellen rose to her feet and moved slowly toward the strangers.

“No!” cried Selius Arconious, and lunged forward, but he was seized by two of his fellows, who restrained him, as he struggled.

“I am taking this one,” said Mirus. “You can buy another, and doubtless a better.”

The man who had dismounted approached Ellen. He carried several coils of light rope, sufficient for binding a woman.

Ellen momentarily regarded the light constraints with chagrin, and dismay. Such things can hold me, and perfectly, she thought. With them I can be bound helplessly, hand and foot. Even laces and cords could bind me, as well. I am slight, soft, and weak. I could break them no more than the chains men are so fond of putting on me! Do not such things show me that I am a female? Do they not show me the nature of men and women, and who it is who is at the mercy of whom, and who are the masters, and who the slaves! Sometimes Ellen loved to be bound, for this so assured her of her nature, and her subjection to the domination which so excited her, which she found so delicious. It thrilled her to be so at the mercy of a man, his to be done with as he might please. In her training she had often been bound, usually with colorful, soft cords. How pretty she had seen herself to be in the mirrors in the house of Mirus, struggling, under an instructor’s command, to free herself, struggling futilely. Then she had at last lain before him, at his feet, quiescent, subdued, helpless. Sometimes he had roared then with frustration, and left her on the polished boards of the training room, until, say, an Ahn or so later, calmer, perhaps having in the meantime utilized a house slave, he had returned to free her, and send her to her next class, perhaps one of cooking or sewing, or one of bathing a male. But now she was to be stolen, taken from her master. The ropes now were not those of Selius Arconious, her master, in which she might have been left alone, to simmer in his absence, well aware of her bound limbs, or squirmed in anticipation, delighting in her helplessness, and readying herself for his caresses, against which she would be helpless to defend herself. These were the ropes of a stranger.

Should you not be pleased, she asked herself, to be taken from the presence of so hateful, vile, and arrogant a monster as Selius Arconious!

Surely, yes, she told herself.

But her eyes filled with tears.

At a gesture from Portus Canio Selius Arconious stopped struggling, but he stood, trembling, dark with rage, between the two who had briefly held him.

“Wait,” cautioned Portus Canio.

“Leave them to the Priest-Kings,” said one of the men.

“The Priest-Kings do not concern themselves with the affairs of men,” said Selius Arconious, bitterly.

“They concern themselves with the keeping of their laws,” said a man.

“Beware the Priest-Kings,” said one of the men.

Mirus, and several of those with him, smiled.

“Have you ever seen a Priest-King?” asked one of the strangers, of the fellow who had spoken.

“No,” said the man.

“Have you ever seen any evidence of the enforcement of their laws?” asked another of the strangers.

“I have heard of such things,” averred the man.

“But have you ever seen any evidence of such a thing?” he was asked.

“No,” said the man.

“It does not exist,” he was told.

Ellen stood at the right-hand stirrup of the saddle of Mirus. It was to that position that he had gestured her, casually, with the muzzle of the gun. She knew what it could do. Perhaps now, too, to some extent, did those with Portus Canio, with Fel Doron and the wagon. She stood there, now no more than a slim, graceful Gorean kajira. She could smell the leather of the saddle in the clear air. She could see his heeled boot in the stirrup. She looked back, to see Selius Arconious and the others. “Put your wrists behind you, crossed,” said the fellow who had dismounted, who carried the rope. She felt her wrists being fastened behind her.

“No,” said Mirus. “Tie her wrists before her body, and then put her to the grass and tie her ankles together. I wish to fasten her hands to the thongs on the left saddle ring and her ankles to the thongs on the right saddle ring, that she may thus lie bound, hand and foot, belly up, before me.”

The knots were jerked tight on Ellen’s wrists.

The belly-up binding position is often used on long rides, or tarn flights, as it is reliably secure and the captive, or slave, is constantly under surveillance, conveniently at hand, completely in view. It is also useful as the captor, or master, may then caress the captive or slave, if only to while away the time. By the time that camp is made a free woman is commonly begging for the brand and collar, and a slave will be beside herself, writhing and gasping, moaning, crying out, begging, with need, pleading that he will be merciful, that he will deign, if only briefly, to attend to the collar of her.

“Did you hear me?” inquired Mirus.

The rope was then lifted and a length of it looped twice about the slave’s neck and knotted there. In this fashion a single rope may be used for both binding and leashing. This is not all that unusual on Gor. One end secures the slave’s wrists, the center collars her, and the remainder, the free end, serves as a leash or tether. It may also be used, of course, if one wishes to immobilize her, to fasten her ankles together. Her ankles may be simply bound or, if one wishes, tied closely to her wrists. That tie is sometimes spoken of, properly or not, as the “slave bow.” It may be called that simply because the slave’s wrists and ankles are bound together, and this bends her body, in a natural bow, or it may be called that because of a supposed analogy with exhibitory slave bows, in which, for example, on a slave block, a slave might be bent backward, or knelt, and her head drawn by the hair back to the floor, and so on. These exhibition bows are often utilized in showing the slave, as they accentuate the delights of her figure. There are a number of “tethering slave bows,” of course, for example, for fastening a slave over a saddle, a wheel, a piece of furniture, or such. These diverse uses and meanings, of course, are not mutually exclusive, because a slave might well be displayed in a “tethering slave bow.” Some conjecture that the original meaning of ‘slave bow’ has to do with exhibition. Accordingly, it is their speculation that the “tethering slave bows” are derivative from that primary usage, that of exhibition. This would make sense because the “tethering slave bows” certainly do exhibit the slave, as well as rendering her helpless. Others seem to feel that the basic meaning is that of a form of secure and revelatory binding, in which the slave is helplessly and delightfully displayed, and that the exhibitory usages of the expression are secondary, being founded upon, and derivative from, this more basic, original usage. On the other hand, as most suppose, and as seems most plausible to the slave, these usages may very well have been developed independently, both based on the obvious consequences on the slave’s body of a certain form of handling or manner of binding. There seems to be some division among Goreans on this matter. And doubtless it is not of great importance. Please forgive this excursion into speculative etymology. Ellen finds such matters fascinating, perhaps in part because she has been so handled and so roped. What is perfectly clear and indisputable is that in Gorean ‘slave bow’, putting aside considerations of origin, derivation and chronology, and such, has the basic meaning of the forming of the slave’s body into a bow, and two application meanings, one pertaining to a modality of exhibition and the other to a modality of binding. Abstract obscurity, as usual, vanishes in concrete context. As this phenomenon is common in many languages, it is not surprising that it should appear in Gorean, as well. A stripped free woman might, of course, be put in a “slave bow,” without compromising the meaning of the expression. And the free woman might find this situation instructive, and anticipatory.

“We have found her,” said the man who held Ellen’s improvised leash. He mounted into the saddle of his beast, and looped the free end of the leash loosely about the pommel of the saddle.

“Take her a bit away, away from the wagon, over the hillock,” said one of the men.

“Why?” asked Mirus.

“Before it is done,” said the man.

“What are you talking about?” said Mirus.

“You let her go once,” said another of the riders. “We will not make that mistake again.”

“I want her,” said Mirus.

“We will buy you another,” said one of the men.

One of the shaggy beasts growled.

“Soon, soon,” said one of the men, soothingly, he whose office it seemed to be to interpret the noises of the beasts.

“Run her for the sleen,” suggested one of the men.

“That would be amusing,” said another.

“No,” said the fellow who seemed to translate for the shambling monsters amongst them. “Kardok is hungry.”

“The sleen may feed secondly,” said a fellow, “should there be anything left.”

“Why?” demanded Mirus.

“She has seen too much, she has heard too much,” said one of the men.

“She has understood nothing,” said Mirus.

“It will be hard to control the sleen,” said the fellow who had suggested running the slave. “They have hunted. They have tracked for days. Now they are successful. They will expect their reward.”

Even as he spoke the two hunting sleen inched forward, tails lashing, haunches trembling.

“Such beasts are not patient,” said the man, apprehensively. “They are dangerous.”

Ellen drew back, against the rope, her legs almost giving way beneath her, almost fainting.

“Have you meat with you?” cried Mirus to Portus Canio.

“No,” said Portus Canio.

“The tharlarion!” said Mirus.

“Neither sleen nor our friends care muchly for tharlarion,” said one of the men.

“There is better feed about,” laughed another.

“No!” said Mirus.

“It is not a question of meat,” snarled one of his companions.

The beast called Kardok, the largest of the five monstrous creatures, looked toward the wagon and Portus Canio, and the others. There were sounds from it, guttural emanations, yet somehow half articulate, suggesting Gorean, or surrogates for its phonemes.

The fellow who translated laughed. “Kardok observes,” said he, “that there is much meat here.”

“They are armed,” said another.

“Put down the bows, sheath your weapons,” said one of Mirus’s companions, one mounted to his left, regarding the men of Portus Canio. “And you will not be hurt.”

“Leave the slave, and be on your way,” said Portus Canio.

“We are all armed, and can dart lightning upon you,” said he who had spoken.

“Who will be first to reach for the lightning knife?” asked Portus Canio.

Two crossbows were set, fingers upon the triggers.

The companions of Mirus looked at one another. Only Mirus held his weapon, and he then, with obvious show, thrust it in his belt.

Kardok’s eyes blazed as he looked from the face of one of Portus Canio’s men to that of another. His gaze lingered last, and longest, on that of Selius Arconious. Then, without removing his gaze from that of Selius Arconious, whom he seemed to somehow sense might be the most dangerous, or the most desperate, or the most irrational, or the first to act, he uttered a succession of soft, low, almost gentle, growling noises.

“Forgive us, dear travelers,” said the translator, regarding the men at the wagon. “We will give you the slave.” He made a gesture and the fellow who had Ellen’s neck rope, the improvised leash, looped about the pommel of the saddle loosened it, and tossed it, grinning, to the grass near her ankles. She sank to her knees, trembling. “We shall be on our way. We leave you in peace. Have a good journey. We wish you well.”

“What of your sleen?” inquired Portus Canio.

“We will shortly set them to hunt in the grasslands,” said the man. “There is no danger. They will forage well enough for themselves.”

“I think they are domesticated sleen, trained hunting sleen,” said Portus Canio.

“We wish you well,” said the man.

Ellen looked wildly at Selius Arconious.

Selius Arconious suddenly, wildly, pointed to the sky, far, high, away, behind the riders. “Tarnsmen!” he cried. “Tarnsmen!”

What happened then was scarcely clear to Ellen. The men, those mounted or not, those with Mirus, and those near the wagon, naturally, without much thinking of it, followed Arconious’s gesture, turning, raising their eyes.

“Where?” shouted one of the riders.

But Arconious in that moment, unnoted, the others distracted, had hurled himself forward, through the midst of the riders, and laid powerful, rough hands on he who was the translator for the beast, doubtless in the belief that he was first amongst the riders. And in that sudden, confused moment the startled, angry rider had been dragged from the saddle, struck half senseless, and dragged backward, stumbling, groggy, his body shielding that of Arconious, toward the wagon. By the time the riders in that chaotic moment were apprised of the cry of their fellow, and turned from their brief, agitated, intent scanning of the empty sky, Arconious was four or five feet from them, backing away, moving toward the wagon. He stopped there, some feet before the wagon, the blade of his dagger at the throat of the dazed, disconcerted fellow he held. The man’s hand moved toward his holstered weapon, but then he lifted it, and held it away from the holster, as the edge of the blade tightened at his throat.

Hands of the riders moved toward their weapons, but they did not draw them. The two crossbowmen at the wagon, their bodies muchly behind the wagon, shielded there, the quarrels at the ready, tensed. Each had his target.

“If you would have your captain live,” cried Arconious, “throw down your weapons, and be on your way!”

“Throw down your weapons!” cried he who was held by Arconious. “Cast them down!”

“But we are prepared to leave in peace,” said one of the riders, inching his mount forward.

“Cast down your weapons!” said Arconious.

“Cast down your weapons!” cried he whom Arconious held.

The rider who had come forward a little smiled.

“Please!” cried the fellow.

In that moment Ellen’s heart sank, for she understood that he who had spoken for the monsters was not first amongst the riders, nor, earlier, it had been clear, was Mirus.

“We wish only to leave in peace,” said the rider.

It was he then, she supposed, who was first amongst the visitors. He was the one who had been rather to the side and behind Mirus. He was the one who had asserted that Portus Canio’s group had put the purloined gold somewhere.

The two sleen began to growl menacingly. One began to scratch at the turf. The other crouched even lower. It was, Ellen surmised, the more dangerous of the two.

“Let us give up the weapons,” said Mirus.

“You are mad,” said one of the riders.

“We would then be less than they,” said another.

“Forget the slut,” said another. “You can obtain another, a better.”

“Put down your weapons!” whispered he whom Arconious held. He did not wish even to speak aloud, lest he inadvertently cut his own throat, so close against his throat was set the narrow edge of Arconious’s blade.

“Let us discard our weapons,” said Mirus. “He is essential to our work. No other can communicate with the beasts.”

“Yes, yes, only I can speak with the beasts!” whispered he whom Arconious held.

At this point, from the largest of the beasts, he spoken of as Kardok, there emanated a low rumble of sound. Too, the lips of the monster drew back, revealing moist fangs.

The translator, Arconious’ knife at his throat, turned white.

He whom Ellen now took to be first amongst the visitors urged his tharlarion forward a few feet. He was then somewhat in advance of his fellows, and a few feet from the translator and Selius Arconious.

“Translate,” he said.

“No, no!” said the man.

“It seems,” said the darkly clad, mounted fellow, quietly, he now in advance of his fellows, he whom Ellen took to be first amongst the visitors, “a translation is not necessary.”

“No, no!” said the translator.

“Throw down your weapons!” demanded Arconious.

“Of course,” said the first rider. “Tell your men not to fire,” he said to Portus Canio.

“Be ready,” said Portus Canio.

Very slowly the first rider drew an automatic pistol from its holster. He smiled.

“No!” cried the fellow held by Arconious.

The report was very loud, at so close a range. Ellen screamed. The men about the wagon seemed stunned, paralyzed with shock.

Selius Arconious released the body and it fell from him, to the grass. Bewildered, Arconious regarded he who had fired the shot. Arconious, stunned, lowered his knife.

“The sleen are restless,” said one of the riders, in the background.

“Step away from the body,” said the first rider.

Selius Arconious stepped back.

At a sign from the first rider, a fellow in the back suddenly cried out to the sleen, “Now!”

Ellen screamed as the two gray bodies scrambled past her. There was oil from the pelt of one on her bound arm, as she twisted away. They might have trailed her, presumably from a scent lingering in her cage, from before her sale. But she had not been and, it seemed, was not now designated their reward. The rope on her neck whipped behind her, sped by a rushing rear paw.

Then the sleen were at the body, tearing and scratching through the leather, through the clothing. Ellen thought for an instant that the eyes of he whom Selius Arconious had briefly held had opened for an agonized instant, the body understanding that it was being eaten, but this was doubtless merely a consequence of its subjection to the frenzied molestation. The bullet, she was sure, had been well placed, casually, and at short range. The body was probably dead before it reached the grass, fallen before the sandals of the stunned, disbelieving Selius Arconious, he shaken from the noise and the horror, his knife held lamely in his hand.

“How will we now communicate with the beasts?” asked Mirus.

Kardok stood up, his height expanding upward, almost as though he were slowly, somehow unnaturally enlarging, to something like nine feet. He looked about. His head was enormous. The eyes were huge, rounded. His massive body was perhaps a yard in width, viewed frontally. It could not have been encircled by the arms of large man. “He was not necessary,” it said.

All regarded the beast, all in awe, save he who was the first rider, he closest to the wagon, whose weapon was still in his grasp.

A pungency of expended powder laced the air.

The sounds had now been unmistakable Gorean, cavernously, vitally, exotically, distantly, strangely formed, but Gorean. It was as though a gigantic, dark, misshapen, deformed, threatening bearlike beast, like a massive, awakening living boulder of flesh and cruelty, had spoken. The sounds, despite their frightening, astonishing nature, and their remarkable source, could be clearly understood. The sounds were quite unlike the sounds which it had earlier uttered.

“It can speak!” said one of Portus’s men.

“So, too, can you,” said Kardok. “Should I find that strange?”

The sleen continued to feed.

“We do not teach our humans to speak,” it said.

“Call away your beast,” said Portus, half sick.

The first rider smiled.

“Who is first amongst you?” demanded Portus Canio.

“I am,” said Kardok.

“You have two crossbows,” said the assailant, the first rider. “There are five of us, and we can kill from a distance. We do not surrender our weapons.”

“Nor we ours,” said Portus Canio. “Some of us can reach you, surely, for we are nine, and you are now but five.”

“I think, then, we have a truce,” said the first rider. “We shall now, peacefully, take our leave.”

“Do not move,” said Portus Canio.

“They will move away, and then slay you with impunity, Masters!” cried Ellen.

“Be silent, slave,” snarled Selius Arconious.

“That is obviously their plan,” said Portus Canio.

The first rider tensed. The hands of the other riders moved closer to their weapons.

“There are five of us,” said the first rider, “and two sleen.”

“On whom would you be able to set them, and how?” inquired Portus Canio. “Too, I do not think I would care, personally, to interrupt a sleen in its feeding.”

“Actually,” said the first rider, “there are ten of us.”

“The beasts are not armed,” said Portus Canio.

“So, five,” shrugged the first rider.

“Why are the beasts not armed?” asked Portus Canio.

Something seemed to move behind the eyes of the first rider. It was brief, and subtle, scarcely tangible, rather like a movement in the air, hardly noticed. “I do not know,” he said. “But they are formidable, I assure you.”

“So then there are ten of you, and only nine of us,” said Portus Canio.

“It seems so,” granted the rider.

“How many are you prepared to lose?” asked Portus Canio.

“I would prefer to lose none,” he said.

“Then discard your weapons,” said Portus Canio.

“It seems our kaissa has come to a locked position,” said the rider.

“There are no locked positions here,” said Portus Canio. “This is not kaissa.” His hand was tensed on the hilt of his blade.

“Ah,” said the first rider, as though resigned. “Then who will move first?”

Ellen, the rude leash dangling from her neck, and then over her left shoulder, behind her, her hands roped tightly behind her, knelt in terror on the grass. She was afraid to move. She feared that the smallest movement, the tiniest sound, the most diminutive influence, might prove critical, like the smallest jarring, or jostling, like a small thing which might tip a balance, a carelessly dislodged pebble that releases an avalanche, the particle of static electricity which triggers the bolt of lighting, the tiny movement, even a hesitant, uncertain, false step, which causes a gingerly held device, reposing in its container, to awaken, exploding, crying out, showering bricks, gouging asphalt, striking away roofs and walls for a hundred yards about.

There was the sound of the feeding of the sleen.

The sky was a bright blue. A gentle wind stirred stalks of grass.

“Tarnsmen!” said Selius Arconious. “Tarnsmen!”

Men tensed, the hands of riders almost darted to their weapons.

“Do you think we are fools?” asked the first rider.

The other riders laughed, but did not take their eyes from the men of Portus Canio.

“You do us little honor, tarnster,” said the first rider.

“Tarnsmen,” repeated Selius Arconious.

Portus Canio lifted his gaze a fraction.

Ellen gasped.

“Your trick is older than the Sardar itself,” said the first rider.

“Tarnsmen,” said Portus Canio.

“Desist,” snarled the first rider. His hand tightened on the weapon he had rested on the saddle.

But at that moment there was indeed a beating of wings in the sky, a whirl of wind, a blasting of grasses, the screams of mighty forms overhead, wild gigantic darting shadows darkening the grass, the shouts of men, the piercing sounds of tarn whistles.

“Aii!” cried the first rider, wheeling in the saddle.

“Take cover!” shouted Portus Canio.

Selius Arconious flung himself toward Ellen, dragged her to the earth and covered her body for an instant with his own, crouching over it, looking up, wildly. Arrows struck into the turf. Ellen saw an arrow hit the turf not a yard away. It was so suddenly there, not there, then there, almost upright, quivering, a third of its length in the dirt. In an odd almost still instant she saw the breeze ruffle its fletching, and then cried out as Selius Arconious dragged her to her feet by a bound arm and, looking upward, rushed her stumbling to the wagon, and hurled her savagely, she rolling, beneath it. Then he was gone.

Her shoulder hurt.

The sleen lifted their heads from their feeding, looked upward, and then, their snouts bloody, thrust their jaws again into the mass of blood, cloth and meat under their paws, between the riders and the back of the wagon.

Ellen heard the sound of gunfire.

One of Portus’s men who had held the two crossbows wheeled away from the back of the wagon, stumbling, the weapon discharged, fallen to the grass. An arrow transfixed his throat. His hands were on the shaft, and he broke it, it snapping with a sharp sound, but then, his eyes glazed, blood running from his mouth, and from about the splintered shaft lodged in his throat, he sank to the grass.

The tharlarion swung its head about, bellowing. Its heavy tail lashed, pounding the earth. It twisted in the traces. The wagon rocked, half off the ground, tipped, and then righted itself. Ellen heard an arrow strike into the wagon bed above her. An angry metal point seemed suddenly to have grown from the splintered wood above her.

Two of Portus’s men, weapons in their hands, now crouched under the wagon with her, taking cover from the fire from above. Two others were crouched behind the tharlarion. There were cries of rage from the mounted men about. Their mounts wheeled about, squealing. Men struggled to control them. Two men had dismounted and were looking upward. The beasts howled. One tore at the grass. Another, in frustration, sprang upward, again and again, reaching upward, as if it might clutch and tear the clouds themselves. The sleen fed, now more placidly. There was more gunfire. And then it was suddenly quiet.

Ellen crawled on her knees from under the wagon.

A great bird, a tarn, lay thrashing in the grass fifty yards away, amidst the debris of a tarn basket.

Cosian men at arms, some armed with short bows, such as may be used with convenience from tarn baskets, which may clear the bulwarks and fire amongst the ropes, saddle bows, actually, such as are favored for similar reasons by tarnsmen, were drawing away, afoot. One or two bodies lay near the thrashing tarn. In the distance, but turning now, obviously withdrawing, but not abandoning the field, were four more tarns, each with a tarn basket slung beneath it.

She heard Portus Canio say, “They will come again.”

She then saw, with a gasp of relief, Selius Arconious. In his hand, but empty now, was the second crossbow. He who had held it earlier was to one side. In his inert body there were four arrows. Ellen supposed that the crossbowmen would be the prime targets of the aerial archers, as they would suppose, at least initially, that only those would be able to respond to their attack. That the tarns had withdrawn as they had, so quickly, suggested that the attackers had not anticipated the resistance they had encountered. Doubtless they were startled, and perhaps dismayed, and disconcerted, perhaps even frightened, by the noise of the gunfire, and the damage it might have wreaked amongst them. They would not have expected this. Probably nothing in their experiences would have prepared them for this. Surely they would fear, at least, that these noises, these harms, were the effects of what they had only heard of in stories, the effects of instruments they might have hitherto supposed merely fanciful, the effects of forbidden weapons.

The tarns were now alighting, several hundred yards away.

“They will come again, some on foot,” said Portus Canio. Then he regarded Selius Arconious. “You shot well,” he said.

Selius Arconious shrugged. “I fear not well enough.”

“Two will no longer draw the bow,” said Portus Canio.

“I saw Tersius Major in one of the baskets,” said Fel Doron.

“I, too,” said Portus Canio.

“He was not hit,” said Fel Doron.

“No,” said Portus Canio.

“As I said,” said Selius Arconious, “I did not shoot well enough.”

“How many quarrels are there left?” asked Portus Canio.

“I have two, Loquatus has another,” said Arconious.

“Then we are finished,” said Portus Canio.

“The tharlarion is hit,” said a man.

“I do not think badly,” said another. “The arrow struck away, not lodging in the flesh.”

“There is a wound. It is bleeding,” said a man.

“Attend to it,” said Portus Canio.

The tharlarion was browsing, calmly, in its traces.

The sleen were lying near the body of the translator, their jaws bloody, dried blood even on the fur of their throats. One had its paw on the body. They were now somnolent, their eyes half shut.

Ellen struggled to her feet, beside the wagon.

Those who had been with Mirus had drawn to one side. Two of the beasts were dead. Kardok, standing near them, lifted his head, and turned his eyes toward the wagon, toward Portus’s group.

“Load the bow,” said Portus Canio.

Two of the men who had been with Mirus lay on the grass. One was apparently dead, the other wounded. There had been six humans in the party of Mirus, including himself. Their forces, with the slaying of the translator, whose weapon had apparently been retrieved in the fray by one of those with Mirus, now numbered four, one of whom was wounded. He who had substantially been their spokesman, whom Ellen took to be the leader, who had shot the translator, was unhurt, as was Mirus. Only one of their mounts was both at hand and unhurt. Some may have thrown their riders and fled into the grassland. Two had been killed with arrows. As with the crossbowmen the mounts had been prime targets, as their availability might have facilitated the escape of scattering, fleeing foes. I have heard that there is a saying amongst one of the many Gorean peoples, in this case the “Red Savages of the Barrens,” as they are spoken of, to the effect that an enemy afoot is an enemy dead. I know little of the Barrens. They are supposedly an area of vast prairies somewhere far away, far to the east. Of Portus’s men, who had numbered nine, there were five left.

Staggering across the grass towards Portus’s group was he whom Ellen took to be the leader of the visitors, or, at least, of the humans, he who had spoken for them, he who had killed the translator. She does not know his name. She has spoken of him hitherto by such expressions as “the first rider,” in virtue of his having brought his tharlarion forward, in advance of his fellows. Hereafter, he no longer being mounted, she will refer to him as the “spokesman.” She hopes that this mode of reference will not be found confusing. For better or for worse, it seems to her appropriate. In any event, in putative justification of this decision, if such is required, it seems that he spoke for, and was first amongst, the humans in Mirus’s group, which group might also, she supposes, incidentally, be thought of as Kardok’s retinue. She has no doubt, as of now, that the true leader of the group was the great beast, Kardok. This had not been clearly understood, she is sure, by all members of the group until after the encounter in the grasslands. For example, it seems clear that this had not been clearly understood by Mirus, who seemed to have taken it for granted, and naturally, however unwisely, that the leadership of the group was in the grip of one of his own kind, a human, presumably he whom we now choose to refer to as the “spokesman.” The beasts, Ellen supposes, permitted, and doubtless even encouraged, this misapprehension, perhaps as a concession to human vanity, one acceptable in virtue of its utility in furthering their projects. Portus calmly watched him approach. The spokesman, half dazed, lifted his weapon and trained it on Portus’s chest.

“There were probably five or six men in each basket,” said Portus quietly, gazing into the barrel of the weapon, whose capacities he now well understood. “You killed one tarn and disabled one basket. Most of the soldiers escaped from the basket when the tarn fell. You, and we, may have killed four or five others. Selius Arconious struck at least two. I conjecture then that there are some twenty-five or so left. They will come again. Some will strike from the air. Some will be put afoot. We will be encircled. It is a matter of time. We could scatter into the grasslands. One or two might escape. I do not know. But there is little place to hide, and much can be seen from the air. Each one of us you kill reduces your own probabilities of survival. I think we have a truce now, if we are rational.”

The spokesman lowered his weapon, and looked outward, across the grass, some two to three hundred yards away, to where the tarns had alighted.

“Why did they attack us?” asked the spokesman.

“You were with us,” said Portus Canio. “Perhaps they thought this a rendezvous of sorts.”

“Why did they seek you?” asked the spokesman.

Portus shrugged. “Who knows the aberrations of Cosians?”

Mirus led his mount forward, the only one left to their group. His weapon was thrust in his belt. “They sought him,” said he, nodding toward Selius Arconious. “He bought a slave with Cosian gold, that slave,” he then indicating Ellen who, finding herself under the eyes of a free man, immediately knelt, not wishing to be punished, “gold seemingly of the trove which was diverted from the paymasters of the mercenaries in Ar.”

“Ar then will be restless indeed,” said the spokesman. “And where is this gold?” he asked Selius Arconious.

“I have forgotten,” said Selius.

“Perhaps you might be helped to remember,” said the spokesman.

“It is gone, sped,” said Portus Canio. “None of us now know where it is.”

“Oh?” said the spokesman.

“Two were with our party,” said Portus Canio. “They knew. Indeed they, and others, were involved in its seizure and concealment. They are now gone. It was our plan that they should leave our march at a certain point, and then go on alone —”

“Alone?” smiled Mirus.

“Yes,” said Portus Canio. “— to keep an arranged rendezvous, and there inform designated others, with a miscellany of wagons and carts, as to the location of the gold in its secret cache, others who will then retrieve the gold and see to its proper distributions and disbursements.”

“I see,” said Mirus.

“Then they, the two who were with our party, will proceed toward Ar.”

“And then you might never see them again?”

“Perhaps not,” said Portus Canio. “One does not know.”

“And did your plan unfold as you had anticipated?”

“Not entirely,” said Portus Canio. “The two of whom I speak left the march early, and secretly.”

“And they knew the location of the gold?” laughed Mirus.

“Yes,” said Portus Canio.

“The gold is lost,” said Mirus.

“No,” said Portus Canio.

“You are a trusting fellow,” said the spokesman.

“There is such a thing as honor,” said Portus Canio.

Mirus looked at him, sharply.

“Even if they should make away with it, or the others to whom they impart information,” said Portus Canio, “it does not much matter, really. The important thing is that it does not reach the mercenary forces in Ar.”

“You are a patriot,” said the spokesman, cynically.

“I have a Home Stone,” said Portus Canio. “Do you?”

“No,” said Mirus, though the question had not been addressed to him.

“It is interesting,” said the spokesman, “that out of the hundreds of wagons leaving the festival camp at Brundisium, and days later, in the vastness of these grasslands, the Cosians managed to locate you.”

“Doubtless they scout in patterns,” said Portus Canio. “And much can be seen from the air.”

“It is possible,” said Mirus, “they were following us.”

“To find the slave through us, and the tarnster through the slave?” asked the spokesman.

“Yes,” said Mirus.

“You should have throttled the slut in the camp,” said the spokesman.

“Even had I desired to do so,” said Mirus, “I could not have done so, as I was outbid.”

“You had your chance at the camp, at the tent,” snarled the spokesman. “We left her to you, you let her go.”

“I did arrange that she would dance publicly, forced to display herself as the mere property-slut she is.”

“And what was the point of that?”

“I think you would not understand,” said Mirus.

Ellen put down her head. She recalled Earth, of so many years ago, and the earlier, radical, pronounced discrepancy in their stations. Then he had had her rejuvenated, become no more than a girl, and had had her danced as a slave. How sweet, she thought, was his revenge. And now, again, there was a radical discrepancy in their stations, but one now a thousand times more radical than that which had characterized their relationship on Earth. He was a free man; she was kajira, a slave girl.

“She danced well,” said the spokesman.

“You saw?”

“Of course. You do not think we would let her get away from us, do you?”

Ellen, kneeling, her hands tied behind her, the rope on her neck, trembled.

“Yes,” granted Mirus, “I was surprised. I did not expect her to be so good.”

“Is she a bred slave?”

“Only in a general sense,” said Mirus.

“She is from Earth, is she not?”

“Yes.”

“A good place to find female slaves.”

“Yes.”

“What did you pay for her there?”

“She was free there,” said Mirus.

“Free?”

“Legally free,” said Mirus.

“What a tragic waste of female.”

“I had her bought to Gor for my amusement.”

“A free woman?”

“The best thing about free women is that they may be made slaves,” said Mirus.

“Yes,” said the spokesman.

“I had known her long ago, and had seen the slave of her.”

“I think that would have required no great feat of perception,” smiled the spokesman.

Ellen jerked at the bonds on her wrists, and then subsided.

She had been bound by a Gorean male.

“True,” said Mirus. “Sometimes such things are obvious.”

“It would have required no great feat of perception, I should have said,” said the spokesman, “— for a slaver.”

Mirus nodded, acknowledging the compliment.

Ellen had heard that a good slaver could discern the needful, waiting slave even in cases in which, prima facie, it might seem unlikely. Behind the brandished facades of freedom, concealed within painstakingly erected ideological fortresses of denial, the victims of self-imposed starvations, a slaver might detect the ready, yearning slave. Ellen had heard of the case of a particularly lovely, young, if somewhat arrogant and condescending, psychiatrist, who believed herself to be treating an alarmingly virile male patient. Unbeknownst to herself the patient was a Gorean slaver, who was scouting her. While she was uneasily, because of her fascination with him, and the unsettling, disturbing stirring in her belly which he produced, attempting to cure him of his masculinity, he was considering if she might do, say, on a slave block or stripped at a man’s feet in slave chains. While she thought herself to be treating him, then, he was, so to speak, measuring her for the collar. He easily pierced, it seems, the facades of falsification and fabrication within which she had attempted to hide the slave of her. A slaver, he easily saw her slave. The question then was was it good enough to be brought to Gor. Yes, he considered her acceptable. Rather than simply schedule her for acquisition, however, he decided that he would force her to face her own deepest feelings. On what would be their last session, while she was earnestly, somewhat pathetically, somewhat desperately, propounding her theories, that he should repudiate his masculinity, theories dictated by policy preferences and much at odds with the insights of seminal depth psychologists, he removed an object from his jacket and threw it on the desk before her.

“What is that?” she asked, though surely she knew. What woman would not?

“It is a slave collar,” he told her.

“A slave collar?”

“The collar of a slave,” he smiled.

“I do not understand.”

“You may put it on, or not.”

“Where is the key?” she asked.

“I hold the key,” he said.

“I do not understand,” she said.

“Put it on your neck, and close it, or not. It is up to you.”

“I do not understand,” she whispered.

He rose from his chair. “I am leaving,” he said. He turned about.

“Wait,” she called plaintively.

He turned about, to face her.

She had never met such a man.

She might never again meet such a man.

In his presence she was half giddy with sensation; she felt confused, weak, overwhelmed with a sense of her femaleness, her femaleness as she had never before felt it. Her femaleness seemed to her suddenly not only nonrepudiable but the most important thing about her, and it was precious, wonderful, and needful; she understood then, in his presence, as she never had before, what she was, undeniably, radically, and fundamentally, a female.

She took the collar and came about the desk, awkwardly, she could later be taught to move well, to stand before him. She seemed very small before him, and female, he in his height, and masculinity.

“It is time you put aside your theories, and learned of reality, and the world,” he said.

She clutched the collar, piteously, in both hands.

“What am I to do?” she said.

He pointed to the rug, before him and she, scarcely understanding what she was doing, shaking with emotion, trembling with sensations hitherto experienced only in her dreams, those exotic corridors of truth, knelt before him.

“You are now as you should be,” he said, “a female — kneeling before a male.”

“Who are you? What are you?” she begged.

“I am a slaver,” he said, “from a world called Gor.”

“There is no such place,” she said.

“You might better judge of that,” he said, “should you find yourself chained at a Gorean slave ring, naked.”

“I, chained, naked?” she said.

He looked down upon her.

“You might be deemed acceptable,” he said.

Tears running from her eyes, kneeling before him, she lifted the collar to him.

“No,” he said, “I shall not make this easy for you. Put it on your own neck, and close it, if you wish.”

She did so.

“The lock,” he said, “goes at the back.”

She lifted her hands and rotated the collar.

In this way the encircling beauty of the band is best exhibited.

“Your breasts,” he said, “are nicely lifted, as you do that.”

She was startled, to hear her femaleness so noted, appreciatively, yet casually.

It was a strange contrast, doubtless, as she knelt before him, in a severe business suit, with skirt, but on her neck a Gorean slave collar. It would have looked less strange, and much better, he supposed, were she in a bit of slave silk, or a tunic, or, perhaps best, naked.

Culture prescribes certain aptnesses.

“Pronounce yourself slave,” he said, “— but only if you wish.”

“Please!” she begged.

“— Only if you wish,” he said.

“I am a slave,” she said.

“You are a slave,” he said.

She looked up at him, pathetically.

“It is done,” he said. “You have no power to reverse such things. Do you understand, girl?”

“‘Girl’?”

He did not bother to respond to such an inanity.

“Yes,” she whispered, “I am a girl.”

“And does the girl understand?”

“Yes,” she whispered, “the girl understands.”

“You are an unclaimed slave,” he said. “An unclaimed slave is subject to claimancy.”

“Claim me,” she said.

“Do you beg to be claimed?”

“Yes!”

“I claim you.”

“I am claimed!” she said, softly, in gratitude, in relief, tears coursing down her cheeks.

“Whose are you?” he asked.

“Yours!” she said.

“Mine?”

“Yours — Master,” she said.

“That is doubtless the first time you have addressed that word to a man.”

“Yes, Master,” she said. “I have never before had a master.”

“Your theories have irritated me,” he said. “Accordingly, I do not think that your bondage, at least in the beginning, will be an easy one.”

“It will be as Master wishes,” she said, a surrendered slave.

He turned about, to leave.

“Master,” she called. “May I rise?”

He smiled. In her dreams, and fantasies, as he had suspected, she had been many times a slave. “Yes,” he said, without turning about. He then left, and she rose to her feet, and hurried after him.

He decided, it is said, to keep her for himself.

It is said she became one of the loveliest house and stable slaves in Venna, a city somewhat north of Ar, famed for its tharlarion races.

Ellen felt herself regarded, and she put her head down.

“I was the first,” said Mirus, “to have her put where she belongs, in a collar.”

“I think the men of Earth must be stupid.”

“Many, doubtless,” said Mirus.

“If you were surprised at how well she did in the dance, as you claimed,” said the spokesman, “why would you have had her danced in the first place?”

“I expected her to do badly,” said Mirus. “Particularly for the ba-ta circle. I wished not only to shame her, but to have her fail miserably. I wished that her dancing, that of a mere Earth girl, for one knows what they are, to be an enraging, pathetic joke on the sand. Thus she would be not only humiliated that she must dance as a slave, but, beyond that, an excruciating shame for a woman, that she would be humiliated that she had failed to please, that she had danced so badly. I then expected to have the pleasure of seeing her, for her temerity in intruding on the ba-ta circle, so unworthy a slave, well and lengthily lashed.”

Ellen shuddered. How miserable she would have been under the lash!

Was there no end, she wondered, to the hatred, the vengeance, of Mirus?

But how little he understood her!

In bringing her to Gor and the collar he had undoubtedly intended, for his satisfaction, his pleasure, his amusement and revenge, to place her fully and irremediably in that situation which he supposed would be the most abject, degrading and miserable of any in which a human female might find herself, and particularly one such as she, the situation of categorical bondage, a situation of obedience, fear, submission, helplessness, and service, a situation in which she could be bought and sold, a situation in which she would be no more than vendible collar meat, vulnerable and rightless, subject to the kennel and cage, to chains and the lash. And so it had been his intention to inflict upon her what he supposed would be the most miserable of lives for a human female, and particularly for one such as she, a life of unutterable terror, misery, lamentation, humiliation, and shame, the life of a female slave.

But how little he understood me, and understands me, thought Ellen.

He did not understand, she was sure, that he had, however unintentionally, and doubtless much against his will, brought her not to misery and ruin but to herself, to a happiness she had never hitherto realized could exist, brought her to a meaningfulness and a fullness of life which she would never have dreamed possible, brought her to her radical, fundamental, basic womanhood, brought her to her fulfillment and joy, brought her to the liberation of the collar.

Oh, yes, she thought, I know the terror of the collar. I certainly know it now, for there are men here who would kill me. But it would surely be the same, were I a free woman. The slave is safer, by far, almost always, than a free woman, for the slave, as she is an animal, is not likely to be killed; rather she is likely merely to change hands, as might a kaiila or tarsk. Do not free women, in the fall of a city, often tear away their clothes and cast themselves naked before the conquerors, begging to be kept as a slave? Do not others find collars and attempt to conceal themselves amongst slaves, but are then seized and bound by the slaves and presented naked to the conquerors, exposed in their deceit. And do those slaves not enjoy administering the first whippings to their former mistresses! To be sure, the slave, and her life, belongs to the master. But seldom would she have it otherwise. The usual fear of the female slave is a simple one, that she may fail in some respect to be fully pleasing to the master, in which case she must expect to be punished.

And it can be miserable to be a slave, of course, thought Ellen. There is little doubt about that. One is so helpless, one is so vulnerable. She remembered incidents in the house of Mirus, many in her training, her sometimes almost hysterical despair of ever being able to please her instructors, their impatience with her, her deferent and lengthy serving of formally clad diners, she naked and in a collar, her abuse at the hands of Mirus, her writhing under his whip, the ease with which she was drugged and sold, the heat of Targo’s shelf, the fear of masters and the great tarns, the dust of the coffle, the cruel encirclements of tight, coarse ropes, the weight of chains, the sting of the switch, the stroke of the lash, so many things. But I would not do without even such things, she thought. I would not exchange my collar for the world. It belongs on me. I could not be happy otherwise. Do not such things confirm on me what I am? Am I not then, even in my distress, reassured?

So much depends on the master, she thought. It is little wonder that slaves hope for a private master, one who will notice them, who will speak with them, who will care for them, who will be kind to them, one who will stoke their slave fires and force them to flame with helpless ecstasy, but, in all, one who will well rule their slave, one who will keep them in strict, unrelenting, perfect discipline, and never let them forget what they are, and can only be, a slave.

It is little wonder that slaves come so often to love their masters, and with that passion and devotion which one can find only in a slave.

What slave does not seek her love master? What man does not seek his love slave?

But commonly the slave must strive to conceal the flames of her love, as she is only a slave. Let the master not suspect her presumption and insolence, that she, so unworthy, should dare to love a free man. It is enough that she should be no more than his needful, helplessly submitted, ecstatic toy. And what a fool he would be, on his part, a free man, to love a mere slave! She does not wish to be bound, taken to the market, and sold.

And yet, in all, how many masters, to the chagrin of free women, come to care for their lovely chattels!

And what, thought Ellen, of all this talk of humiliation, shame, degradation, and such. I suspect such things are usually more in the mind of free women than in the mind of the slave. Certainly free women often, in their envy and jealousy, do their best to discomfit a slave, to shame and humiliate her, to treat her as a worthless, degraded object, and so on. But men prefer us. We are the women they want. We are the women they buy.

But, of course, thought Ellen, we can feel humiliation, shame, degradation, and such things!

Are we not slaves?

We must obey instantly, unquestioningly.

We may be used as men please.

And sometimes men force us to experience our own worthlessness, particularly if we are women taken from the enemy, or despised barbarians, good only for servile labors and collar pleasures. Men can enjoy humiliating us. They can see to it easily enough that we burn with shame. They can see to it that we are well reminded that we are slaves, that our condition is abject, that we are vulnerable, that we are helpless, that we are rightless, that we are banded chattels, that we are now no more than animals. They can well enforce upon us a recollection of our meaninglessness and degradation. At their hands we are trained and dominated. But, is it strangely, we can find a fittingness, and a reassurance and comfort in being despised, in being demeaned, in performing humble tasks, the scrubbing of a floor, the polishing of boots, the tidying of a room, the laundering of a tunic, the bringing of the master’s sandals to him, crawling, in our teeth. And we can beg for the most humiliating and shaming of ties and chainings. And it is easy for them to bring us to the point where we will beg shamelessly, lifting our bodies to him, rearing upwards toward him, as the most vulnerable and degraded of slaves, for what may now be but the tiniest touch of the tip of a finger. And sometimes in the midst of our humiliation, our shame, our fervent beggings, our welcomed and sought degradation, we have experiences forever beyond the ken of the free woman, the raptures of the mastered slave.

I think, on the whole, however, that slaves seldom feel humiliated, shamed, or degraded. Why should they? It would be absurd that they should. They are beautiful, they are desired, they are prized. They are a lovely and precious ingredient in Gorean civilization. Are they not special? Were they not, would men bid upon them and buy them with such eagerness?

A new slave, of course, might feel, at least at the beginning, what free women would like them to feel all the time, embarrassment, burning shame, acute mortification, and such. Is there not a collar on their neck, which they cannot remove? Are they in slave garb not much bared, even brazenly exhibited? Must they not now kneel, even to those who might formerly have been equals and peers? Must they not now obey instantly and unquestioningly? Are they not now owned? Are they not now properties? May they not now be bought and sold? Are they not now, too, mere animals, livestock? But these feelings tend to pass. The collar soon comes to be viewed not as an emblem of degradation but as a badge of quality, a symbol of female excellence, which, to be sure, she cannot remove, a testimonial to her desirability, a sign that she has been found of interest to men, that she is a woman of the sort men want. And when she becomes more a slave she comes to understand that slave garb is not degrading, but enhancing. She discovers that her beauty, unlike when she was a free woman, is nothing to be ashamed of, but is rather something in which to rejoice, something in which to take pleasure and pride. It does not dismay her vanity to learn that she is attractive, and beautiful, even “slave beautiful.” Would it yours? And she is, of course, well aware that where her charms are concerned slave garb will keep few secrets. Accordingly, she soon comes to prize her tunics, camisks, ta-teeras, and such. She knows how wonderfully beautiful and exciting she is in them. In them, scantily clad, she is stunning, a vision of delight, delicious, a viand, a repast, a banquet, for masters; does her soft glance not invite men to her subjugation; does her walk not suggest she would leap helplessly, uncontrollably, under a male caress; in her eyes can they not detect a mute plea, expressive of the need and readiness of a slave? Best she should quickly hurry home to her master! Begone, girl! Do not torture us! Hasten to your own chains! You should see her walk before men! You see, too, slave garb augments her attractions and excitements in dimensions other than the purely aesthetic. For example, in it she is identified as a slave, a property, something which one might own. Do you think that this does not add to her interest? And, of course, she soon, as a female, learns the pleasures and proprieties of pleasing and serving, of kneeling before her master, of hastening to obey, and so on. Let her beware, of course, the switches of free women, who will hate her.

Is a slave happy?

In theory, this does not matter.

Who cares for the feelings of a slave?

But obviously this depends on many things.

I certainly was not happy in the laundry, in the house of Mirus. It seems to me improbable that the girls in the mills would be happy, or very much so. I doubt that the naked slaves in the tiny, crooked shafts of silver mines, carrying water to miners, have an easy life, and so on. Too, one supposes the girls on the great farms, struggling with plows, hoeing shackled, chained in seeding and harvesting coffles, kenneled at night, would just as soon be city slaves, and so on.

Most slaves, however, certainly those with private masters, are happy in their collars, even radiantly so, even pot girls, and kettle-and-mat girls, and take great pleasure in pleasing and serving their masters. They are given the domination and mastering which a woman requires, and under which she thrives and blossoms. Gor celebrates nature; she does not deny her. The slave lives in a world of intimacy and emotional richness. She belongs to her master. She finds herself fulfilled in the collar. To be sure, she knows she is only a slave. But this, too, in its way, as she wants to be a slave, gives her great pleasure. Let us take a simple example, in this discussion of supposed humiliation, and such, which may prove to be illuminating. Suppose two women, one a free woman, the other a slave, both stripped. Both are commanded to belly, and lick and kiss a man’s feet. The free woman, one supposes, will experience humiliation, shame, and such, and, in performing this simple, lovely act, may feel degraded, and so on. It is not unusual, of course, that the free woman, as she is a woman, will feel there is an appropriateness in her performing this act, and may actually, in a way, find her sensations, which she would pretend to deplore, delicious. In any event, she is doubtless on her way to the collar. Now a slave, performing the same act, and doubtless with much greater skill, is likely to feel grateful and loving. Her master, after all, is permitting her to perform this appropriate, intimate and lovely act. She feels very slavelike in doing this, but this pleases her, as she is a slave. She loves her sense of lowliness, her sense of being her master’s slave. She wishes to do this, as it is fitting for her, and it permits her to manifest and express her tenderness and submission. Similarly, consider the kissing of the whip. Imagine the feelings of a free woman forced to kiss the whip, perhaps finding her feelings surprisingly and troublesomely delicious, and those of the slave, grateful to be permitted an opportunity to perform this beautiful symbolic act, of submission.

And so Mirus, in having had Ellen called to the ba-ta circle, had intended not only to shame her, having her dance as a slave, but had expected her to dance badly, thus shaming herself as a woman, as well, and had then intended, in consequence of her presumed inept, blundering debacle, that she would be put under the whip, to suffer a lashing commensurate with the inadequacies of her performance.

But the cruel plan of Mirus had failed of its realization!

She had, it seems, done well! How frustrated, how furious, he must have been. But, too, she suspected that he had been fascinated, intrigued, by her performance, that of an attractive slave, one of whom, wisely or not, he had once ridded himself. And now, perhaps regretting his earlier haste or indiscretion, he had followed her, and with the intention, it seemed, not of killing her, as his companions so clearly seemed to have in mind, but rather of bringing her again within the ambit of his mastery.

“But it seems,” said the spokesman, “that things did not turn out as you expected.”

“That is true,” mused Mirus. “I had not expected her to do so well.”

“She saw too much, she knows too much,” said the spokesman. “You should never have let her go.”

“I did not “let her go,” said Mirus. “It was my intention, after forcing her to undergo the indignity and shame of a public sale, to buy her back.”

“But it did not work out that way.”

“No.”

“In pursuing your trivial, personal vendetta with that meaningless little collar slut,” said the spokesman, “you have jeopardized our plans.”

“I had no way of knowing,” said Mirus.

“You were going to buy her back!”

“Certainly.”

“Ah, yes, pretty little “117,” and she received bids that shook the market.”

“I had no idea I could be outbid,” said Mirus, angrily.

“Yes, you had to publicly buy her, openly, before an entire market, that she would know herself a purchased slave, yours completely, owned, and for no more, you thought, than a handful of coins.”

“How could I know that others could bid higher?” asked Mirus, angrily.

Ellen, on her knees near the wagon, sick, put her head down. It is all my fault, she thought. All my fault!

Can he care for me, Ellen asked herself.

Clearly, I am sure, he wants me.

Slaves are familiar, of course, with being wanted. They have little doubt about such things. Can they not see that in the blazing eyes of men? They are sought, captured, stolen, netted, roped, chained, sold, bought, owned. Is their neck’s encirclement not sufficient evidence as to their being wanted?

This is very different, of course, from being cared for, or admired, or appreciated, or loved, or such.

A slave may often find herself, sometimes to her dismay or terror, the focus of an uncompromised, ferocious lust, a desire so powerful that it can be satisfied by nothing less than the owning of her, the tearing away of her clothing and the hurling of her to one’s feet, where she is collared.

This is how a slave is often wanted.

And who but a slave could be so wanted?

Perhaps a free woman, whose collar is in readiness, a woman who is to be made a slave, a woman wanted in the fiercest way a woman can be wanted, a woman wanted as a slave is wanted?

But, too, of course, consider the feelings of the woman who understands herself, perhaps suddenly, perhaps unexpectedly, the focus of such desire, the object of such lust, the sought quarry of such a relentless, determined hunter. What of her feelings, discovering herself to be so ferociously and inordinately desired? She discovers herself, perhaps with inadequate warning, to be such that she is fiercely and uncompromisingly wanted, wanted as a slave is wanted, wanted even to the humiliation of the collar. In her terror might she not, too, be flattered, excited, shaken, even exalted, even exhilarated, to the core, to understand this new astonishing dimension of her desirability? Perhaps she is a free woman, and has had some warning of these things, and flees, and hides. But she knows she will be sought, tenaciously, perhaps even with sleen. Will her hunter be satisfied with anything less than to lead her back to his camp, naked, back-braceleted, and leashed, and, now, of course, collared? What woman does not hope to inspire such lust? What woman does not wish to be so beautiful that she could inspire such tempestuous, raging desire? What a certification this is of her value, what a testimony to the excitements of her femaleness, to the seizable glory of her delicious, vulnerable femininity, to be so wanted, wanted as a slave is often wanted, as a slave is commonly wanted.

But let us examine these matters not in the context of bondage, where they are so dramatically intensified and heightened, so much so as to be almost indescribably and unrecognizably different from the cooler latitudes of more routine and tepid desires, but rather examine them in the more sober and cooler climes of calculation and prudence.

Even a free woman, wrapped in her robes and veils, can experience enveloping, disturbing, penetrant sensations at understanding that she is wanted by a man, wanted as a woman is wanted by a man. Amongst these sensations may be tremors of fear, a sense of uneasiness, suffusions of warmth, and an awareness of weakness, knowing that her strength is not the strength of a man. Certainly any woman might wonder what it might be to have a given man’s chain on her neck. One thing must be clearly understood. When a man wants a woman as a man wants a woman he wants to have her, literally, to have her totally, to possess her, to own her, to have her, to speak openly, as his slave. He may not admit this but that is what he wants. To be sure, one cannot have a free woman as a slave, as she is a free woman. On the other hand one can have a slave as a slave, without cant or hypocrisy. And they are for sale. But even the free woman, assuming she is not unutterably stupid, realizes the man who truly wants her, as a man wants a woman, wants her wholly, namely, as a slave. It is her project then, one supposes, to frustrate this desire and make certain he does not have her as he wants, as his slave. To be sure, in this way she defrauds both herself and her companion. In denying him, she denies herself, and her womanhood, as well. This problem does not arise with the female slave. She knows she will be possessed as, and used as, a slave. She is, after all, a slave. Too, she does not want the half-way, or quarter-way, possession of the free woman. The free woman may insist upon dilution, curtailments, abridgements, and compromises, but the slave may not; as a chattel, she will be possessed, ruled, and used as the slave she is; her master will have not some fraction from her, as he might from a free woman, granted to him in her benevolence, but all from her, as she is a slave; she is, accordingly, given no choice but to yield all, but then, in her heart, this is what she wishes, to have no choice but to yield all.

Had she feared or resented men? Had she delighted in frustrating or tormenting men? Had she scorned men? Had she attempted to use them for her purposes? Had she attempted to twist their needs and use these needs, like knives, against them? In any event, the maneuverings, the fencings, the negotiations, the teasings, the bargainings, the games, are at an end.

She now kneels before a man, naked, in bonds.

The war is now over for her, a war which she felt required to wage but in her heart longed to lose, a war she waged that she might be defeated; she knows that her independence is gone, irrecoverably, and she is pleased; she knows that she has been subdued and conquered, as she wished; she has fallen to her enemy, and rejoices. She wishes to be handled, and used, and commanded, as a strong man handles, uses, and commands a woman, not with the sensitivity and timidity, the restraint and tentativeness, the civility and politesse, the caution and delicacy, with which a free man addresses his attentions to a free woman. And have not strong men always made slaves of their female prisoners? Is this not what she has hoped for? Were her provocations not intended, though she may have scarcely understood this at the time, to bring her to this very fate? Conquered, she, as other fair antagonists, awaits her brand and collar, and the sales platform. So then she is sold, probably publicly. In her chains, she senses, and gratefully, the appropriateness, the fittingness, the rightfulness, of what has been done to her. The shifts, the jockeyings, the byways, the plottings, the vyings, the contentions, the strife, the contests and tournaments, are at an end. She feels the weight of the chains on her small limbs; how wary she must now be of men, and how she must now strive to please them! She? Please men? Yes, certainly, and for fear now not only of the whip, but for her very life. She does not even know who bought her, for the light was not on the tiers, with their observers and bidders, but upon the block, where she was well exhibited, illuminated for the buyers.

What will it be to be a slave, she asks herself. Why was I chosen, and not another?

Is there something special about me?

Has someone sensed my inner truth? Who, I wonder, so perceptively, recognized me, who saw that I was a slave?

She then finds fulfillment, and contentment, at the foot of her master’s couch. She walks well on his leash, back-braceleted, as he shows her off, on the streets. She kisses the chain with which he fastens her to a public slave ring, where she must wait for him. She writhes in her bonds, knowing herself owned and deliciously helpless. She kneels in her small cage and grasps the bars, and squirms in heat, as the anticipatory little animal she is. Perhaps she will be permitted, at a snapping of fingers, to crawl to the master, bringing him the whip in her teeth. She hopes it will not be used upon her. Surely she can better please him otherwise.

The human female longs for the fullest satisfaction of her nature and needs, and nature has dictated its conditions, those under which, and only under which, this satisfaction can be obtained, conditions which, articulated, refined and enhanced in a civilized context, are institutionalized as the relation between a slave and her master.

A last remark might be in order here which is part of the woman’s sense that she is wanted, wanted in that special way, in the way that a man wants a woman. Part of that sense is that the woman, whether slave or free, becomes much aware of her own body and its sensations, and, interestingly, becomes much aware of, and experiences, her own nudity. Even the free woman, fully clothed, has a sudden sense of her body, naked, within her encumbering robes. And if the free woman can have such a sensation one may well understand, I trust, the radical accentuation of such sensations on the part of a slave, who is purchasable, and who is commonly much exhibited to begin with, often shielded by no more than the single, thin, flimsy layer of a brief rep-cloth tunic. Too, if the slave should be standing, her hands chained over her head, nude on a sales shelf, or be nude, half kneeling, half lying, chained on a heavy, wooden platform, or such, it is easy to see how she might feel, finding herself the object of a male’s scrutiny. Do you not think she is not then muchly aware of her body, and its nudity, even were it, say, within the confines of a tunic? Do you think she is not then suddenly aware of the pull of the tunic on a breast, the whispering touch of a hem on her thigh? The slave is often aware that she is wanted, and as a man wants a woman. This could take place many times a day. Certainly this occurs frequently enough in the plazas and on the streets, in the markets and parks, in the promenades, and such. Certainly one of the common pleasures of a Gorean male is observing a female slave, and speculating what it would be to have her. And the slave, for her part, finds this very pleasurable, particularly if she is secure in her master’s collar, if those about are likely to share a Home Stone with him, and such. What woman’s belly would not be warmed, recognizing that she is attractive, and that men would like to have her? And, of course, she knows that if she were to be had, and this muchly pleases her, that she would be well had, had then not as a free woman is had, but had as a slave is had, for that is how men want a woman, to have her as a slave is had.

“Look,” said Fel Doron, “the tarns are aloft.”

The men then, shading their eyes, observed the tarns. Speaking as though one might be on Earth, and ignoring the complexities of the Gorean compass, which points always to the Sardar, each of the four tarns, each with its suspended basket, went to a different quadrant, one to the north, the others to the east, south and west. At these points they alighted.

“They are doubtless discharging some men,” said Portus Canio. “In time, giving those afoot time to approach us, they will rise again, and attack from the air.”

“They should wait for darkness,” said the spokesman.

“No,” said Portus Canio. “They might then lose some of us.”

“Masters!” said Ellen. “It may be I whom they want. That is possible! It is said Tersius Major is with them! He may want me! Many times in the tarn loft have his eyes greedily roved me! A slave is not unaware of such things! If this should be true, if it is I whom they want, give me to them!”

“Vain slave,” said Selius Arconious.

“Master!” wept the slave.

“Do not flatter yourself, property-slut,” said Selius Arconious.

“Please, Master!” she begged.

“Do not forget you are worthless collar-meat,” he said.

“Master!” she protested.

“Yes!” he said, angrily.

“They may want me,” said Ellen, determinedly. “It is possible! Surely I am valuable. Men bid silver upon me, silver!”

“You are worth no more than a handful of tarsk-bits,” said Selius Arconious.

“If it should be I whom they want,” said Ellen, “give me to them! Save yourselves!”

“They are not thinking slave,” said Selius Arconious. “They are thinking vengeance, and gold.”

“Master!” protested the slave.

“You are not important,” said the spokesman. “You have served your purpose.”

Ellen looked up at him, startled.

“How is that?” asked Mirus.

“Surely you did not think we followed these barbarians through the grasslands with nothing more in mind than the disposing of an inquisitive slave,” said the spokesman.

“You were to aid me in her recovery,” said Mirus.

“Do not be naive,” said the spokesman. “She is to lead us to the tarnster, who is to lead us to the gold. She may then be disposed of later. She has seen too much.”

Ellen sobbed, kneeling bound at their feet.

The spokesman then regarded Portus Canio. “We want the gold, tarn keeper,” said he. “We have our own purposes, for which it would prove useful.”

“I am sure of that,” said Portus Canio. “But none here now knows where it is.”

“And it seems,” said Selius Arconious, “that as you may have followed us with such in mind, so, too, with such in mind, have the Cosians followed you.”

“Masters!” said Ellen. “Even if they have not come for me, perhaps you may, at least, arrange a truce, and then use me in your negotiations! Perhaps you can bargain with me! Try to buy your safety with me, and perhaps with the tharlarion and wagon! Save yourselves.”

“Are you so fond of Tersius Major?” inquired Selius Arconious.

“No!” she said.

“Do not think you can so easily escape my collar,” said Selius Arconious.

“Master?” she asked.

“Do you allow your women to speak without permission?” asked the spokesman of Selius Arconious.

“Please, Masters!” sobbed Ellen. “Let me speak!”

“Spread your knees,” snapped Selius Arconious.

Ellen instantly obeyed.

“Please, Masters!” she begged.

Selius Arconious regarded her, not pleasantly.

“Untie my hands,” she begged. “Take the rope from my neck! Let me run! Perhaps they will be distracted, and you may make away!”

But Selius Arconious was paying her no attention. He was rather scanning the grasslands about.

“My ankles are not bound,” said Ellen. “Let me run as I am!”

“You would run directly into the arms of a Cosian,” said Fel Doron, “and then your ankles would indeed be bound, surely with the leash rope. You would be left in the grass until later, when they remembered you.”

“If they remembered you,” said a man.

“And, if they did not,” said another man, “you would lie in the grass, crying out for help, with no one to hear, helpless in your ropes, knowing that in three days you would die of thirst.”

“No,” said another man, one of Portus’s fellows, “she would be eaten by wild sleen. I have seen their spoor.”

“I do not think they would forget her,” said Portus Canio.

“And then,” said Fel Doron, “you would find yourself put as the slave you are to their diverse services and pleasures.”

“Yes, Master,” whispered Ellen.

“If you run,” said Selius Arconious, “as soon as you are caught, by whomsoever catches you, I or another, you will be treated as a runaway, and will be subjected to the sanctions appropriately levied against a runaway girl.”

“I do not think, in any event, I would break into a run in the vicinity of sleen,” said Portus Canio.

Ellen shuddered. Such a behavior, she realized, might startle the sleen, and activate the hunting response.

“Tie the slut’s leash to the wagon,” said Selius Arconious, irritably.

Ellen looked at Selius Arconious, tears in her eyes. How he hated her!

Fel Doron drew Ellen, on her knees, to the vicinity of the left, rear wheel of the wagon, thrust her under the wagon, and then tied her leash about the rear axle. She then knelt there, miserable, in the shadows beneath the wagon bed, bound, roped in place. She, slave, it would be done to her, and appropriately, as men wished.

“The tarns are aflight,” said Portus Canio.

“The Cosians must be close now,” said Fel Doron, straightening up.

“See the swing of the baskets,” said Selius Arconious. “I doubt that there are more than three men in a basket, two archers and a strapmaster.”

“Some fifteen or twenty on the ground then,” said the spokesman.

“We do not know,” said Portus.

“Archers?”

“I hope not many,” said Fel Doron.

“The soldiers will be Cosian regulars,” said Portus Canio. “We are not going to meet them blade for blade.”

“If they think their feast is set,” said the spokesman lifting his weapon, “they have not calculated wisely.”

He then left.

“We may yet owe our lives to our enemies,” said Portus Canio.

Mirus, too, turned away.

“I think not,” said Selius Arconious. “A business disrupted may be easily resumed.”

“Consider the beasts,” said Fel Doron. Kardok, hunched down, large-eyed, was viewing them.

The spokesman, bent over, was counseling his men. What he said could not be heard at the wagon.

“Master!” wept Ellen, from her place beneath the wagon.

“Be silent!” he said.

She put her head down, frightened, and was silent. When she lifted her head again, Selius Arconious was gone. Tears ran down her cheeks.

Somehow the men had fanned out, separated, perhaps prone in the grass. She could see the tharlarion of Mirus grazing a few yards away.

She heard two shots, and a cry of surprise, and pain. There was then another pair of shots, this time from behind her. She lay on her belly, putting her cheek to the grass, frightened.

When she lifted her head a little, she saw the bootlike sandals of a Cosian soldier not ten feet away. There was another shot and he suddenly slipped to the earth, his knees giving way.

She heard a cry from somewhere to the east.

A great smooth, sweeping, soaring shadow momentarily darkened the grass and she knew a tarn with its basket had passed, its archers doubtless looking for targets. It would not have been more than fifty feet above her.

She suddenly heard the fierce scratching of a tharlarion’s paws in the turf and she saw Mirus, low in the saddle, racing toward her. He was at the side of the wagon in a moment, fiercely pulling up the saddle tharlarion, rearing, its head jerked back, and he leapt from the saddle, almost at her side. There was a knife in his hand.

She shrank back, and he seized the neck rope, tied about the axle, and slashed it apart. He then dragged her from under the wagon by a bound arm, to the tharlarion. He had a foot in the stirrup, and drew himself up with his left hand, retaining his grasp on the slave with his right hand, hauling her upward with him. An arrow she sensed sped past, like a whisper in the wind.

The tharlarion reared and squealed.

She was then half across the saddle, twisted, on her side, before him. She tried to squirm free and then it seemed her head exploded with pain. His hand was so twisted in her hair she feared great gouts of it would be torn free. Tears burst from her eyes.

“Do not struggle,” said he, “slave girl!”

Then he had her well across the saddle, on her belly, and she, wedged between the pommel and his body, was helpless.

“If I cannot have you,” he said, “no one shall!”

“No, please, Master!” she cried.

“The word suits you well, slut, and always did!” he laughed.

She sobbed wildly. The world seemed to spin as the tharlarion turned and leaped.

“You look well on a leash,” he said, fiercely, “on a rope leash, leashed like the bitch you are!”

She was conscious in the swirl of a helmet before him, but the tharlarion, forced forward, struck into the man and he fell away, reeling backward.

She was dimly, half-consciously aware of a figure leaping on the fallen man, a knife flashing.

“On, on!” he cried to the tharlarion.

As the tharlarion reared again she was aware of Mirus cursing, and a weight, a body, was hanging onto the bridle, pulling the animal down, fiercely, yanking downward, twisting its neck.

The animal suddenly lost its balance and went wildly to its side, Ellen being thrown free, rolling to the turf, and then the beast, a moment later, rose up, scrambling, and squealing, and rushed away, out into the grasslands.

“You!” cried Mirus, in fury.

Before him stood Selius Arconious, his body bloody, filthy from war, his tunic torn and soiled, gasping for breath, regarding Mirus furiously, balefully.

“I believe you have something of mine,” he said.

Mirus in fury reached to his belt and drew his pistol, and it was centered on the heart of Selius Arconious.

Ellen, lying to one side, cried out, “No, Master, please!” A vision went through her mind of the wood on the back of the wagon leaping into the air, the sound of the shot, the smell of the expended cartridge, the exploding splinters bursting into the air, now weirdly in slow motion in her memory.

Surely Selius Arconious knew the meaning of that weapon. Yet he faced Mirus with equanimity.

“You do not deserve a slave,” he said.

Mirus hesitated, confused.

“For you are not a man,” said Mirus.

“I will show you who is a man!” snarled Mirus, and steadied the weapon in two hands.

“Why are you not at your post?” asked Selius Arconious.

Mirus lowered the weapon.

“Now,” said Selius Arconious, “you know the meaning of Gor.”

With a cry of anger Mirus hurried away.

Selius Arconious, looking about, lifted the bound slave, enwrapping her in his arms. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Is it of concern to Master?” inquired the slave.

Selius scowled, and then smiled. “No,” he said. He then, looking about, carried her back to the wagon. “Stay here,” he said.

She turned away from him, under the wagon, kneeling, lifting her bound wrists to him. “Master’s slave wears his collar,” she said. “Perhaps he will untie her?”

“Is it not foolish for a slave,” he asked, “kneeling, to face away from a man as you are doing, with her wrists bound like that?”

“Perhaps, Master,” she said.

“What if I order you to put your head to the turf?” he asked.

“Then I must instantly obey my master,” she said.

There was a pair of shots from the west, and Selius Arconious hurried away. She watched him move away, half bent over, moving swiftly. She saw a Cosian, his upper body, rise from the grass. There was another shot, and he fell.

She realized there had been little firing.

“Ammunition!” she heard, a cry in English from the north.

She saw the spokesman, his robes torn, drawing back. Another man was with him, come from the west.

“Ammunition!” she heard again.

The spokesman called back, in English. “There is no more, fool! The extra rounds were in the saddle bags. It is gone with the tharlarion! We have used the last rounds, those from the stores of the slain tharlarion.”

Ellen, who understood this discourse, trembled with apprehension.

A Cosian, helmeted, rose to his feet, carefully, his bow half drawn, some fifty yards away.

Then, beside him, carefully, there rose another.

A tarn, with suspended basket, soared near. The spokesman replaced his now-useless weapon in his belt, and lifted his hands. He was not fired on from the basket. The tarn swung about. “No more lightning!” called the spokesman to the fields. “No more lightning! We surrender!”

Ellen recalled that when she had seen Selius Arconious he had no longer had the crossbow. The quarrels, too, she surmised, had been expended.

More Cosians emerged from the grass, some with bows, about the camp.

They began to close in.

Selius Arconious, with Fel Doron, and Portus Canio, slowly, upright, wearily, approached the wagon. Another of Portus’s men came, too, from a different direction. Ellen saw no more of his group.

Selius Arconious motioned that Ellen should emerge from under the wagon, and the slave complied, and came to kneel at the feet of her master, frightened.

Four men were left of the party of the spokesman, including himself. The other three were the man who had been wounded, who had called out for ammunition, the sleenmaster, and Mirus. None had been slain in the recent fray, presumably because of their weaponry. Perhaps the Cosians had given them a wide berth. Perhaps they had not been able to approach closely enough to engage with the small bows. Those were not the mighty peasant bows that guard the autonomy of Gorean hamlets. Of the four tarns with baskets, two had been brought down with pistol fire, and the strapmasters of the other two had muchly, judiciously, maintained their distance. One had approached a moment ago, however, given the relative quiet of the field, that to which the spokesman had indicated his capitulation. The other could be seen in the distance, a remote speck, safely away.

A subcaptain advanced through the grass, before the other soldiers. Some of the soldiers had bows. Some had spears and some shields. She wondered if the shields would stop a bullet. All had bladed weapons, generally the short, wickedly bladed Gorean gladius. The subcaptain had advanced with his men. Goreans like to lead from the front. Ellen recognized him. She had seen him before, at the tarnloft of Portus Canio, when in the coffle and elsewhere.

The tarn and tarn basket which had recently soared over the camp had now landed, some fifty yards away. Two archers and a strapmaster emerged from it. She did not see Tersius Major, whom she had heard was with the attackers. He was, she supposed, in the other tarn basket, which he perhaps commanded, which was still little more than a speck in the sky, far off. To be sure, it seemed closer now.

Motioned by swords and spears the three surviving beasts were herded, shambling, blinking, seemingly docile, toward the wagon. As nearly as Ellen could tell, they had not figured in the fighting. It seemed they had been left alone, as irrelevant to the fray. To be sure, they probably would have been fired upon if they had either attacked, or attempted to flee. Two had been killed in the first attack. Perhaps because they had assumed threatening postures. The Cosians, thought Ellen, do not know what to make of them. They think they are some form of simple animal. Then it occurred to her that that was precisely what the beasts would wish the Cosians to think. Had they not been putatively caged in the festival camp?

“Who is first here?” asked the subcaptain.

“I am,” said the spokesman.

“I am,” said Portus Canio.

The subcaptain smiled.

“You have strange pets,” he said to Portus Canio.

“They are not mine, and they are not pets,” said Portus Canio. “They are rational and dangerous.”

“They are simple performing animals, completely harmless,” said the spokesman. “We are carnival masters. We took you for brigands. We did not know. Forgive us for resisting the rightful authority of Cos.”

“You would do well to recognize the insignia, the uniforms, of Cos,” said the subcaptain.

“Alas, how true,” said the spokesman.

Far off, in the grass, some two hundred yards away, or so, the second tarn and tarn basket had now landed.

“Some of these men,” said the subcaptain, indicating Portus Canio, Fel Doron and their other fellow, “are escaped prisoners, and two of them clearly conspirators against Cos. The other, the tarnster, is somehow one of them. A theft of considerable consequence has taken place, accomplished by several men. These prisoners, or some of them, and surely the tarnster, who had fresh gold to squander from the mint at Jad, knows something of the matter.”

“We had no idea,” said the spokesman.

“And you are obviously in league with them, rendezvousing in the prairie.”

“No, we fell in with them by accident,” said the spokesman.

“You followed them for days, and we kept you under surveillance,” said the subcaptain.

“In a sense, yes,” admitted the spokesman, “my young friend here,” he here indicating Mirus, “was interested in obtaining this slave,” and here he indicated Ellen, “and we, as good fellows, loyal friends and such, abetted him in his search.”

“I can understand his interest,” said the subcaptain. “I remember her. I think we confiscated her in the name of Cos.”

“Yes,” said Portus Canio, “but she was later purchased from Cos, in the festival market outside Brundisium, openly and honestly purchased.”

“With Cosian gold,” said the subcaptain.

“Surely it is a reliable currency,” said Selius Arconious, as though concerned.

“Quite,” smiled the subcaptain. He looked about. “I see you have two sleen,” he said.

“Useful for tracking,” said the spokesman.

“I am well aware of the utilities of sleen,” said the subcaptain. “You are first here?”

“Yes,” said the spokesman.

“Remove your clothing,” said the subcaptain.

“What?” said the spokesman.

“It will be useful in giving your scent to sleen,” said the subcaptain.

“No!” said the spokesman.

“Also, I will determine if you are armed.”

“Here is my weapon,” said the spokesman. “It is useless now. It contains no more lightning.” He drew the weapon from its holster, and held it, butt first, toward the subcaptain. But the subcaptain drew back.

“Here,” said the spokesman.

“I will not touch it,” said the subcaptain, his face suddenly pale.

“Why not?” asked the spokesman.

“It is a forbidden weapon, surely,” said the subcaptain.

The spokesman smiled.

“Put it down there, in that bare spot, on the far side of the wagon,” said the subcaptain. This spot was yards from where they stood. Ellen had never before seen fear in the face of the subcaptain.

The spokesman went to the place indicated, and put the pistol down.

“You others, as well,” said the subcaptain, addressing himself to the sleenmaster, Mirus and their wounded fellow.

Each of these, too, put his weapon where indicated. Four weapons then lay in the dirt.

“There were six such devices,” said Portus Canio. “Two would seem to be missing.”

“There were only four,” said the spokesman.

“Six,” said Portus Canio.

“Remove your clothing,” said the subcaptain to the spokesman. “I think it is time to exercise the sleen.”

“The other two are lost!” said the spokesman.

“Now,” said the subcaptain.

“Here,” said the spokesman, miserably. He removed a second pistol, which he had thrust in his belt, behind his back.

“Does it contain lightning?” asked the subcaptain, the officer.

The spokesman hesitated. He then said, “One, one bullet, one bolt.” He had been saving this, it seemed.

“Put it with the others.”

This was done and the spokesman then, at the gesture of one of the soldiers, with the point of a drawn knife, returned to the place near the wagon.

“One such device must be still missing,” said Portus Canio.

“I do not know where it is!” cried the spokesman.

“Kill him,” said the subcaptain, the officer, to the soldier with the drawn knife.

“No, no!” cried the spokesman and began to tear away his robes. They were then to one side.

“Please!” said the spokesman.

“Kneel,” said the officer.

The spokesman, trembling, knelt naked in the grass beside the wagon.

The soldier then took him by the hair, jerked his head back, and put his knife to his throat. He then looked to the subcaptain.

“No,” said the subcaptain, musingly. “I think it will be more interesting to see him run for sleen.”

“No, no,” whimpered the spokesman.

Kardok and the two beasts, his fellows, crouched down, regarded the spokesman.

He looked at them, shaking his head, wildly.

They looked away, as though failing to comprehend his gesture.

At this point, from across the grass, at last, from the place of the last tarn basket, where it had landed some two hundred yards away, cautiously, came Tersius Major. With him were two archers and a strapmaster. He paused at the edge of the camp.

The subcaptain, with a gesture of contempt, waved him forward.

“All is secure?” inquired Tersius Major.

“Yes,” said the subcaptain.

Tersius Major surveyed Portus Canio and his party.

“We meet again,” said Portus Canio. His hands moved, ever so slightly, as though they might consider wrapping themselves about the throat of Tersius Major.

“You will pay, tharlarion of Ar,” said Tersius Major, “for the inconvenience, the humiliation, you have caused me.”

“You are less than an urt of Ar,” said Portus Canio, “for you have betrayed your Home Stone.”

“Not at all,” said the officer. “It is only that his Home Stone is not yours. His is, you see, far more valuable. It is gold.”

“What is going on here?” asked Tersius Major.

“We have conquered,” said the officer. “He who kneels before you is, I take it, first amongst our conspirators.”

“We know nothing of your charges!” said the spokesman.

One of the two sleen lifted its head, and looked about, briefly. Its ears were erected. Its nostrils flared for a moment. And then it put its head down. The other had its head on its paws.

“Where is the lightning?” asked Tersius Major, hesitantly.

“I think it is gone, or most of it,” said the subcaptain. “But some of the metal clouds from which it strikes are there.” He indicated the discarded pistols. “One lightning bolt allegedly lies within the nearest device. One device seems to be missing.”

“We do not know where it is!” said the spokesman. “It is lost, doubtless somewhere in the grass!”

Tersius Major’s eyes went from face to face, from Portus Canio, to Fel Doron, to Selius Arconious, to their other fellow, and thence to the kneeling spokesman, to the sleenmaster, to Mirus, to the wounded man. Eight men. The Cosians had some twenty soldiers at the wagon. Two tarns, unattended, with their baskets, were in the fields.

Then the eyes of Tersius Major glittered on the kneeling slave, tunicked, bound, the remainder of the rope leash, which had been slashed by Mirus’s blade, still on her neck.

“Greetings, little Ellen,” he said.

“Greetings, Master,” said Ellen.

“She is a sleek little beast,” said Tersius Major. “It will be a pleasure to own her.”

“Her disposition will be decided by higher authority,” said the officer. “I may ask for her myself. I think she will be lovely, curled in the furs at my feet.”

“We shall see about that,” said Tersius Major.

“It is not impossible that a praetor may speak for her, even a stratigos or a polemarkos.”

“She is worthy,” said Selius Arconious, “to be kept as no more than a pot girl, or a kettle-and-mat girl, or perhaps as a shaved-headed, hobbled camp slut.”

Ellen flushed, angrily.

“You should look more closely,” said the officer.

Ellen smiled at Selius Arconious, innocently. There was perhaps the flicker of a tiny triumph in her glance.

“One might always strip her, and make an assessment,” said Selius Arconious.

Ellen jerked suddenly, inadvertently, angrily at her bound wrists. She looked up angrily at Selius Arconious. He smiled down at her, benignly. She choked back a sob of frustration. She was in her place, before him, kneeling, helplessly bound, a slave.

“You are a clever fellow,” said the officer.

“Strip her,” said Tersius Major.

“I will not strip the slave here,” said the subcaptain, “for her figure is such that it might distract my men. And by the coasts of Cos, even tunicked, it is such as might drive a man wild.”

He regarded Ellen.

“You will not figure in these matters, the matters of men, pretty little slave girl,” said the officer to Ellen. “No more than a caged tarsk or a tethered kaiila, or any other domestic animal. But do not fear. You will not be forgotten.”

“Yes, Master,” whispered Ellen, in the full understanding of her condition and nature. She would remain kneeling and bound, meaningless, a slave, awaiting her disposition. Men on this world, she had learned, had not relinquished their sovereignty. They had not, on this world, permitted themselves to be deluded into subscribing to practices and institutions which carried within them the pathological seeds of the subversion of nature. The human being is the child of nature. Once he abandons nature he ceases to be human.

“You understand that you are meaningless, do you not?” asked the officer.

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen.

“Such fluff as she,” he said, “is for the entertainment of men, for the sport of men, of masters. That is what they are good for, nothing else.”

Ellen flushed crimson, but her body came alive with femininity. It shuddered with meaning. Each cell in her body seemed to awaken and glow, to tremble with understanding. Each chromosome in her body seemed to quiver with vulnerability, each particle of her body seemed to burn with expectation, with readiness. This is the passion of a slave, she thought. How honestly they speak of us. How truly they speak of us! How do they know these truths? How bold they are to enforce them! Can I not, somehow, hide myself from the truths they see so clearly? No, she thought, in my collar I am not permitted to hide. Yes, yes, she thought, they speak truths, mighty truths, lovely truths, deep truths, incontrovertible truths, precious truths, yes, such as I are indeed for the entertainment of men, for the sport of men, of masters! It is that for which we exist, and desire to exist, the pleasure of men, the entertainment of men, the sport of men, of masters! It is that for which evolution has prepared us! Oh, dark, mysterious, subtle, beloved mighty forces of nature! How the world has so casually shaped our species, with such bountiful, thoughtless beneficence, shaping with wise, terrible, tender hands both men and women, giving us as gifts to one another, that they as masters will not be denied their slaves, and that we as slaves will not be denied our masters! Deny me not my subjection to the mastery, dear masters, for in that cruelty you deny me to myself!

“We must seek out the purloined fortune,” said Tersius Major. “I do not think that Lurius of Jad will be pleased if it is not recovered.”

The officer turned to the sleenmaster. “Prepare to set your sleen to hunt.”

“No!” cried the spokesman, half rising, but thrust down again.

“I will not do so,” said the sleenmaster. “And no other here knows the signals!”

“You had no sleen in the camp,” said the officer. “Thus these are not your sleen. You have rented them. They will then respond to general signals, common to many such rented animals.”

“No, no!” said the sleenmaster. “Signals pertinent to these beasts were conveyed to me at the kennels. None here know them, save I, and I will not set them to hunt.”

“That is surprising,” said the officer, “but easily tested.” He regarded the sleenmaster. “Remove his clothing, as well,” he said, “and we will see if the sleen may be put afoot.”

“No!” cried the sleenmaster. “No! I will do as you bid!”

“No!” cried the spokesman.

The sleen, perhaps recognizing the name of their kind, had lifted their heads.

“Surely you have something to contribute to the solution of this mystery, the whereabouts of Cosian gold, you who are first here,” speculated the officer.

“I know nothing of it, truly!” cried the spokesman. “The others, those, must know!” He looked about, wildly. He pointed to Portus Canio. “He!” he cried.

“He was in chains, at the festival camp,” sneered Tersius Major.

“The tarnster then!” screamed the spokesman.

“You rendezvoused in the prairie,” said the officer. “You cannot expect us to believe you pursued these men for days seeking no more than a slave.”

“We had to kill her!” cried out the spokesman.

“Why?” asked the officer. “Surely you can think of better things to do with collar sluts than kill them.”

“You do not understand!” wept the spokesman. “There is more afoot here than you understand!”

“What?” asked the officer.

Kardok growled, menacingly.

“The beast is restless,” said a soldier, uneasily.

“Worlds!” wept the spokesman. “The fate of worlds!”

“Prepare to run,” said the officer.

Kardok crouched menacingly. His powerful back legs were tensed beneath him. His forelimbs were on the ground. The claws scratched a little at the grass. Such beasts can move with great rapidity on all fours, faster than a swift man.

“I will speak!” cried the spokesman.

“Sir!” cried one of the soldiers. “The tarn!”

The tarn which had been farthest away, that in whose basket Tersius Major had arrived, was seen ascending into the air. As far as could be determined, it was not in harness. Certainly there was no tarn basket, nor trailing suspension ropes.

Almost at the same time the nearer tarn, that which had supported the closer basket, that which had soared over the camp near the conclusion of the fray, took flight. It was clearly not in harness. The tarn basket remained in the grass, ropes to the side.

“What?” cried Tersius Major. “No!”

“Use the tarn whistles! Get them back!” cried the officer.

“They are too far away!” said one of the strapmasters.

But he, and his fellow, ran to the edge of the camp, blowing piercing blasts on the whistles. If the tarns heard the blasts they did not respond. In moments they were out of sight.

The strapmasters, pale, returned to the side of the wagon.

“What is out there?” asked Tersius Major.

“Wild sleen?” suggested a man.

“Oh, yes,” said the officer, bitterly. “They chew loose the harness and let the meat escape!”

“How will we get back?” asked Tersius Major.

“We will walk, noble ally,” snarled the officer.

“It is dangerous,” said Tersius Major.

“Something is out there,” said Portus Canio.

“I see nothing,” said Fel Doron.

The soldiers looked to the officer, who was looking out, across the grass.

“Investigate!” said the officer, designating subordinates. “Into the fields!”

It was very quiet for a time, after some men, ten, five going toward the location of the first tarn basket, and five toward the second, made their way out into the grass.

“Secure a perimeter,” said the officer.

Guards took up posts. Arrows were set to bows.

After several Ehn some five soldiers returned to the camp, two from one direction, three from the other.

“We found nothing,” said the first soldier returning to the camp. Others, following him, too, signified negativity as the fruits of their endeavor.

“Where are the others?” inquired the officer.

“Surely they preceded us,” said one of the returned men.

The officer went to the perimeter of the camp. “Report!” he called. “Report!” But for an answer there was only the sound of the wind moving in the grass.

“Something is out there,” said Tersius Major.

“Where is our friend?” suddenly asked the officer.

“He fled, in the confusion, before you set your guard,” said Fel Doron.

“He feared the beasts would kill him,” whispered the sleenmaster.

But the beasts seemed somnolent, sitting together.

“They are harmless,” said the officer. “They are trained animals, performing animals.”

“Do they seem harmless to you?” asked Portus Canio.

“Why would they kill him?” asked the officer.

“I do not know,” said Portus Canio. “Perhaps they did not wish him to speak.”

“That is absurd,” said the officer.

Portus Canio shrugged. “I know as little of this as you do,” he said.

“Shall we run the sleen?” asked one of the soldiers, looking down at the garments which had been ripped away by the spokesman.

“That can be done for days,” said the officer.

“He is a barbarian, ignorant, soft, weak, naked, unarmed,” said a soldier. “He will not last long in the prairie.”

“There is no food, no water,” said another.

“He will last little longer than a stripped, collared, barbarian slave girl,” said another.

Ellen, kneeling, bound, shuddered.

“Take your eyes from the slave,” snapped the officer.

The soldier looked away.

“Sleen will take him,” said another soldier. “Prairie sleen.”

“We saw the spoor of such,” said the sleenmaster, fearfully.

“They may have been drifting with you, unseen,” said the officer.

“What of the freed tarns?” asked one of the soldiers.

“Who has freed them?” asked another, uneasily.

“Send the sleen out to scout?” suggested one of the soldiers.

“Do you expect them to come back and report?” asked the officer. “We have no scent to put them on. I doubt they would leave the camp.”

“They are hunting sleen, not war sleen,” said a soldier.

Ellen, frightened, shuddered, considering the uses to which trained sleen might be put, such as tracking, hunting, herding, guarding, killing.

She knew they were sometimes sent after runaway slaves, usually with the kill command after an escaped male slave, commonly with the herding command for a female runaway, that she may be returned, stumbling, gasping, exhausted, helpless and driven, bleeding, scratched, lacerated, back to the feet of her master, where she might clutch his ankles and beg weepingly that she not be now fed to those tyrannical, inexorable beasts who have ushered her so swiftly and unerringly back to her fate, the mercies of her master.

“If I were you,” said Portus Canio to the officer, “I would kill, or secure, the beasts.”

Kardok yawned.

“Do not be foolish,” said the officer.

Kardok’s large head turned slowly toward Ellen. She shrank back a little, on her knees, an inch or so farther from the beast, an inch or so farther from the sandals of Selius Arconious.

He growled softly, or it seemed a growl, but yet it seemed also somehow articulate. It did not resemble Gorean.

“He is communicating with his fellows,” said Portus Canio.

“Do not be foolish,” said the officer.

“Climb to the wagon bed,” said the officer to one of his soldiers. “See if you can see anything of our men.”

“I do not see them,” said the soldier.

“They are not coming back,” said Portus Canio.

“You claimed to be first here,” said the officer. “What do you know of the robbery of the paymaster’s trove, the fee to be disbursed to regulars and mercenaries in Ar?”

“Very little,” said Portus Canio.

“He knows nothing,” said Tersius Major. “It was his fool’s plan to strike at it himself.”

“Perhaps the tarnster,” said the officer.

“Yes, the tarnster,” said Tersius Major.

“I do know,” said Portus Canio, “that you will not now be able to recover the gold.”

“Why is that?” cried Tersius Major.

“Because the location of the cache has been revealed to patriots of Ar, who will, by now, have removed it.”

“To patriots of Ar?” asked Tersius Major.

“Yes,” said Portus Canio.

“What a fool you are,” said Tersius Major.

“Why?” asked Portus Canio.

“They will make away with it,” said Tersius Major.

“No,” said Portus Canio.

“How do you know?” asked Tersius Major.

“Because of honor,” said Portus Canio.

“I do not understand,” said Tersius Major.

“That does not surprise me,” said Portus Canio.

“Who is out there?” demanded Tersius Major.

“Who knows?” said Portus Canio.

“How many?” asked the officer.

“Who knows?” said Portus Canio.

“Many, doubtless many,” said Tersius Major.

We have sixteen men,” said the officer, looking about.

“If I were you I would withdraw,” said Portus Canio. “You might be permitted to live.”

“Where is the lightning?” said Tersius Major. “There is some left!”

“Supposedly a single bolt,” said the officer, “in the nearest device, over there.”

“With that, we are invincible,” said Tersius Major. He went to the pile of discarded weapons.

“Do not touch them,” warned the officer. “They are forbidden weapons, surely.”

“If so,” said Tersius Major, “that is because they would make us the equals of Priest-Kings! Surely it is the secret of their power.”

“I would not touch them,” said the officer.

“They are like small crossbows, surely,” said Tersius Major. “See? See the housing of this small lever? It is like the trigger of the crossbow. You point it, and press this and the lightning leaps out.” He swung the weapon around and pointed it at the officer.

“Put it down,” said the officer.

“I am now the equal of a Priest-King,” said Tersius Major.

“Put it down!” begged the officer.

“I am now in command,” said Tersius Major.

“You are mad!” said the officer.

Tersius Major went to the edge of the camp. He called out, to the fields. “I have lightning!” he cried. “Run! Go away! I have lightning!”

One of the sleen rose up, stretching.

“Do not agitate the sleen,” said the sleenmaster, uneasily.

“There were six such weapons,” said Portus Canio. “It seems we have accounted for only five.”

Tersius Major returned to the wagon. “Send another patrol into the fields,” he said.

“Lead it yourself,” said the officer.

“There may be a hundred men out there,” said Tersius Major.

“Then it would be well to establish that fact,” said the officer, irritably.

“Go!” cried Tersius Major, turning the weapon on the officer.

“If our vanished friend, who claimed to be first here, who fled the camp, was correct, that device contains but one more bolt of lightning,” said the officer.

“I am the equal of Priest-Kings!” cried Tersius Major.

“Until you loose the bolt, perhaps, but then you are no more than another man, and, I think, less than one.” Then the officer turned to his men. “If he should kill me, see then that he dies a lengthy, unpleasant death.”

“Yes,” said more than one, almost eagerly. As with most Goreans, they did not much care for traitors.

Tersius Major arrogantly, angrily, pointed the pistol here and there, jabbing it in this direction and that, threatening each man in view, Cosian or otherwise, in turn, reminding each in turn of its menace.

“If I were you,” said the officer to Tersius Major, “I would rather face such a device than touch it.”

“It is a forbidden weapon,” said one of the soldiers, uneasily.

“I am not afraid,” said Tersius Major. “With this,” said he, brandishing the weapon, “Priest-Kings fear me!”

“Abandon it while you have time,” said the officer.

“Priest-Kings do not exist,” said Mirus, irritably. “You are all foolish barbarians.”

There was suddenly a sound, a striking, as of a fist struck quickly, sharply, yet softly, into a chest, and the soldier atop the tharlarion wagon, he surveying the prairie, stiffened, stood unnaturally still for a moment, and then, half turning, knees buckling, tumbled from the surface of his post, from the wagon bed, falling into the grass.

Soldiers cried out in consternation.

“Be vigilant!” cried the officer to the guards at the perimeter. Almost at the same time he himself leapt to the surface of the wagon, stood up and looked about the camp. He scanned swiftly, turning about, describing a full circle. Then he descended, his brief reconnaissance completed. He did not care to remain in that location, perhaps from some vantages outlined even against the sky, for more than a moment, for longer than it took to complete his reconnaissance. He shook his head, angrily, negatively. Apparently he had seen nothing, the grass moving in the wind, the sky.

“You are a brave man,” said Portus Canio.

Portus Canio was kneeling beside the soldier who had tumbled from the wagon. “He is dead,” said Portus Canio.

“See the arrow,” said one of the soldiers.

Ellen had never seen such an arrow. It was quite different from the crossbow quarrels, of course, but, too, it seemed so much longer, and more slender, and lengthily feathered, than the arrows she had seen in the war quivers of Cosian archers.

“The peasant bow,” said one of the soldiers.

“So it is peasants out there,” said another soldier.

“I do not understand,” said a soldier. “Peasants are commonly placid, even hospitable, until aroused.”

“Surely we have done nothing to arouse them, not here,” said a soldier. “We have purloined no stores, taken no women from the villages.”

“There are no villages in the vicinity,” said the officer. “The land here is dry most of the year. There is no river, no stream, no moving water.”

“Then it is not peasants,” said a soldier.

“The arrow has pierced the heart,” said Fel Doron.

“An excellent shot, surely,” said the officer.

“Consider the penetration,” said Portus Canio.

“Flighted from more than a hundred paces?” speculated the officer.

“I think so,” said Portus Canio.

“Perhaps the shot was a lucky hit?” said the officer.

“Perhaps,” said Portus Canio.

“Or we might be dealing with a master of the peasant bow,” said the officer.

“Perhaps,” said Portus Canio.

“You know who is out there, don’t you?” said the officer.

“Now, yes,” said Portus Canio.

“How many are there?” asked the officer.

“That I do not know,” said Portus Canio. “It would be my recommendation that you sue for peace, and bargain for your lives.”

“If there were a large number out there, they would charge and force the camp,” said the officer.

Portus Canio looked out, over the grasslands, noncommittally.

“We will rope you and the others and take you to Brundisium for interrogation,” said the officer.

“Afoot?” inquired Portus Canio. “Do you think you will reach Brundisium?”

“It is growing dark,” said one of the soldiers, apprehensively.

“Darkness will protect us,” said the officer. “Unharness and hobble the tharlarion. No fires. Double the perimeter guard and halve the watches. Invert the wagon. We will stake it down and use it as a cage for the prisoners. If any would attempt to dig his way free, kill him.” He then turned to Portus Canio. “We will trek in the morning.”

Portus Canio shrugged.

“Lie down there, closely, huddle, the lot of you,” said the officer, indicating a place on the grass beside the wagon.

“We are not slaves!” said the fellow of Portus Canio, Loquatus, only he left of the original nine, other than Portus Canio himself, Selius Arconious and Fel Doron.

Then he was struck, heavily, at the back of the neck with a spear butt, and he sank, numbed, helpless to the ground. Such a blow can snap the vertebrae.

The officer then gestured, too, to Mirus, the sleenmaster and their wounded fellow.

“No,” said the sleenmaster. “Such a proximity would be demeaning to us. They are low fellows, of low caste.”

“What is your caste?” inquired the officer.

This inquiry was met with silence.

“Then it is they who would be demeaned,” said the officer. He then peremptorily indicated where they were to take their place.

Selius Arconious cast a glance at Ellen, she kneeling, bound, collared, a bit of rope on her neck.

She could not read his expression.

“What of the slave?” asked a soldier.

“Do not put her beneath the wagon,” said the officer. “We do not want them killing themselves in the darkness for her. Untie her and bracelet her to the wagon wheel.”

In a matter of moments the tharlarion had been hobbled, and freed of its harness. The wagon was then tipped, and dragged a foot or two, to where the prisoners lay huddled.

“You are not to speak while in the cage,” the officer informed them. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Portus, and his fellows. “Yes,” said the sleenmaster and his fellows, Mirus and the other.

The wagon, heavily framed and thickly planked, was then inverted, and placed over them. A bit later it was fastened down, roped to stakes.

The soldier who had earlier hungrily regarded Ellen, he who had been warned by the officer to take his eyes from her, went to her, roughly turned her about, as one may a slave despite her delicacy, snapped a slave bracelet on her right wrist, untied her hands, and then lifted her and put her on her back, on the surface of the inverted wagon, and thrust her hands up and back, over her head, until they were on each side of the wheel. He then attached the free bracelet to her left wrist, and she was braceleted in such a way that the chain went behind the wheel, and thus, of course, between two spokes. He looked down at her.

“Do not detunick her,” said the officer.

With a last look the soldier turned away.

Ellen, squirming, tried to force the tunic down, further, about her upper thighs. She felt the rough boards through the tunic, against her back. She was pleased to be free of the tightness, the pressure, of the ropes, but was now bound even more helplessly, her wrists closely encircled in slender, graceful steel.

“You,” said the officer, speaking slowly, and clearly, to the three beasts. “You stay — here. Stay here. Down! Rest! Stay. Here. Stay. Do you understand?”

They gave no obvious sign that they could comprehend speech, but from one, Kardok, it seemed there might have emanated some small, scarcely audible bestial sound, a half-heard growl, something which, if it were speech, could have been constituted by no more than two or three syllables.

“Good lads,” said the officer, as the beasts lay down. “They are clever,” he said to a soldier. “Well trained.”

Ellen, turning her head, saw the large, round eyes of Kardok upon her. She looked quickly away.

The sun was now dipping into the grasslands in the west, as the sun, Tor-tu-Gor, Light-Upon-the-Home-Stone, the common star of Gor and Earth, now took its rest after its diurnal labors, as the first knowledge would have it, or, as the second knowledge would have it, as the planet rotated eastward. There is rumored to be a third knowledge, as well, but it seems that this is reserved to those whom the men of this world commonly speak of in hushed tones, the Priest-Kings of Gor.

Watchful were the soldiers. There were no fires. They did not stand upright. They fed on simple meal and water. The night was cloudy. The moons were often obscured.

Twice was the watch changed.

When Ellen dared again to look to Kardok, she saw, again, that his eyes were upon her.

At last, overcome by exhaustion, Ellen slept, but it seemed that scarcely had she closed her eyes than she awakened, suddenly, frightened, unable to cry out, a heavy, masculine hand held tightly over her mouth. “Make no sound, little vulo,” whispered a voice. She nodded, pitifully, understanding, in acquiescence, her eyes wide over the weight and firmness of the oppressive hand by means of which she was denied access to articulate speech. “Have no fear,” whispered the voice, “I will not detunick you.” She recognized, even in the darkness, the soldier who had so openly regarded her slaveness earlier.

She could neither speak nor cry out for she, a slave, had been warned to silence. Tears of helplessness sprang into her eyes. She felt his powerful hands thrust up her brief tunic to her waist.

He turned the wheel, lifting her as he wanted her, she braceleted about the wheel, her wrists entangled, braceleted, amongst the spokes, and then she was before him, curved over the wheel, her back against the rim.

He thrust her legs apart.

Slaves may be had variously, one supposes, in theory, in an infinite variety of ways. One might perhaps, however, for the sake of simplicity, distinguish between two general sorts of havings, first, those in which a master teaches a slave that she is nothing by simply using her as an at-hand convenience, a lovely convenience, often unconcernedly, often casually, briefly, abruptly, sometimes rudely, brutally, and then spurns her, she half-aroused and weeping, to the side, and, second, those in which the master teaches the slave that she is nothing in a different way, by removing her wholly from herself and turning her into ecstatic, submitted, writhing slave meat, a conquered, begging female he can play upon as though upon a musical instrument, one who soon pleads piteously, with all her heart, as a degraded slave, for his least touch.

Ellen looked at the master. Their eyes met, and then she looked away. She pulled at the bracelets. How far she was from Earth! From the corridors of academia! From the politicized seminars! From the ideological pretenses! From weak, confused, uncertain, conflicted men! She had seen in his eyes that he was not disposed to be kind to her. Then she felt his first touch.

She moaned softly.

“Be silent,” he cautioned her.

Surely Ellen felt that she should resist him. He was not even her master. He must not do this to her! She saw him lick a finger, moistening it. Wide-eyed, she felt his second touch. Quickly she turned away. Slave girls are not permitted to resist. They must feel, and feel to the heights of their passion, emotion and sensitivity. They must yield, and in the fullness of their being. The masters permit them no choice. Too, their responses, their reflexes, are honed, and trained. Soon, they cannot help themselves, even if they would, or dared. They are slaves. Too, society accepts them, and has a place for them and their nature, and reinforces their condition with all the irrefragable power of custom and law. They are collared, they are owned. Everything, from their garmenture, to the lovely circlets enclosing their throats, to their small, graceful feminine brands, incised in their bodies, to their required deferences and behaviors, combines to remind them of what they are, and calls them to themselves, to their deepest selves. The slave is herself — fully herself — liberated, loving, one, complete, whole and profound. But this man was not my master! Oh, forgive me, I mean he was not her master! “I have not given you permission to fight me,” he whispered. Then he touched her again. “Ohh,” she said, softly. Perhaps you think that Ellen should have resisted. Oh, yes! But Ellen, you see, was now a slave! It is not only that she was not permitted to resist, but that, now, she could not resist. The masters had had their way with her, you see; they had won. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Collar slut,” he whispered to her, softly, contemptuously, in her ear. Then Ellen realized with a sudden spasm that she was now no more than a slave, a helpless slave! What mattered her thoughts, her feelings, her recognition that he was not her master! No longer could she help herself. How far this female was from Earth! She thought her need must be soaking her thighs.

She thought of herself groveling and kneeling, at the snap of a whip. How quickly she had learned to do that, how naturally!

The grasslands are commonly dry, but this was in the spring, and storms sometimes erupt, and, when they do, it is often with a sudden rage, a blackening of the sky, a rising of wind, a rushing of clouds, a shattering of lightning, a beating, pounding, of fierce, torrential rains.

And the wind was now rising.

He continued to touch her.

The slave began to writhe against the wheel. His mouth closed on hers. She felt the first pattering of rain.

Slaves are responsive. It is for such things that they are purchased. A girl who is more responsive will commonly bring a higher price than one who is less responsive. To be sure, sooner or later, the slaves fires are kindled in every girl and eventually even those who took the greatest pride in the inertness of their bellies will come weeping to the master’s feet. It is an interesting experience, doubtless, for a proud, cold woman who has loathed men to find herself now become a heated, dependent slave hopelessly in love with her master, so different from the men she had known, and in desperate need of his touch.

Her lips met his, though they were not those of her master. Tongue met tongue. His hands were hard, imperious upon her.

Let us not think ill of her, for she was a female slave. She could not help herself, nor did she wish to help herself. She pressed her lips madly upon him, gratefully. She gasped, and thrust her body against him, as she could.

He was a Gorean master, and she a female slave.

She recalled herself, long ago, before Mirus, and the two scribes, when she had been brought from the laundry. “I am eager to beg,” she had said. “I am Ellen, the slave girl of Mirus of Ar. I beg to please a man, any man.”

Yes, yes, she thought, gasping, slave eager, frenziedly grateful, a man, any man!

On Earth, at her current age, some eighteen or nineteen years of age, she might have been a freshman in college, being doubtless noticed by upperclassmen.

A young, beautiful girl.

Here, on Gor, she was a young, beautiful slave, and one whose lovely body had been well honed to quiver and squirm in responsiveness.

How different she would have been from Earth!

How the young men might have cried out, could they have seen her as she was now!

“Slave,” he whispered, contemptuously.

The wind blew her hair to the side, whipping it away from the wheel. “Yes, Master,” she whispered. “Yes, yes, yes, Master!”

“Oh!” she said, lifted, lowered, penetrated.

On his manhood was then the slave impaled.

A bolt of lighting momentarily illuminated the prairie.

He held her under the arms, they braceleted over her head, moving her. She was ground back against the wheel rim. She turned her head to the side, and then from side to side.

He was mighty and she, slave, obediently receptive as she must be, welcomed him, bent back, fastened, over the wheel, as the yielding, helpless, collared vessel of his pleasure.

Rain slashed downward in torrents. Lightning flashed. Thunder, the wild drums of the sky, crashed about them.

“I beg mercy, Master!” wept Ellen.

“You will receive none, slave,” he snarled.

“Aiii!” cried the slave.

In that moment, in a great flash of lightning, she saw a figure, that of the officer, hurling aside his blankets, rising angrily to his feet.

And at the same time she heard a cry of rage from beneath the boards of the inverted wagon, and the entire surface beneath her, seemed to shudder, and buck, once, twice, exerting force upon the straining ropes fastened to the stakes, and then the wagon rose up, suddenly, the ropes tautening and dragging stakes from the softened, rain-drenched earth.

“Alert!” cried the officer, his weapon drawn, momentarily illuminated in another chainlike, frightening blazing in the sky.

The soldier, the armsman, cursing, leapt from its surface.

The wagon was then up, suddenly on its side, the open wagon bed momentarily facing the officer, and his mustering men. Ellen, terrified, half-blinded in the rain, braceleted as she was, was twisted about, dragged to the side. The wagon rocked. She saw the dark figures of men about. She clung to the wheel to which she was fastened, and it spun beneath her, and she turned with it, and then, to her misery, she felt the wagon rock backward, and it was falling away, toward the ground, and she nearly slipped from the wheel to which she clung, and then, as the wagon heavily righted itself, striking into the earth, she was on her knees in the soaked grass.

“Do not move, sleen of Ar!” she heard the officer cry.

His men had encircled the now upright wagon, weapons at the ready.

Selius Arconious was momentarily illuminated in a flash of lightning, looking wildly about, his fists clenched.

“You are a fool!” cried the sleenmaster, now freed like the others from beneath the wagon.

“Steady, steady!” said Portus Canio to Selius Arconious.

“If any move, kill them!” said the officer to his men.

Ellen, through the spokes of the wheel, now on the far side of the wagon, saw the beasts. Their fur was matted and glistening from the rain. They were so closely together that it was only with difficulty that she saw there were three there.

Ellen had undergone the shifting of the wagon with no serious injury. In a few moments she would be aware of an aching in her right thigh, which had been bruised, but she was not aware of it in those first moments. She was fortunate, not to have been seriously injured, as, in the turning of the wagon, an arm might have been torn from its socket or an arm or wrist broken.

She pulled back, suddenly, frightened, as the two gray hunting sleen, slithering, bellies close to the grass, moved past her, to take shelter beneath the wagon. They looked at her, with large eyes. Sleen, in general, are not fond of water. It does not deter them, however, in the tenacity of pursuit; when hunting they will enter the water, and swim, unhesitatingly, single-mindedly. There is, however, an animal called the sea sleen, which is aquatic. There seems to be some dispute as to whether the sea sleen is a true sleen or not. The usual view, as she understands it, is that it is a true sleen, adapted to an aquatic environment. She felt the drenched fur of one of the sleen rub against her arm. There was a powerful odor to the two beasts, accentuated doubtless by the dampening of the fur. This odor was very clear in the cool, washed air. She pulled at the bracelets. They held her to the wheel. She was sure the sleen were harmless at present, particularly if she did not make sudden moves, or annoy them. On the other hand, she knew that at a mere command such beasts might unhesitantly tear her to pieces.

“Kneel, crowd together!” said the officer to those who had been confined.

Reluctantly they did so. There were bows bent taut, arrows at the cord, whipped with silk. Swords were drawn. Spears were ready for the thrust.

“I will deal with you later!” shouted the officer, amidst the lightning, amongst the claps of thunder, to the soldier who had pleasured himself with the slave.

“It was not my watch!” he shouted back.

“Later,” said the officer.

“She is only a slave,” said the soldier.

“Later,” the officer assured him.

“You did not forbid her to us,” said one of the soldiers, angrily.

“He did not detunick her,” said another. “Is it not that which was forbidden?”

“She is only a slave,” another reiterated, furiously.

The officer turned his attention to the group of kneeling prisoners. “And who amongst you,” he asked, “organized, or instigated, the lifting of the wagon?”

“I,” said Selius Arconious. “She is my slave.”

“I see,” said the officer.

“I did not give my permission for her use.”

Ellen gasped. Does he care for me, she thought. No, she thought. But it is a point of honor with him, that his property was used without his permission. Then she moved closer to the wheel and with the fingers of her braceleted hands delicately touched the collar on her neck, beneath the rope. But I am his slave, she thought. It is his collar on my neck. I am collared. I wear the collar of my master!

“Bind the prisoners, hand and foot, all but our angry young fellow,” said the officer to his men. “Then free the slave from the wagon, and bring her before me, back-braceleted.”

In a few moments Ellen was kneeling, back-braceleted, before the officer.

“Now bring forward our jealous young master,” said the officer. “Take him to the wagon wheel. Tie him there, his hands behind his back. Where he may see.”

When this was done he turned to Selius Arconious. “Ar belongs to Cos,” he said, “and all that belongs to Ar belongs to Cos, and thus the slaves of Ar are the slaves of Cos.”

“Yes!” said more than one of the soldiers.

Selius Arconious struggled at the wheel, his muscles lunging against the ropes.

There were many lightnings and crashes of thunder.

“Beg now,” said the officer to Ellen, “as the degraded slave of a master of Ar for the inestimable privilege, unworthy though you are, of serving masters of Cos.”

Tears, mixing with the rain, streamed down the face of the kneeling, back-braceleted slave.

Ellen threw her master an agonized glance. He was furious, bound at the wheel, but feet away.

“Slut!” said the officer.

“I am the degraded slave of a master of Ar,” cried Ellen. “I beg the inestimable privilege, unworthy though I am, of serving masters of Cos!”

“And you will do so, as each may please,” said the officer.

“Yes, Master!” said Ellen.

The slave moaned to herself. Surely not before my own master, she thought, not publicly, not before him!

The officer then indicated one of his men.

“On your back, slut, and throw your legs apart,” said the first soldier.

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen, in misery, and went to her back in the rain and mud.

“More widely!” he ordered.

“Yes, Master!”

“What is going on here?” said Tersius Major, coming forward.

“So you are no longer hiding in your blankets,” said the officer. “There is nothing here which concerns you.”

“I will have my turn!” he said.

“No,” said the officer. “Only a man is worthy of using a slave.”

Tersius Major whipped the pistol from beneath his cloak.

“Use it once, and it is gone,” said the officer. “Next!”

“Kneel, open your mouth,” said the next soldier.

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen, struggling to her knees in the mud.

The storm, meanwhile, was somewhat abating, and though a steady rain fell, there was a lessening of, and then a desistance of, the earlier atmospheric chaos of thunder, wind, and electricity.

“Next,” called the officer, and then, again, “Next!”

If ever, Ellen would have wished to resist, but her body betrayed her, with its secretions and spasms, and then, moments later, despite herself, every last pathetic psychological possibility of defense was gone; every last brittle barrier of reserve and dignity was shattered; and the last thin veil-like wall was rent, and taken from her, with the ease with which a slave strip might be torn from the body of an auctioned girl, and the entire needful psychosexual fabric of her femininity, yielded, was revealed to masters. She cried out, a ravished slave.

“Squirm,” said a man.

“Yes, Master!”

“Aiii,” he cried.

Not before my master, not before my master, she wept to herself, and then, again, yielded.

“Next,” said the officer.

“Kneel, head down, facing away from me!” said a man.

“Yes, Master!”

Her head and hair went into the wet grass. She felt herself seized. How powerful are the hands of men, she thought. How weak we are, how small we are! Nature has decreed who is master!

“Next,” said the officer.

“On your belly, split your legs.”

“Yes, Master!”

“Next.”

“To your back, slave!”

“Yes, Master!”

The last to use her, when he had regained his feet, kicked her with the side of his bootlike sandal, more a gesture of contempt than anything else. “Slut of Ar,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “Thank you, Master.” It is common for a slave to thank the master for disciplines, and beatings. She understands that such things are appropriate for her. Too, of course, they remind her that she is a slave.

Not before my master, she thought, not before my master!

Then Ellen lay on her back in the mud and rain, her eyes closed. She was a humbled, ravaged slave. She dared not look at Selius Arconious. Surely he had seen her buck and squirm, and spasm, and writhe, and moan and gasp, and lick and kiss, and grovel, and beg, and wrap her small legs about the large bodies of masters, as though she might thusly hold them the more securely to her.

How horrified might have been her former feminist sisters of Earth, but they were not collared on another planet, brazenly tunicked, and the tunic now and again thrust up almost to their breasts, grasped in the mud and put to the service of masters! Or would they have been thrilled, and envy her the profound, uncompromising domination to which she had been subjected, a domination which it was quite unlikely they themselves would receive at the hands of men of Earth, a domination without which they could not realize the depths of their womanhood.

There had been fifteen soldiers in all. She did not even remember which one had been he who had put her to his masterly purposes at the wheel earlier. Tersius Major had not been permitted to so much as touch her. The officer, too, had refrained from her use. Once she had looked to the bound prisoners. Portus Canio, and his fellows, Fel Doron and Loquatus, had seemed to take little interest, little more than if someone had put someone else’s small, silken she-sleen through her paces. The wounded man who was with the company of Mirus lay bound, weak, miserable, unnoticed, on the grass. The sleenmaster, he of the party of Mirus, eyes glistening, had eagerly, keenly, excitedly, scarcely capable of controlling himself, witnessed the successive ravishings of the slave. Ellen wondered if he were new to Gor. She wondered if he, doubtless of Earth, aware perhaps only of the frigid, defensive, inert, confused, unhappy, unawakened women of Earth, had seen anything like this before, the responses of a collared slave. Had he been aware before, she wondered, of the latent passion in women, waiting to be called forth by the summons of masters? Had he even, until then, begun to comprehend the joy of living on a natural world, one too wise to take false steps, one unspoiled by millennia of madness, a world on which men were men and women, if collared, must be themselves, the slaves of masters. She wondered if he had ever had a slave. It is said that once one has tasted a slave, one finds it difficult to think again in terms of free women. Perhaps it is little wonder that free women so hate slaves. She wondered if, on Earth, such men, in their enclaves on her old world, kept slaves, either women of Earth, enslaved, or women brought to Earth from Gor. She hoped they did not bring Gorean women to Earth, particularly slave girls, for that would be much like bringing lovely, warm-blooded, delicate creatures, vulnerable, natural and loving, to a wasteland, an arctic locale inimical to passion, a desert hostile to love. What a terrible sentence, too, it would be, what a terrible condemnation, even to bring a Gorean free woman to Earth. She might not understand, for a time, what a terrible thing had been done to her. But sooner or later she would doubtless learn, and try to find those who had done this terrible thing to her and, if successful, tear away her clothes before them and beg them, on her belly, lips to their boots, to return her to Gor, and as no more than a naked, collared slave, to be disposed of in the lowest of markets.

Her eyes met those of Mirus, and in his eyes she read only contempt. She looked away from him. Poor Mirus, she thought. How much of Earth is still left in him! How unwilling he is to let a woman be herself. How he wishes to have her conform to some arid, politically prescribed, popularly conditioned stereotype. It seems he wants a slave and he does not want a slave. There is too much of Earth in you yet, dear Mirus. I am sorry, Mirus. I am a slave. That is what I am. I have learned it on this world. It is the truth. I cannot be half a slave. I must belong to a man who recognizes what I am, and will have all of me as what I am, all that I have to give, and more, or I will know the whip.

She dared not look at Selius Arconious.

He had seen her yield to others, publicly. She hoped that, if she survived, he would not kill her, that he would do no more than beat and sell her. Surely he, Gorean, knew the helpless nature of the female slave, and what men, despite her most fervent desires, could do to her, and would. How helpless we are, she thought, slave girls.

The rain now had ceased, and two of the three moons were visible. There were breaks in the dark clouds.

The watches had been disrupted with the righting of the wagon and the quelling of what might have otherwise proved a melee, one perhaps antecedent to the scattering and escape of prisoners.

Some confusion, too, might have ensued during the utilization of the slave, though some of the men, before or after, must have returned to their watch. Ellen realized that the officer had, in effect, not only foiled a possible escape of prisoners, but had, by his quickness of thought, and his utilization of her, an at-hand slave, narrowly avoided a possible insurrection among his own uneasy troops. Ellen realized, lying in the mud and grass, that a slave in camp, who may not be assigned, or used, may exert a strain on discipline, particularly among strong, virile men. She knew that on many ships it was regarded as dangerous to carry a free woman, for such may tantalize by their very existence, exciting speculation as to the possible treasures concealed by her bulky garmenture, but not regarded as dangerous to carry a scantily clad ship slave, who, on board, serves many of the same purposes as a similarly garmented camp slave on long marches.

Ellen then realized that she might be extremely desirable, perhaps even, as it is said, “slave desirable.” She recalled that the officer had ordered that she was to remain tunicked.

She looked up and saw the officer standing over her.

“Hobble her,” he said.

In a moment Ellen’s ankles were clasped by slave hobbles. These were not common ankle chains. This particular device consisted of two hinged plates of metal, matching in their way, each of the two plates containing two hemispheric curvatures. There were front curvatures on the front plate, and back curvatures on the rear plate, such that, matched, each set of curvatures, in a circular fashion, encloses an ankle. The device is swung shut about the ankles; it is held shut on the left by the hinge; on the right, there are projecting perforations, one on each plate, with matching apertures; the tongue of a padlock is passed through these two apertures; the padlock is then snapped shut, and this closes the device on the right, fastening it on the slave. The ankles are separated by something like six inches. The slave can stand in such a device, though often with difficulty, and can walk, though, too, with difficulty, taking slow tiny steps. Since the device is of rude iron and the plates are closely joined, hinged at one side and locked at the other, movement can abrade the ankle. A slave or prisoner so hobbled is for most practical purposes immobilized. Commonly one does not move in such a device. Another form of hobble fastens one ankle some inches above the other. Thus both feet cannot be placed on the ground at the same time. Such a device then immobilizes a slave even more effectively than the straight-plated variety in which Ellen was placed. The point of Ellen’s hobbles, she supposed, was to permit a slave enough movement to serve about a camp, perhaps to prepare food and such. If one wants to keep a slave in place, of course, it is easy to chain her somewhere, by an ankle or the neck. In cities, in public places, slave rings are provided, to which slaves may be attached while masters attend to their business, their purchasings, their visitings, or such. Sometimes boys go to the markets and plazas in groups, to inspect the slaves at the rings.

We are chained there, of course, and so we must endure the inspection of the young masters.

We find ourselves regarded, discussed, and commented on, at our rings, much as might be, on another world, in another time, dogs or horses, or on another world, in a later time, automobiles and motorcycles, except that human females, obviously, have a special interest for human males, even young human males. It is one thing to hear oneself, and one’s lineaments, discussed by grown men, of course, as a consequence of which our bodies moisten and become uneasy, and become welcoming and receptive, whether we wish it or not, and quite another by boys.

If the sun is fierce the masters will often chain us to a ring in the shade. They may also, before chaining us, allow us to drink from the lower level of a public fountain. Sometimes a pan of water is put out for us. In public we are expected to refrain from touching such a pan with our hands, and are expected to drink from it on all fours. This is, I think, a sop to the pride of free women. They wish us to appear despicable to free men, and unworthy of their attention. But men prefer us.

Sometimes we sleep, or sit, or kneel, and watch the passers-by. We are not to stand at the ring, for some of us might be taller than a free woman. Sometimes we are chained in proximity to our sisters, and then, if we are not enjoined to silence, we may enjoy the pleasantries of confabulation. We take great delight in it. It is a great pleasure for us. I suppose it is part of our nature. We muchly enjoy gossip, and commenting on free women. Most slaves, incidentally, have a great deal of freedom, in moving about the city, shopping, running errands, inspecting goods at the markets, wandering in the bazaars, laundering at the public troughs, strolling about in the parks and on the avenues, such things. And, of course, we will have our friends and arrange our meetings and rendezvouses, and so on, keeping track, as you may be sure, of the time bars, for it would not do to be late in reporting back to our masters. Some slaves, too, it should be admitted, usually city slaves or those from large households in which there are many slaves, enjoy flirting. But woe to the girl who is caught by a free woman engaged in this pleasant activity. Most slaves, of course, hope to have a private master, and be his only chattel. And is that handsome fellow there not of interest? Might one not, in simple civility, smile at him, looking back over the left shoulder? Perhaps he will accost one, and read one’s collar. Perhaps he will embrace one and test one’s lips? Do you feel good in his arms? Does he like the soft press of your lips? Perhaps you will be priced. Slaves, incidentally, are usually not allowed in public buildings, and certainly not in temples. Outside temples we are commonly penned, or chained to posts, as might be kaiila. If a slave were to enter a temple she might be slain. The temple, certainly, would have to be purified.

Whereas most slaves have a great deal of freedom, as hitherto mentioned, most will be expected to ask permission to leave the domicile of the master, and will be expected to return by a designated Ahn. The ambulatory freedom of the slave girl ends, however, at the city gate. No woman in a collar is allowed out of the city except in the keeping of a free person, usually the master or his agent.

Amongst the boys in their little clouds or gangs, roaming about, looking for some “good ones” amongst the “ring girls,” those chained to the public rings, there will occasionally be one or two older ones, who will carry switches. This is in case they find a slave who has been a free woman taken from an enemy city, particularly recently. They may then switch her, and she will kneel, and cover her head, and cry. She cannot escape, of course, as she is chained in place. Soon, hopefully, her master will return and good-naturedly shoo the boys away. She must expect such things, I suppose, given her antecedents. They still think of her as a woman of the enemy. This is, however, a mistake. She is not free. Thus, she can no longer be a woman of the enemy. Now she is only another slave. She would remain a slave, incidentally, even if she were to be returned to her original city. Indeed, there, she would be treated with great cruelty, perhaps even slain. In becoming a slave, you see, she has dishonored its Home Stone. She would beg piteously not to be returned to that city. There she could expect nothing better than a paga tavern or brothel. You can imagine her misery, in such a situation, finding herself at the mercy of spurned suitors, and such. And perhaps she would be purchased by a free woman who was once her rival and enemy, to be her serving slave. Better to wear her collar at the feet of foreign masters, scions of the city whose warriors or raiders first acquired and stripped her. Women understand such things.

Ellen struggled to a sitting position, and looked down at the hobbles. They were of heavy iron. She did not try to rise. She was not sure she could do so.

I have caused dissension, Ellen thought to herself. Perhaps I am beautiful. Of course, I am the only slave in the camp. But I think that I may be beautiful, or, at any rate, desirable. She felt warm, and thrilled. I am an object of desire, she thought. Men, or at least some men, want me. Literally want me, in the fullest sense of that word. But perhaps that is not so strange, as I am a slave.

She still did not turn to look at Selius Arconious.

She did look at Mirus, but then, smiling, looked away, tossing her head. “Insolent slave!” he hissed. She did not respond, of course. She had not been given permission to speak. There was no point in inviting a beating. I am in part your handiwork, she thought. How do you like it? It was in your house that I was first put in a collar. But now I am not yours. You let me go. You were even outbid in open auction. Too bad, dear Mirus.

“Sir!” cried one of the soldiers.

The officer went immediately to where the man had called out.

“Behold!” cried another soldier.

“Be vigilant!” ordered the officer.

“What is it?” asked Selius Arconious, struggling at the wheel. The roped, kneeling prisoners, had turned about, trying to see. Ellen, turning, peering under the righted wagon, saw one of the three beasts shamble, bent over, on all fours, to where a soldier was standing.

“Kajira!” snapped Selius Arconious.

“Master?” cried the startled Ellen.

“What is it? Look!”

“I cannot see, Master!”

“Get up!” he said.

“I cannot!” she wept.

“Try!” he demanded.

Ellen struggled. She fought the hobbles. She could not even get to her knees. Had she been front-braceleted, or in normal ankle chains, or had someone lifted her to her feet, she might have been successful. Too, of course, if she had worn only hobbles, she could have used her hands to gain her feet.

“I see the hobbles are excellently effective,” he said, acidly.

Ellen went to her side, looking up at her master. Her feet were separated by the six inches of plating, the left ankle held off the ground. She lay in the mud and grass. The brief tunic had been thrust up, about her waist. Her right thigh was bruised, and she could feel it now, from the turning of the wagon. The bootlike sandal of the final soldier to make use of her, in its spurning blow, at her left, had not marked her. It had been little more than a reminder that she was a slave.

“You look well, hobbled, slave,” he said, irritably.

Tears sprang into the eyes of the well-restrained slave.

His eyes examined the curves of her, her bosom beneath the tunic, the narrow waist, the flare of the hips, the thighs, the calves, all of which he owned.

He had seen her yield to others, those not her master, and with the yieldings of a slave.

She could not reach him easily, for he was some seven or eight feet from her, but she went to her belly, and, as nearly as she could manage, to the common second position of obeisance, and lifted her head, and looked up at him, piteously, her small wrists braceleted behind her. Her eyes were wild, and begging. Seldom had she felt more owned. Then, as she could not, as she lay, reach his sandals, she put her head down before him, and pressed her lips to the grass, kissing it, pathetically.

She hoped that this placatory behavior might avert his wrath, perhaps even save her life. In the house of Mirus, long ago, she had been taught to crawl to a man on her belly and cover his feet with fervent, supplicatory kisses.

She lifted her head, frightened, then lowered it, to kiss again at the grass. She felt the moist, narrow blades upon her lips.

“You grovel well,” he said. “Like all women you belong in a collar.”

She sucked in her breath, in relief. She was sure then that she would be spared, if only for the time.

“I yielded, Master,” she said. “Forgive me, Master!”

“Of course you yielded,” he said. “If you had not, I would have seen to it that you were beaten.”

She looked up at him, in reddened astonishment.

“Slaves must yield,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

Unlike Mirus then, it seemed, to her relief, that he would not think the less of her because of the commanded naturalness, and vitality, of her responses. Frigidity may be a virtue of free women, but that dignity is not permitted to slaves. His anger, then, she understood, was not directed against her, but against the Cosians, who had made use of her without his acquiescence. Who blames the kaiila who responds to the digging heels, the reins and quirts of diverse riders?

Suddenly she was suffused with anger, and remembered that she hated Selius Arconious.

“Can you see now?” he asked.

She struggled to her side, and up, on her right elbow. “Master!” she said, suddenly, startled.

For at that moment, about the wagon, carried by two Cosians, was brought the body of a gagged, bound man.

Selius Arconious, as soon as she, saw that it was the spokesman, bound hand and foot.

Some soldiers, and the officer, and the great, shambling beast, Kardok, came about the wagon, to the cleared space there, in the center of the camp.

There was a great bruise on the side of the spokesman’s head, where he had doubtless been dealt a grievous blow.

Now, however, he was clearly conscious. He pulled weakly at the thongs that bound him. His eyes were open, widely, over the gag.

The officer was angry.

“How came this urt to the camp?” he demanded.

“Doubtless brought here, in the storm, or later,” said one of the soldiers.

“No,” said another. “The grass beneath the body, where we found him, was dry.”

“That means someone entered the camp, in the night, before the storm, between the guards, and left this tethered urt amongst us!”

“He lay in a small depression,” said one of the soldiers. “We only saw him moments ago, in the moonlight.”

“It will be morning in a few Ehn,” said a soldier.

“Who can come and go thusly amongst us?” said the officer, in fury.

“Who knows?” said one of the soldiers.

The officer strode to the kneeling, bound prisoners. “Who?” he said. “Who?”

“A warrior, perhaps,” said Portus Canio.

“Let us withdraw,” said one of the soldiers.

The officer returned to the center of the camp, near the wagon, near the place where a woman, or, better, a girl, had been subjected to diverse usages suitable for one such as she, one who was slave.

“Remove the gag from his mouth,” said the officer.

A dagger was thrust rudely behind the outer binding of the gag, and slashed it away. A streak of blood was then at the side of the jaw. The soldier then, with the tip of the dagger, poked through the wadding, and forced it out. The man began to choke, and then babble pathetically. “Sleen,” he said. “Sleen!”

“Prairie sleen,” said a soldier.

“He was a fool to leave the camp,” said another.

“I do not like it,” said another soldier. “Sleen will follow the scent. He will have brought sleen to the vicinity of the camp.”

“They may have been about in any event,” said one of the soldiers. “We saw two in the vicinity, some pasangs away, whilst we were in flight.”

“Yes,” said another soldier.

“They may have caught the scent of the gray sleen, the hunting sleen,” said another, “and surmised them to be tracking, and then followed, for days, hoping to share the kill.”

“Possibly,” said the officer.

“Let us take him out into the grass, and kill him there,” said a soldier. “If he has sleen on his tracks, that should satisfy them.”

“No,” begged the spokesman. “No!”

“Who did this to you?” asked the officer.

“I do not know,” whined the spokesman. “I was struck in the darkness.”

“He is well thonged,” said a soldier.

“Bound by a warrior,” said one.

“Or a slaver,” said another.

Ellen shuddered. Goreans, of all castes, are skilled at thonging, braceleting, binding and such. That is to be expected in a natural society, a society in which a prized and essential ingredient is female slavery, a society in which it is an accepted, respected, unquestioned, honored tradition, an institution sanctioned in both custom and law. Even boys are taught, under the tutelage of their fathers, how to bind female slaves, hand and foot. They are also trained in gagging and blindfolding, two useful devices for controlling and training slaves.

“Get some food,” said the officer. “Feed the prisoners, and the slave, as well. We trek at dawn.”

“Sir!” called Portus Canio.

The officer went to stand before him.

“With all due respect, sir,” said Portus Canio, “if you would save yourself, and your men, I would free us, and take your leave. I do not think those outside the camp are greatly interested in your blood.”

“I am thinking of having all of you killed,” said the officer, “all except the slave, who would make a nice gift for some ranking officer.”

“I want her,” said Tersius Major.

“To be sure,” said the officer, “perhaps we will merely auction her off — sell her naked from a slave block in Cos.”

“I want her!” said Tersius Major.

“Be silent,” said the officer.

“If you slay us,” said Portus Canio, “I do not think you will reach Brundisium alive.”

“Am I to return empty-handed?” asked the officer. “The purloined gold, the fees for mercenary cohorts, is presumably gone by now. Now you would have me return without even prisoners for interrogation?”

“For torture, you mean,” said Portus Canio.

“The testimony of slaves is commonly taken under torture,” said the officer.

“We are not slaves,” said Portus Canio.

“That can be changed.”

“Torture will not obtain the truth for you, only what you want to hear.”

“You do not know the truth?”

“None of us do, now,” said Portus Canio.

“I would take something back with me,” said the officer.

“I do not know what it could be,” said Portus Canio.

“Have those outside the camp an interest in your colleagues?” asked the officer.

“I do not think so,” said Portus Canio. “And they are not our colleagues. They pursued us. I think they sought gold. Too, they wished, apparently, to obtain the slave, and kill her. I think they would have slain us, as well. I am not clear as to their motivations. There is more here than I clearly understand. Tension stood between us. We stood on the brink of war. You arrived. You attacked. We fought together, thrown side by side, unwilling, unexpected allies.”

“They had forbidden weapons,” said the officer.

“Only forbidden,” said Tersius Major, “because the Priest-Kings would keep such things for themselves.”

“If that is their will, then it is their will,” said the officer. Then he regarded Mirus. “Who are you, and what is your business?”

“I am a merchant of Ar,” said Mirus, “dealing in various commodities, including slaves.”

“An urt of Ar,” said the officer.

“No,” said Selius Arconious, bound at the wheel. “He may reside in Ar, but he is not of Ar. He has no Home Stone.”

He is jealous, thought Ellen.

“I see,” said the officer. “Then he is not even an urt of Ar?”

“No,” said Selius Arconious. He cast a look at Mirus. Mirus might have been powerful, and rich, but the look directed upon him, though that of a mere tarnster, was one of superiority, of condescension, the look that one with a Home Stone might bestow upon one not so favored.

Surely he hates Mirus, thought Ellen. I think he is jealous of him. Can that be because of me? Could he be jealous because of a mere slave? What are his feelings toward me? He hates me! And I hate him! I must hate him! But he cannot be jealous. How could one be jealous of me? I am a mere slave!

The officer threw a look at the sleenmaster, who looked away.

“There are mysteries here, forbidden weapons, and such,” said the officer.

Portus Canio shrugged. He knew as little of such things as the Cosians.

“Beware the Priest-Kings,” whispered a soldier.

“I think I know one who is voluble,” said the officer, “one who might be persuaded to speak.”

Kardok lifted his large, shaggy head.

He uttered a tiny sound, scarcely audible.

His two compeers, scarcely seeming to move, joined him.

The officer turned about, angrily, and returned to where the spokesman, thonged, had been put on the grass. “Reinforce the watch,” said the officer. Then he, several of his men about him, looked down at the spokesman. “Kneel the urt!” he said. The spokesman, still helplessly bound, was put to his knees.

Kardok and his two compeers were now scarcely noticed. They were curled together, as she had seen them before, as though for warmth, a mass of heat and fur, innocent domestic animals, harmless trained beasts, gentle, massive, slothful creatures who might, prodded into movement by a ribboned wand, delight children at the fairs. It seemed like a single, somnolent mountain of fur. Ellen knew it was alive. She could sense its breathing. It seemed almost unnaturally still. It was not far away. Perhaps it was asleep. But, no, Ellen did not think so. The eyes of Kardok were open.

“There are two prairie sleen beyond the perimeter!” called a soldier, from several yards away.

“I was followed by sleen, two sleen,” said the spokesman. “I was running, through the night. I saw them. They stayed with me, some yards away, they drew closer, silently. I ran. I was struck. I lost consciousness!”

“The tarsk drew them here!” said a soldier, irritably.

“They may have been with us on the march,” said Mirus. “I may have seen one of them once. I am not sure. Sometimes we saw spoor.”

“How many are there?” asked a soldier.

“Two,” said one of the soldiers.

“We do not know,” said another. “Others, local sleen, might gather in.”

“Yes,” said another, looking about.

“There is little to fear if we are armed, and alert,” said the officer.

“They are closer now than is common, to a camp,” said one of the soldiers, uneasily.

Needless to say, the common prey of the wild sleen is not the human being, but the human being is not safe from them. He lies within their prey range. Indeed, they will attack animals larger than humans, kaiila, wild bosk, and such.

The officer then directed his attention to the spokesman. “You do not know who struck you, or how many?” he asked.

“No,” said the spokesman.

“It would be easy to put you outside the camp,” said the officer.

“Do not do so!” begged the spokesman.

“We are civilized,” said the officer. “We could mercifully untie you, and then turn you out with our best wishes for your health and safety.”

“Let me stay! Protect me!” said the spokesman.

“And how will you buy your rent space within the camp?”

“I will speak! I know things! Things on which hang the fate of worlds! I can speak of gold beyond that which you sought! Gold compared to which that is a paltry sum! I can speak of weapons which can devastate cities in a moment, leaving no more than poisonous ashes! I can make Cos the mistress of Gor, and you the master of Cos!”

“You are mad,” said the officer.

“No! No!” said the spokesman. “Ask those who were with me, ask them!”

“He is mad,” said Mirus.

“He is mad,” said the sleenmaster.

The slave noted that Mirus cast a glance to one side, to a thick patch of heavy grass. She turned, as she could, but saw nothing there. Then she forgot, for the time, this seemingly puzzling inadvertence or inattention on his part.

“Speak,” said the officer.

“Secure the beasts!” said the spokesman.

The officer threw a hasty glance at the three beasts, seemingly no more than a somnolent mound of fur.

“Do not be absurd,” said the officer.

“If you are finished with us,” said Portus Canio, “free us, and we will harness the tharlarion and move on, with the wagon.”

“I will keep the slave,” said the officer.

“Free us,” said Portus Canio.

“Kill them all!” cried Tersius Major, the pistol in hand.

“Consider the matter,” said Portus Canio. “If those in the grassland wished, several of you would now be dead. The great bow can strike from a distance. The camp was entered secretly last night. Your throats could have been cut. If you would return alive to Brundisium or see the coasts of Cos once more, release us. Within the walls of Ar we might be mortal enemies; here, in the grasslands, in this place, in this moment, we may be mere wayfarers, fallen in with one another, in the midst of a desolation.”

“Kill them all!” cried Tersius Major.

“But we have apprehended you,” said the officer.

“Perhaps,” said Portus Canio, “you never saw us.”

“I have lost men,” said the officer, angrily.

“Bandits,” said Portus Canio. “And did you not slay the entire band?”

The officer looked about, from man to man.

“I have never seen these men,” said a soldier.

“Nor I,” said another, looking out over the grasslands.

“Kill them all!” screamed Tersius Major.

“Free them,” said the officer. “And return their weapons to them.”

“No!” said Tersius Major.

“I will not risk my men,” said the officer.

The pistol then was leveled at the breast of the officer.

“Discard it,” said the officer. “Put it with the others, at the edge of the camp, while there is still time. You are living surely only with the sufferance of Priest-Kings.”

Mirus smiled.

“No, no!” said Tersius Major. Then he howled with anguish and lowered the pistol. But he made no effort to put the weapon with the others. Five such pistols, of six, the slave recalled, had been accounted for. In the pistol which Tersius Major held there was left, allegedly, one cartridge, and but one cartridge. The other weapon had doubtless been lost, somewhere, in the fray.

“That one,” said the officer, indicating Selius Arconious, bound at the wheel, “free from the wheel, but keep bound.”

“The slave?” asked one of the soldiers.

“Unhobble her,” said the officer. “Those in the grasslands will not be interested in mere domestic stock. She is a well-curved little thing, though somewhat young. She will look well on an auction block in Cos.”

“Please, no, Masters!” wept the slave. She cast a wild glance at Selius Arconious, who pulled angrily at his bonds, at the wheel.

The officer then climbed to the surface of the wagon and held up a spear, but with the point down.

In this fashion was a cessation of hostilities proposed.

It was impossible to know, of course, if this token was seen, or, if seen, accepted.

The heavy hobbles were removed from Ellen’s ankles and she was lifted to her feet, where she stood, for a moment unsteadily.

Her eyes met those of Selius Arconious. He was her master. Quickly, as naturally as the movement of a cloud, the bending of a stalk of grass, the fluttering of a leaf, she hurried to kneel before him and put her head down, and kissed his feet.

“Oh!” she cried in pain, yanked up and back, away from him, cruelly, by the hair, and thrown to her side in the grass, much where she had been before.

She looked up in terror at one of the soldiers.

“You belong to Cos, slut,” she was told.

Meanwhile Portus Canio, freed of his bonds, had risen awkwardly to his feet, rubbing his wrists. Fel Doron, and the third fellow, Loquatus, skilled with the crossbow, soon joined him. Mirus, the sleenmaster and their wounded fellow were left bound, as was the spokesman. Selius Arconious was freed from the wheel, but his wrists remained tied behind his back. He glared balefully at the officer, who paid him no attention. Some weapons, which had been those of Portus Canio and his fellows, were put on the grass, near the wagon. They did not yet arm themselves.

Selius Arconious, though freed from the wheel, continued to stand near it, angrily, bound.

Portus Canio regarded Tersius Major. “We shall find you,” he said. “We shall hunt you down, traitor to Ar.”

“I do not fear you,” said Tersius Major, lifting the pistol. “I am the equal of a Priest-King!”

Then Tersius Major turned to the officer. “You will take me with you to Brundisium,” he said.

“Only if you discard the forbidden weapon,” said the officer. “I will not risk my men.”

“Coward! Coward!” said Tersius Major. “There is no danger, no danger! You are a coward!”

“I am responsible for my men,” said the officer. “Else I might respond to you appropriately, in a different time, in a different place.”

“Coward!”

The officer turned to Portus Canio and his fellows, who were backing the tharlarion toward the wagon, to hitch it in place.

“I would keep the young fellow bound for a time,” he said, indicating Selius Arconious. “I do not think he will be able to follow us in the grasslands. But if he attempts to follow us, and finds us, and tries to regain this animal, our curvaceous little she-beast there on the grass, we will kill him.”

Ellen cast a wild glance at her master. She pulled at her braceleted wrists.

“Leash her,” said the officer.

“Stand,” said the soldier nearest Ellen, he who had drawn her away from the feet of her master, Selius Arconious.

Ellen stood, instantly. Gorean slave girls obey masters, instantly and with perfection. Goreans, you see, do not coddle their slave girls. The least hesitancy can be cause for discipline.

The soldier then took a length of rope and knotted it to the length of rope which was already on her neck, that which Mirus, in his attempt, during the fray, to make away with her, had slashed short, an attempt foiled by Selius Arconious. The knot was jerked tight. Ellen was leashed.

The eyes of more than one of the soldiers glinted upon her. Ellen cast a glance downward, and trembled. She knew that few sights were more stimulatory to masculine beasts than a leashed woman. The leash, too, made it clear to her that she was no more than an animal.

The officer returned his attention to the spokesman, who knelt before him, in the grass, naked and bound, hand and foot.

“You were going to speak,” the officer reminded him.

“Secure the beasts,” said the spokesman.

The officer cast a glance at the three beasts, but, again, there seemed nothing of interest there.

“That will not be necessary,” he said.

“Then I will not speak,” said the spokesman.

“Who will bind them?” asked the officer, looking skeptically at the beasts.

“Let others speak, those others,” said the spokesman, indicating Mirus, the sleenmaster and the wounded man, the latter bound, as the two others, but he unconscious in the grass, “let them speak first!”

“If you would save the lives of your friends,” said the officer, irritably. “Speak.”

“No, no,” said the spokesman.

Mirus and the sleenmaster pulled at their bonds, and regarded the spokesman with fury.

“It must be pleasant to have such a friend,” mused the officer. Then he said to one of his men. “Free those brigands.”

The spokesman watched with horror as the bonds restraining Mirus, the sleenmaster and the wounded fellow were slashed away. Mirus and the sleenmaster stood, rubbing their wrists, angrily regarding the spokesman.

“No, no, no,” said the spokesman.

“He knows nothing,” said the officer, contemptuously. “Kill him.”

A dagger was whipped from its sheath. A hand seized the spokesman by the hair and pulled his head back, exposing his throat.

“No!” whispered the spokesman.

The dagger paused, wavering, the energy of the arm behind it revealing itself in the conflicted hesitation of the blade, narrow, bright, quivering, arrested by a sudden monitory glance from the officer.

In this moment, Mirus, within the cover of this distraction, all eyes on the officer, the spokesman, the threatening soldier with the dagger, with a flash of robes, threw himself across the grass, toward the place to which the slave had earlier seen him glance. There, as men looked about, startled, he seized up from the thick grass a closed holster and, in a moment, had freed the sixth pistol from its sheathing.

Even Tersius Major, who held a weapon, was taken aback.

Mirus now faced the group, the pistol, removed from its hiding place, ready in his hand. The slave had no doubt that he was adept with the weapon.

“Put it down,” said the officer, in horror. “It is a forbidden weapon!”

“Stand where you are,” said Mirus. “And spare me the prattle about weapons, forbiddings, laws, Priest-Kings and such! I am not a child!”

Fel Doron would have moved toward Mirus, but he was warned back by Portus Canio.

“What do you want?” asked the officer.

Mirus fixed his eyes upon the slave. He gestured toward himself with the weapon, violently. “Here, slave girl,” said he, “now!”

“Do not move,” snapped Selius Arconious.

“Come here!” snapped Mirus.

“I cannot, Master!” said Ellen. “My master has forbidden it.”

“Your master?” said Mirus.

“Yes!” cried Ellen. “My master!”

“Who is your master?” said Mirus.

“Selius Arconious, of Ar,” cried Ellen. “I am owned by Selius Arconious of Ar, tarnster, of the caste of Tarn Keepers!”

“I will have you!” said Mirus.

Ellen sank to her knees in the grass, in terror, weeping.

“Stand back,” she heard Mirus say. Then he was standing beside her. She felt the muzzle of the weapon through her hair, pressing, at the side of her head. It cut her there.

“If I cannot have her,” said Mirus, “no one will!”

“You will never be able to leave the camp,” said the officer. “Foes lurk, poised, unseen.”

“If I cannot have her, no one will!” cried Mirus.

Ellen shut her eyes. The muzzle of the gun hurt her. She wondered if she would even hear the report of the weapon. She remembered the boards irrupting from the corner of the wagon. Surely, at point blank range, it would tear half her head away.

“Stop!” said Selius Arconious.

Mirus straightened.

“I will give her to you before I will have her die,” said Selius Arconious.

The slave lifted her head, startled.

There was a terrible pause. Mirus lowered the weapon, it then at his thigh. “Then it seems,” said he, “that your love is greater than mine.”

Ellen knelt in the grass, shaken, startled, disbelievingly, bewildered. Had these men, such men, spoken of love? Love? Did they not know she was a slave? Love, for a slave?

“No, Master!” cried Ellen, for Mirus had then lifted the weapon slowly, and held it now at his own temple.

“No, Master!” cried Ellen.

“Do not be a fool,” said Selius Arconious.

“Put it down,” said the officer. “Put it with the other lightning devices, at the edge of the camp.”

“No!” said Tersius Major. “Give it to me!”

Mirus turned away, his head down. He pulled the weapon to the side, angrily, wearily, not permitting Tersius Major to snatch it from him.

He thrust the weapon in his belt.

Then he knelt to one side, his head in his hands.

“There are many markets,” said a soldier. “You can buy a girl in any of them. The shelves and cages are filled with shackled, unsold beauties, beauties begging for a collar, beauties needing a master, beauties needing to love and serve, to give all, and more.”

Ellen regarded the standing, bound Selius Arconious. He seemed angry.

“Do you love me, Master?” she asked.

“Do not be stupid,” he said. “You are a slave.”

“Yes, Master,” she said. “Forgive me, Master.”

Ellen wondered if she were a beauty. She certainly knew at least, now that she had come to understand bondage and her nature, that she was such that she would unhesitantly beg for a collar. On Gor she had learned explicitly what she had only suspected on Earth, that she needed a master, that she needed to love and serve, to give all and more.

“Sir!” called a guard from the periphery. “The sleen, the wild sleen, approach more closely.”

“Warn them back,” said the officer. “I think we will have something for them in a moment.”

“No, no!” said the spokesman.

“I have lost patience with you,” said the officer. He gestured, a nod of his head, to the soldier who carried still the unsheathed blade which had but moments ago so closely threatened the spokesman.

Ellen recalled the man the spokesman had earlier murdered in cold blood, his own ally, who had at one time been taken as the interpreter for the beasts.

Ellen glanced at the beasts. They seemed somnolent, as before. This reassured her. She wished Selius Arconious was free. She could see portions of that huge mound, that intertwined assemblage of meat and fur, move, as one or another of the beasts might twist or stretch. One lifted its head, and yawned. She could also detect breathing, where one or another of the giant barrel-like rib cages would lift and then subside. The breathing, where she could detect it, seemed deep, and regular, not quick, not agitated. The two domestic sleen were awake now, and had come out from under the wagon, the tharlarion now in its traces. If they were aware of their wild brethren outside the camp they gave no indication of it. The fur of the three beasts was matted, and spattered with mud, and glistened with water. Like the sleen, they had a strong animal odor. It reminded Ellen a little of that of bears. Ellen recalled the large man who had seemed so quietly formidable, Bosk of Port Kar, and his friend, Marcus of Ar’s Station, who had trekked with them earlier. She had seen him occasionally lifting his head and sampling the wind, doubtless taking scent. She now supposed that he had caught the scent of local sleen. Perhaps that is why, she thought, he and his friend deserted us, the reason why they fled the camp.

“Do not kill me!” cried the spokesman. “I have much information. I will speak! I will tell all! There are other worlds. There are life forms covetous of these worlds. They have untold power and wealth. They are ruthless! They will stop at nothing! I can arrange an alliance with them! Their headquarters is in the city of —”

A moment before this instant the camp was unexpectedly shattered by a great roar of fury, of howling, unbridled ferocity, and at the same time the great mound of beasts, hitherto so somnolent, suddenly, with no warning, exploded, sprang alive, erupted like a living volcano, issuing toward us like a bursting, living star, reaching out, lunging, scrambling forward, toward us, paws reaching, huge curved claws extended, fangs bared and there was a wild wailing cry of the spokesman which was cut short as Kardok, seizing him, enclosed his head in his cavernous jaws and with one violent, ferocious, twisting motion bit and tore the head away from the shoulders. Ellen saw the horror in the eyes of the decapitated head as it spun away, twisting, through the air and Kardok discarded the jerking headless body and looked about himself. What he said he said in his own tongue, but surely it was an utterance eliciting carnage for the beasts lunged toward the men who, startled, half paralyzed, could scarcely defend themselves. The slave, she fears, screamed and tried to rise, but, restrained, frightened, losing her balance, fell into the grass. Her wrists were cut, fighting the narrow, encircling bracelets which held her small hands so perfectly, so futilely, behind her. Men cried out in horror. Weapons were drawn. Portus Canio and his fellows leaped toward the weapons near the wagon. A beast stood astride them, snarling. One of the soldiers tried to fit an arrow to his bow. A beast leapt forward. A raking slash of claws. The man stumbling to the side, the weapon lost, the left side of his face, with the eye, gone, the bone visible, blood running at his neck. He sank to the grass on his hands and knees. Another man, then seized, was broken across the knee of one of the beasts. Another’s arm was torn from his body. A throat was bitten through. A great, clawed gash, opening a soldier’s tunic, flowed with six rivulets of blood. Tersius Major stood to one side, seemingly paralyzed with fear. A shield was torn from a soldier breaking an arm. One of the beasts looked up from a fallen body flesh dripping from its bloody jaws. Kardok uttered a howl and the beast leapt from the fallen man. It was not time to feed. A spear was snapped in two and one of the beasts forced the splintered shaft through the chest of another soldier. Kardok himself leaped upon a soldier and sank his teeth into the man’s shoulder, anchoring them there, and with his hind legs, tearing, as they both fell, tore open his abdomen, and then rose up, crouching, snarling, over the body, looking about, one leg, soaked with blood, looped with wet gut.

Ellen became aware of a man, bound, interposing his body between her and the beasts. It was her master, Selius Arconious! The beasts had ignored him in their first onslaught, as they had the slave, for he was bound with rope, and she no more than female and slave, and braceleted. Ignored they, too, the wounded man, no threat to them, he on the grass, unable to move. They had sought out, and attacked, first, the soldiers, for these were armed, and the most obviously dangerous. Others, of less perceived menace, might be disposed of later. One of the beasts turned toward the fellow who had rented the hunting sleen in Brundisium, the fellow of the spokesman and Mirus. He backed away, putting his arms before his face, crying out. But the beast hesitated for, suddenly, the two gray hunting sleen, rented for mere coin at Brundisium, had placed themselves, crouching, shoulders hunched, ears laid back, snarling, between the sleenmaster and itself. “Command them!” cried Selius Arconious, wildly. “Command them to attack!”

“Attack! Kill! Kill!” said the sleenmaster, hoarsely, scarcely able to speak.

Instantly the two sleen sprang toward the startled beast.

Kardok, crouching apart, roared with rage, as the sleen and the beast fell together, rolling, and biting and tearing, so mixed together and so soon covered with blood that one could scarcely distinguish amongst them. Vengefully Kardok pointed to Selius Arconious and the free beast lunged forward, jaws slavering. It seized Selius Arconious by the shoulders and opened its great, cavernous, fanged jaws, and bent toward his throat, and the slave screamed, and suddenly, almost at her ear, almost like being enwrapped within a clap of thunder and a stroke of lightning, there was a loud report, the blast, of a pistol. The beast released Selius Arconious and looked puzzled for a moment. Then blood began to pour from its ear. It shook its head, growling. Then it turned about, moved a bit away, uncertainly, stumbled, twisted about twice, and sank to the ground, scratched twice at the grass, and lay still. Kardok, who meanwhile had hurried to the relief of his other fellow, it beset by sleen, turned wildly about. Mirus, half in shock, stood there, the smoking weapon in hand.

“My master lives!” cried the slave.

Selius Arconious cast Mirus a glance of hatred, which attention seemed unnoticed by the shaken Mirus.

Portus Canio, bloody, hastened in this moment to Selius Arconious and slashed apart the bonds that bound him.

“Give me a blade!” said Selius Arconious.

Such weapons, those not seized up, lay near the wagon.

Kardok, reaching bloodied arms into the midst of the frenzied, intent gray sleen, drew them, first one, and then the other, twisting, snarling, by the neck, from the body of his fellow, one with its jaws still filled with fur and meat, and bit each, in turn, through the back of the neck. The sleen had seemed not even aware of him, so intent, so fixed, they were on their business.

Kardok cast the second sleen from him. The attacked beast tried to stand, but fell. Then it stood upright, but with difficulty. It was covered with blood, both its own, and that of the sleen.

There was no sign of the sleenmaster, who, it seemed, had fled.

Kardok examined the field.

No longer was the element of surprise with him.

The soldiers now, and Portus Canio, and Fel Doron, had gathered together, in one place, armed. Loquatus had been half torn apart in one of the attacks. Of the soldiers there were only five left, including the officer.

Kardok, his bloodied fellow with him, crouched warily on the turf.

They may have communicated, but, if so, it was not audible to the human ear.

The quiet was suddenly rent by an inhuman scream of terror, from out in the grassland.

“He should have remained in the camp,” said Portus Canio.

“Prairie sleen,” said Fel Doron.

“Yes,” said Portus Canio.

The rent sleen had given their lives to defend him, who was only a rent master. Although sleen are muchly despised on Gor, and feared, they are respected, as well. The sleen, it is said, is the ideal mercenary.

Portus Canio gestured to the two beasts, some yards across the camp. Then he waved toward the grasslands. “Go!” he cried. “Go!”

Tersius Major approached Mirus. “Is there more lightning in your weapon?” he asked.

“No, no,” said Mirus, wearily.

“Put the thing with the others,” said the officer.

Mirus shrugged, and went across the camp, between the men and the beasts, and placed the pistol with the others, where they lay on a small knoll. There were five pistols there.

The tharlarion champed at the grass.

Mirus returned to his place.

“Go, go!” shouted Portus Canio to the two beasts. One was still bleeding, and it licked at serrated flesh, visible where the fur was gone. Blood seemed to rise to the surface there, like water rising through sand.

“They cannot understand you,” said the officer. His left shoulder was bloody where he had been clawed. “They are performing beasts,” he said, “dangerous, inexplicable, unpredictable beasts.”

“They can understand,” said Portus Canio.

“Perhaps the gesture,” granted the officer.

Kardok lifted a paw. “Peace,” he said.

“Did he speak?” asked the officer.

“Yes,” said Portus Canio.

“Beware,” said Fel Doron.

“No peace,” called Portus Canio. “Go!”

“Give us the she, the she-slave,” said Kardok.

It was for her, at least in part, Ellen knew, that they, the spokesman and his men, and Kardok and his beasts, had originally followed Portus Canio and the other fugitives from the Brundisium camp. Doubtless some of them, or at least those higher amongst them, had hopes, as well, of obtaining clues as to the location of purloined gold. But they would have followed, in any event, merely to obtain her, for they believed, it seemed, that she had seen or heard too much. This seemed to her pathetically ironic, for she understood little or nothing. To be sure, she had gathered that the beasts and the men were not what they seemed, and that there was some form of communication amongst them. Perhaps that was seeing, and hearing, too much. She did not know.

But all here now, even the soldiers, understood at least that much!

If only she could convince the beasts that she knew nothing! Or that what she knew was meaningless and inconsequential, or no more than what others here, and doubtless others elsewhere, too, might know! If only she could convince them that they had nothing to fear from her, she only a slave!

How naive Mirus had been!

Well he might have understood a quest for gold, for such a quest is no stranger to the interests of men, but how mistaken he had been as to the motivation of a slave’s pursuit! He had foolishly supposed that the interest taken in her by his fellows and the beasts was his own, that it was their intention merely to abet him, to assist him in obtaining her for himself, that she would wear his collar, kneel before him and serve at his feet.

How naive he had been!

It was not their intention to assist him in acquiring a particular property; it was rather their intention to destroy it. It was not their intention to assist him in acquiring a particular animal, one he might find of interest; it was rather their intention to kill it.

It had not been her beauty they sought but her blood.

But did they understand so little?

Did they think she was a free woman, of wealth and title, of placement and connections, who might threaten them, one to whom magistrates would carefully attend?

She was only a slave.

I know nothing, she thought. I have done nothing.

I am not a free woman, she thought. Have I not at least the protection of my collar?

Chain me, she thought. Market me, but do not kill me.

The beasts stood across the grass, waiting.

She moaned. Surely they would give her to the beasts, she of no account, a mere slave, thus winning their way free from this place of war.

“No!” said Selius Arconious.

She looked at him, wildly. Could he care for her? But, of course, no. It was merely his Gorean pride, that he would grant no concession to a foe, not a tarsk, not even an urt?

“May I speak, Master?” cried Ellen.

“Yes,” he said, puzzled.

Doubtless the beasts thought she understood more than she did.

“I know nothing, Masters!” she cried to the beasts. “I am a slave! I am a mere slave!”

“Go!” cried Portus Canio, again waving toward the grasslands.

Kardok looked at Ellen.

“Go!” reiterated Portus Canio.

“Yes,” said Kardok, docilely. “We will go.”

She gasped for breath, in joyous relief. Surely they had believed her!

“They will return,” said Mirus.

She shuddered.

Then she whispered to Selius Arconious. “Give me to them, Master.”

“Be silent, slut,” said Selius Arconious, severely.

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

Kardok and his ally then began to back away, and, in a few moments, were no longer visible. They had little to fear from sleen, they more terrible individually than most common sleen. Too, if there were foes, or mysterious figures, in the grasses, Ellen did not think they would choose to deter the beasts in their passage.

“We are safe now,” said Tersius Major.

“Prepare to withdraw,” said the officer to his men. “We have been long enough in this place.”

He had but four men left of his original complement of troops. One of these was the soldier who had subjected the slave to unilateral, degrading, irresistible pleasures at the wheel, she helplessly braceleted, pleasures suitable to one of her condition, pleasures which one such as she must accept, pleasures, ecstasies, to which she must yield gratefully, unreservedly. She thought there was no one of those five who did not, somewhere on his body, bear the marks of claws or fangs.

“The tharlarion is ready, the wagon is ready,” said Fel Doron.

The officer held out his hand to Portus Canio. “Farewell, fond enemy, fond ally,” said he.

Portus Canio unhesitantly grasped his hand. “Farewell,” said he, “fond enemy, fond ally.”

“You may not have the slave,” said Selius Arconious.

“Master!” breathed Ellen.

“She is pretty, but a bit young,” said the officer. “Here,” he said, reaching into his pouch, “are the keys to her bracelets.”

Slave bracelets, of course, are useful in the control and management of women, whether free or slave.

Selius Arconious caught the keys. “Thank you,” he said. “But wait a moment. I shall return them momentarily, when I have freed her small wrists from those trivial impediments. We have, of course, our own bracelets.”

“Keep them,” said the officer. “You may find use for an extra pair. You might meet another woman worth taking.”

“True,” said Selius Arconious. “Thank you.”

“It is nothing,” said the officer.

“Please, no, Master!” protested Ellen.

“I will do as I please,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she whispered, head down, defeated.

“If you have friends out there,” said the officer to Portus Canio, “I assume they will let us pass.”

“Now,” smiled Portus Canio.

“I will be curious to see them,” said the officer.

“I do not think you will see them,” said Portus Canio.

“Prepare to trek,” said the officer to his men.

“Take me with you,” said Tersius Major.

“Put aside the forbidden weapon,” said the officer.

“No!” cried Tersius Major.

“You are welcome to come with us,” said Portus Canio.

“No, no!” said Tersius Major.

“Then remain here,” said the officer, turning about.

The report of the weapon was sharp, and close. And the officer, struck through the back, a sudden stain upon his tunic, fell forward, stumbling, and collapsed to the grass.

Portus Canio hastened to the officer.

The officer tried to rise, but fell to the side, twisted, and fell again, then upon his back. There was blood, too, on his chest. The projectile, at this range, had torn through the body.

“Take me with you!” cried Tersius Major to the Cosians.

Portus Canio closed the eyes of the officer.

“Take me with you!” screamed Tersius Major.

“That is the last of the lightning,” said Portus Canio, looking up.

“No, no!” said Tersius Major.

Portus Canio rose up, and took a step toward Tersius Major. Frenziedly, Tersius Major pulled the trigger again and again, full at the chest of Portus Canio. There was a sporadic, inconsequential succession of sharp, metallic clickings.

“There is no more lightning,” said Portus Canio.

Tersius Major then turned about and fled to the discarded weapons on the knoll, and scrambled amongst them, wildly, and lifted one after another, pointing it and pulling the trigger, with no results other than those which had preceded these new efforts.

“A lengthy, unpleasant death,” said one of the soldiers, menacingly.

“Yes,” said another.

“I am safe here,” said Tersius Major. “I am surrounded by forbidden weapons!” Hastily he placed them in a circle about himself.

The soldiers looked to one another.

“Even an arrow would have to pass this barrier!” said Tersius Major.

Portus Canio returned to where the officer had fallen. “He was a good officer,” he said.

“We will take him with us, into the grasses,” said one of the soldiers. “We will find a suitable place, a green place, with stones about, where the wind and rain can find him. There we will bid him farewell. There we will salute him for the last time. There we will leave him, on his back, his face to the sky, a weapon at his side.”

“And then?” asked Portus Canio.

“Thence to Brundisium,” said the soldier.

A litter was rigged of canvas wrapped about two spears.

“What of him?” asked one of the soldiers, indicating Tersius Major crouching down fearfully in the midst of the discarded pistols.

“Return to Brundisium,” said Portus Canio.

Shortly thereafter the soldiers, the body on its litter, supported on their shoulders, took their leave of the camp.

“It would be well to leave this area,” said Portus Canio. “There are still sleen about.”

Selius Arconious, angrily, went to face Mirus. “You saved my life,” he said, red with fury.

Mirus shrugged.

“Here,” he said, angrily, “are the keys to the slave’s bracelets. She is yours.”

“No, Master!” cried the slave.

“To his feet,” snapped Mirus, “lick and kiss them, now! Render obeisance, slut! Appropriately! To your new master!”

Frightened, distraught, weeping, Ellen scrambled on her knees the pace or two to Mirus, and lost her balance and fell to her side, and then got to her belly, and, wrists braceleted behind her, put her head down, and thus, prostrated as becomes a female slave, pressed kisses upon his feet. “No, Master! Please, no, Master!”

“You will find her poorly trained, and worthless,” said Selius Arconious.

“That is known to me,” said Mirus. “But I return her to you. Here are the keys to the slave’s bracelets.” And with those words he withdrew from Ellen and placed, as she turned and watched, from her side, the keys in the hands of Selius Arconious.

“Why?” asked Selius Arconious.

“Who wants a poorly trained, and worthless slave?” said Mirus.

“Perhaps,” said Selius Arconious, wonderingly, “you are worthy of a Home Stone.”

“Someday,” said Mirus, “I should like to be worthy of one.”

“What will you do, where will you go?” asked Selius Arconious.

“I will beg a tarpaulin and place my wounded fellow upon it, and draw him in that fashion to Brundisium. I think I cannot return to Ar. I think I must begin again, but as one of your world, not of mine.”

“I think, then,” said Selius Arconious, “that you are indeed worthy of a Home Stone.”

“Perhaps someday,” said Mirus.

“My hand!” said Selius Arconious.

“I take it gladly,” said Mirus. “I will now attend to my fellow.”

“Master!” breathed Ellen.

He turned to face her.

“Your slave begs to be unbraceleted,” she said.

He then crouched down beside her and freed her of the lovely restraints which had confined her so innocently and perfectly.

She then knelt beside him and grasped his leg with her arms, and put her head against his thigh, and kissed it humbly. “I love you, Master!” she said. “I love you, I love you, my master!”

“It is suitable,” he said, “that a slave should love her master.”

“Yes, Master!” she wept, kissing him again, and yet again.

The rope was still on her neck.

She looked up at him. “I am leashed, Master,” she whispered.

“Do not tempt me, slave girl,” said he.

“Yes, Master,” she smiled. How could a slave girl not tempt a man, she asked herself delightedly, though she dared not speak out. Her entire being, and existence, is a temptation to a man!

“Behold!” cried Fel Doron, from the other side of the wagon. “See, look here!”

Then he emerged from the other side of the wagon. He carried, across his shoulders, the body of a freshly killed grass tabuk.

“How came this to the camp?” inquired Portus Canio.

“I know not,” he said, grinning.

“We will feast this night,” said Portus Canio, looking out, over the grasses.

“It seems,” said Mirus, “we are not alone.”

“We may have been alone, we were not alone, now we may again be alone. It is hard to tell. One does not know.” He then went to the edge of the camp. “If you are there,” he called, “be thanked!”

“I am hungry!” called Tersius Major, from within his circle of futile weapons.

“Then come and feast with us,” invited Portus Canio, softly, his voice like a sheathed dagger.

Tersius Major shrank back amongst the pistols on the knoll. He was thus raised somewhat above the level of the encampment. A bowman, Ellen realized, if he cared, would have little difficulty in capitalizing upon such a target. Thus, she thought, he does not care, or he is gone, again.

Fel Doron threw the small tabuk to the grass before them. Then he looked about himself. “I will take the bodies into the fields,” he said. “There are sleen about, and more will come, I am sure of it.”

The bodies, Ellen realized, would be surrendered to nature, to wind and rain, to sleet and snow, to heat and cold, to sleen, to urts, to jards, to the vast, mysterious nature from which, long ago, they had sprung.

Goreans love and respect nature. Crimes against her are regarded as peculiarly heinous.

“I will prepare the beast for the fire,” said Portus Canio, drawing out his knife.

Ellen looked about. She was pleased that Kardok and his ally had left the locality, that she and the others were now safe.

“May I remove the leash from my neck, Master?” she asked.

Selius Arconious nodded, watching the work of Portus Canio.

Ellen did not watch Canio’s work. She did not care to do so. Rather she addressed herself to removing the leash. It was not easy to do. It was tightly knotted, and she could not, of course, see the knot. I was well leashed, she thought, and felt, however unwillingly, a sudden heat in her belly, a sudden flaming within her upper thighs. She reddened. At least, she thought, it is common rope, and not a leash of knotted leather, or knotted binding fiber, because she knew that knots in such materials might be drawn so tightly that her small, delicate fingers, those of a woman, might lack the strength to undo them. At least, she was not in a lock leash, of chain or leather, or in a locked snap-leash that might be attached to her collar. She struggled. Then she looked pathetically at Selius Arconious. “Master,” she begged. He snapped his fingers that she should approach him and she ran to stand before him. He then removed the leash from her. “Thank you, Master,” she said, looking up, standing very close to him. “Temptress, she-urt,” he said, turning away. She smiled to herself. He wants you, she thought. You are suffering, aren’t you, Master, she thought, delightedly.

“You will cook,” said Portus Canio, looking up from his work.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

How natural it seemed that she, the female, would cook. Even on Earth, she had sometimes fantasized that she was in a room with men, sitting about, she the only woman, supposedly a peer, and that one of the men had looked up, and had told her to go into the kitchen and cook. And she had done so, alone in the kitchen, while they had continued their conversation. She had been enflamed sexually.

To be sure, in her ideological pride and her sense of political propriety, she had made it a point to learn little or nothing of cooking on Earth, feeling such a homely task, and one so often associated with women, was wholly inappropriate for her, a female intellectual. Indeed, she would have felt embarrassed to have such skills. They were not only beneath her, but would have been insulting, demeaning, to one such as she. In the house of Mirus, in Ar, of course, as a part of her training, all this had changed. There she had become desperately zealous, often naked, on her knees, in the shadow of a switch or whip, to master a battery of domestic skills, cooking amongst them, skills expected of a female slave. And, as time went on, she became aware that these tasks were not as menial and simple as she had conjectured, but that genuine skill was needed, and attention, to turn out a delectable sauce, to make small, fine stitches, to press a tunic with fire-heated irons so well that one would not feel the switches of the instructrices, and so on. In time, as her skills increased, and the sting of the switch became less frequent, she began to take pride in her performance of such tasks, those expected of a female slave. As even on Earth they seemed to her, no matter how often she had denied this, somehow fitting for women. The human species as she knew, but would not have called it to the attention of her classes, was radically, sexually dimorphic. It thus seemed natural that some division of labors, however such things might be sorted out, might be expected in a species characterized by such disparate natures. One hunts, one cooks, she thought. And is it not natural to suppose that the lighter labors might descend to the slighter beasts, the softer, prettier beasts who stood in need of male protection, those less fitted for war and long treks, those less wisely pitted against the mastodon, the cave bear, the panther, the stranger, those who must hope to please the larger, stronger, more aggressive, less patient animals, to whom they belonged.

Too, of course, she had cooked in the tarn lofts of Portus Canio, for himself and his men.

Yes, she thought, cooking and such things well reminds me that I am a woman, but such things are only amongst thousands of other such things, other reminders which I welcome and in which I rejoice, such as my tunic, so unmistakably and publicly exhibiting my differences from men, my brand, marking me property, my collar, locked on me, encircling my throat, proclaiming me slave!

How precious it is to be a woman amongst such men, to be a woman amongst masters!

Thank you, Master Mirus, for bringing me to this world! Thank you for having me branded and collared, and sold!

Thank you for bringing me to where I belong, and want to be, at the feet of men.

And even cooking, you see, can be a sexual experience. And, indeed is not the entire life of a slave, her entire existence, in its way, a sexual experience?

“Try to find fuel, stay close to the camp,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

In the grasslands the most common fuel is woodlike brush. Some peasants, out of a village, use tightly twisted ropes of grass, but one needs a good deal of this, as it burns very quickly. Some kindling, bits of wood, branches and such, was also carried, the larger branches bundled, in the wagon. This had been gathered not far from the festival camp. As this material was not readily available in the grasslands, it tended to be conserved, to be used when local fuel was difficult to obtain.

She straightened her body, noted that Selius Arconious was watching her, and, pretending not to notice, pulled down the sides of her brief tunic, intently, tightly, this accentuating the flare of her hips, demurely.

Within the Ahn the slave was attending to the meat, which had been cut by Portus Canio. It browned and sizzled. Fat dripped into the fire. Her gleanings of fuel from the grasslands near the camp, primarily cord and flower brush, had been supplemented with some of the wood carried in the wagon. This had been decided by Portus Canio, after her third trip back to the camp. The men did not wish her to range too far from the camp. There were sleen about. The flower brush gave off a sweet smoke, and this added a flavor to the meat. When the meat was done, she would not touch it, of course, but it was removed from the cooking rods and cut by Portus Canio, who distributed it, to Fel Doron, and Selius Arconious, and Mirus, who took some to his wounded fellow.

Portus Canio, Fel Doron and Selius Arconious sat cross-legged about the fire. Ellen lay on her belly at the left knee of Selius Arconious. From time to time, he tore off a bit of the meat and put it in her mouth.

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

Mirus returned to the fire, from giving his wounded fellow some share of the simple provender, and, after a moment’s thought, it seemed, too took his place before it, too sat cross-legged before it, as were the other men.

He looked at Ellen. She, on her belly, licked and kissed, deferentially, lovingly, at the hand that fed her, and then, eyes shining, lifting her face and opening her mouth, she delicately, gratefully, accepted another tiny piece of meat.

“You have an attractive slave,” he told Selius Arconious.

“You can buy one for yourself, almost anywhere,” said Selius Arconious, “or you can always capture a free woman, if you can find one lovely enough to be a slave, and tame and train her.”

“Where I come from,” smiled Mirus, “such things are not done.”

“Remember that men are the masters,” said Selius Arconious.

“I will never forget it,” said Mirus.

“If you treat a slave well,” said Selius Arconious, “you will get a great deal of pleasure out of her.”

Men, of course, get a great deal of pleasure out of their slaves in any event.

It is what slaves are for, and work.

Mirus regarded Selius Arconious.

“One must make certain, of course,” said Selius Arconious, “that she is not permitted the least latitude.”

“You must not forget the whip,” said Mirus.

“Of course not,” said Selius Arconious. “If she is not fully pleasing, she is to be lashed. She is not a free woman. She is only a slave. In her early training, of course, when you get a girl, particularly if you are her first master, I would recommend the switch. It is an effective correctional device, and it will be quite adequate for a new slave, only a frightened girl. She may later learn, when she has become familiar with your expectations and desires, should she fail in any way to fulfill them with perfection, and when she has become accustomed to her boundaries and limits, should she violate or transgress them in the least, to fear the five-stranded slave lash. So I would recommend, certainly in the beginning, not the lash, but the switch. Indeed, the switch will continue to be an admonitory implement which will never lose its appeal to the master or its meaning for the slave. A judicious conjunction of the switch and lash is doubtless in the slave’s best interest, assisting her to be alert, and zealous to please. It is good for correcting faulty kneeling, or bellying, an awkward walk, clumsy movements, and such. She must learn to speak not with the strident, insolent tones of a free woman, but with the softness, and deference, of the slave; see that she wears her tunic well, and attractively; she is to be neat and well groomed, brushed, combed, and cleaned; she is not a slovenly free woman; let her keep the lock of her collar at the back of her neck; make certain she understands that she is not to speak without permission; you will find the switch useful in correcting lapses in that regard; one assumes she will know enough to kneel when you or another free person enters the room, such things. You will, of course, train her as you wish, in all ways, and in great detail. Make certain you are satisfied, for example, with the condition of your quarters, the nature of your meals, and such, and everything in the way of domestic matters, dusting, laundering, sewing, ironing, scrubbing, polishing, and so on. One will have such things of a slave. They are appropriate for her. She is not a free woman. See, too, of course, speaking of free women, that she is decorous before them. To be sure, the free women will see to that themselves. She will live in terror of free women, and look to men to protect her from them. Suppose you are giving a dinner for guests, and one or more free women are present. In such a case make certain that she is demurely clad, perhaps in a white, three-quarters or full-length gown, though certainly sleeveless. Be certain, of course, that her collar is always in evidence, that there be no suggestion whatsoever that she is in any way comparable to a free woman. No such comparisons must exist. A free woman would find them tasteless and insulting. She is, in any event, whatever the nature of your guests, to be humble, self-effacing, and attentive. It is to be almost as though she were not there. When not serving she may kneel to one side, unobtrusively, waiting to be summoned. If you are entertaining male guests only, she may, if you wish, be naked. Naturally, you must understand, she must be taught your preferences in all things, from the temperature of your paga to that of your bath, and she, of course, as she is a slave, will bathe you. Why should a free man bother with such things, when there are slaves? Too, you may wish, from time to time, to attend to her slave needs, her need to be at your mercy, and to be helpless, as a slave, and her need to be handled and used as the slave she is, and such. Accustom her early then to binding and chaining, to the helplessness of slave bracelets, and perhaps shackles, to the blindfold and the gag, to encircling ropes, and buckled slave straps, perhaps to a harness, such things. A neck chain is good, fastening her to the slave ring at the foot of your couch. If she performs well you may permit her a blanket. See that she juices swiftly and squirms helplessly. Three or four Ahn of intermixed waitings, feedings, quiescences, touchings, strugglings, caressings, and such, are likely to be informative, even to a new girl, of the nature of her condition and various of its aspects. At the end of a few such mornings or afternoons your girl will be well aware that she is no longer a free woman. In such a way a girl learns her collar. If she becomes a nuisance at your feet, too much whining and begging, too many tears on your sandals, you may thrust her aside with your foot, or cuff her.”

“Men cannot concern themselves wholly with slaves,” said Mirus. “Certainly not,” said Selius Arconious.

“It seems there is much to remember,” said Mirus.

“Not really,” said Selius Arconious. “Just keep in mind that she is a slave, and is to be fully pleasing. If she is not, lash her.”

“It is pleasant,” said Mirus, “to be on a world where there are female slaves.”

“Who would wish to be on any other?” said Selius Arconious.

Ellen lay on her belly at the left knee of her master, Selius Arconious. She lifted her head a little, and pressed her lips softly, almost timidly, to his left knee, a slave’s kiss.

It is doubtless pleasant for the masters to own us. I wonder sometimes, on the other hand, if they understand us, or fully, our feelings, the feelings of the slave, the thrill for a woman of having a master, the rapture of being possessed, literally, how we desire to give ourselves up to them, the bliss we experience in our collars, our love. Is it so strange that we make excellent slaves? Do they really think that our desire to please, and be found pleasing, is motivated by nothing but the fear of blows or worse? We wish to love and serve. It is our nature. We are women. We are slaves. We long for our masters. We are incomplete without them.

Selius Arconious tore off a bit of warm, juicy meat and held it to the slave, who took it delicately between her teeth, juice running at the side of her chin, but he did not release it. She looked up at him, not understanding, uncertain. Would he permit her to have it? He released it and she took it gratefully, chewed it, and swallowed it. With his hand then he took her by the hair and gave her head a good-natured shake. She thrust her right cheek to the side of his knee, lovingly, fervently.

She lay amongst them, in her tunic, on her belly.

Her master had decided that she had been sufficiently fed.

Mirus was looking down upon her. She had little doubt he found her of interest, of interest in the keenest way a woman can be of interest to a man, of “slave interest.”

She felt a frisson of apprehension and pleasure, as when a woman senses that a man sees her as what she is, a slave.

Will he then do contest for her?

If she is free, will he then move to collar her?

How pleased he must be, she thought, considering our pasts, and my pretenses and frivolities, to see me as I am now, a slave.

But I am pleased that he can so see me!

That is the way I want him to see me!

I would not want him to see me otherwise.

I want him to see me as I am, as what I am!

I am shameless, and happy!

Put me on a block, Masters, and sell me, if you wish. Let it be done to me as men choose. I would not be other than I am.

“Move your hair,” he said, “that I may better see your collar.”

She moved her hair forward, before her shoulders.

“Such things look well on women,” said Mirus.

“Yes,” said Selius Arconious.

The collar was a simple one, of a familiar type, particularly in the northern hemisphere, a band collar, about a half inch in height, closely fitting, locked at the back. Most such collars range from a half inch to an inch in height.

How far away now seemed Earth, and her former life! But had she not, even then, so long ago, dreamed of lying half naked, collared, beside a master?

“You may now lie as you wish,” said Selius Arconious.

She brushed her hair back, behind her, and lay then on her left side, facing her master.

She had not been given permission to rise, of course.

She did dare to again kiss his knee, softly, timidly.

Perhaps he would caress her later.

She lifted her head to her master, tears in her eyes.

“How your slut looks upon you!” laughed Mirus.

“She is only a slave,” said Selius Arconious.

Mirus looked at Ellen. “It seems you have learned your collar,” he said.

“It has been taught to me, by masters,” said Ellen.

“You are his,” said Mirus.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “I am his, wholly. I belong at his feet, as no more than his slave. I can be no more. I can be no less.”

“You seem happy,” said Mirus.

“We are happiest when we know that we will be lashed if we are not pleasing.”

“That does not sound like the lessons you mouthed long ago,” said Mirus.

“I was a fool, Master,” said Ellen.

“I see,” said Mirus.

“We resist that we may be conquered. We wish to know if you are strong enough to subdue and enslave us. We wish to belong to the strongest, to the most magnificent.”

“Interesting,” said Mirus.

“Men on this world have demonstrated their dominance over me, and their refusal to accept insubordination,” said Ellen. “I love them for it!”

“It seems,” said Mirus to Selius Arconious, “that you have found a slave, one who is fully your own.”

“Yes, it seems so,” said Selius Arconious, “for the moment, at least, or until I tire of her.”

“Oh, please, no, Master!” protested Ellen.

“Why do you not do so, as well?” Selius Arconious asked Mirus, paying the slave no attention.

“I fear that is not done where I come from,” said Mirus.

“But you are not now where you come from,” said Selius Arconious.

“True,” smiled Mirus.

“Will you not accept a woman for what she is?” asked Selius Arconious.

“It is seldom done on my world,” said Mirus.

“In each woman,” said Selius Arconious, “there is a slave, longing to be commanded forth and ordered to one’s feet.”

“Such truths may not be so much as uttered on my world,” said Mirus.

“In each man,” said Selius Arconious, “there is a master, and in each woman, a slave. Each seeks for the other.”

“Where I come from,” said Mirus, “I fear they seldom find one another.”

“Consider the wells of profound realities tapped by dreams. In his dreams, those of his sleeping hours and those of his waking hours, what man has not yearned for a beautiful slave, and what woman, in such free, innocent, unguarded hours, has not yearned to be owned, to be collared, chained and mastered?”

“On my world,” said Mirus, “society walls itself away from nature. It aligns its moats and stakes against the fields and forests. Sanctions, like pikes, array themselves against truth. Snares and traps are at every hand. The insects of conformity swarm and sting. All are vulnerable. Few dare speak their needs, their dreams.”

“It must be a strange world,” said Selius Arconious.

“It is a far different, far sadder, far more miserable world than this one, yours,” said Mirus.

“But this is now your world,” said Selius Arconious.

“Yes,” said Mirus. “This is now my world.”

“You must buy yourself a slave,” said Selius Arconious.

“I think I shall,” said Mirus.

“Will you buy a Gorean girl or a barbarian?” asked Selius Arconious.

“I think a barbarian,” said Mirus. “I have a score to settle with the women of Earth.”

“Excellent,” said Selius Arconious.

“Mirus, Mirus,” called the wounded man, from where he lay, to the side.

“I must go to my fellow,” said Mirus, rising from beside the fire.

“He has lost much blood,” said Fel Doron.

“Yes,” said Mirus.

At this juncture Portus Canio and Fel Doron, wiping their hands on their thighs, rose, too, and approached Tersius Major, crouching down amongst the weapons, on his knoll, in the descending darkness.

“Give me drink, give me food, old friend,” said Tersius Major to Portus Canio.

“Come down, old friend,” said Portus Canio. “Stakes and thongs await, and knives can be heated, old friend.”

“For the love of Priest-Kings,” cried Tersius Major, “give me something to drink, something to eat!”

“You have broken the law of Priest-Kings,” said Portus Canio.

“Priest-Kings are not to be loved,” said Fel Doron. “They are to be respected, and feared, and obeyed.”

“Do not approach!” suddenly shrieked Tersius Major.

“Have no fear,” then said Portus Canio, angrily, hesitating, then stepping back, “I will not cross the circle of forbidden weapons.”

“None may cross it!” cried Tersius Major.

At the edge of the camp, there was a motion in the grass, a subtle motion. We saw nothing. It was almost as though a snake, a large snake, might have moved there. A similar motion occurred a few yards to the left.

“I think we had best leave this place,” said Portus Canio, uneasily.

“None may cross the circle!” cried Tersius Major.

“Several of them, I think, are about,” said Fel Doron.

“As I understand it,” said Mirus, who now joined the group, “the Priest-Kings enforce their laws by the Flame Death.”

“When it pleases them,” said Fel Doron.

“Have you ever seen such a thing?” asked Mirus.

“No,” said Fel Doron.

“You?” asked Mirus.

“No,” said Portus Canio.

“Priest-Kings do not exist,” said Mirus.

“They exist,” said Fel Doron.

“But you have never seen one?”

“No.”

“It seems,” said Mirus, looking at Tersius Major crouching down amongst the emptied pistols on the knoll, “the Priest-Kings are silent.”

There were more stirrings in the grass.

“Perhaps there is more than one way in which Priest-Kings speak,” said Portus Canio.

“Let us break camp,” said Fel Doron. “It is dangerous to remain here.”

This said, the men returned to the wagon, and the tharlarion. The few possessions were gathered together and placed in the wagon. Portus Canio and Mirus placed the wounded man in the wagon bed.

“Get in the wagon,” Selius Arconious told his slave.

“May I not walk,” she asked, “to lighten the wagon, Master.”

“Will it be necessary to bind you hand and foot, and cast you to the wagon bed?” he asked.

“No, Master!” she said.

“Must a command be repeated?” he asked.

“No, Master!” she said, and, seizing the side of the wagon bed and, stepping on one of the spokes, supporting herself thereby, climbed hurriedly to the wagon bed, within which she knelt on the tarpaulins and supplies, and, looking out, clutched the sides of the wagon bed.

“It seems that Master is concerned with the safety of his slave,” she said.

“No,” he said, angrily. “I do not wish our journey to be delayed by the slowness of a she-tarsk.”

“Yes, Master,” she said, happily.

The tharlarion suddenly lifted its head on its thick neck, and looked about, nostrils flaring.

“Do not leave me!” shrieked Tersius Major.

“Then join us,” said Portus Canio.

“Ho, on!” called Fel Doron from the wagon box, and turned the tharlarion southeastward.

The wheels of the wagon creaked and the tharlarion began to plod southeastward.

“Do not leave me! Do not leave me!” cried Tersius Major.

Ellen, kneeling in the wagon, clutching the sides of the wagon, saw him, as they moved past the knoll. The sleen, she knew, is a primarily nocturnal animal. Too, she was sure that there must, by now, be several in the vicinity.

“Do not leave me!” cried Tersius Major. The party then took its way from the camp. “Give me a weapon!” cried Tersius Major. “Give me a weapon!” Then, after a time, one could no longer hear him.

“Do Priest-Kings exist?” said Fel Doron.

“No,” said Mirus.

“One does not know,” said Portus Canio. “One does not know.”