Swordsmen of Gor

Chapter Twenty-One LICINIUS LYSIAS TAKES HIS DEPARTURE FROM TARNCAMP

“On your back, slave,” said Licinius, “over the saddle, wrists and ankles crossed.”

From the commanded distance, one of several yards, we watched Licinius fasten the slave over the forward capture leather of the saddle, tethering her crossed wrists to the saddle ring to his left, and then her crossed ankles to the saddle ring to his right.

Shortly she was secured in place.

I gathered that she was not the first capture he had helplessed in such a manner.

Pertinax was distraught.

Yet, too, his eyes glistened.

Perhaps he sensed what it might be to have a woman so before him, a tethered prize, supine, across his saddle. How far then seemed the former Miss Wentworth from the corridors of power, from the cabs of Manhattan, from the large, wood-paneled offices of the investment firm. Perhaps he wondered what it might be, were she his, and the binding fiber his own.

But I feared he did not understand that she was now a slave.

“I wish you well!” called Licinius, and drew on the one-strap.

“Lord Nishida will not be pleased,” said Tajima, gloomily.

We watched the tarn ascend, and streak away, to the southeast.

“He escapes,” said Pertinax, angrily.

“No,” I said.

“No?” asked Pertinax.

“No,” I said. “The tarn will return.”

“I do not understand,” said Tajima.

“You will see,” I said.