Slave Girl Of Gor

7
Clitus Vitellius

"Do not run me, Master," wept Slave Beads. "I was once a free woman!"

"To the line," said my master.

Slave Beads stumbled. to the long line scratched in the in the village of Tabuk 's Ford. She wore the shreds of what had once been the last undergarment beneath her robes of concealment. Its sleeves had been torn away; it had been rent at the side; it had been cut short, and later torn even shorter, until it hung high upon her thighs, exposing even the left hip; at the throat it had been ripped open down, down to the belly, two inches below the navel. She was barefoot, as is common among slave girls.

"Where will we run?" wailed Slave Beads to me.

"There is nowhere to run," I told her. The village was surrounded by a palisade, the gate of which was barred.

"I do not want to be run as a slave girl," wept Slave Beads. She covered her eyes with her hands.

"Stop blubbering," said Lehna.

"Yes, Mistress," said Slave Beads. She was frightened of Lehna. One of the first things that had been done with her after her branding was to be put in a Sirik and given over to Lehna for a disciplinary switching.

My master, with his men, in a bold coup, had several weeks ago stolen the Lady Sabina of Fortress of Saphronicus from among her retainers, on her journey to be joined in companionship to Thandar of Ti, of Ti, of the Four Cities of Saleria, those comprising the Salerian Confederation. The motivation for this abduction, as well as the motivation for the companionship originally, was apparently political. The companionship was to weld commercial and political relationships between Fortress of Saphronicus and the Salerian Confederation, which was an aggressive and expanding league of cities northeast of the Vosk. The growing power of the Salerian Confederation was not viewed with favor by the city of Ar, which, lying in Gor's northern hemisphere, is the major power between the Vosk and the Cartius, and between the Voltai Range and Thassa, the sea. The Ubar of Ar, whose name is Marlenus, is said to be an ambitious and brilliant man, proud and courageous, and imperialistic. He might view the Salerian Confederation as eventually being capable, if it continued to expand, of posing a threat to Ar, either to its security or to its ambitions. As geopolitical matters now stood a plurality of disunited cities, most of them rather small, lay scattered in the territories north of the Vosk. This created, for a strong state, such as Ar, defensively, a reasonably stable, secure border, and, with respect to her possible ambitions, an attractive, exploitable power vacuum. The growth of the Salerian Confederation, on the other hand, might conceivably alter this situation to the detriment of Ar. If the cities of Saleria should multiply and grow strong, their power might balance or exceed that of great Ar itself. Armies and tarn cavalries might then move south. Already, only some years ago, Ar had tasted the bitterness of enemies within her walls, when, in the political confusion following the temporary loss of her Home Stone and the deposition of her Ubar, Marlenus, there had been a revolt of tributary cities, organized and led by Pa-Kur, Master of the Caste of Assassins. The horde of Pa-Kur, as it is spoken of, had set siege to glorious Ar. Initiates, inept and cowardly, then holding power in Ar, had surrendered the city, an act which to this day in Ar has tended to damage the prestige of that caste. On the day of Ar's surrender itself was she saved, by the uprising of her very citizens, violent in the streets, abetted by the forces of certain cities of the north, notably Ko-ro-ba and Thentis. This is told of in the songs. One of the heroes in the songs is called Tarl of Bristol. Marlenus, too, is a hero in such songs. He later retook the throne of Ar, following upon the forcible, civil overthrew of Cernus of Ar, declared a false Ubar. He sits now upon the throne of Ar. He is sometimes spoken of as the Ubar of Ubars.

Donna, and Chanda, and Marla, too, came to the line in the dirt. Slave Beads stifled a sob.

Marlenus, who has seen his city threatened by a league of cities in the time of Pa-Kur, doubtless views with disfavor the rise of the Salerian Confederation. To be sure, at this time, it is relatively weak. A Ubar, however, must think ahead. On the other hand, it is commonly suspected the major threat of the Salerian Confederation is not to Ar's security, but to her ambitions, in the person of Marlenus. The great margin of desolation which once flanked Ar on the north, just south of the Vosk, has not been maintained. It was a long wall of wilderness, an empty, unpopulated, desertlike area without water and beneficient vegetation a thousand pasangs deep. Wells were poisoned and fields burned and salted to prevent the approach of armies from the north. Now, however, in the last years, it has become green. New wells have been dug, peasants have moved into it. This, said to be a plan to bring more arable land under cultivation, is generally viewed as being an opening of this territory to large-scale military passage. It is even being stocked with. game and wild bosk. It retains now of its old character only its name, the Margin of Desolation. We had had no difficulty in traversing it, on the great road leading south to Ar. As the Margin of Desolation, no longer an artificially maintained cruel wilderness, has flowered, it has been said the eyes of Ar have been turning north. Indeed, some claim the Salerian Confederation has grown as well as it has because the cities of the north fear the possible imperialism of Ar, Whatever be the truth of these intricate geopolitical matters, it seems clear that Marlenus, for whatever reason, does not see fit to encourage the growth of the Salerian Confederation.

Eta joined us at the line. I looked at Slave Beads. Her cheeks were tear-stained. Like the rest of us she was barefoot. There was dirt about her ankles.

Clitus Vitellius, my master, was a captain of Ar. It had been his charge, I supposed, doubtless placed upon him by Marlenus of Ar, Ubar of that city, to prevent or disrupt the imminent alliance forming between Fortress of Saphronicus and the Confederation of Saleria, an alliance to be confirmed and sealed in the companionship of Thandar of Ti, youngest of the five sons of Ebullius Gaius Cassius, of the Warriors, Administrator of Ti, of the Salerian Confederation, and the Lady Sabina, the daughter of Kleomenes, high merchant of Fortress of Saphronicus.

In a bold coup had my master carried off the merchant's daughter. In a diversion, in which I had figured, he had struck the camp, seized the girl and, apparently, took flight, leaving the beginnings of a trail. In short order the warriors of the retinue had set forth upon this trail, whilst it was still hot and fresh. They safely removed by their own action from the environs of their camp, my master had then returned to the camp, to seize as well the dowry and beauteous maids of the Lady Sabina, Lehna, Donna, Chanda and Marla. We had been coffled by the left wrist and hurried into the night, on the track of the two wagons in which the Lady Sabina's dowry, divided, had been placed. Less than a pasang from the camp we had come to a small tree. The Lady Sabina, in her robes of concealment, stood with her belly to this tree, her wrists fastened about it, locked in the steel of slave bracelets. Her veils lay about her shoulders. Her head was concealed in a slave hood, buckled under her chin. The construction of this hood was such that it served not only as blindfold but gag as well, the wadding being sewn to the inside of the hood, and it being held in place by laces, emerging through eyelets, tying behind the back of the neck. Such hoods are often used in the abduction of women, either slave or free. Their efficiency and convenience mandates their use, regardless of the legal or social status of the girl on whom they are placed. I had noted that her gloves had been pulled down over her fingers, that the steel of the slave bracelets close on the wrist itself. Experienced captors, for greater security, seldom place bonds over clothing. Hose would be removed, or pulled down, for example, before a girl's ankles would be tied. A guard was with the Lady Sabina, to protect her in the event of the arrival of prowling sleen. Her retinue was, even now, hurrying down a false trail in the opposite direction. An open wrist ring stood at the head of our coffle chain, the place in the line before Lehna.

My master had unbuckled and unlaced, and pulled away, the stiffing, degrading hood. Beneath it, of course, the Lady Sabina had been face-stripped. She turned her face away, that we be unable to look upon it. My master, to my pleasure, simply took her by the hair and turned her face brazenly to all of us, exposing and baring it to all of us for our full gaze. She twisted but, hurt, could not turn her face away. He held it before us, letting us savor it, for a full Ehn. Then, after an Ehn, he released her hair. She sobbed. She regarded us, angrily. But no longer did she try to hide her face. It was pointless now to do so. My master had not seen fit to tolerate her game of modesty. She had been face-stripped, publicly.

My master stepped to where she might more clearly see him, in the moonlight.

"Who are you!" she said.

He did not respond to her.

"I am the Lady Sabina of Fortress of Saphronicus," she said. "Beware!"

The veils, by a man behind her, were lifted from about her shoulders, and dropped to the ground.

"Return my veils," she said.

The veils lay fallen, gently, upon the ground.

"I am the Lady Sabina of Fortress of Saphronicus," she said.

My master did not speak to her.

"Who are you!" she demanded. "You wear no insignia on your tunics. Who are you?" She pulled at the slave bracelets. The chain scraped at the bark. "Beware my wrath!" she said.

My master gave a sign and a man, from behind, lifting her feet, one by one, slipped her sandals from her. She then stood barefoot, her small feet in the crushed leaves and twigs at the foot of the tree. She shuddered. She was a rich, spoiled girl. I supposed shehad never been barefoot out of doors before.

"Who are you?" she whispered. No longer was she arrogant. She was now afraid. Commonly slaves go barefoot.

"Your captor," said my master, speaking to her for the first time.

"I will bring a high ransom," she said.

He put his thumb under her chin, and pushed up her head. She was, the veils gone, a delicately featured, beautiful girl. Her head was up, painfully high, his thumb under her chin. She had a lovely throat. He was perhaps considering in what sort of collar it might look best. Her hair was dark. I could not tell its color in the light. The Lady Sabina, I supposed, was more beautiful than I, but I did not think she was more beautiful than her maids. As a slave, she. would be less than they, on most blocks.

"Keep me for ransom, Warrior," she said, frightened. I think she knew her face and throat were being assessed, as might have been those of a slave.

He removed his thumb from under her chin.

"It would be irrational not to keep me for ransom," she said. "My ransom will be far higher than any price you could realize on me in a market."

This was surely true, though it was true, too, she was quite beautiful.

"Surely," said she, "you did not attack my retinue merely to carry off a girl to wear your collar."

"No," said my master. "There is, of course, the matter of the treasure dowry."

"Of course," she said. She now breathed more easily. "You are common bandits," she said. Then she said, "You have done well, stout fellows. Your loot is valuable. The dowry is immense and rich. And I, too, in ransom, will bring you much, more even than the dowry you have so boldly taken. But return to me now my veils, and my sandals, too, for my ransom surely will be less if it understood my modesty has been so grievously compromised. Your boldness, for the honor of my name and the security of your skim, may remain our secret."

"The Lady Sabina is generous," said my master.

"I ask only," said the Lady Sabina, "that you not let me fall into the hands of those of Ar."

"Ah, Lady," said my master, "there, you see, lies your true value."

"What do you mean?" she inquired apprehensively.

"We have a long trek ahead of us," said my master. "We must move through brush, and woods, and over fields. You must be attired for such a journey in a more practical fashion."

"What are you going to do?" she cried.

He slipped her gloves from her fingers.

"What are you going to do!" she cried.

"We have a long journey ahead of us," he said.

He then, with his knife, to her horror, cut away her cumbersome robes of concealment, until she was clad only in the last of her undergarments. He then ripped the sleeves from the undergarment, and they hung about her wrists, loose, kept from falling by her wrists and the slave bracelets confining her at the tree. "Sleen!" she cried. "Sleen!" He then, too, with his knife, and ripping, in a ragged circle, about her legs, above the knees, shortened the undergarment. Her calves might now be seen. They were pretty. "Sleen!" she cried. He then, upon this outburst, casually ripped away a large piece of the garment, stripping her to the thighs and, on the left side, when he discarded the piece of material, to the hip. Her outburst had earned her only more exposure. She was now as leg stripped or more than Donna, Chanda and Marla, Lehna, who had been stripped for her switching at her mistress's hands in the camp, and I, who had been stripped by the captain at the camp, were nude. The Lady Sabina, I noted, had lovely legs. She seethed at the tree. She pulled at the bracelets, tearing at the bark of the tree.

"I think now," said my master, standing back, regarding the girl, and his work, "that that constitutes a far more practical traveling costume than the robes of concealment for a long, overland journey afoot. Do you not agree, Lady Sabina?"

"My clothing," she said, "return it to me." She tried to be stern.

He, upon this remark, casually, from an inch or so below her left armpit ripped the garment open to an inch or so above her left hip. The line of her left breast, seen from the side, and the sway of her left hip, were lovely.

"Insolent sleen!" she cried. Then she shrank back, in terror. "No!" she said. My master's hands were at the collar of the garment.

"No!" she begged. He ripped it open, to two inches below her navel.

She regarded him with horror.

"Do you have any further objections to your traveling costume?" he inquired. His hands were now at the shoulders of the garment, whence it might be simply torn from her.

"No, Captor," she said.

He turned to us, and motioned us forward, the five girls in the coffle. We approached.

"You will note, Lady Sabina," said my master, "that the first wrist ring of the coffle is empty. It has been reserved for you."

He lifted the open wrist ring, on its chain.

"My ransom will be high," she whispered.

One of the men laughed. The girl regarded him, frightened.

"I ask only," she said, "that I not be permitted to fall into the hands of those of Ar."

"May I introduce myself, Lady Sabina?" inquired my master.

"Yes," she said.

He thrust the slave bracelet on her left wrist up. He placed the opened wrist ring about her left wrist, below the left slave bracelet.

"I am Clitus Vitellius," he said.

"No!" she cried.

I gathered from the way in which she had cried out that my master's name was not unknown upon this world.

"Not the captain of Ar!" she moaned.

"There are many captains in Ar, Lady Sabina," smiled my master.

She put her cheek against the bark of the tree. "Few such as Clitus Vitellius," she said.

I felt proud of my master. How marvelous to be the girl of such a man!

My master snapped shut the wrist ring about the left Wrist of the Lady Sabina. We were now chained to her, and she to us. She was now of the coffle, as were we.

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked.

"I am going to take you to my secret camp and there, under the iron, brand you a slave girl. You will then be taken to the city of Ar and, from an unimportant block, in a cheap market, sold to the highest bidder."

The girl pressed her cheek against the rough bark of the tree and moaned, and wept, staining the bark with her tears.

At a sign from my master the man who had been her guard freed her of the slave bracelets.

She now led the coffle.

"Am I not to be ransomed?" she said.

"You are too politically valuable to be ransomed," he said.

I recalled that the Lady Sabina was valuable indeed. Her companionship with Thandar of Ti, of the city of Ti, of the Salerian Confederation was to result in an alliance between Fortress of Saphronicus and the Confederation. The companionship, of course, was political. The Lady Sabina and Thandar of Ti, according to Eta, had never seen one another, the companionship being arranged by their parents and the councils of their respective cities. In such a companionship the Lady Sabina would have raised caste, and become one of the high ladies of Ti, and of the Confederation. She had been looking forward, it was well known, with enthusiasm to her attaining this high station.

"Accordingly," said my master, "it is expedient in the affairs of states that you be rendered politically valueless."

The Lady Sabina, at the head of the coffle, moaned.

As a slave she would indeed be politically valueless. She could be exchanged, or bought and sold, for whatever masters might wish. The slave is not a person before Gorean law but a rightless animal.

"Do not enslave me, Captain," she said. "Keep me and sell me to the Confederation. Free, returned to them, I will be worth immense riches to you. You and your men, if you return me to the Confederation, will become rich beyond your wildest dreams!"

"Do you ask me, Lady," inquired my master, "to betray Ar?"

She suddenly sank to her knees in terror before him. Would she be instantly slain? "No, Captain," she whispered.

"Considering your future status," said my master, "you may begin now to address free men by the title of 'Master. The experience and the practice will do you good."

"Yes," she said, "-Master."

"Behind you, Lady Sabina," said my master, "you will note a slave girl, Lehna."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Earlier this evening," said my master, "you much and richly switched her."

"Yes, Master," said the Lady Sabina.

"Give Lehna a switch," said my master to one of his men. Lehna beamed. She was given a switch.

"Lehna," said my master, "should the Lady Sabina daily or in any way attempt to delay the coffle, it will be your charge to hasten her."

"Yes, Master," said Lehna. I did not envy the Lady Sabina.

"I am sorry I switched you, Lehna," said the Lady Sabina.

Lehna struck her savagely across the back with the switch, and the Lady Sabina, whose thin undergarment shielded her from the blow scarcely at all, cried out with misery. She could not believe the sting of the stripe. It was, I conjectured, the first time in her life she had ever been struck. "Lehna!" she cried.

"Address the girls as Mistress," ordered my master, standing over the kneeling free girl.

"Yes, Master," she said.

Lehna again, savagely, struck the kneeling girl. "Please, do not strike me, Mistress!" wept the Lady Sabina.

My master turned away, to speak to his men. In a few moments he, not looking back, strode away, through the trees, followed by the majority of his men, in single file. One man remained behind, to follow the coffle, some yards to the rear.

"On your feet, Lady Sabina!" cried Lehna.

The Lady Sabina leapt to her feet, with a rustle of chain.

"You will take your first step with your deft foot," said Lehan, "upon my signal. Later you will learn to walk gracefully and beautifully in chains. That is too much to expect now from an ignorant girl."

"Yes, Mistress," said the Lady Sabina.

"Are you ready, noble, lofty Lady Sabina?" inquired Lehna.

"I am sorry I switched you, Mistress," said the Lady Sabina.

"Do not fret, my dear," said Lehna. "I will see that you are well repaid."

"Please, Mistress!" cried the Lady Sabina.

"Were you given permission to speak in coffle?" asked Lehna.

"No, Mistress," moaned the Lady Sabina. Lehna then struck her twice, cruelly, with the switch.

"Do you think me weak, Lady Sabina?" inquired Lehna.

"No, no!" wept the Lady Sabina.

Lehna then struck her again. "You are right," she said. "I am not weak."

The Lady Sabina wept.

"Stand straight," said Lehna. "Straighter!" She poked the Lady Sabina with the switch.

The Lady Sabina then, choking back her tears, stood straight in the coffle, the posture accentuating the lovely lines of her chained beauty. I smiled. She stood as straight, as desirably, as beautifully as a slave girl.

"On the left foot, on my signal," said Lehna.

"Yes, Mistress," said the Lady Sabina.

"Now!" said Lehna, crying out, striking her. With a cry of misery the Lady Sabina, moving first on her left foot, stumbled forward. "Faster!" said Lehna, hitting her again. "Yes, Mistress!" cried the Lady Sabina.

We hurried on then, swiftly, through the mixed shadows and moonlit trees, following the men, our masters.

"I do not want to be run for the pleasure of boys," wept Slave Beads.

"Be silent, Slave Girl," snapped Lehna.

"Yes, Mistress," said Slave Beads.

The girls of Clitus Vitellius, I among them, stood at the line scratched in the dirt within the peasant village of Tabuk 's Ford, some four hundred pasangs to the north, and slightly to the west of Ar, some twenty pasangs off the Vosk road to the west.

The young lads of the peasantry eyed us with pleasure. We were all vital, lithe beauties, and, most excitingly, slaves. It was not everyday that such girls, the girls of a warrior, would be run for their pleasure. Our bondage meant that we must, once captured, be marvels for them.

There was discussion of the rules of the hunt. Too, bets were being taken. Some of the young men came to the line, to look us over at closer hand.

"Oh," said Slave Beads. One of the lads had put his hand on her leg.

"Good stock," said one of the boys. "Yes," agreed another.

Another young lad, strapping, put his hands on me. I tried to pull away a bit, but I did not much resist. I was a slave, and did not wish to be whipped.

On the other side of Donna. Marla stood, her head in the air, seeming not to notice the hands of the boys upon her.

I looked over at Slave Beads. She was crying. Her head was in her hands. Two peasant lads, one standing, one crouching, were, by hand and eye, appraising her flesh. They did this with the same attention and innocence that they would have brought to the examination of any other domestic animal.

The two boys then moved on to me. I closed my eyes. They were not gentle. I was examined with less respect, being a slave, than would have been accorded to a bosk heifer.

I wanted to tear at their eyes with my fingernails. But I did not wish to be whipped, or slain. It is not surprising that the Gorean slave girl is obedient. Those who are not obedient are often destroyed. I was terribly afraid then, that I had even felt a momentary impulse to rebellion. I shook with terror. Did I think I was still on Earth? Did I not know I was now on Gor? I shuddered. Rebellion is not permitted to the Gorean slave girl.

The boys continued to examine me.

Tears formed in my eyes. There is a mock rebellion which is sometimes permitted a slave girl, or even commanded of her, for the master's amusement. I felt a tear on my cheek. "Show rebellion," is a command which a girl must, as any other, obey. Yet it is a terribly cruel command. "Kneel," is the command which, commonly, puts an end to her rebellion. When a girl has been permitted defiance it is then all the sweeter, I gather, to bring her again to her knees before you.

Suffice it to say the girl belongs to her master, completely. I opened my eyes. The young men moved on to Donna.

"You are crying," said Slave Beads to me.

I shook my head, and hair. "It is nothing," I said. I stood on the line. How far I had come from Earth, I thought. I was sensitive, and a poetess. Now I stood on a dirt line in a peasant village on an alien world, no longer the free Judy Thornton but rather now only a nameless, half-naked slave girl, waiting to be run for the pleasure of boys. I understood little of what had happened to me. I did not know how it was that I had come to this world. I did not know, in a sense, who I was or what I was supposed to do.

I smiled to myself. I did know I belonged to Clitus Vitellius, a captain of Ar.

In the belly of me, though I would scarcely admit this to myself, I did not object. He was such a man.

From the line, I glanced back to the open fires, where he sat with men of the village, Thurnus, caste leaders, peasant and sleen master, among them.

I shook with pleasure as I stood on the line, and looked at Clitus Vitellius. Within the Ta-Teera my thighs, even looking at him, were hot and damp. He did not notice me, and was talking to Thurnus. He was the sort of man who would set his terms for a woman, even a free woman. No woman, even one who was free, would be permitted to relate to him save on his terms, and on his terms alone. He would not argue, nor would he discuss, nor persuade nor negotiate; to the free woman's horror she would understand that she must, as he saw fit, submit herself as hopelessly and will-lessly as a slave girl for his consideration. He would enter into no relationship except on his own terms. His terms were simple, that the woman be yielded to him, totally, that she be as much his, and as helplessly, though by her own free will, as any slave girl on whom he might choose to fix his collar. He would be, even in a companionship, to the scandal of Ar, master. No woman who failed to meet these understood, publicized and well-known terms would be acceptable.

I looked at my master, sitting cross-legged by the fire, talking with Thurnus.

Yet hundreds of the highborn free women of Ar, many rich, had avidly sought companionship with Clitus Vitellius.

I did not blame them. Had I been a free woman of Ar, I, too, would have sought such companionship. To have such a man as Clitus Vitellius I would have accepted his terms. So, too, I think would have any true woman. Surely it is better to have a true man on any terms than to have half a man, or no man at all. Men are masters; if the man be strong, the woman must submit. Given the opportunity to relate to a true man, few women will settle for less. Indeed, true women, in the belly of them, desire to submit to true men. It is an ancient instinct bred into the bellies of beautiful, feminine women.

"Remove your clothing," would my master say to a high-born free woman, suing to be considered by him in companionship. She would do so, and be assessed. If he was not pleased, he would send her weeping from his presence, clutching the rag of a slave, to don it and return to her dwelling. If he was not displeased he would gesture to the tiles before him where there waited a goblet of slave wine which she, kneeling before him, would eagerly drink. She would serve him that night as a slave. In the morning, she, nude, would prepare and serve to him his breakfast, after which he would make fresh use of her; he would then send her from his presence, first pressing into her hand a coin, usually a copper tarsk or a silver tarsk, commensurate with the quality of her service. Such women went from his quarters proudly, clad in the full regalia of the free woman. They were not discontent. They had been touched by Clitus Vitellius. Some women claimed that they had earned from Clitus Vitellius a tarn disk of gold. Such a coin would buy several girls such as myself. Sometimes a girl, rather than be sent from his presence, would beg to be kept as a collared slave. She would then sign a document of enslavement which, after her signature was affixed, she would be powerless to alter or break, for she would then be only a slave. Clitus Vitellius would commonly keep such a girl for a few days, and then discard her, usually giving her to a friend or selling her. I wondered if such a girl, braceleted, and pulled away from him on her leash, regretted her choice. She was then in bondage, subject to chains and the whip, and the will of men. What had she then to look forward to but the degradation of the sales block, being exposed to men as a slave and being vended in a public market; being owned by a succession of hard masters, accustomed to the management of girls such as she; onerous work and strict discipline; and the continuous exploitation of her body and service? Perhaps, for a woman, the thrill of being owned and commanded, of being at the absolute mercy of a powerful man, knowing that she must obey him, and experiencing, if she be fortunate, incredible, helpless, incomparable love, of the sort which can be felt only by a completely rightless woman, fully and absolutely owned by a man, in his total bondage. But such thoughts would not be likely to be prominent in the mind of a leashed girl, helplessly braceleted, being dragged to her first sale.

I looked at my master. How magnificent he was.

His collar, I had heard, was one of the most sought collars in Ar.

When he strode through the streets free women sometimes threw themselves before him, tearing away their veils and robes, begging for his collar.

He was such a man.

One's freedom is small enough price to pay, whisper some highborn women of Ar among themselves, for even ten days in the collar of Clitus Vitellius. The boredoms of freedom are small enough price to pay surely for even a brief sojourn in the arms of such a man, they conjecture.

But such women, I told myself, must be natural slaves, even though they be legally free, as I was not. If they are natural slaves, I asked myself, should they not be made slaves? Why should one who is a natural slave not be a slave? Can it be wrong to enslave a natural slave? Is it not right that natural slaves be enslaved? Is it not what they want? I looked at my master. What woman, I asked, would not be the natural slave of such a man? He was a natural master. Any woman, I suspected, to such a man, would be a natural slave. Almost any woman, I suspected, looking on such a man, would sense herself his natural slave.

That would explain why the women of Ar would twist on their couches like bitches in heat thinking of Clitus Vitellius. In the darkness, remembering him, his stride, his glance, and limbs, they would have intuited him as their master.

"Prepare to run, Slaves!" called a peasant.

I looked at my master. The heat in my thighs made me want to run to him but I dared not leave the line.

Earlier in the afternoon, casually, Thurnus had aroused me, and no one had satisfied me.

I had spent the afternoon in a slave girl's misery.

I wanted to run to my master.

I dared not leave the line.

I looked at my master. I wondered if I, though a girl of Earth, were a natural slave.

How I wanted him to have me.

Clitus Vitellius, in spite of the desires of the women of Ar, had never taken a companion.

I did not think he ever would. He was Clitus Vitellius. He would have slave girls instead.

He would always keep his girls in collars. I loved him!

"When the torch is lowered," called a peasant, lifting up a torch, lit from the fire, "you will run."

"Yes, Master," we said to him.

"The torch will then be placed in the earth," he said. "When it is fixed in the soil, you will have two hundred beats of a slave girl's heart." He pointed to a peasant's slave, who stood nearby. She was a girl of peasant stock, who had been, two years ago, stolen by slavers from a village hundreds of pasangs to the west. Thurnus had purchased her in Ar and brought her on a rope behind his wagon to Tabuk's Ford. She was thick-ankled and blond-haired, a good-looking, wide-hipped, blue-eyed, strapping girl. One of my master's men stood behind her, his left hand on her left arm. His right hand, about her body, was thrust through her brief, woolen tunic. He would count the beats of her heart. She was barefoot. About her throat, looped twice, knotted, was a length of coarse rope. I looked at the rope. It was snug on her throat. It was thus that Thurnus marked his girls. I conjectured that the heart of such a girl would be slow and strong.

"You will then be sought," said the peasant.

Counting the time it would take to fix the torch in the earth and for her heart to beat two hundred times, I conjectured that we would have a lead on our pursuers of some three minutes. I looked at the girl. Her lips were slightly parted. This angered me. She was excited by the hand of my master's man on her flesh. She backed slightly against him. Her heart would now be beating more rapidly. She was, after all, a girl in bondage, like us. Why did they not take a hundred beats of the heart of a standing bosk? Her sexual excitement at the proximity of my master's man might, I now noted, considerably diminish our lead. I decided to count now on a lead of little more than two minutes. Moreover, she was to be his for the night, once he had counted upon her body, using her beating heart as the clock of the evening's sport. It was no wonder that she was excited. This did not seem to me to be fair. But I did not complain. The men decide what is fair or unfair, and will, in any case, do precisely as they please. It is the girl's part to abide by their decision. The men decide; the girl submits. One must be master, one slave.

Eta was to my far right, on the line. Then came Maria, and Donna. I stood on the dirt line between Donna and, to my left, Slave Beads. To her left was Chanda, and on the far left, was Lehna.

"I do not want to be run for peasant boys," said Slave Beads. "I was once free."

"I, too, was once free," I told her.

"You are slave now," said Slave Beads.

"So, too, are you," I snapped.

"Does Slave Beads wish to be switched again?" called Lehna.

"No, Mistress," said Slave Beads, hastily. Slave Beads feared Lehna. For most practical purposes, she had been put in the charge of Lehna almost from the first moments of her capture. She was commonly chained before Lehna in the coffle, and it was under Lehna's supervision that she commonly performed her tasks.

After the capture of the Lady Sabina we had returned to the secret cache camp, to which my master had originally brought me, his barbarian girl. At the cache camp, the first night of our arrival, the Lady Sabina had been stripped and thrown on her back, head down, on the inclining, white-barked tree trunk, to which she had then been, as I had been before her, helplessly roped. When the iron had been pulled from her burned, marked flesh she had been rendered, as was the intention of my master, and those in Ar, politically valueless. She was then only a slave. She was unroped and thrown, a bond girl, to the feet of my master.

"We must name you," he said. «Sabina-Sabina-» said he, as though musing on the thought. "Ah," had he then said, "it seems that you, in your former name, carried already, an excellent slave name."

"Oh, no, no, Master!" she wept.

"Your former name," said he, "was clever. It appears to be the name of a free woman, and yet, within it, in disguise, which we now penetrate, it concealed secretly your true name. Very clever, Slave, but now you are discovered and you will openly wear your true name, that which will perfectly fit you and which I now, in the decree of the master, make yours."

"Please, Master!" she wept.

"You are Bina," said he.

She put her head in her hands, and wept. The expression 'Bina' in Gorean means slave beads.

"Put Slave Beads in a Sirik," said my master. Swiftly my master's new girl was locked in the light, gleaming Sirik. The collar clasped her throat; a chain dangled from the collar; her small wrists were locked in the slave bracelets fixed on the dangling chain, and the dangling chain, itself, looped down to a short chain and pair of ankle rings, to which it was gracefully fastened at a sliding ring. The ankle rings were then closed about the lovely ankles of Slave Beads, and locked. She was helpless in Sirik. The confinement became her. She was beautiful. I had never worn Sirik.

She knelt before my master, naked, in Sirik. She looked up at him. Her thigh, freshly branded, bore the common slave mark of Gor, the initial letter, in cursive script, of the Gorean expression 'Kajira, which means Slave Girl. She trembled. She was now no different from thousands of other girls who shared her condition, that of total bondage.

"Greetings, Slave Beads," said my master.

"Greetings, Master," she said, responding to her name, as she must.

My master looked down at her, and smiled. She looked up at him, trembling. He was her master.

"Perhaps you remember, Slave Beads," said my master, "that, on an evening, some days ago, a free woman harshly and at length punished a slave girl."

"You know?" she asked.

"We observed, in scouting the camp," said he. He looked down at the kneeling girl, locked in the Sirik. "The beating was well done," said he.

"Thank you, Master," she whispered.

"The crime of the slave girl, as I recall," said my master, "was to desire the touch of a man."

Lehna stood to one side. She stood straight, as an exciting slave girl.

"Yes, Master," said Slave Beads.

"The free woman," said my master, "was doubtless well within her rights to beat the girl."

"Yes, Master!" said Slave Beads.

"But that free woman," said my master, "has since that time herself fallen slave. Indeed, she is now in this camp."

"Yes, Master," said Slave Beads.

"The slave girl whom she beat is, too, in this camp," said my master.

"Yes, Master," said Slave Beads. She trembled in the Sirik.

"Do you yourself desire the touch of a man?" asked my master.

"Oh, no! No, Master!" cried Slave Beads.

"Ah," said my master, "it seems that in this camp we have a slave girl, too, who is guilty of a crime."

"Who, Master?" asked Slave Beads.

"You," said he.

"Not I!" she cried.

"You," said he.

"What is my crime?" she asked.

"Not to desire the touch of a man," said he.

She looked at him, aghast.

"You see," said he, "in this camp it is a crime for a girl not to desire a man's touch." My master turned to one of his men. "Bring Lehna a switch," he said. He turned again to Slave Beads. "You will be well punished for your crime, Slave Girl," said he.

"I am ready, Master," said Lehna.

"Do not forget this beating," said my master. "You are to desire men. Further, it will be well for you to learn what it is to be a beaten slave girl. What you did to Lehna she will now do to you. Perhaps you will then have a richer understanding of what it was, truly, that you did to her. Perhaps you will regret that you were not a kinder mistress."

"She will regret it, Master," promised Lehna, licking her lips.

"I will now leave you to the tender mercies of Lehna," said my master. "Let us hope that, in the future, your masters and mistresses will be kinder to you than was the Lady Sabina of Fortress of Saphronicus to her slaves."

"Do not leave me with her, Master!" cried Slave Beads. "She will kill me! She will kill me!"

"It is not impossible," said my master. He turned to leave, then turned. again to face the kneeling, terrified Slave Beads. "It is my hope, too," said he, "that this beating will prove a useful initiation for you, given your antecedents and nature, into the condition of slavery." He looked at her, sternly. "Yes, Master," she said, looking up at him. "After your beating," he said, "you will be asked again if you desire the touch of men. I trust, then, your answer will be affirmative. If it is not, you will be again beaten, and again, throughout the night."

"My answer will be affirmative, Master," whispered Slave Beads.

My master then turned away from her, and so, too, did we all, leaving her with Lehna.

Later my master took Slave Beads by the hair. "Do you now desire the touch of men?" he asked. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, Master," she wept.

She was then released from the Sirik. "Go to the men," said my master.

"Yes, Master," she said. She crawled to the men, on her hands and knees. She extended her hand to one of them, and looked up at him, with tears in her eyes. "Please touch Slave Beads, Master," she begged.

He took her by the hair and pulled her into the darkness. We did not retire that night until Slave Beads, on her knees, had begged the touch of each of my master's men. He himself was the last to grant her plea. When he had finished with her he put her again in the Sirik and threw her to the wall of the cliff. Eta went to her and, putting a rep-cloth blanket about her, held her and comforted her. "Poor slave," said Eta.

I, and the other girls, went to sleep.

"Run!" cried the man, lowering the torch.

I, and the other girls, sped, scattering, from the dirt line.

Some fifty yards from the line, in the darkness, between the straw huts, on their pilings, I stopped, and, wild, gasping, in the Ta-Teera, looked back.

Already the torch had been fixed in the ground. The slave girl who wore the rope of Thurnus on her throat as a collar leaned back against the man of my master. Her head was back on his shoulder. Her eyes were closed. His hand was tight on her body, counting the beats of her heart. He was calling the count, but I could not hear him.

I looked wildly about, and then ran further through the huts, down the long corridor between them. Then my hands were pressed against the smooth logs of the palisade surrounding the village. I pressed my body and cheek against the wood. I stepped back and, hands on the wood, looked up. The pointed tops of the palings were eight feet over my head. I turned about, my back to the logs, and looked back down the narrow dirt street. I could see the fire in the village's clearing, its light on the faces of the men about it. I saw the boys getting to their feet, eagerly.

"There is no place to hide!" wept Slave Beads, who was near me.

"We are slaves," I snapped at her. "We are meant to be caught."

I saw some of the boys spitting on their hands and wiping them on their thighs. This would improve their grip. The flesh of a girl would be less likely to slip from their hands.

More than one of them I knew wanted me. Bets had been taken on who would bring me as his slave for the night to the ring drawn about the torch, as they had, too, on the other girls. A big red-haired fellow and a smaller dark-haired fellow had bet on which of them would take Slave Beads.

I saw Chanda creeping into a hut.

Slave Beads turned away from me and fled about the interior perimeter of the palisade.

I followed her, and then darted among the huts. I almost died of fear when, suddenly, I heard, not feet from me, a bedlam of vicious snarling. I cried out, my hand before my mouth. Dozens of vicious eyes blazed at me from behind the stout bars of a sleen pen, one of several in the village. Snouts and teeth pressed at the bars. I stumbled back.

I ran again.

I did not see Marla or Eta, nor Lehna. Slave Beads, too, had fled elsewhere.

I did see a white ankle, not covered by a piece of canvas. It was Donna. "You had best cover this ankle, or you will be soon found, Slave Girl," I said, angrily, jerking the canvas over it. Donna shrank even smaller, covered by the canvas. She trembled beneath it, her head down, under her hands. She was slender, small-breasted and lovely-legged. She had dark eyes, dark hair. The name «Donna» is an Earth name, but the girl, as I had determined, was Gorean. Many Gorean names, as words in the Gorean language, apparently have an Earth origin. Her original name had been Tais. She had been a slave since the age of eight, but it had not been until she was seventeen that she had been judged fit for men, and then branded. Donna, in the beginning, had been a block name. Girls are usually sold under a name, it being easier then for the auctioneer to refer to them; too, for some reason, the intensity of the bidding often increases when a named girl is being vended; it makes, I suppose, the buying and selling much more exciting and personal; "See, Generous Buyers, the flesh of Donna! Is Donna not beautiful? Stand straight, Donna. What am I bid, Noble Buyers, for Donna?" The original Donna had perhaps been a girl brought in a chain and collar from Earth. Her name, finding favor with masters, considering it a lovely slave name, would then have been given, from time to time, to other girls, perhaps some Gorean, perhaps some, like herself, of Earth origin. Tais was too fine a name for a slave; accordingly the lovely seventeen-year-old Gorean girl had been sold in Ko-ro-ba under the block name of Donna, a slave name calculated to excite Gorean buyers. Many Earth-girl names, incidentally, on Gor, are regarded as slave names. Gorean males, commonly, regard the women of Earth as fit only to be their slaves. But Donna, though she had been adjudged fit for men and branded, was sold from the block in Ko-ro-ba to a visiting merchant, Kleomenes of Fortress of Saphronicus, who took her with him and gave her to his spoiled daughter, the Lady Sabina, as a woman's slave. Donna had been a virgin until she was raped in the coffle on the first night of the march by two of my master's men. She had been had from time to time since then, but Marla, Eta and, surprisingly, I, had been the most consistently abused of the girls of Clitus Vitellius. The more beautiful I had become the more often I had been raped; and the more I had been raped, the more beautiful I had become. I think that I understood the problem of Donna. She feared men. The slave girl must, surely, if she is rational, fear men, but, too, she must regard them as potentially constituting for her sources of incredible pleasure. Donna's timidity and lingering uncertainty with men, I think, was largely a function of her fear that she might not be capable of giving them pleasure. It is one thing to be thrown down and raped; it is quite another to hear the indolent command, "Please me." The responsibility for pleasure is often placed on the slender, lovely shoulders of the slave girl. It is she, then, who must labor in her bondage to be pleasing. As soon as I had understood that the quality of my life on Gor, given my brand, would depend on my ability to please men I had begged Eta to give me instruction. She had been extremely helpful, teaching me many things I might never have discovered myself. She had actually received some weeks of slave training in the pens of Ar, a tutelage to which Clitus Vitellius in disgust at her ineptness had remanded her; she had attended diligently to her lessons; when she returned to his quarters it had been clear by morning that it would not be necessary to sell her off. She had made an acceptable beginning in learning the arts of the slave girl. These arts, it might be mentioned, are intricate and diverse, and are complex and rich in many modes and dimensions. Most obviously they are domestic, sexual and psychological. Too, they are culinary, kinetic, cosmetic and artistic. Like the painter and the musician the slave girl need never stop growing in her art, which is the creation of beauty and joy for herself and her master. I had swiftly sought slave instruction; Donna had not. Perhaps I was more practical than she. Perhaps, rather, I was simply a slave and she was not. I was of Earth. The men of Gor regard the women of Earth as natural slaves. Perhaps I was a natural slave. That might be the difference between Donna and myself. Yet I suspected that if I were a natural slave so, too, were all women. Donna, I was sure, would learn her slavery. She was beautiful. She would come around. It requires only the right master to bring out the slave in any woman.

I heard a shout from the center of the camp. The hunters were now in pursuit.

"Do not be afraid, Donna," I said to her. "You will not be beaten or much beaten. You will not truly have to serve. These are only peasant boys and will not know one end of a slave girl from the other."

Then I fled from her side, through the spaces between the dark huts.

I hoped that what I had said to Donna was true. I was sure that the peasant boys, indeed, would not know much of the handling of slave girls. Doubtless they would lack the patience and skill to get all from a girl. I did not think, for example, that they would know how to force me into the slave girl's humiliating submission ecstasy. On the other hand, I regarded them. with genuine fear. They could well hurt me. I remembered their roughness and the way they had, with brutal exactness, appraised my flesh. I was so much smaller and weaker than they, and their lust would be on them. They could well be terribly brutal with me. I was to them, after all, only an animal. They might hurt me. They might throw me about among them. They might beat me with ropes if I were not pleasing to them.

I heard a young man running by. I shrank back in the shadows, crouching among the pilings of a hut.

I did not want them to catch me. I was locked within the palisade. There was no place to hide!

I heard a girl scream, far to my right. They had taken one of us. I did not know whom.

I did not want a rope put on my throat. I did not want to be dragged to the circle of the torch, a caught girl.

Two young men came by, with torches. I hid back, among the pilings.

Shortly after they had passed, the sleen in a pen, some fifty yards off, began to squeal and hiss. They ran toward the pen. Something had disturbed the sleen. Perhaps it was a girl.

Two more young men were approaching, one holding aloft a torch. Again I shrank back among the pilings, holding my breath. They passed.

I saw them stop beside a hut several yards away. The one lifted the torch. It illuminated what appeared to be a pile of canvas. They stood there, one on each side of the pile, it almost at their feet. Cruelly they stood there, not moving. Donna would know that their footsteps had approached. They had not departed. She must, surely, fearfully suspect that her position was known. Yet she did not know for certain. How miserable she must have felt, huddling beneath the canvas, how tense and terrified, how apprehensive. Cruelly they stood as they were, not moving, for almost a minute. She could hear the crackle of the torch. Did they know where she was? Were they playing with the beauty, tormenting her? Longer yet did they stand there, and then, exchanging glances, one of them, with a sudden, loud cry, pounced on the pile of canvas. Shrieking with misery Donna was lifted, by one ankle and an arm, high into the air, over the head of the boy who had seized her. He held her over his head. She struggled, held from the ground, high, helpless, her lovely limbs without leverage. "Capture!" cried the boy. "Capture!" cried another lad, coming from the direction of the sleen pen, where the sleen, shortly before, had hissed and squealed, revealing their agitation. He held Lehna before him, his left hand on her left arm, his right hand on her right wrist, forcing her right arm high, painfully, behind her back. He pushed her before him, so held. Her gown had been pulled down about her hips. She grimaced with pain, her head back.

"Please, Master!" she wept. Lehna was a larger woman than I. She was strong among us girls. Slave Beads lived in terror of her. But in the arms of a male, even a lusty boy, she was slight and helpless, small, to them only another pretty slave girl in their power. I bit my lip. Men were our masters. With the boy who had captured Lehna came four others, two with torches. The boy who had captured Donna had now thrown her, belly down, across his left shoulder. Her head hung down behind his back. His left arm, heavy, brawny, locked her in place. "Let us see your catch," said one of the newly arrived boys. "Tie her ankles," said the lad who held Donna over his shoulder. One of the other boys, who carried a ten-foot length of rope, with one end of the rope, crossed and tied together Donna's ankles, while she was still held on the shoulder of her captor. "Who is your master of the night?" inquired Lehna's captor of Lehna. He thrust her right wrist higher behind her back. "You! You, Master!" she cried. "You are my master of the night!" "Ankle leash her," said the lad who held Lehna. Another lad tied a tether on her left ankle. The ankle leash is cruel. It provides effective control of a girl. There is much that can be done with such a leash, particularly in the control of a skillful master. Most obviously, in an instant the girl may be thrown to his feet in a variety of positions, over which he exercises choice. The lad who had captured Donna, now that her ankles were tied, heaved her with a laugh over his shoulder. She landed in the dirt behind him. She broke her fall, as best she could, with her hands. The long end of the rope which bound her ankles trailed her over his shoulder. Her captor took the end of the rope from the lad who had bound her and, holding it about a foot from her fastened ankles, pulled her feet some six inches into the air. She was lying on her stomach. "There is my catch," he said. Then he said to Donna, "Roll over." She rolled onto her back, her tied feet now held about a foot off the ground by the rope. "There, my friends," beamed her captor, "is my catch!" "A beauty!" said one of the boys. "Yes, a beauty!" said her captor. He was proud of Donna. I did not blame him. She was indeed beautiful. Donna was a marvelous catch. "I want her!" said one of the lads. "First capture rights are mine," said the lad who had caught Donna, "but I am generous, and will share my prize with all of you!" There was hearty acclaim among the lads upon the receipt of his welcome intelligence. Donna squirmed, but was helpless on her back, her feet bound, held in the air by the captor's tether. "What of my prize?" demanded another lad, he who had caught Lehna by the sleen pen. He now held her ankle leash, and stepped back, bowing and displaying the half-stripped Lehna with an expansive gesture. She, too, I was forced to admit, was a superb prize. Such boys did not have such girls everyday. She was a warrior's belonging. "How can we tell if she is pretty?" asked one of the boys. "Thusly!" said one, tearing away the bit of gown about Lehna's hips. There was laughter. She was very beautiful. "But she is standing!" protested the first lad. "Belly or back?" asked Lehna's captor. "Both!" cried more than one lad. Expertly, with the ankle leash, the lad displayed Lehna's beauty in the luscious modes of horizontality. Some Goreans say that a woman's beauty can only be fairly judged when she lies at a man's feet. More than one of the lads cried out with pleasure and slapped his thigh. Donna then screamed as the boys turned to her. Her gown, too, was torn off. Her ankles were still tied. "To the circle of the torch!" cried a lad. "On your feet, Wench!" said the lad who had captured Lehna. She scrambled to her feet, covered with dirt. "Three have yet to be caught," said a lad. I knew one girl had been caught early; I had heard a scream some time ago; I did not know who she was; now I knew that Lehna and Donna were in the power of the pursuers; if only three remained to be caught, then one other girl, somewhere, had also been captured. I did not know who she was either. "Let us take these to the circle of the torch," said one of the lads, "and bind them securely, then hunt the others." The captors hesitated. "You can put your marks on these in charcoal," said one of the boys, indicating Donna and Lehna. "All right," said one of the captors. "Agreed!" said the other. Lehna was led away on her ankle leash, fastened on her left ankle, and by her right wrist, too, it held in the hand of one of the boys. Donna's captor, to her misery, dragged her behind him through the dirt on the tether which fastened her ankles together. I saw the group, pursuers and fair captives, helpless in their charge, disappear down the street.

I shuddered in the darkness among the pilings. I did not want to be captured.

A bold plan leaped into my mind. I began to move through the darkness. I kept in the shadows. I moved furtively. Sometimes I crawled. As much as I could I kept under the huts, among the pilings. Twice boys with torches passed quite near to me. I shrank back in the shadows. Then I threw myself to my belly. Not more than ten yards away I saw Chanda, wild, running. She was fleeing down a nearby street. There was a rope on one of her wrists. It was a wrist tether rope, knotted about her right wrist, with a handle loop, about a foot long, by which she might be led. I remained still. Behind her, in a few moments, carrying a torch, came two boys. "I was first to see her in the hut," said one. "I was first to put her to the floor and get my rope on her," said the other. The first lad lifted his torch, peering about. "Let us not dispute the matter further," he said. "Let us continue the hunt." "Very well," said the other. Warriors, I thought, would not have lost a girl in such a fashion. Girls do not escape warriors.

I hoped that Chanda would escape.

I continued my journey. I continued to keep largely under huts. Too, I often crawled now. I had no wish to leave the prints of a slave girl's small feet. Once I almost cried out with misery, for the path to my desired destination lay across a dark street, down which, a hundred yards or so away, I could see the center of the village, where, about the village fire, were seated several men, villagers and my master, and his men. On my belly I inched across this street and then, gratefully, slipped again into the shadows among and beneath the huts.

For the moment I was again safe.

I did not much fear being trailed for, though slave girls would be barefoot, as I, there would also be in the village the numerous prints of village bond girls, not simply mine, and those of my sisters in bondage. It would be next to impossible, in this populous and much trekked village, particularly in the night, by torchlight, to follow a girl's trail without the use of sleen, which might not, happily for the pursued females, be used in the hunt. If the boys could not find us by themselves they simply could not have us that night for their sport. We would have won our freedom from their aggressions. I determined to escape.

At last, stealthily, crawling in the darkness, I reached that position in the village which I had anxiously sought, that portion of the village where my master and his men had made their camp. I crawled among the furs there, in the darkness. Tentings had not been erected.

I heard a girl weeping and stumbling. "Hurry along, female," I heard. "Yes, Master," I heard. I dared not move. I scarcely dared breathe. I lay as small, as tiny, as silent, as still, as I could. Some figures, three of them, were passing me, some yards on my right. Perhaps if they had looked, they might have seen me. When they had passed, I lifted my head, ever so slightly. They had circled our camp area, between it and the edge of the palisade, and were now returning to the center of the village. I looked. Chanda's hands were now bound tightly behind her back, the wrist tether's handle loop having been used for this purpose. She was bent over. She was stumbling. Her gown had been pulled down about her hips. She was weeping. One of the boys' hands was in her hair. She was being hurried along. They were not patient with her. She was being half dragged, not merely perfectly controlled, by the cruel grip. I did not envy her. She had irritated them by her earlier escape. Doubtless they would make her pay well for her temerity. Men do not care to be displeased by slave girls. I hoped that she would not be excessively beaten. I saw them take her to the circle of the torch. There they bound her hand and foot. They also marked on her body with some burnt wood from the fire, probably putting their ownership marks on her, marking her as theirs for the night.

I crept into my master's furs. For the first time I now breathed more easily.

I heard two boys calling to one another. "How many of the she-tarsks are still at large?" asked one. "Two," he was answered. I did not know who the other uncaptured beauty might be.

I snuggled down in my master's furs, covering my head. I did not think they would find me there. Who would think a girl bold enough to hide in her master's furs? Too, I did not think the peasant boys would dare to look into the furs of a warrior. Surely they valued their lives. I felt secure. It was probably the only place in the village where I might be safe. I was well pleased with myself. I loved the smell of my master's body, which was in the furs, surrounding me with its excitement. The aura of his ownership enveloped me. I felt warm, and protected, and stimulated as a slave girl, warm in my master's furs. I wished that he, too, were in the furs, that I might perform delicious, servile duties for him, fitting for one who was only a lowly bond girl. I loved him. Was I his slave because I loved him or did I love him because I was his slave? I smiled. I was his slave, totally and completely, whether I loved him or not. That was legal, institutional, on this world. I was his to do with as he pleased, completely. I was without rights; his will determined all. He was everything; I was nothing; he was master; I was slave. I decided that I was both his slave and that I loved him. But I did not think I could have loved him so much had he not been so powerful, and had I not been his slave, so helplessly.

I heard a shout outside, and I lay very still. I heard the boys crying out with triumph, and pleasure. In a few moments, when I dared, I looked out from the furs. They had taken another girl. Did they think she would escape? It was Slave Beads. She was being carried to the circle of the torch. She was carried on the shoulder of a brawny peasant lad. She was roped hand and foot, at the ankles, at the thighs above the knees, her wrists behind her back, and about her upper arms and body. In addition, one lad walked in front with a rope which was tied on her neck, and another walked behind with a rope tied about her left ankle. There were several boys in the group. Several, apparently, had flushed her out and, together, run her down like a startled, confused tabuk hind.

I, now, alone of all the girls, had escaped them. I was proud of my ingenuity and cunning.

For more than an Ahn I lay quiet in the furs. Sometimes the young hunters came near, but they did not molest our camp, nor much penetrate its perimeters. One did walk within two or three yards of me, carrying a torch, but I lay very still. He did not throw aside the furs of my master, nor those of the other men.

I lay warm in the furs, happy. I had escaped from them. There was a possibility, I supposed, that my master would not be pleased that I had hidden in his furs, If this were so, I supposed that I would be tied and lashed. Yet I did not think he would object to my boldness and ingenuity. I knew that my master could see through me, his slave girl, as simply as through glass, but I felt that I, too, in the past weeks, strangely, had become much more aware of him, and much more capable of reading his moods and conjecturing his reactions. Perhaps this was only a slave girl's alertness to the master, an alertness natural enough in a girl who is owned by a man, whose well-being and very life may depend on how well she pleases him; I do not know; that is an alertness which any rational girl strives to cultivate; but I wondered if it might not be more, something more in the nature of a deep, intuitive rapport with another person. I felt that I was coming to know my master. Two days ago I had sensed, watching him, that he desired wine rather than paga. I had gone and fetched wine and knelt before him. "May a girl offer you wine, Master?" I had asked him. He had seemed startled, momentarily. Then he had said, "Yes, Slave," and taken the wine. At times I sensed his eyes on me. Once, in the early morning, when I had lain chained with the other girls, I awakened, but gave no sign that I had awakened. Through half closed eyes I had seen that he stood near me. Yesterday night, he had touched my hair, almost tenderly. Then, as though angry with himself, he slapped me, hard, and sent me to Eta, to be put to work. I was not displeased.

Two days ago I had dared to follow him outside the palisade. I found him sitting alone, on a rock, surveying a grassy field. "Come here, Slave," he said to me. "Yes, Master," I said. I went and knelt near him; later I leaned my head against him, which he permitted. "The grass and sky are beautiful, are they not, Slave?" he asked. "Yes, Master," I had replied. He looked down at me. "You, too," he said, "are beautiful, Slave." "A girl is gratified if she pleases her master," I said. "Why is it," he asked, looking down, "that the women of Earth are fit to be slaves?" "Perhaps," I said, looking up at him, "because the men of Gor are fit to be masters." He then again turned his attention to the contemplation of the grass and sky. He sat still for a long time. Then he stood up, as though shaking his mood from him, as though now he was again separate from nature, alien in its midst, conscious, a man, and I was at his feet, a woman. Then it was we two alone, by the rock, in the grass, he standing, I kneeling. He looked down at me. "The woman of Earth," I said to him, "is ready to serve her Gorean master." Laughing, he leaped upon me, seizing me by the shoulders and throwing me back, forcibly, as a slave, to the grass. The Ta-Teera was torn from me. Well then, to her joy, did he use the Earth woman, his slave.

I felt the furs thrown back.

"I knew that I would find you here," he said.

"I hope that master is not displeased with his girl," I said. Yesterday night, he had touched my hair, almost tenderly. Then, as though angry with himself, he had slapped me, hard, and sent me to Eta, to be put to work. I had not been displeased, though my mouth was bloodied. This morning I had knelt before him. "I beg rape," I had said. He had looked at me, angrily. "Rape her," he had said to a passing soldier. He had then turned angrily away. In the arms of the soldier, I had smiled. I think I had disturbed my master. I think he was fighting his feelings for me, his desire for me. Then I had cried out with unwilling pleasure, and helplessly caught at the soldier with my nails, and the thought of my master had been, against my will, forced from my consciousness as the soldier brought me, twisting and crying out, to obliterating, overwhelming slave orgasm.

"Perhaps I should have you lashed," said my master.

"My master will do with me what he pleases," I said.

He had not been too pleased with the way I had yielded to the soldier. But I had not been able to help myself.

"Slave," had said my master later, standing over me.

"Yes, Master," I had said, looking up at him, shamed, "I am a slave."

He had then turned away again, angrily. He called Marla to him, to serve his pleasure. She hurried to him. Objectively she was more beautiful than I, with her large, dark eyes, her face, her lovely figure; too, she had superb slave reflexes; but she did not, I thought, succeed in making my master forget me. She did, of course, frighten me, for she was a formidable rival. I resented, and hated her. Too, she did not seem to regard me with affection and delight. She had wanted me named "Stupid Girl" or "Clumsy Girl." I did not yet have a name. But, in spite of the fact that my master, currently, seemed to be much taken with Maria, and that she was clearly the preferred bond girl in our camp, I did not feel that she had managed to negate the moments or the tacit understanding which I felt I shared with the man who owned me. I recalled his anger at my helpless yielding to the soldier; I was only a slave; I had not been able to help myself; yet he' had been angry; too, he himself had commanded the man to address himself to the work of my rape; yet he had been angry; too, his concern with Marla seemed to me rather sudden and excessive; he seemed to be too obviously unconcerned with me; I smiled to myself; I think he had been jealous; and I think he was using Marla, certainly a delightful diversion, to try and force me from his mind. She was surely more beautiful than I, but in such matters there are rightnesses which are reciprocal and subtle; it is rather like the matching together of pieces in a puzzle, the startling, unexpected fitting together of components, yielding a whole which is, in its wholeness, more precious than the individual pieces or parts could be in isolation; as beautiful and marvelous as Marla was, she was not I; it was that simple, I believe; she was not I; I, not she, I believe, was the one; I had little doubt he was my natural, perfect master; I think he had begun to fear that I might be his natural, perfect slave; surely he did not want to think of me as more than just another of his girls; yet I had little doubt that I was becoming to him, in spite of his desires, something more than just another lovely wench whose wrist was fastened on his chain.

He stood beside the furs, and slipped aside his tunic. "Remove the Ta-Teera," he said to me. I sat up, unhooked it, and slipped it over my head, putting it to the side. He joined me in the furs, throwing them over us both.

I could hear cries, it seemed from far off, from the circle of the torch, where the peasant boys sported cruelly with their captured beauties.

Then I was in my master's arms. I moaned with pleasure.

I felt my master's eyes upon me.

"Will you turn me over to the peasant boys?" I asked, apprehensive, in the darkness.

I did not want to be roped and dragged, a captured slave, to the circle of the torch. They would be furious that I had eluded them. I did not know what they would do to me.

"No," said he, in the darkness.

"Then," said I, breathing more easily, "I have escaped them."

"But you have not escaped me," he said.

"No, Master," I said, snuggling more closely to him, "I have not escaped you."

"You ran well," he said. "And you are bold. It took boldness, indeed, to hide, unbidden, in the furs of your very master. For such boldness a slave girl might be much beaten."

"Yes, Master," I said.

"But I do not disparage boldness in a slave girl," said he. "A girl who is bold is likely to think of marvels of pleasure for her master which a more timid girl would not dare to even contemplate."

"Yes, Master," I said, frightened.

"Too," said he, "the nature of your flight, and your selection of a refuge, indicates high intelligence."

"Thank you, Master," I said.

I felt his hands on the side of my head.

"You are extremely intelligent," he said, adding, "for a woman, and a slave."

"Thank you, Master," I said. What a beast he was. And yet I sensed that my intelligence was indeed far less than his, and that of most of the Gorean men I had met. Gorean males are unusual in their strength, energy and intelligence.

Sometimes this angered me. Sometimes it pleased me.

I did not feel inferior to most Gorean women I had met, either slave or free. Their intelligence, it seemed to me, compared much more closely, statistically, to that of Earth females. Of my master's girls, I felt that only Eta was my superior.

"I like high intelligence in a slave girl," said my master.

"Thank you, Master," I said.

Then I cried out, and held to him, my lips parted, for he had touched me.

"You leap like a she-tarsk," he said.

I bit my lip.

"That is because you are intelligent," he said. "I suppose you did not know that," he said, "for you are of Earth."

I gasped, and could not speak, for the sensation which he was inducing in me.

"Intelligent bodies," he said, "are far more responsive. Your very intelligence makes you the more helplessly a slave."

I clutched him.

"It pleases me to own intelligent girls, such as you," he said. "Intelligent girls make excellent slaves," he observed.

"Please, Master," I said. "I cannot resist you!"

"Be silent," he said.

"Yes, Master," I wept.

"It is more pleasurable to control and dominate them than stupid girls," he said. "They are more stimulating to own. They are greater prizes."

"Yes, Master," I said. "Yes, Master!"

"Too," said he, "one profits more from their ownership than from that of a duller girl. They are brighter, more skillful, more imaginative, more inventive. An intelligent girl can do many more things and do them better than a duller girl. She follows commands easily; she learns swiftly. Her performances, in their variety, intricacy and depth, can approach brilliance. She learns well, and continues to learn, in her intelligence and sexuality, how to please a man. Too, in her depths of emotion, feeling and sensation, these associated with her intelligence, she is easier to manipulate and exploit."

"Please, Master," I begged, "take me!"

"Remain immobile," he said. "Do not move so much as a muscle."

I gritted my teeth. "Yes, Master," I whispered. Every bit of me wanted to cry out and explode. I held myself absolutely rigid. I wanted to explode. I was not permitted to move.

"Too," said he, "an intelligent girl, a highly intelligent one, such as yourself, is capable of truly understanding her slavery. A dull girl has no true insight into the bondage relation. She knows she is a slave. She recognizes the institution, and is cognizant of its legalities. She is familiar with chains, and has worn them; she sees the whip, and has felt it. But does she truly understand her slavery?"

"Forgive me, Master," I said, barely able to speak, "but any woman who is a slave truly understands her slavery."

"Is this true?" he asked.

"In the belly of her," I said, "any woman who is slave knows her slavery. It has naught to do with intelligence, but only with being a slave and a woman. It is an indescribable, helpless feeling in the belly of us, being owned. One need not be intelligent to have this emotion, nor to respond, nor to feel."

"Perhaps," he said.

I wanted to scream. "Please, Master," I said.

"Do not move," said he.

"Yes, Master," I said, obeying.

I held myself rigid. Could the peasant boys have been more cruel?

"You do not think," he asked, "that the dull woman confuses slavery with the chains and the whip?"

"No, Master," I said. I moaned in helplessness. "I am not now chained," I said. "I am not now being whipped. But I could not be more a slave than now if I were chained to a whipping post and the lash being laid upon me. I am owned. I am completely in your power. I dare not even move. I must obey. This could be understood by any woman in my place."

"But perhaps," said he, musing, "your understanding of your slavery, in virtue of your intelligence, your sensitivity, is much more intense, much deeper and richer than would be that of a duller woman?"

"Perhaps, Master," I said. "I do not know!"

"Do you wish to be permitted to move?" he asked.

"Yes," I wept. "Yes! Yes!"

"But you are not yet permitted to move," he said.

"Yes, Master," I sobbed.

"It is pleasant to own a beautiful Earth woman such as you," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"To whom do you belong?" he asked.

"To you! To you, Master!" I said.

"But you are of Earth," he said. "How can you belong to a man?"

"I belong to you, to you, Master!" I said.

"In the past weeks," he said, "you have begun to disturb me."

"Master?" I asked.

"Do not move," he said.

"No, Master," I sobbed.

"I do not understand it," he said. "It is very strange. Today I grew angry with you, and you had merely behaved as a slave."

He referred to my yielding to the soldier in the morning.

"I am a slave, Master," I said. "I could not help myself."

"I know," he said. "Why then should I be angry?"

"I do not know, Master," I said.

He then touched me, and I cried out.

"Do not move," he said.

"Have mercy on your girl, Master!" I begged.

With his touch he had again brought my sensations to the point at which I wanted to shatter and writhe and scream, and yet I must remain at his side, immobile, absolutely motionless.

"You are not important," he said.

"No, Master," I said.

"You are a worthless slave girl," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"You can be bought or sold in any market," he said, "for a handful of copper tarsks."

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Why then," he asked, "do I concern myself with you?"

"I do not know, Master," I said.

"You may move, Slave Girl," he said.

With a wanton cry I pressed myself against him.

"You see," he said, "the women of Earth are natural slaves."

"Yes, Master," I wept.

"You are obviously only a common girl," he said.

"Yes, Master!" I cried softly.

I began to lick at him beneath the chin and kiss him. I clutched at him. I wept and laughed and writhed, holding him.

"Only a common girl," he said. "Only a common slave." I put my tear-stained cheek against the hardness of his chest, holding him. I could feel the hair on his chest between his body and the softness of my cheek. "Yes, Master," I whispered.

"You do not even have a name," he said.

"No, Master," I said.

"Of what importance is a nameless animal?" he asked.

"None, Master," I said.

"How can you be of interest?" he asked.

"I do not know, Master," I said.

"And yet you are a pretty little animal," he said.

"Thank you, Master," I said.

"I shall conquer you," he said.

"You have conquered me long ago," I said.

"I shall conquer you anew," he said.

"Every time you look upon me, or touch me," I said, "I am conquered anew." I felt his chest beneath my cheek. I held him in the darkness. "I am your conquest, fully and completely, Master," I said. "I am your slave."

"Perhaps my slave should have a name," he said.

"As Master wills," I said.

He took me by the shoulders and lifted and turned me. He put me beneath him. I felt the furs and the ground beneath my back. I felt his arms about me. I moaned as my body received and clasped him.

"Do not move," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said. I wanted to yield.

"I shall name you," he said.

I lay in the darkness, helpless, imprisoned in the strength of his arms, waiting to learn whom I would be.

"The name," he said, "for you are a common girl, and worthless, should be an unimportant name, one plain and simple, one fitting for a valueless girl, an ignorant, branded she-slave such as you."

"Yes, Master," I said.

"You are even a barbarian," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Some men," he said, "enjoy putting a barbarian girl through her paces."

"Put me through my paces, I beg of you, Master!" I wept.

"Do not move," he cautioned.

"Yes, Master," I wept. I so wanted to yield to him. I was on the brink of yielding, but he would not let me move. It was as though I wanted to burst.

"I myself," he smiled, "enjoy putting any girl, civilized or barbarian, through her paces."

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Did you know," he asked, "that in the throes of slave orgasm there is no difference between a civilized and barbarian girl?"

"No, Master," I said.

"It is interesting," he said. "In slave orgasm they are spasmodically identical."

"We are all women, only women," I said, "in the arms of our masters."

"Doubtless that is it," he mused.

"Permit me to yield!" I begged.

"Do not move," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said, through gritted teeth. I was so much his! Why would he not have me?

"You speak Gorean with an accent," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said. "Forgive me, Master," I begged.

"Do not change," he said. "The accent becomes you. It marks you as different and makes you more interesting."

"Perhaps that is what Master finds interesting about his girl," I said.

"Perhaps," he said. "But I have owned barbarian girls before."

"Other girls from the planet Earth?" I whispered.

"Of course," he said. "Do not move."

"No, Master," I said. Suddenly I resented and hated those other girls from the bottom of my heart. How angry and jealous I was!

"The little slave is angry," he said. "Do not move."

"No, Master," I said.

I lay in the darkness, in his arms, trying not to move.

"What became of the Earth girls whom you owned before me, Master?" I asked.

"Was a slave given permission to speak?" he asked.

"Forgive me, Master," I said. "May a slave speak?"

"Yes," he said.

"You owned other Earth girls," I said. "Where are they?"

"I do not know," he said.

"What did you do with them?" I asked.

"I have had five such women, not including yourself, my dear," he said. "I gave two away, and sold off three."

"Are you going to sell me, or give me away?" I asked.

"Perhaps," he said.

I moaned. He could do what he wished, of course.

"Did they love you?" I asked.

"I do not know," he said. "Perhaps. Perhaps, not."

"Did they protest their love to you?" I asked.

"Of course," he said. "That sort of thing is common among slave girls."

"And yet you gave them away, or sold them?"

"Yes."

"How could you do that, Master?" I asked.

"They were only slaves," he said in explanation.

I uttered a cry of anguish. I could be discarded as easily. "You were cruel," I said, "Master."

"How can one be cruel to a slave?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "How can one be cruel to a slave?"

"You're crying," he said.

"Forgive me, Master," I said.

We lay together in the darkness, I not permitted to move. I heard the peasant boys finishing with my sisters in bondage. Afterwards they would be put in slave hobbles.

"What was your barbarian name?" he asked.

"Judy Thornton," I said, "Master."

"How came you into my possession?" he asked.

"You won me in challenge, Master," I said. "Then you made me your slave."

"Ah, yes," he said. What a beast he was, me so naked, so helpless in his arms.

"Barbarians have such complicated names," he said.

"It is two names, Master," I said. "My first name was Judy, my second name was Thornton."

"Barbarous," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"I do not like those names," he said. "Therefore they will not be yours."

"Yes, Master," I said. I supposed such names did sound unfamiliar, and barbarous, to a Gorean ear.

"What was the name of your barbarian master?" he asked.

"I do not understand, Master," I stammered.

"The barbarian who owned you on Earth," he said. "Perhaps we can use his name."

"But I was not owned on Earth, Master," I said. "I was a free woman."

"Women such as you are permitted to be free on Earth?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Of what sort are the men of Earth?" he asked.

"Of a sort other than Gorean, Master," I said.

"I see," he said. "Are the men happy?" he asked.

"No," I told him.

"Are the women happy?" he asked.

"No," I told him.

"I see," he said.

"Do the men of Earth not find you beautiful and desirable?" he asked.

"They have been weakened," I told him. "I did not know what it was to be desired until I came to this world." I clutched him. "It is only in the arms of true men, such as you, Master," I said, "that I have learned what it is to be a woman."

"You may move," he said.

With a cry I began to respond spasmodically to him.

"Stop," he said.

"Master!" I cried.

"Do not move," he said.

I wept with misery. How cruel could he be. "Yes, Master!" I wept.

He had raised me to the point at which another instant's movement would have precipitated that most incredible and fantastic of sexual experiences to which a human female can attain, that in which she knows herself cognitively and physiologically submitted, fully and completely, absolutely, to a master, the psychological and somatic raptures of submission spasm, the slave orgasm.

"I must drive you from my mind," he said.

I moaned.

"What is your brand?" he asked.

"The Slave Flower, the Dina!" I cried. "The name," he had said, "for you are a common girl, and worthless, should be an unimportant name, one plain and simple, one fitting for a valueless girl, an ignorant, branded she-slave such as you."

"The Dina!" I cried.

He had begun to have me.

"Permit me to yield! Permit me to yield, Master!" I cried.

"No," he said.

I cried out with misery. I tried to hold myself immobile.

"You are going to be named," he said.

I could not even speak.

I was the only Dina among his girls. It was a common brand. Often girls who wore it were called Dina. For a low, common girl, one not to be distinguished from others, it was a suitable name. It was unimportant. It was simple. It was plain. I was common, and of little value. The name, too, was common, and of little value. It was thus not unfitting for a girl such as I, not unfitting for an ignorant, branded she-slave such as myself.

"You will not forget your name," he said.

"No, Master!" I said. I knew how he would impress my name upon me.

He had told me that I was without value, that I was worthless. I knew I could be bought and sold for a handful of copper tarsks.

I knew what he would name me.

He did not cease to have me.

At length I cried out, agonized. "I must yield, Master! I cannot help myself! I cannot help myself but yield to you!"

"Must you yield," he asked, "even though it might mean your death?"

"Yes, Master!" I cried.

"Then yield, Slave," said he.

With a cry I yielded to him.

"You are Dina," he said, laughing, his voice like a lion. "You are the slave Dina, whom I own." He laughed and cried out with pleasure in his triumph over the slave girl. "Yes, Master!" I cried. "I am Dina! I am Dina" I clutched him, joyously, his. "Dina loves Master!" I wept. "Dina loves Master!"

Later I lay in his arms, an owned slave girl, content beside the mightiness of her master.

How I loved him!

"Strange," he said, looking up at the Gorean stars.

"Master?" I asked.

"You are obviously only a common girl," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said. I began to kiss him gently about the shoulder.

"Only a common girl," he said.

It was true. He was Clitus Vitellius, a Captain, of the city of Ar. I was only Dina.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"I fear that I might begin to care for you," he said.

"If Dina has found favor with her master," I said, "she is pleased."

"I must fight this weakness," he said.

"Whip me," I said.

"No," he said.

"It is not you who is weak, Master," I said. "It is I, Dina, in your arms, who am without strength." I kissed him.

"I am a captain," he said. "I must be strong."

"I am a slave girl," I said. "I must be weak."

"I must be strong," he said.

"You did not seem weak to me, Master," I said, "when you laughed, and took me, and named me Dina. Then you seemed magnificent in your power and pride."

"It was only the conquest of a slave girl," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said, "I am your conquest." It was true. Dina, the Earth girl, she who had once been Judy Thornton, a lovely college student and poetess, was now the enslaved love conquest of Clitus Vitellius of Ar.

"You trouble me," he said, angrily.

"Forgive me, Master," I said.

"I should rid myself of you," he said.

"Permit me to follow at the heels of the least of your soldiers," I said. I truly did not fear that he would rid himself of me. I loved him. I was confident that he, too, in spite of himself, cared for me.

"Master," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"Has Dina pleased you this night?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"I want your collar," I said.

There was a long silence. Then he said, "You are an Earth girl. Yet you beg to wear a collar?"

"Yes, Master," I said.

It is said, in a Gorean proverb, that a man, in his heart, desires freedom, and that a woman, in her belly, yearns for love. The collar, in its way, answers both needs. The man is most free, owning the slave. He may do what he wishes with her. The woman, on the other hand, being owned, is institutionally and helplessly subject, in her status as slave, to the submissions of love.

I sensed my master feared his feelings for me. This gave me power over him.

"Dina wants Master's collar," I whispered, kissing at him. The collar would make me the equal of Eta.

"I decide what slaves will wear my collar," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said, chastened. If he saw fit to put me in his collar, he would; if he did not, he would not.

"Does Dina love her master?" he asked.

"Yes, yes, Master!" I whispered. I so loved him!

"Have I given you choice in this?" he asked.

"No, Master," I said. "You have made me love you, helplessly and wholly."

"Your feelings, then," he asked, "have been fully engaged, and you are now mine, at my complete mercy, fully and vulnerably, with no shred of pride or dignity left?"

"Yes, Master," I whispered.

"You acknowledge yourself then hopelessly in love with me, and as a slave girl?"

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Amusing," he said.

"Master?" I asked.

"I, and the men, and other girls," lie said, "will leave Tabuk's Ford in the morning. You will remain behind. I am giving you to Thurnus."