1: A Female Slave
You were once the Lady Temione, were you not? I inquired.
Yes, Master, she said, lifting her head a little from the dirt, where, before me, in the camp of Cos, on the south bank of the Vosk, north of Holmesk, she knelt, head down, the palms of her hands on the ground.
Lie on your right side before me, I said, extending your left leg.
She did so. In this way, the bit of silk she wore fell to the right, displaying the line of her hip, thigh and calf. I saw the brand, tiny and tasteful, yet unmistakable, fixed in her thigh, high, under the hip. It was the common kajira brand, the staff and fronds, beauty subject to discipline, worn by most female slaves on Gor. She had the toes of the left leg pointed, lusciously curving the calf. I saw that she had had some training.
You may resume your original position, I said.
She returned to it, a common position of slave obeisance.
I noted that her hair had grown out somewhat, in the weeks since I had last seen her, a free woman on the chain of Ephialtes, a sutler whom I had met at the inn of the Crooked Tarn, on the Vosk Road. He had been kind enough to act as my agent in certain matters.
Tell me of matters since last we met, I suggested.
It was at the Crooked Tarn, was it not? she asked.
Perhaps, I said.
Or was it in the camp of Cos, near Ars Station? she asked.
Perhaps, I said.
I with others was once there blindfolded, and displayed, she said.
Oh? I said.
Yes, she said.
Speak, I said.
As master recalls, she said. I was detained at the Crooked Tarn, as a debtor slut.
Yes, I said.
And forced to earn my keep. she said.
Yes, I said. Her use had cost me a tarsk bit. Had I had a slave sent to my space it would have cost me three full copper tarsks, for only a quarter of an Ahn. I had had her for a full Ahn, for the tarsk bit. That was, because, at that time, she had been free. She would be worth much more now, clearly. I noted the collar on her neck, metal, close-fitting and locked. It was easy to see, even with her head down, because of the shortness of her hair. It had been shaved off some weeks ago by the keeper of the Crooked Tarn, to be sold as raw materials for catapult cordage. Womens hair, soft, glossy, silky and resilient, stronger than vegetable fibers and more weather resistant, well woven, is ideal for such a purpose. The concept of earning ones keep, in one sense, a strict legal sense, is more appropriate to a free woman than a slave. The slave, for example, cannot earn anything in her own name, or for herself, but only, like other domestic animals, for her master. To be sure, in another sense, a very practical sense, no one earns her keep like the female slave. She earns it, and with a vengeance. The master sees to it. The sense of earning her keep of which the former Lady Temione spoke was a rather special one. It was rather analogous to that of the slave, for, as I recalled, the keeper of the inn appropriated her earnings, ostensibly to defray the expenses of her keeping. A result of this, of course, was to make it impossible for her, by herself, to subtract as much as a tarsk bit from her redemption fee.
In the morning, early, after the evening in which I had been carried, bound, to your space, to serve you, I, with other debtors-
 Debtor sluts, I said.
Yes, master, she said. -were redeemed. We were overjoyed, thinking to be freed, but found to our dismay that we were put in coffle, to be taken northward on the Vosk Road to the vicinity of Ars Station.
I see, I said.
 But before our redemption our heads were shaved by the keeper, for catapult cordage.
I saw the pelts on a rack, outside the inn, I said. Her hair had been a beautiful auburn. That hair color is popular on Gor. It brings a high price in slave markets.
A man named Ephialtes, a sutler of Cos, paid our re-demption fees.
It was he, then, who redeemed you? I asked.
I do not think so, Master, she said.
He was acting as an agent then? I said.
I think so, Master, she said. Though apparently one with powers to buy and sell as he pleased.
On behalf on his principal? I asked.
Doubtless, Master, she said.
You may kneel back, I said.
She straightened up, and then knelt back on her heels, her knees wide, her hands on her thighs. I had not specified this position, one of the most common for a female pleasure slave but she had assumed it unquestioningly, appropriately. It had been a test. She had passed. It would not be necessary to cuff her.
I listened to the sounds of the Vosk River in the background. Though we were free women, six of us, as you recall, including myself, we were apparently to be marched naked, chained by the neck, in coffle behind a sutlers wagon.
You objected? I inquired.
I and another, Klio, perhaps you remember her, did.
And what happened? I asked.
We were lashed, she said. It was done by a terrible person, one named Liadne, put over us as first girl, though we were free and she a mere slave!
I remembered Liadne. She was lovely. I had first met her under her masters wagon, shivering in a tarpaulin, in an icy storm. I had used her but had paid her master for her use, leaving a coin in her mouth. I had had Ephialtes, the sutler, purchase her in the morning. I had thought she would make an excellent first girl, to introduce her free sisters into some understanding of their womanhood.
We were then obedient, said the girl.
I did not doubt but what Liadne would have kept them, arrogant, spoiled free women, under superb discipline. That had certainly been my impression, at any rate, when I had seen them lined up, kneeling, naked, coffled, and blind-folded, in the camp of Cos near Ars Station.
We were taken to the Cosian camp, near Ars Station, she said. There we were kept naked, in coffle, and under discipline. One morning we were displayed in blindfolds.
I had not wanted them to know, or at least to know for certain, that it was I who had redeemed them, not simply for the pleasure of it, but for my own purposes, as well. This was not that unusual. Captors do not always reveal their identities immediately to their captives. It is sometimes amusing to keep women in ignorance as to whose power it is, within which they lie. Let them consider the matter with anxiety. Let them speculate wildly, frenziedly, tearfully. It is then time enough to reveal oneself to them, perhaps confirming their worst fears.
The next morning, she said, when I awakened, two of our girls were gone, Elene and Klio, and there was a new girl, a slender, very beautiful girl, also free, like the rest of us, on the coffle.
What was her name? I asked.
 Phoebe, she said.
Tell me of her, I said.
She wore her collar and chain lovingly and well, most beautifully, she said. She obeyed Liadne from the first, immediately, spontaneously, intuitively, naturally, with ti-midity, and perfection. It was as though she intuitively under-stood authority and her own rightful subjection to it. Though this new girl, like the rest of us, save Liadne, was free, I think I had seldom seen a woman, so early in captivity, so ready, so ripe, for the truths of the collar.
She had perhaps fought out those matters in the sweaty sheets of her own bed, for years, I said.
As had certain others, too, smiled the girl, looking down.
You are beautiful, I commented, regarding her face, and lineaments, in the light of the nearby fire.
Thank you, Master, she whispered.
Was this new girl proud? I asked.
I think only of such things as her capacity for love, and her bondage, she said.
But you said she was free, I reminded her.
Of her natural bondage, she smiled.
She was not then, in a normal sense, proud?
Not in ways typical of a vain free woman, at any rate.
But yet, I said, this new girl, unlike the rest of you, was wearing a slave strip.
Ah, Master, said the girl, it is as I suspected. It is you who redeemed us.
Of course, I said.
The new girl would not speak the identity of her captor, but, I take it, it was you who brought her to the coffle of Ephialtes.
I nodded. I had, of course, warned Phoebe to silence, with respect to whose captive she was, as my business in the north, at least at that time, had been secret.
Her docility on the chain, its beauty on her, her eagerness to obey, and such, suggested that it might have been you, or someone like you, she said.
I shrugged.
And I thought it might have been you, she said, from little things she would say, or knowing looks, or responses to our questions, or shy droppings of her gaze. In such ways can a woman speak, even when she is pretending not to. I think she was shyly eager to tell us all about you.
I nodded again. I was not unfamiliar with the small talk, the tiny riddles, the hints, the delights of conversing slaves. I had little doubt that Phoebe, and without too much provoca-tion, might have revealed more of me, and of our relation-ship, and past, and such, than I would have approved of. She was marvelously feminine. It would not really do, of course, to whip her for such things, as she was free, and, even in the case of slaves, masters tend to be tolerant of such things. They make the girl so much more human.
Was it you, too, who took Elene and Klio from the coffle? she asked.
Yes, I said.
What did you do with them? she asked.
Did a slave ask permission to speak? I asked.
Forgive me, Master, she said.
What is your name? I asked.
 Temione, she said. She wore that name now, of course, as a mere slave name, put on her by the will of a master. Slaves, as they are animals, may be named anything.
I sold them, I said.
She looked at me.
You may speak, I said.
Both of them? she asked.
Yes, I said. I had sold them one morning, in the siege trenches. They had given me the cover I had needed to get to the walls of Ars Station.
Tell me of Ephialtes, Liadne, the coffle, and such, I said. I remembered the six debtor sluts I had redeemed at the Inn of the Crooked Tarn, the Lady Amina, of Venna; the Lady Elene, of Tyros; and the Ladies Klio, Rimice, Liomache and Temione, all of Cos.
Ephialtes is well, she said, and seems much taken with Liadne, as she with him. Two days after the fall of Ars Station a mercenary, who had apparently seen much action, passed near the wagon of Ephialtes. Liomache, seeing him, startled, terrified, tried to hide amongst us but he, quick, and observant, had seen her! He rushed over to us. She could not escape, of course, as she was nude and helpless on the chain. Such niceties constrained us well, no differently than if we had been slaves. She cried out in misery. He pulled her up and shook her like a doll! Liomache! he cried. It is you!
No! she wept.
I know you, he said. I would know you anywhere. You are one of those sluts who lives off men, who runs up bills and then inveigles fools into satisfying them. I remember however that when I first met you you had been somewhat less successful than usual, and were being held for redemp-tion at the inn. How piteously you misrepresented your case, and begged me, a lady so in distress and a compatriot of Cos, to rescue you from your predicament!
No! No! she said. It is not I!
You well made me your fool and dupe! he snarled. I paid your bill for three silver tarns, a fortune to me at the time, and put in travel money, too, that you might return to Cos!
It is not I! she said.
And for this I received not so much as a kiss, you claiming this would demean our relationship, by putting it on a physical basis.
It was not I! she wept.
Well do I remember you in the fee cart moving rapidly away, laughing, carrying my purse with you, waving the redemption papers, signed for freedom!
It was not I! she cried.
Then he cuffed her. We gasped, for he had done so as if she might have been a slave. This took the fight out of her. He then thrust her back, and looked at her. But, said he, it seems that someone was not such a fool as I, for here you are, on a chain, in a warriors camp. She could only look at him then, tears in her eyes. She knew that she had lost. Oh, cried he, how many times I have dreamed of having you in my power, of having you naked, in a collar! He turned her brutally about, from side to side, examining her. Excellent! he cried, You are not yet branded! She sank to her knees before him, her head in her hands, weeping. Keeper! cried he. Keeper! Ephialtes, who had been called forth by the commotion, was present. She is for sale, or my sword will have it so! cried the mercenary. In short, she was soon sold, for an enormous price, two gold pieces. She was startled that he wanted her so much. To be sure, the gold was doubtless that of Ars Station.
So that was the fate of Liomache? I said.
I saw her the next day. She was naked, in his collar, and branded. Indeed, she told me, proudly, that he had branded her with his own hand, it was a beautiful brand, and had been well done. She was also in a yoke. She seemed not discontent.
Did you see her again? I asked.
No, she said, though she is perhaps somewhere in this very camp.
What of you? I asked.
The keeper of a paga enclosure, a man called Philebus, saw me the next day. It was not possible, of course, for us to conceal ourselves. Only too obviously we would come easily to the attention of even idle passers-by. He expressed interest. I was displayed, and said the Buy me, Master. So simply was it done.
You seem more beautiful than I remembered you, I said.
My master tells me that I have grown much in beauty, she said. I do not know if it is true or not.
It is, I said.
Thank you, Master, she said.
When you left the coffle, then, I said, it contained only Amina, Rimice and Phoebe.
Yes, she said.
I wonder if the coffle is still in the camp, I said.
I would suppose so, she said. But I do not know.
Do you know anything more of them? I asked.
She laughed. Phoebe wants explicitly to be a slave, she said. She scorns to hide her feelings and longs for the legalities which would publicly proclaim her natural condition. I do not think Amina has ever forgotten your kiss, that of a master, when she was helpless at the Crooked Tarn, chained to the outside wall the storm raging. Rimice, the curvaceous little slut, is already more than half a slave, as you know. All, I think it is fair to say, are itching for the touch of masters. 
 Itching  I asked, amused.
A slaves expression, she smiled.
And you? I asked. Are you itching for the touch of a master? 
She leaned forward, her eyes moist, beggingly. I am already a slave, she whispered. I do not itch for the touch of a master. Rather I scream and beg for it!
They may have all been sold by now.
Yes, Master, she said.
They were all choice items, I said.
Yes, Master, she said.
You know nothing more of them? I asked.
No, Master, she said. But I suppose that they, in one way or another, are still with the camp.
This seemed to me possible, but it need not be so. When women are sold they may be taken here and there, transported hither and yon, carried about, anywhere, as the articles of property they are.
Lean back, I said.
She leaned back, shuddering with need, tears in her eyes, commanded.
I glanced about the paga enclosure of Philebus. The area, circular, of leveled, beaten earth, was about forty yards in diameter. Its fencing was little more than symbolic, a matter of light railings no more than waist high set on tripods. This barrier, such as it is, is dismantled and re-erected, over and over, as the camp moves. There are some tiny, alcovelike tents within the enclosure, mostly just within the perimeter. There were several tiny fires, here and there, within the enclosure. Small fires are usually used in such enclosures, as in camps generally, as they may be quickly extinguished. The girls, slaves, within the enclosure, were not belled. Thus, in the case of an alarm, the entire camp could, at a command, be plunged into darkness and silence, vanishing, so to speak, in the night. Such precautions serve primarily to defend against attacks of tarnsmen. There are often explicit camp rules pertaining to the sizes of fires, as there are for many other things, such as the general ordering of the camp, its defenses, its streets and layout, the location of its facilities, such as infirmaries, commissaries and smithies, the mainte-nance of security and watches within units, the types of tents permitted, their acceptable occupancy, their spacing and drain-age, and provisions for sanitation. The observance of these rules, or ordinances, is usually supervised by, and enforced by, camp marshals. To be sure, this camp was largely one of mercenaries, and, as such, was lax in many of these particu-lars. It is difficult to impose order and discipline on merce-naries. Too, these men were flushed with victory, after the fall of Ars Station, to the east. I noted a fellow relieving himself a few yards away, near the railing of the enclosure. In a camp of Ar an infraction of that sort might have earned a fine, or a scourging. Overhead, briefly, against one of the moons, I saw a tarnsman descending toward the camp. As he was alone, he was probably a courier. The patrols are usually composed of two or more tarnsmen. In this way, they will usually prove superior to isolated interlopers and, if need be, one may be dispatched to report or summon aid, while the other, or others, may attend to other duties, perhaps those of a pursuit or search, or maintaining a distant contact with the enemy.
Paga! called a fellow, sitting cross-legged, a few yards away. A girl hurried to him, with her vessel of drink.
Survivors of Ars Station, which had been Ars major bastion on the Vosk, including many women and children, had been rescued from the piers of the burning port by a fleet of unidentified ships, ships with which the Cosians in the north had not had the forces to deal. Although the identities of these ships were putatively unknown it was an open secret on the river that they were those of Port Cos, supplemented with several apparently furnished by the Vosk League itself. The matter had something to do with a topaz, and a pledge, something going back apparently to affairs which had taken place earlier on the river. At any rate, as it had turned out, the Ubarate of Cos had decided, wisely, in my opinion, to take no official notice of this action. This was presumably out of a respect for the power of Port Cos, and her desire to influence, if not control, through Port Cos, the politics of the Vosk league, and, through it, the river, and the Vosk basin, as a whole. I had been among these survivors. We had been carried to the safety of Port Cos.
There were perhaps a hundred men, here and there, within the enclosure, and some fifteen or twenty girls. The girls filled their vessels, which, like the hydria, or water vessel, are high-handled, for dipping, in a large kettle hung simmer-ing over a fire near the entrance to the enclosure. Warm paga makes one drunk quicker, it is thought. I usually do not like my paga heated, except sometimes on cold nights. This night was not cold, but warm. It was now late spring. Some Cosians tend to be fond of hot paga. So, too, are some of the folks in the more northern islands, interestingly, such as Hunjer and Skjern, west of Torvaldsland. This probably rep-resents an influence from Cos, transmitted through merchants and seamen. In the north generally, mead, a drink made with fermented honey, and water, and often spices and such, tends to be favored over paga.
Master, whispered the girl before me.
I looked at her. She had not asked permission to speak. She quickly put down her head. Forgive me, Master, she said. She opened her knees more, frightened, placatingly.
Most of the girls within the enclosure were here and there, serving, or kneeling, waiting to be summoned. Two, naked, were in tiny cages, cramped, hardly able to move. I gathered they were new to their slavery. I did not know how long they bad been kept so. It had perhaps been a day or so. Both, putting their fingers through the close-set bars, which made it hard even to see them, would beg a fellow, I suppose, Philebus, their master, and the owner of the enclosure, as he passed by, to be released, that they might now serve men. It was difficult to tell if he had heard them or not, but once, at least, he must have for he, with his staff, struck the bars of a cage, strictly ordering its fair occupant to silence. Yes, Master! she wept, drawing back, as she could, within it. There were some other girls, too, who were not serving, some five or six, or so. They, in their snatches of slave silk, sat, knelt or lay about a stout post which had been driven deeply into the ground to one side, to which post they were chained by the neck. As more men entered the enclosure women were released from the post to assist in the serving. Also, if one appealed to a fellow, she might be released at his request, to serve him particularly and, if he wished, privately. Temione had been free of the post when I had arrived. I had, however, thinking I had recognized her, and as it proved, I had, summoned her to my place.
I regarded the former proud free woman. She did not dare to raise her eyes. She did, however, trembling before me, make a tiny, piteous, begging sound of need.
Did you say something? I asked.
Forgive me, Master, she said.
Did you want something? I asked.
She lifted her eyes, frightened, pleadingly. I desire to serve you, she whispered.
Interesting, I thought, the transformations which a collar can make in a woman.
Please, Master, she begged.
Very well, I said, you may serve me.
Thank you, Master! she breathed, joyously.
Bring me paga, I said.
Oh! she wept, in misery. Oh, oh.
I looked at her.
Yes, Master, she wept, and rose quickly to her feet, hurrying toward the paga vat.
I watched her withdraw. How lovely she was! How well she moved! What a slave she had become!
The enclosure of Philebus was, in effect, a transportable paga tavern, one so arranged that it might accompany a moving camp.
I watched her waiting, to dip her paga vessel. How attrac-tive, how desirable, how exciting she was! Women look well, in the service of men.

Another paga slave hurried by, summoned, a blond.
I have mentioned that the girls were not belled, and that this had to do with, presumably, the possible need for dark-ness and silence, in the event of an attack on the camp. The evening was warm. The moons were out. It would be a good night, I thought, idly, for an attack on a camp. Yet I did not expect one would occur. One should occur, but, I was confi-dent, it would not. If it were to happen, surely it should have taken place long before now. There was even poor security in the camp. I and the fellow I had agreed to accompany, a young man, of the warriors, formerly of Ars Station, a young man named Marcus, or, more fully, Marcus Marcel-lus, of the Marcelliani, had had no difficulty, in the guise of minor merchants, in entering the camp. In effect, I suppose, we were spies. Young Marcus, with the consent of his commander, Aemilianus, formerly of Ars Station, now among the refugees at Port Cos, had been given permission to track the movements of the Cosians in the north, and to convey this information to the major land forces of Ar, which were currently located at Holmesk, to the south. So deeply ran former loyalties, in spite of the failure of Ar, seemingly inexplicably, to relieve Ars Station. Young Marcus was, in my opinion, a fine though moody, soldier. It had been he who had managed to convey Ars Stations half of the topaz to Port Cos, which action had resulted in the redemption of the pledge of the topaz, bringing the forces of Port Cos, and apparently, in the process, ships of the Vosk League, as well, to Ars Station, to evacuate the piers, to rescue survivors, primarily the remnants of her citizenry. If young Marcus, of whom I have grown fond, has a weakness, I would think it would be his moodiness, and his incredible hatred for Cosians, and all things Cosian. This hatred, which seems almost patho-logical, is doubtless the consequence of his experiences in war, and particularly during the siege of Ars Station. It is hard to see all, or much, of what one has loved, destroyed, and not feel illy disposed toward the perpetrators of this de-struction. To be sure, had the forces of Ar landed in Telnus, I do not think the results would have been much different. I myself, like many warriors, terribly enough, I suppose, tend to see war more as the most perilous and exhilarating of sports, a game of warriors and Ubars. Too, I am not unfond of loot, particularly when it is beautiful and well curved.
Temione had now reached the vat, and was carefully dip-ping her narrow, high-handled serving vessel in the simmer-ing paga. She had seemed to be crying, but perhaps it was merely the heat from the paga which she had, with the back of her hand, wiped from her eyes. Yet, I thought, too, I had seen her clench her fist, driving the nails into the palm of her hand, and her hips move, inadvertently, helplessly, in frustra-tion. It is hard for a woman to help such things when she is scantily clad and in a collar, when she is a slave.
To be sure, the Cosians had moved in an open, leisurely way, and even along the southern bank of the Vosk, rather than to the north. This seemed madness, for surely the Cosians could be pinned against the river and slaughtered. They would now be, as they had not been at Ars Station, heavily outnumbered. Perhaps Policrates, the camp commander, was unwise in the ways of war. But rather it seemed he might know he had little or nothing to fear. From what I had heard of him I was reasonably confident he knew what he was doing. Indeed, perhaps he was flaunting an immunity of some sort, political or treasonous. To be sure, the southern bank of the Vosk, because of the former extent of Ars Margin of Desolation, long ago abandoned, is much less populous than the northern bank. Also, of course, the Cosians were presum-ably moving toward either Brundisium, which had been the port of entry of their invasion fleet, or south to join Myron in the vicinity of Torcadino, where Dietrich of Tarnburg, the mercenary, lay at bay, like a larl in his den. There had been no attempt, at least as yet, for the fine forces of Ar, in all their power, to cut them off, to pin them against the Vosk, or meet them in battle. There were several thousand Cosians, and mercenaries, in our camp, but the forces of Ar, by repute, were in the neighborhood of some fifty thousand men, an incredible force for a Gorean community to maintain in the field. The common Gorean army is usually no more than four or five thousand men. Indeed, mercenary bands often number no more than one or two hundred. Dietrich of Tarnburg, in commanding something like five thousand men, is unusual. He is one of the most feared and redoubtable of the mercenary commanders on Gor. Surely his contracts are among the most expensive. But in spite of the invitation seemingly flagrantly offered by Policrates, the camp commander, general of the Cosian forces in the north, said once to have been a pirate, rescued from the galleys by Myron, Polemarkos of Temos, a cousin to Lurius of Jad, Ubar of Cos, the forces of Ar had not struck, even to restrict or harass foragers. Militarily it seemed Ars behavior was inexplicable. Perhaps, incredibly enough, they simply did not know the disposition, strength and loca-tion of the Cosian forces.
Temione had now filled her paga vessel. She picked up a goblet from a rack near the vat. The shelving on the rack was of narrow wooden rods. The goblets are kept upside down on the rods. In this way, washed, they can drain, and dry. This also affords them some protection from dust. I watched her carefully wipe the goblet. Woe to the slave who would dare to serve paga or wine in a dirty goblet!
I listened to the Vosk in the background, the murmur of conversation within the enclosure, the sounds of the camp.
The slave turned toward me.
Seeing my eyes on her, she put down her head. She approached, humbly, frightened, seemingly terribly conscious of my eyes on her.
How beautiful she was.
Master, she said, kneeling before me. She poured me paga, filling the goblet she had taken from the rack, from the vessel she carried.
Paga! called a fellow nearby, to a redhead, who swiftly hurried to kneel before him, her head to the dirt.
I smiled.
She had not dallied.
Any slave in such a place, of course, may be subjected to the discipline of a customer. It is little wonder that the girls, so subject to penalties, which may be promptly and severely administered, are concerned to be pleasing, and fully.
Master? asked Temione. I took the paga.
Will there be anything else? she asked, timidly. I sipped the paga. It was hot.
Your ankle is not belled, I said.
None of us are belled here, she said.
Her response suggested to me that she was probably un-aware of the rationale for this.
Your ankle would look well, belled, I said.
I have never been belled, she said, shyly.
Belling a girl makes it easier to find her in the dark, I said.
Doubtless, Master, she smiled.
It is common, though not universal, to bell paga slaves. The jangle of slave bells on them, as they move, is quite stimulat-ing. In the oasis towns of the Tahari, and in the vicinity of the great desert, sometimes even free women are belled, and wear ankle chains, as well, that the length of their stride may be measured and made beautiful, and perhaps, too, to remind them, even though they be free, that they are but women. Who knows when the slavers noose or net may fall upon one of them? Almost all female slaves, at one time or another, or at certain times, are belled. This is probably because bells are so beautiful on them, and so brilliantly and insightfully sym-bolic of their status as domestic animals, that they are proper-ties, that they are in bondage. Most girls walk proudly in their bells, their shoulders back and their heads up, gloriously proud of their fulfilled femininity. Sometimes they fear, though, to wear bells out-of-doors, for they may then be subjected to the attacks of outraged, frustrated free women, attacks which they, as slaves, must endure. Indoors, however, they are pleased to wear their bells, and often beg to do so. And the little she-sleen, I assure you, know well how to utilize those pleasant, remarkable little devices, so subtly and apparently innocently, to drive masters half mad with passion. When a girl fears she may be out of favor with her master, she sometimes kneels before him and begs, Bell me. In this simple request, asking to be belled, the slave puts herself in her place, at the feet of her master, reconfirms to him her humble and loving acceptance of her bondage, reassures him of her desire to please, and gives promise of slave delights so exciting and intimate that they can be known only among masters and their women. Sometimes, too, when a slave feels she may not have been sufficiently pleasing she will strip herself and approach the master on all fours, her head down, a whip in her teeth. It is her way of making clear to him her desire to please. It is usually much better, incidentally, for the slave to do this of her own accord than to be ordered to so approach the master. If it is he who has issued the order she may well be being summoned for punishment, or at least a severe upbraiding. If she approaches on her own accord she may well find forgiveness or, perhaps, a disciplining that is little more than symbolic. If she so approaches, however, on his order, as I have suggested, she may well fear. He will do what he wants with her. She is his, totally. The whip on Gor, incidentally, though it is much in evidence, is seldom used. That it will be used, and promptly, if the occasion arises, is perhaps, paradoxically perhaps, why it seldom needs to be used. Most girls avoid feeling it, at least generally, by striv-ing to be excellent slaves. To be sure, every female slave will have felt it, upon occasion. It is then common that they try to make certain that these occasions are quite infrequent. To be sure, some women do not fully understand they are owned, until they are whipped.
The gate to the paga enclosure suddenly flew open and cracked back against the railing.
It is Borton! cried a fellow, delightedly.
Let the festivities begin! called the newcomer, a large, broad-shouldered, heavily bearded fellow, flinging a heavy purse on its strings into the stomach of he whom I took to be Philebus, the taverner, who clutched at it, but failed to secure it, as it was jerked back on the strings. Philebus cried out in good-humored dismay. And then the fellow took the purse and thrust it down, firmly, into his hands.
I have been long aflight and have now reported to my captain, said he. I am weary of the saddle, and would have drink, and something softer to ride!
There was laughter, and cheering. Men crowded about him. The chained girls shrank down, frightened, making themselves as small and inconspicuous as they could, close to the post.
This fellow, I gathered, was well known. Unfortunately I, too, had once made his acquaintance.
Temione gasped. She, too, had recognized him.
He wore the uniform and insignia of the tarnsmen of Artemidorus, the well-known Cosian mercenary.
Let feasting begin! he called, expansively. There was more cheering. It is Borton! called a man. Borton has returned! cried another. Borton! said another. Others, taking note of the commotion, outside the railings, hastened now to enter. Philebus, as I took him to be, the taverner, and Temiones master, was calling out orders to a couple of fellows, his lieutenants, or assistants, I gathered, having to do with food and drink. One of them closed the gate of the enclosure. Some other fellows were climbing over the railing.
Are you not in my spot? inquired the newcomer heartily, of a poor fellow sitting rather near the center of the enclosure, usually regarded as a preferred position for prompt service, for observing the dancing of slaves, and such. Swiftly, on all fours, the fellow beat a hasty retreat.
There was again much laughter.
The fellow called Borton hurled his helmet down in the place, marking it for himself. Few, I gathered, would be eager to displace this token of his claimancy.
I put down the cup of paga, and tested the draw, an inch or so, of my blade.
No, fellow, whispered a man near me. That is Borton.
I had gathered that, I said.
He is one of the best swords in the camp, he warned me.
I returned my blade to the sheath, almost entirely.
Master, whispered Temione to me, breathless, her eyes shining. It is he.
Yes, I said. I did not then understand her emotion. It is he.
The newcomer strode to the post. The girls there, not yet serving, clung about it, in their neck chains, as though it might provide them some security, some safety or refuge. He pulled one and another of them about, examining them. He turned one over with his foot and had her lie before him, her back arched. Temione gasped, startled at the boldness with which the women were handled.
You, too, are a slave, 1 reminded her, and you, too, could be so treated.
I know, she said.
Bring me the girls in the cages! said the fellow, settling down in the spot he had marked for himself.
The two girls, in a moment, wincing, were brought forth by Philebus and, one of his hands in the hair of each, drawn hastily on all fours to his place. They were naked save for their collars. He thrust one to his side on the dirt, and threw the other, a blonde, on her back over his knees as he sat, cross-legged. Do not interfere, he warned her.
Borton! called a fellow cheerfully, from well across the enclosure, has it been necessary to redeem you from any inns lately!
I think I paid something in that fee! called another, a fellow also in the uniform of the tarnsmen of Artemidorus.
I paid you back, and fivefold, you sleen! roared Borton, laughing.
The girl across his knees, on her back, suddenly cried out, startled. Do not interfere, he warned her, again. The other girl, the one near him, in the dirt, made as though to edge away. No, you dont! he said. Stay here. She came then even closer to him, on her side, frightened and excited, and, lifting her head, timidly kissed him on the knee. The girl across his knees cried out again. Her eyes were open, looking up, wildly, at the moons. Her feet moved. Her hands opened and closed. She moaned.
Some weeks ago, said the man near me, before the fall of Ars Station, Borton, carrying dispatches for Artemidorus, stayed at an inn on the Vosk Road. There, while he refreshed himself with a morning bath, sonic rascal stole his clothing, his money, his tarn, the dispatches, everything.
Interesting, I said.
The fellow chuckled. He was kept at the inn, chained naked to a ring in the courtyard, until his bills, which I gather were considerable, had been satisfied.
Who redeemed him? I asked.
His fellows, said the man. Other tarnsmen in the command of Artemidorus, some days later, stopped at the inn. They were much amused to find him in such straits. They kept him as he was for two or three days, teasing him, and making him suffer much, raising his anxieties that they might not be able to scrape together his redemption fee, or that they had done so, but had then lost it in gambling, and such things, and also discussing, as you might well imagine, the honor of the troop, and whether or not one who was so foolish as to have gotten himself into such a predicament should be redeemed at all. He roared and ranted much, you may not doubt, but what could he do, naked in a courtyard, in chains! In the end, of course, after obtaining promises of immunity from him for their jokes, they redeemed him, and he was released.
Surely there must have been repercussions concerning the dispatches and such, I ventured.
They were not important, it seems, but routine. It is said they were not even coded. Too, his bravery, his skill with tarns and the sword, and such, were valued. To be sure, he was fined and reduced in rank. His monetary fortunes, I gather, if not his dignity, have been apparently recouped, presumably from loot distributed to the command of Art-emidorus, acquired in the fall of Ars Station.
You must flee, Master, whispered Temione to me.
I have not yet finished my paga, I said. To be sure, I had not expected to see this burly fellow again. I, and Ephialtes, had both had run-ins with him. In a camp of thousands, of course, in which there might be two dozen paga enclosures, I had had, it seems, to pick just this one. To be sure, it was not as absurd as it might seem for the enclosure of Philebus was said to be one of the best in the camp. I had inquired, naturally. At any rate, there was little to fear. The fellow had not seen me, and might not remember me. Besides, perhaps he would see the humor of the whole affair, and we might have a friendly drink together. But I moved the sword just a bit more from the sheath. A quarter of an inch, where hun-dredths of an Ihn are involved, can be a considerable advan-tage. In many situations, warriors discard the scabbard altogether. That is one reason it is often carried on a loop over the left shoulder, that it may be immediately, lest it prove an encumbrance, or present an encircling strap an enemy may seize, the blade drawn, discarded.
Roast tarsk! announced Philebus, proudly, approaching the burly fellow, gesturing to one of his helpers, who was accompanying him, bearing a tray of steaming meat. The burly fellow seized a joint of hot, dripping tarsk from the platter and bit into it. Excellent! beamed Philebus, then indicating to his assistant that he should carry the tray about, to serve others, as well. The other helper, too, was distribut-ing food, sausages and bread. One of the serving slaves, close behind Philebus, knelt before the burly fellow, putting her head to the dirt in obeisance, and then put a goblet of paga before him. When she straightened up Philebus, behind her, tore back the sides of her silk. Philebus was doubtless quite pleased with her, to so display her. He had probably personally used her many times. She was perhaps one of his best. She moved before the burly fellow, on her knees, excitingly, brazenly, lifting her hands to her body, as though the better to call attention to her charms, as a slave.
The forward hussy! exclaimed Temione, angrily. I hate her!
Temiones soft outburst, so indignant, interested me. Do you wish it was you, instead, who were so displaying your-self before him? I asked.
Cheers for Borton! called a fellow.
There were cheers. Thank you, I said. I took a piece of tarsk from the platter. If the fellow was so good as to treat us, it would surely have been boorish to refuse his hospitality.
Serve him! said Borton, laughing, chewing on the joint of tarsk, to the beauty kneeling before him, indicating a fellow he knew across the circle.
The beauty looked at him, startled, puzzled, as though for an instant she could not believe what she had heard, that she had been dismissed. I thought that anger then, for just an instant, suffused her countenance but then, suddenly terrified, as though she might suddenly have realized the unacceptabil-ity of her reaction, she hurried over to the fellow Borton had indicted, to fling herself to her stomach before him, desper-ately and zealously licking and kissing at his feet. You will be whipped tonight, Philebus assured her. Yes, Master, she moaned. She had been slow to obey. The female slave is to obey instantly and unquestioningly.
Thank you, I said to the other helper, taking a sausage from the plate.
It serves her right! whispered Temione.
The lash? I asked.
Of course, she said. She was slow.
The girl on her back, she stretched over the knees of the burly fellow, cried out, hot juice having fallen on her body from the joint of tarsk.
Paga for all, from our host, the noble Borton! called Philebus. Girls rushed about, serving. I put out my hand, keeping Temione in her place. Master? she asked. You are serving me, I said.
Philebus unlocked even the holding collars on the neck chains of the girls at the post, that they, too, might participate in the serving. Swiftly, as soon as they were freed, they leaped up to do so. He glanced once at Temione, who moved, frightened, but he did not signal to her to rise. Clearly she was with me.
I took a piece of bread from the platter of the second assistant, as he came by again. Thank you, I said. Had Marcus been with me he, too, might have obtained a free supper.
The burly fellow had now had what he wanted from the joint of tarsk and had thrown its residue to friend a few feet away. He wiped his hands on the body of the slave across his knees.
What a brute he is! exclaimed Temione, softly.
But a skillful one, it seems, I said.
The girl across the burly fellows knees squirmed and made small sounds. She could now no longer control her body.
What a crude, brutish fellow he is! said Temione, angrily. Are you angry, I asked, that it is not you who are in his power?
A toast to Borton the noble, Borton the generous! called a fellow, rising unsteadily.
A toast, a toast! called others.
I joined, too, in this toast. It pleased me to do so.
I saw that Temione could not take her eyes off the bearded fellow. Long ago, Temione, like Amina, Klio, Elene, Rimice and Liomache, had been one of those women who makes her living off men. She, like the others, however, when I had met her, probably due to the war, the scarcity of genteel travelers, the crowds of impoverished refugees, the high prices, and so on, had fallen on hard times. Their bills unpaid, and their evasions not satisfying the inns attendants, they had been taken, ropes on their necks, before the keeper. He had put them on a bench in a wheeled cage, honorably clothed, near the checkout desk, where they might importune men to pay their bills. This proving unavailing he had had them stripped and searched by powerful free women and then returned to the cage, on the bench much as before, though now unclothed and absolutely coinless. Later he had had them taken from the cage and ankle-tied, on their knees, near the checkout desk, their hands freed that they might the more piteously and meaningfully supplicate guests of the inn. At the seventeenth Ahn the keeper, perhaps tiring of their presence near his desk, and despairing of them being immediately redeemed, had had them cleared away. For the first time in their lives they had then worn chains. In particular, I had met the former Lady Temione, of Cos, in the Paga Room, where, naked, and shackled, she had served as my waitress. It had been in the Paga Room, too, that she had first made the acquaintance of the fellow I now knew as Borton. He had cruelly scorned her, as she was free, and refused even, and in rage, to be served by her. Bring me a woman! he had cried. Bring me a woman! This had been a great blow to her vanity, her self-esteem and pride, as she, like most free women had regarded herself as some sort of marvelous prize. Then, in effect, she had found herself, by this magnificent brute of a male, a warrior, doubtless a superb and practiced judge of female flesh, for such commonly frequent the markets, re-jected as a woman, flung aside with contempt. She had even watched him, later in the Paga Room, with fascination and horror, and, I think, with jealous envy, use a slave, skillfully, lengthily, exultantly and with authority. There had been little doubt about the slaves superiority to her. That night, after I had left the Paga Room, I had arranged for the Lady Temione to be brought to the space I had rented. It seemed to me that she might be able to use some reassurance as to her feminin-ity, even if she was a mere free woman. Also I had noted that she had been much aroused by the brutes uncompromising mastery of the slave. Why should I not capitalize on that? Too, I had wanted her, and she was cheap. She would serve to relieve my tensions, if nothing else. It had pleased me to put her through some paces, mostly suitable for a free woman, though, to be sure, one who is a debtor slut. As luck would have it, given our late arrivals at the inn, Borton and I had been rented nearby spaces. In this way, the Lady Temione had come once more to his attention. He had been somewhat rude to her, as I recall, referring to her as fat, stupid, a she-tarsk and not worth sleen feed. To be sure she was then only a free woman. He had also requested me, as I recalled, to remove her from his presence. Get that thing out of my sight, was the way he put it, I think. I thought him some-what rude. Fortunately the keepers man arrived in time to prevent an altercation. After the keepers man had shouldered the Lady Temione and carried her off, head to the back, as slave is commonly carried, presumably to a chaining ring or kennel for the night, I had not seen her until she, with others, blindfolded, were kneeling before me, naked and in coffle, in the camp of Cos, not far from Ars Station. When women are not redeemed from an inn, or such, they are commonly disposed of to slavers. When one pays the redemption fees, of course, the woman is yours, to do with as you please. For example, you may free her, or, if you wish, sell her, or make her your slave. Before the arrival of the keepers man the burly fellow had much scorned and abused Lady Temione, intimidating and terrifying her. He had even had her, though she was free, use the word Master to him. This had startled myself and Ephialtes, who had been present, and perhaps the woman, as well. It was apparently the first time she had ever used the word Master to a man. I looked now at Temione, the slave. I suddenly realized she had never forgotten the burly fellow. She was looking at him. Yes, doubtless, he was the first man to whom she had ever addressed the word Master.
The burly fellow now permitted the trembling, gasping woman across his knees some surcease of his attentions. He quaffed paga. She then arched her body, lifting it up to him, piteously, pleadingly, moaning. Lie still, he said to her. Yes, Master, she wept. He brushed back the other woman, too, who lay beside him, as she tried, with her lips and tongue, to call herself to his attention, to importune him. I did not think either of those women would have to be kept again in the tiny cages, unless perhaps for punishment or to amuse the master. They were both now, obviously, ready to serve men.
Let slaves present themselves! called the fellow, lifting his vessel of paga.
The parade of slaves! called a man. The parade of slaves!
Yes, yes! called others.
The parade of slaves, as it is sometimes called, com-monly takes place in venues such as paga taverns and broth-els. It may also, of course, take place elsewhere, for example, in the houses of rich men, at dinners, banquets, and so on. It is a presentation of beauty and attractions. The slaves present themselves, usually one by one, often to the accompaniment of music, for the inspection of the guests. It is in some ways not unlike certain fashion shows of Earth, except, of course, that its object is generally not to merchandise slave wear, though it can have such a purpose, but to present the goods of the house, so to speak, for perusal. Whereas in the common fashion show of Earth the woman considers the clothing and the man considers the women, and the women serve the ulterior purposes of the designer, in the parade of slaves there are generally no free women present, and the men, openly, lustily, consider the beauty of the women, as it was meant by nature to be considered, as that of slaves, and the women serve the ulterior purposes not of a designer, but of a master, who will, in the event of their selection, collect their rent fees, or such. To be sure, the women serve themselves, too, but not in the trivial sense of obtaining money, but in the more profound senses, psychological and biological, of ex-pressing and fulfilling their nature. To be sure, the women must fear, for they may be taken out of themselves, so to speak, and forced helplessly into ecstasy.
I heard a swirl from a flute, the simple flute, not the double flute, and the quick pounding of a small tabor, these instru-ments now in the hands of Philebus assistants. The slaves about the enclosure looked wildly at one another, frightened, yet terribly excited. Then, as startling as a gunshot, there was the sudden crack of a whip in the hand of Philebus. The girls cried out in fear, in their collars and scanty silks. Even Temione, near me, recoiled. It was a sound not unfamiliar to female slaves.
Dora! called Philebus.
Immediately one, of the girls, a sensuous, widely hipped, sweetly breasted slave, half walking, half dancing, to the music, swirled among the guests and then presented herself particularly before the burly fellow, moving before him, back and forth, facing him, turning about.
Lana! called Philebus, and Dora swirled away, twirling, from the center of the presentation area, to complete her circuit of the area, doing her best to evade the caresses and clutches of men, and then knelt, in the background.
The girl whom the burly fellow had consigned to the pleasure of his friend leaped to her feet and began her own circuit of the area, in much the same manner as her predeces-sor, Dora. She was an exciting, leggy wench, and the light-ness of her silk, its brevity, and the partedness of her bodice, thanks to Philebus, left few of her charms to the imagination. She was the sort of woman who might initially be tempted to give a master a bit of difficulty, but I did not think that this difficulty would be such that it could not be easily remedied, and prevented from reoccurring, with a few blows of the whip. She looked well in her collar, and I had little doubt that, under proper discipline, she would be grateful, loving and hot in it.
Aiii! cried a fellow, saluting the beauty of the parading slave.
She postured seductively before him.
How beautiful she is, said Temione.
Aiii! cried out another fellow.
But the burly fellow, with a laugh, and a movement of his goblet, dismissed her.
This time she hurried away, immediately, moving beauti-fully, among the men, in the circuit of slave display. She had not dallied an instant. She had been dismissed.
Tula! called Philebus, and another wench sprang to her feet.
Lana, her circuit completed, returned to the side of the fellow to whom the burly fellow had consigned her earlier. She was still his, by the will of another, until she would be released.
Lina! called Philebus. She was short-legged and plump, juicy, as it is said, with a marvelous love cradle. Such often make superb slaves. They commonly bring high prices in the markets.
I am afraid, said Temione.
Lina blushed at the raucous commendations showered upon her. Then she, too, dismissed, swirled about, away from the center, and went to kneel in the back.
Sucha! called Philebus. She, too, was short, but very darkly complexioned. I suspected she might be a Tahari girl, or one from that region.
Ina! called Philebus. She was taller, and blond, perhaps from a village near Laura. Although she was blond, it was clear that slave fires had been ignited in her belly. I smiled. I did not doubt but what she, even though blond, would be as helpless now in the arms of a man as the most common of slaves.
Susan! called Philebus. Susan was a redhead.
The girl who had been across the burly fellows knees had now been thrust to his right and she lay there in the dirt, watching the parade of slaves. She was breathless. Her eyes shone. The other girl, on the fellows left, had risen to her hands and knees. She gasped. She seemed awestricken and excited. Down said the fellow to her. She then, and the other, curled close to him, one on each side, excitedly watch-ing the self-presentations of the slaves. Each, from time to time, kissed at the burly fellow, as though to remind him that they, too, were about, and women, and ready.
Jane! called Philebus. Jane was a very shapely and curvaceous brunet. The names Susan and Jane are Earth-girl names, but this did not mean that these girls had to be Earth girls. Earth-girl names are commonly used on Gor as slave names. They may have been once from Earth, of course. However, even if that were the case, they were now naught but Gorean slave girls, properties, salable, tradable, and such, now only lascivious, uninhibited owned women, slaves. I mention that they may once have been from Earth because that is a real possibility, having to do with the slave trade. Ships of Kurii, as the evidence makes clear, regularly ply slave routes between Earth and Gor. That is why I mention that possibility.
Jasmine, Feize! called Philebus.
I cannot present myself, wept Temione to me.
Do you prefer the lash? I asked.
He scorns me, he holds me in contempt, she said. He would laugh at me. He would ridicule and mock me! He threw me from him in disgust! He thinks of me as ugly, as fat, as stupid, as a she-sleen, as one who is not worth sleen feed, as one so ugly and disgusting that he would have me taken from his sight!
But now, I said, you are a slave.
She looked at me, wildly.
"Temione! called Philebus.
Instantly Temione, in a sensuous flash of beauty, was on her feet.
I gasped.
Ah! cried several of the men.
She was a slave, and totally!
She moved about, away and among the men, in her mo-ment in the parade of slaves, on that dirt circuit among masters, Goreans, larls among men, uncrippled, unsoftened, untamed beasts, categorical, uncompromising owners of women, and she a woman, inutterably desirable and vulnera-ble, soft and beautiful, owned, such as they might have at their feet, among them!
Aiii! said a fellow.
But she had drawn back from him, as though fearfully, but yet in such a way that he was under no delusion that her wholeness, in his grasp, or in that of another, would yield untold pleasure.
I forced myself to look about.
The burly fellow had lowered his goblet.
Philebus himself seemed startled. I think he had not real-ized what he had owned, until then.
The kneeling girls in the back, too, watched, some rising up from their heels. They looked at Temione, and at one another. Some gasped. Some seemed startled, others stunned. It was as though they could not believe their eyes. They had not, until then, I gathered, no more than Philebus, nor I, suspected the depth and extent of the female, and slave, in Temione. Some of them tore open their silk, and squirmed on their knees, in the dirt, in need. Seeing how beautiful a woman could be, and how desirable, they, too, wanted so to writhe and move, and, in doing so, to bring themselves, too, to the attention of masters, that they might beg some assuagement for their needs of submission and love.
There was the sound of the flute and drum. There was the firelight, the men about, the enclosure, the Vosk in the background, the firelight and the slave.
So beautiful, whispered a man.
Gold pieces, said another man, appraising the luscious property slut.
Yes, yes! agreed another, excitedly.
She paused before me, in her circuit, her hands moving on her thighs, her shoulders and breasts moving.
I sipped paga. Then I dismissed her, with a small move-ment of my head. 
She spun away.
Now she was approaching the burly fellow.
It was pleasant to observe her, the owned, collared, silked, barefoot beauty.
Then the slave stood before the burly fellow, her shoulders back, her head up, proud in her slavery, unabashedly exultant in it, her body seeming hardly to move, but yet revealing, and obedient to, as must be the body of a slave in the parade, the music.
Ah! said the burly fellow, his eyes shining.
She regarded him. Surely he must recognize her!
Then she moved, back and forth, before him. His hand was tight on the goblet. The girls in the back murmured. He did not dismiss Temione. He kept her before him.
Men looked at one another, grinning.
Temione moved before the fellow, here and there, in one direction or another, twirling about, walking, approaching, withdrawing, approaching. Still he did not dismiss her. Once, as she moved away from the fellow, our eyes met. She seemed startled, puzzled. It seemed she had expected he must surely recognize her! Doubtless she had been prepared to be again scorned, to be rebuffed, to be ordered from his sight, to be sent away, perhaps even struck, but he had not yet even released her from the prime display area, that before him, near the center of the circle. In another moment, as she again faced me, I could not help but take in, in a glance, together with her consternation and puzzlement, the excitingness of her shapely, bared legs, her exquisite ankles and feet, the marvelous lineaments of her hips, waist and breasts, well betrayed by the silk she wore, that mockery of a garment, suitable for a slave, the sweetness of her upper arms and forearms, the smallness of her hands and fingers, her shoul-ders, her throat, encircled by its collar, her delicate, sensi-tive, beautiful face, the total marvelousness of her! Perhaps it was understandable then, I thought, that he had not recog-nized, in this beautiful and exciting slave, the mere free woman he had earlier so scorned and abused. Perhaps few men would have, at least at first. And yet she was, in a sense, the same woman, only now fixed helplessly in bondage.
Then she was again before him.
No, he did not recognize her.
Then she stood boldly before him, as though challenging him to recognize her!
But he still did not recognize her!
Then boldly, suddenly, she tore back her silk before him. The girls in the background gasped. Men leaned forward. The hand of Philebus tightened on the whip he held. He half lifted it.

But the girl noted him not. Her eyes were on the burly fellow, and his on her, raptly, startled, stunned.
Then she put herself to the dirt before him in what, had she been a dancer, and on a different surface, might have been termed floor movements, such things as turnings and twist-ings, rollings and crawlings, sometimes on her hands and knees, sometimes on her stomach; sometimes, too, she would be kneeling, sitting, or lying, or half sitting, half lying, or half kneeling, half lying; I saw her on her back and stomach, sometimes lifting her body; I noted, too, she was excellent on her side, one and the other, both facing him, and away, in her movements; I regarded her crawling, on her hands and knees, or on her stomach, sometimes lifting her body; sometimes she would look back over her shoulder, perhaps as though in fear or even, it seemed, sometimes, challenging him to recognize her; sometimes she would approach him, crawling, head down, sometimes head up, or turned demurely to the side; then she would be again sitting, or kneeling, or lying, extend-ing her limbs, displaying them, drawing them back, flexing them; sometimes she recoiled or contracted, as though into herself, drawing attention to herself, to her smallness and vulnerability, her curves, as a helpless, compact, delicious love bundle; I saw, too, that she knew the Turian knee walk. Men cried out with pleasure. And in all this, of course, time was kept with the music.
I glanced to the burly fellow. His knuckles were white on goblet, his hand so clenched upon it.
Is master pleased? inquired Philebus.
Yes! Yes! cried the burly fellow.
Yes! cried others.
With his goblet the burly fellow indicated that the slave might rise.
She stood then before him. Though she scarcely moved, in her body yet was the music. I did not think Philebus would use the whip on her for having parted her silk, unbidden, or for having put herself to the dirt before Borton, his customer. Such delicious spontaneities, incidentally, are often encour-aged in a slave by a private master. Bondage is a condition in which imagination and inventiveness in a slave are highly appropriate. Indeed some masters encourage them with the whip. In a public situation, however, as in a paga tavern, it is advisable that the girl be very careful, at least in her masters presence. She must not let it appear that she is, even for an instant, out of the masters complete control, and, of course, in the ultimate sense, this is entirely true. She is, in the end, his, and completely. If a girl, say, one new to slavery, does not know this, she soon learns it, and well.
Come, come, said Borton, gesturing with his left hand and the goblet in his right, bring them all forward!
Philebus, with the whip, gestured the girls in the back-ground forward and they hurried forward, in their silk, their feet soft in the dirt, and they knelt, in a semicircle behind, and about, Temione, her silk parted, who still stood.
Perhaps master is ready to make a choice for the eve-ning? asked Philebus.
There was laughter.
The question, surely, was rhetorical.
With his coiled whip Philebus, expansively, indicated the girls, like a merchant displaying wares, or a confectioner displaying candies, and, in a sense, I suppose, he was both.
There was more laughter.
I did not think there was much doubt what the burly fellows choice would be.
The two fellows who had supplied the music were silent. One wiped the flute, the other was addressing himself to the tabor, loosening some pegs, relaxing the tension of the drumhead. The drumhead is usually made of verrskin, as most often are wineskins.
Can they dance? asked the burly fellow, as though his mind might not yet be made up.
The taborist looked up.
Alas, no, cried Philebus, in mock dismay, none of my girls are dancers!
The taborist continued his work.
There were cries of mock disappointment from the crowd.
I will dance, said Temione.
The slave girls shrank back, gasping. There was silence in the enclosure. Philebus, in rage, lifted his whip. But the burly fellow indicated that he should lower it.
Forgive me, Master, said Temione. She had spoken without permission.
You do not know how to dance, said Philebus.
Please, Master, said Temione.
You beg permission to dance before this man? asked Philebus.
Yes, Master, she said.
Let her dance! called a man.
Let her dance! called another.
Yes! said others.
Philebus looked to Borton, the burly fellow. Let her dance, he said.
Philebus glanced at his fellows, and the one tried a short schedule of notes on the flute, the other retightened the pegs on the tabor.
Borton looked quizzically at the girl before him, so beauti-ful, and owned.
She did not meet his eyes.
Let the melody be soft, and slow, and simple, said Philebus to the flutist, who nodded.
May I speak, Master, asked Temione.
Yes, said Philebus.
May the melody also be, said she, one in which a slave may be well displayed.
A block melody? asked the flutist, addressing his ques-tion to Philebus.
No, said Philebus, nothing so sensuous. Rather, say, the Hope of Tina. 
Approval from the crowd met this proposal. The reference to block melodies had to do with certain melodies which are commonly used in slave markets, in the display of the merchandise. Some were apparently developed for the pur-pose, and others simply utilized for it. Such melodies tend to be sexually stimulating, and powerfully so, both for the merchandise being vended, who must dance to them, and for the buyers. It is a joke of young Goreans to sometimes whistle, or hum, such melodies, apparently innocently, in the presence of free women who, of course, are not familiar with them, and do not understand their origins or significance, and then to watch them become restless, and, usually, after a time, disturbed and apprehensive, hurry away. Such women, of course, will doubtless recall such melodies, and at last understand the joke, if they find themselves naked on the sales block, in house collars, dancing to them. Some women, free women, interestingly, even when they do not fully un-derstand such melodies, are fascinated with them and try to learn them. Such melodies, in a sense, call out to them. They hum them to themselves. They sing them in private, and so on. Too, not unoften, on one level or another, they begin to grow careless of their security and safety; they begin, in one way or another, to court the collar. The Hope of Tina, a melody of Cos which would surely be popular with most of the fellows present, on the other hand, was an excellent choice. It was supposedly the expression of the yearning, or hope, of a young girl that she may be so beautiful, and so feminine, and marvelous, that she will prove acceptable as a slave. As Temione was from Cos I had little doubt that she would be familiar with the melody. To be sure, it did have something of the sensuousness of a block melody about it. Yet I thought, even so, she would probably know it. It was the sort of melody of which free women often claim to be completely ignorant but, when pressed, prove to be familiar, surprisingly perhaps, with its every note.
Why do you wish to dance before me? asked the burly fellow of the slave.
Did Master not wish to see a woman dance? she asked.
Yes, he said.
Surely then, she said, that is reason enough.
He regarded her, puzzled. It was clear he did not recall her, but also clear, for he was no fool, that he suspected more was afoot than a mere compliance with a masterly whim, even though such whims, for the slave, in many contexts, constitute orders of iron.
Why do you wish to dance? he asked.
Perhaps, she said, it is that a master may be pleased, perhaps it is simply that I am a slave.
I saw Philebus hand tighten on the handle of the whip.
Do I know you? asked Borton.
I think not, Master, she said, truthfully enough.
She put her hands over her head, her wrists back to back.
She is beautiful! said a fellow.
Dance, Slave, said Philebus.
Ah! cried men.
To be sure, Temione was not a dancer, not in the strict, or trained sense, but she could move, and marvelously, and so, somehow, she did, swaying before him, and turning, but usually facing him, as though she wished not to miss an expression or an emotion that might cross his countenance. Yet, too, uncompromisingly, she was one with the music, and, particularly in the beginning, with the story, seeming to examine her own charms, timidly, as if, like the Tina of the song, she might be considering her possible merits, whether or not she might qualify for bondage, whether or not she might somehow prove worthy of it, if only, perhaps, by inward compensations of zeal and love, whether or not she might, with some justification, aspire to the collar. Then later it seemed she danced her slavery openly, unabashedly, sensu-ously, so slowly, and so excitingly, before the men and, in particular, before the burly fellow. Surely now, all doubts resolved, there was no longer a question about the suitability of bondage for such a woman.
She can dance! said a man.
She should be trained! said another.
See her, said another.
Has she not had training? asked one of Philebus.
No, said Philebus. Only days ago I bought her free.
See her, said yet another.
It is instinctual in a woman, said another.
I tended to agree with the fellow about the instinctuality of erotic dance in a female. The question is difficult, to be sure, but I am confident that there are genetic codings which are germane to such matters. Certainly the swiftness and skill with which women attain significant levels of proficiency in the art form argues for the involvement of biological laten-cies. It is easy to speculate, in general terms, on such laten-cies having been selected for in a variety of ways, for example, in noting their affinity with movements of love and luring, their value in displaying the female, their capacity to stimu-late the male, their utility in pleasing and placating men, and such. The woman who can move well, who can dance well, so to speak, and please men in many ways, is more likely to be spared, and bred. Many is the woman who has survived by dancing naked before conquerors in the hot ashes of a burning city, who, perhaps ostensibly lamenting, but inwardly thrilled, sensing the appropriateness and perfection of her imminent bondage, has put forth her fair limbs for the clasp of chains and her lovely neck for the closure of the collar. Yes, I thought, there is, in the belly of every woman, somewhere, a dancer. Too, I was not unaware that in certain cases, as in that of Temione now, as she was not as yet really skilled, and was certainly untrained, the man himself might make a differ-ence. One man might, and another might not, at her present stage, call forth the dancing slave in her. What woman has not considered to herself what it might be like to dance naked before some man or another, one before whom she knows she could be naught but his slave?
Beautiful! said a man.
Temione was pleased.
The collar looked well on her neck. It belonged there. There was no doubt about it.
How she looked at the burly fellow! He was now so taken with her he could hardly move.
Now the exquisite slut began to sense her power, that of her beauty and desirability.
She had determined, I now realized, from the first moment she had leaped to her feet, obedient to the command of her master, Philebus, that she would make test of her woman-hood, that she would, courageously, regardless of the conse-quences, risking contempt and perhaps even punishment, display herself before him, this rude fellow who had once so scorned and tyrannized her as a free woman, as what she now was, ultimately and solely, female and slave. To be sure, she, new to her slavery, had perhaps not fully realized that she had really no choice in this matter but, willing or not, must do so, and to the best of her ability, in total perfection.
Borton moaned in desire, scarcely daring to move, his eyes glistening, fixed on the dancing slave.
How bondage had transformed Temione! What is the magic, the mystery of the brand, the collar, I wondered, that by means of them such marvels might be wrought? It had to do, I supposed, with the nature of woman, her deepest needs, with the order of nature, with the pervasive themes of domi-nance and submission. In bondage woman is in her place in nature, and she will not be truly happy until she is there. Given this, it may be seen that, in a sense, the brand and collar, as lovely and decorative as they are, and as exciting and profoundly meaningful as they are, when they are fixed on a woman, and she wears them, and as obviously important as they are from the point of view of property law, may be viewed not so much as instituting or producing bondage as recognizing it, as serving, in a way, as tokens, or outward signs, of these marvelous inward truths, these ultimate reali-ties. The true slave knows that her slavery, her natural slav-ery, is not a matter of the brand and collar, which have more to do with legalities, but of herself. She may love her brand and collar, and beg them, and rejoice in them, but I do not think this is merely because they make her so exciting, desirable and beautiful; I think it is also, at least, because they proclaim publicly to the world what she is, because by means of them her deepest truth, freeing her of concealments and deceits, cutting through confusions, resolving doubts, ending hesitancies, making her at last whole and one, to her joy, is marked openly upon her. The true slave is within the woman. She knows it is there. She will not be happy until she terminates inward dissonances, until she casts out rending contradictions, until she achieves emotional, moral, physio-logical and psychological consistency, until she surrenders to her inward truths.
May I speak, Master? Temione asked of the burly fellow, swaying before him.
How bold she was!
Yes, he said, huskily.
Does Master find a slave pleasing? he asked.
Yes! he said.
Perhaps even exciting? she inquired.
Yes, yes! he said, almost in pain.
I am not too fat, am I? she asked.
No! he said. No! It might be mentioned that as a slave girl is a domestic animal her diet is subject to supervi-sion. Most masters will give some attention to the girls diet, her rest, exercises, training, and so on. Some slavers, with certain markets in mind, such as certain of the Tahari mar-kets, deliberately fatten slaves before their sale, sometimes keeping them in small cages, sometimes even force-feeding them, and so on. Most masters, on the other hand, will try to keep their slaves at whatever dimensions and weights are thought to be optimum for her health and beauty.
Perhaps Master thinks I am stupid, she said.
No, he said. No! Properties such as intelligence and imagination are prized in female slaves. It helps them, obvi-ously, to be better slaves. Too, it is pleasant to dominate such women, totally.
Does Master think I am a she-tarsk? she asked.
No! he cried.
Beware, Philebus cautioned her, his whip in hand.
Let her speak, let her speak, said the burly fellow, tensely.
I did not think the swaying slave would be likely to be mistaken for a she-tarsk. She might, however, as she was acting, be mistaken for something of a she-sleen. To be sure, the whip can quickly take that sort of thing from a woman.
Alas, she lamented, I am not worth even sleen feed!
No! cried the burly fellow. Do not say that! You are exquisite!
But such a charge has been cited against me, she moaned.
By some wretch I wager! said he, angrily.
If Master will have it so, she demurred.
Would that I had him here, he said. I would well chastise him, and with blows, did he not retract his judgment, belabor him for his lack of taste! In fairness to the burly fellow, it had been Temione the free woman against whom he had leveled that charge, not Temione, the slave. There was obviously a great deal of difference between the two, even if Temione herself was not yet that aware of it.
Alas that I am so ugly! she said.
Absurd! he cried. You are beautiful!
Master is too kind, she said.
You are the most beautiful slave I have ever seen! When he said this I noted that a pleased look came over the features of Philebus. He would not now, I suspected, be willing to let Temione go easily, if at all.
Surely Master speaks so to all the slaves, she said.
No! he said.
That you will have the poor slaves open and gush with oil at your least touch.
No! he cried. She did not understand as yet, I gathered, given her newness to slavery, that such, emotional and physi-cal responsiveness, was expected of, and required of, all slaves, at the touch of any master.
Can it be then, Master, she asked, that you do not wish to cast me from you?
I do not understand, he said.
Will you not order me from your presence, she asked, or have me dragged from your sight?
No! he cried.
Then Master finds me of some interest? she asked.
Yes! he howled in pain.
I saw that he wanted to leap to his feet and seize her. I did not think he would be able to get her even as far as one of the small alcove tents within the enclosure. More likely, she would be flung to the dirt and publicly ravished, before the fire, even where she had danced. She might then, in a moment, bruised in his ardor, gasping in her collar, be dragged to an alcove, and forced again and again to serve, until dawn, until at last she might lie soft against him, by his thigh, in her collar, having served to quench for a time the flames of so mighty a lust, one which she, as a slave, had aroused and which she, as a slave, must satisfy.
A girl is pleased, she said.
The music stopped, and the girl, instinctively, among the others, fell to the dirt and lay there before him, on her back, looking at him, her breasts heaving, a submitted slave.
The burly fellow threw aside his goblet and leaped to his feet.
Men rose up, crying out with pleasure, striking their left shoulders.
I must have her! cried the burly fellow.
The girls about Temione looked at one another, excited, but fearfully. Tonight the paga would flow. Tonight they would hurry about, serving well. Tonight much pleasuring would take place within the enclosure. Let them prepare to work, and hard. And let them anticipate their helplessness in the grasp of strong masters.
Superb! called out a man.
Superb! cried another.
Temione now was on her hands and knees, frightened.
I will buy her! cried out the burly fellow.
She is not for sale! cried Philebus.
Name your price! cried the burly fellow.
Temione, on her hands and knees, looked up, frightened, at her master. She could, of course, be sold as easily as a sleen or tarsk.
She is not for sale, said Philebus.
A silver tarsk! cried the burly fellow. Men whistled at the price he was willing to put out for the slave, particularly in a time and place where there was no dearth of beautiful women, a time and place in which they were plentiful, and cheap. Two! said the burly fellow.
Temione shuddered.
She is not for sale! said Philebus.
Show her to me! said the burly fellow.
Philebus, not gently, jerked Temione back on her heels, so that she was kneeling, kicked apart her knees, which she, in her terror, had neglected to open, and thrust up her chin. She looked at the burly fellow, her knees apart.
I know you from somewhere, do I not? he said.
Perhaps, Master, she stammered.
What is the color of your hair? he asked, peering at it in the flickering light, in the half darkness.
Auburn, Master, she said.
A natural auburn? he asked.
Yes, Master, she said. It is not wise for a girl to lie about such things. She may be easily found out. There are penalties, incidentally, for a slaver passing off a girl for an auburn slave when she is not truly so. Auburn hair, as I have indicated, is prized in slave markets. The fact that Temiones hair, like that of the other debtor skits at the Crooked Tarn, bad been shaved off, to be sold for catapult cordage, may have been one reason that the burly fellow had not recognized her. At the Crooked Tarn, when he had seen her, she had had her full head of hair. It had been very beautiful, even shorn, hanging on the rack in the courtyard of the Crooked Tarn.
I think I know you, he said.
Perhaps, Master, she said. Then she cried out with fear, and bent over, cringing, in terror, for Philebus had cracked the whip near her.
Speak clearly, slave, said Philebus.
My hair is grown out a little now, she said, looking up, frightened, at the burly fellow. It was shaved off before. It is grown out a little now!
Speak, slave, said Philebus. Where do you know him from? He snapped the whip again, angrily.
From the Crooked Tarn, Master! she cried, but looking, frightened, at the burly fellow.
You! he cried.
Yes, Master! she said.
The free woman! he cried.
But now a slave, Master, she said, now a slave! Ho! cried he. What a fool you have made of me! No, Master! she said, fearfully.
You fooled me well! he said.
No, Master! she wept.

An amusing little slave, he commented.
She dared not respond, nor meet his eyes.
A gold piece for her, said the burly fellow.
The slave moaned.
Two, said the burly fellow. Ten.
Do you think you are a special slave, or a high slave? asked Philebus of the girl, moving the coils of the whip near her.
No, Master! she said.
Twenty pieces of gold, said the burly fellow.
You are drunk, said Philebus.
No, said the burly fellow. I have never been more sober in my life.
The girl shuddered.
I want you, said Borton to the girl.
May I speak? she asked.
He nodded.
What would Master do with me? she asked, quaveringly.
What I please, he said.
Do you have twenty pieces of gold, Borton? called out one of the fellows nearby.
Borton scowled, darkly.
There was laughter. His finances, I gathered, may have been somewhat in arrears since the time of the Crooked Tarn.
Ten silver tarsks, said Borton, grinning.
That is a superb price, Philebus, said a fellow. Sell her!
Yes, sell her! urged another.
She is not for sale, said Philebus.
There were some cries of disappointment.
But perhaps, said Philebus to Borton, you would care to use her for the evening? This announcement was greeted with enthusiasm by the crowd. The girl, kneeling and small, trembled in her collar, in the midst of the men. Philebus handed the whip to Borton, who shook out the coils. She is, you see, said Philebus, merely one of my paga sluts.
There was laughter. It was true, of course.
And there will be no charge! he said.
Excellent, Philebus! said more than one man.
The girl looked at the whip, now in the hand of Borton, with a kind of awe.
May I speak? she asked.
Yes, said Borton.
Is Master angry with the slave? she asked.
He smiled. He cracked the whip once, viciously. She drew back, fearfully.
Use it on her well, Borton, my friend, said Philebus. It is well deserved by any slut and perhaps particularly so by one such as she. Did she not part her silk without permission? Did she not put herself to the dirt before you, unbidden? Did she not speak at least once without permission, either implicit or explicit?
May I speak, Master? asked Temione.
He indicated that she might, with the tiniest flicker of an expression.
Forgive me, Master, she said, if I have angered you. Forgive me, if I have offended you in any way. Forgive me, if I have failed to be fully pleasing.
He moved the whip, slowly. She stared at it, terrified, mesmerized.
Am I to be beaten? asked Temione.
Come here, he said, indicating a place on the dirt before him. She did not dare to rise to her feet. She went to her hands and knees that she might crawl to the spot he had specified.
Hold, I said, rising.
All eyes turned toward me, startled.
She is serving me, I said.
There were cries of astonishment.
Beware, fellow, said a man. That is Borton!
As I understand the common rules of a paga tavern, under which governances I understand this enclosure to func-tion, I have use of this slave until I see fit to relinquish her, or until the common hour of closing, or dawn, as the case may be, unless I pay overage. Alternatives to such rules are to be made clear in advance, say, by announcement or public posting.
She was not serving you! said a fellow. 
Were you serving me? I asked the slave. 
Yes, Master, she said.
And have I dismissed you from my service? I asked.
No, Master, she said.
That is Borton! said a man to me.
I am pleased to make his acquaintance, I said. Actually this was not entirely candid on my part.
Who are you? asked Borton.
I am pleased to meet you, I assured him.
Who are you? he asked.
A pleasant fellow, I said, one not looking for trouble. Borton cast aside the whip. His sword left its sheath.
Men moved back.
Aii! cried a man. My sword, too, had left its sheath. I did not see him draw! said a man.
Let us not have trouble, gentlemen, urged Philebus.
Wait! cried Borton, suddenly. Wait! Wait! I know you! I know you!
I glanced quickly to my left. There was a fellow there. I thought I could use him.
It is he, too, who was at the Crooked Tarn! cried Borton, wildly. It is he who stole the dispatches, he who so discomfited me, he who made off with my coins, my cloth-ing, my gear, my tarn!
I supposed Borton could not be blamed entirely for his ill will. The last time I had seen him, before this evening, I aflight, astride his tarn, hovering the bird, preparing shortly to make away, he had been in the yard of the Crooked Tarn, chained naked there, still soaked wet from the bath, to a sleen ring. It had been strong enough to hold him, despite his size and strength, even when he had seen me, which occurrence had apparently caused him agitation. I had waved the couri-ers pouch to him, cheerily. There had been no hard feelings on my part. I had not been able to make out what he had been howling upward, crouching there, chained, what with the wind, and the beating of the tams wings. Several of the fellows at the Crooked Tarn had intercepted him, rushing through the yard, I suppose on his way to inquire after me. Coinless, chained, naked, utterly without means, absolutely helpless, he would have been held at the Crooked Tam until his bills were paid or he himself disposed of, say, as a work slave, his sale to satisfy, as it could, his bills. He had been redeemed, I gathered, by other fellows in the command of Artemidorus, and then freed. Certainly he was here now, not in a good humor, and with a sword in his grasp.
He is a thief and spy! cried Borton. Men leaped to their feet.
Spy! I heard.
Seize him! I heard.
Spy! Spy!
Seize him!
I suddenly lost sight of Temione, buffeted aside, falling among the men. Borton was pressing toward me. I seized the fellow to my left by his robes and flung him across Bortons path. Fellows pressed in. Borton was in the dirt, expressing dissatisfaction. With my fist, clenched on the handle of the sword, I struck a fellow, to my right. I heard bone. He spit teeth. There was no time to apologize. I spun about and fell to my hands and knees, men seizing one another over me. I rose up, spilling three or four fellows about. I then pushed and struck my way through men, most of whom I think could not clearly see me in the throng, broke free, and vaulted over the low railing, to hurry through the darkness toward the Vosk. There he goes! cried a fellow. I heard some girls crying out and screaming, in terror, some probably struck, or kicked or thrust aside, or stepped on, or trampled, in the confusion. Slave girls seldom care to find themselves, help-less curvaceous obstacles, half naked, collared and silked, in the midst of men and blades. It is their business to please men, and they well know it, not to prove impediments to their action. He is heading toward the Vosk! called a man. But by the time I had heard this I was no longer heading toward the Vosk. I had doubled back through the environing tents, most of which were empty, presumably thanks to the sounds of the paga enclosure and various hastily spreading rumors, such as that of Bortons generosity, that there was to be a parade of slaves, and that a curvaceous woman was now dancing her slavery before strong men. It is appropriate for a slave to express her slavery in slave dance, of course. It is one of the thousands of ways in which it may be expressed. I did, however, as soon as I was among them, sheath my sword and begin walking, pausing here and there to look back, particularly when in someones vicinity, as though puzzled by the clamor coming from the vicinity of the enclo-sure. What is going on back there? asked a fellow.
I do not know, I admitted. After all, I was not there. I supposed, however, that dozens of men, perhaps some carry-ing torches or flaming brands, or lanterns, would be wading about, slipping in the mud, parting reeds, and so on, swords drawn, at the bank of the Vosk, looking for me. I did not envy them this task. It is difficult enough to find a fellow in such a place during the day. It is much harder at night. Too, if he is not there, the task becomes even more difficult.
I think I will go down there and see what is going on, said the fellow.
Could you direct me to the tent of Borton, the courier? I asked.
Certainly, he said.
Thank you, I said.
I watched him making his way, curiously, down toward the paga enclosure. He was joined by a couple of other fellows. They, too, were presumably curious. I could not blame them. From the higher part of the camp, now, I could see several torches flickering along the river. Too, there seemed some small boats in the water, torches fixed in their bows, much as are used for hunting tabuk and tarsk at night, from behind blinds. They were probably commandeered from local folk. I then began to make my way toward the encampment and cots of Artemidorus, the Cosian mercenary. These were located at the southern edge of the camp, that direction in which lay, presumably, the main forces of Ar. In this way the location was convenient for reconnaissance flights. They could come and go, largely unobserved. Too, it would not be necessary to cross the main camps air space, which is usually, and for obvious reasons, kept inviolate. The cots and defenses there, too, supplied something of a buffer between the main camp and the south. It is difficult, as well as dangerous, to move in the vicinity of unfamiliar tarns, particularly at night. The tents of the couriers, were supposedly near the headquarters tent of Artemidorus himself. That made sense. So, too, were their cots. Then I was in the vicinity of the encampment of Artemidorus. I avoided guardposts. Some, however, were not even manned. In moments, not challenged, I was among the tents.
Fellow, said I, where lies the tent of Borton, of the command of Artemidorus?
I had approached the headquarters tent of Artemidorus himself, not only its central location, on a rise, and its standard, but its size making it prominent. Somewhere here, around here, I had been told, was the tent of Borton.
What business have you with him? he asked.
None that needs concern you, I said.
His hand went to his sword.
You have drawn! he said.
I resheathed my blade. Look, I said, reaching into my wallet and drawing forth a handful of slave beads, are they not beauties? He looked at them, in the moonlight.
They are cheap, he said.
Of course, I said, but pretty, very pretty, and strung on binding fiber. They were large and round, about half a hort in diameter, of brightly colored wood.
You are a merchant, he said.
Come here, by the fire, I said.
I there displayed the beads.
Yes, he said, pretty.
I am to deliver these to the tent of Borton, I said. I had decided that.
He does not own slaves, he said. He rents them.
These need not be, at first, for a slave, I said.
True, laughed the fellow.
Imagine them cast about the neck of a stripped free woman, I said, and her then ordered to writhe in them at his feet, in fear of his whip, hearing them clack together, knowing they are strung on binding fiber and such.
Yes! laughed the fellow.
When he then puts his hand on her, I said, I wager she will be well ready for him.
Indeed, said the fellow.
And may later be branded and collared at his leisure.
Of course said the man.
Slave beads are commonly cheap, made of wood and glass, and such. Who would waste expensive beads, golden drop-lets, pearls, rubies, and such, on a domestic animal? Still they are very pretty, and slaves will wheedle and beg for them. Indeed, they will compete desperately, zealously, some-times even acrimoniously, for them. And they, such deli-ciously vain creatures, know well how to use them, adorning themselves, enhancing their beauty, making themselves even more excruciatingly desirable! Among slaves a handful of glass or wooden beads may confer a prestige that among free women might not be garnered with diamonds. Slave beads, too, and such simple adornments, bracelets, earrings, cosmet-ics, slave perfumes, and such, are well known for their effect in arousing the passions not only of the women themselves, but, too, it must be admitted, sometimes of their masters. Indeed, some masters will not permit such things to their women for fear they will make them too beautiful, too excit-ing and desirable, so much so that there might be a temptation to relax discipline. This fear, however, in practice, in my opinion, is illusory. The master need only make simple and elementary corrections. He may then have a slave as beautiful as he wishes, and, as perfect as he wishes. Indeed, let the woman, the more beautiful, and the more exciting and desir-able she becomes, be kept at least as strictly, if not all the more strictly, in the toils of her master. Why permit a jewel lenience, or even think of it, when even the commonest of slaves is ruled with a rod of iron? Does she think the master weak? Show her she is wrong. Indeed, if anything, let her discover that her beauty, far from weakening her master, serves rather, by his will, to ensure the fixity of the discipline to which she finds herself subject. This she will love.
His tent? I asked.
There, said the fellow, indicating a tent at the foot of the rise surmounted by the headquarters tent of Artemidorus. That it was his headquarters tent, incidentally, did not meant that he, Artemidorus, was necessarily within it, or would sleep there, or such. Sometimes tarn strikes, infiltrating as-sassination squads, and such, are directed against such facilities.
My thanks, friend, said I, and bidding the helpful fel-low farewell I went to the tent. It was somewhat large, and a bit ostentatious, I thought, for that of a mere courier. Like most Gorean campaign tents, at least those set up in large, fixed camps, it was circular, with a conical roof. It was striped with red and yellow, and had an entrance canopy. A pennon, one bearing the insignia of the company of Artemidorus, a sword grasped in the talon of a tarn, flew from the main pole, projecting through the roof. I myself prefer lower, more neutral colored tenting. It is easier, for one thing, to break the outline of such a tent. A tent, like this, incidentally, would not accompany the tarnsmen in their flights, borne by draft tarns, but would follow in the supply wagons of the main body. A company of tarnsmen, such as that of Artemidorus, is not burdened in flight with the transport of such items. Such a group would normally move, of course, with their war gear, such as missiles and weaponry, and supplies for a given number of days.
I do not think he is there now, called the fellow after me.
I shall wait, at least for a time, I said. Then I shook the canvas of the threshold curtain and, not receiving a response, entered.
It was rather dark within and so I struck a light with the fire-maker from my pouch, located a lamp, and lit it. I did not think there was any point, under the circumstances, given my conversation with the fellow outside, and so on, in trying to keep it a secret that someone was within the tent. That surely would have aroused suspicion. Besides I was curious to look about the tent. There might be something there I could use. Within there were small carpets, expensive hangings, and sleeping furs. There was also a variety of small items, such as vessels and bowls, and small chests. Also, fixed on the center pole there was a piece of paper which said, Beware, this is the tent of Borton. Everyone likely to see that sign, I gathered, would know who Borton was. I was pleased to see the sign, as it confirmed that I was in the right place. There was also, to one side, at the edge of a carpet, a heavy stake driven deeply into the ground. There were some pretty, but sturdy, chains scattered near it, and a whip. I was pleased to see that Borton knew how to handle women. I did not think he could be such a bad fellow, really. Certainly he had, in the past, proved very helpful to me. Hopefully he would do so again.
Ah, I said. I had turned over some of the small carpets in the tent and discerned that in one place there was an irregularity in the earth. With the point of a knife I dug there and found a small cache of coins. There were five pieces of gold there, three staters of Brundisium and two of Telnus, eleven silver tarsks, of various cities, for such circulate freely, and some smaller coins. I put these in my wallet. I had looked under the carpeting because the small chests, not surprisingly, pried open, had not yielded much of interest. For example, I already had, in my gear at my tent, a sewing kit. It is amusing, incidentally, to rent a slave, bring her to your tent, and put her to tasks such as your sewing. Then, when she thinks this is all that is required of her, and expects to be dismissed, you order her to her back or stomach, teaching her that there is more to her womanhood than the performance of such tasks. Interestingly, the performance of such tasks, so suitable to tiny, delicate hands, and to the womans desire to serve and be found pleasing, tends to be sexually arousing to her. In their way, they confirm her slavery upon her, and prepare her for more extensive, pro-found and intimate services. Slavery to the woman is more than a sexual matter, though sexuality is intimately and pro-foundly involved in it, essentially, crucially and ultimately. It is an entire mode of being, an entire way of life, one inti-mately associated with love and service.
I thought now that the search might be abating near the river, that it might, by now, have been redirected to the camp as a whole. This seemed, then, a good time to return to the vicinity of the river. I did, before I left the tent, hang the slave beads I had shown the fellow outside over the nail in the tent pole to which Borton had attached his warning sign. I thought I might as well give him something for his trouble. I looked at the beads. They were pretty, that double strand of insignificant baubles, those lovely spheres of colored wood strung on binding fiber, enough to bind a slave hand and foot. Then I left the tent. 
I do not desire to wait longer, I told the fellow outside.
He nodded, not paying much attention.
There is something going on to the north, there, said a man to me, as I passed a guardpost.
Where? I asked.
There, he said.
I could see the light of torches, could hear, distantly, shouts of men.
I think you are right, I said.
What is it? he asked a fellow approaching.
They are looking for a spy, he said.
Do they know what he looks like? I asked.
They say he is a big fellow, with red hair, said the man.
I have red hair, I said.
If I were you, then, said the man next to me, I think I would remain inconspicuous for a time.
That is probably a good idea, I said.
It would be too bad to be mistaken for the spy, said a fellow, and be riddled with bolts or chopped to pieces.
I agree, I said.
Be careful, said the first fellow, solicitously.
I shall, I assured him.
They will have him before morning, said the other fellow.
Yes, said the first. The camp will be turned upside down. There will be no place to hide. They will look everywhere.
Everywhere? I asked.
Everywhere, he assured me.
They will have him before morning, repeated the sec-ond man.
I wish you well, I said, bidding them farewell.
I wish you well, said the first man.
I wish you well, said the second.
When men search they normally do so, naturally enough, I suppose, as if their quarry were going to remain stationary, obstinately ensconced in a given situation. It is then necessary only to examine the available situations thoroughly, and your job is finished. On the other hand, whereas it is clearly understood by most searchers that the quarry may be in B while they are in A, it seldom seems to occur to them that the quarry may now be in A while they are in B. In this fashion it is possible to both search everywhere and find nothing. In this sense, locating men, or larls, or sleen, which tend to double back, often to attack their pursuers, is not like locating buttons. To be sure, many of the men in this camp, both regulars and mercenaries, were skilled warriors, perhaps even trained to hunt men. The tracking of routed enemies, now fugitives, after a battle, for example, is an art in itself. The hunting of slaves is another. Such men may think with the quarry; they may bring up the rear; they may depart from the main search parties; they may conduct random searches, im-possible to anticipate, and so on. Many are those taken by such men, including female slaves, to be brought helplessly in chains to their masters. There is one place, however, that even such skilled fellows are not likely to look, and that is with the search parties themselves. Whereas it is not easy to blend in with such a party if one is a female slave, given her sex, her nudity or paucity of garmenture, perhaps even slave garb, her collar, and such, a man has less difficulty. It can be risky, of course. My hope, then, was to wait until searches were taking place outside the camp, particularly toward the south, as they might in the morning. Marcus, with whom I had come to the camp, an orderly fellow, had made very specific contingency plans, and had insisted emphatically they be complied with, in case either of us were apprehended or detained, plans which he might be putting into effect like lightning at this very moment. If possible, we were to meet on the road to Holmesk, to the south, in the vicinity of the village of Teslit. If this meeting proved impractical, the fellow near Teslit, whoever it might be, was to hurry south to Holmesk, there to contact the men of Ar. He was a very serious young man, and was very serious about these plans. For my part, of course, if he were apprehended, or such, I would probably have dallied about at least long enough to determine whether I might be of any assistance or not. If one has been impaled, of course, the amount of assistance one can render is negligible. He himself, however, had insisted that he must be discounted, sacrificed without a murmur, and that I must continue on to contact the men of Ar in the south. I did not discuss these matters with him as it is very difficult to talk with people who are reasonable. To be sure, we had expected, in a day or so, to depart southward anyway, having been with the forces of Cos long enough to anticipate their route and marches, this information to be conveyed, suppos-edly, to the forces of Ar at Holmesk. I myself found it difficult to believe that the forces of Ar at Holmesk did not know, and with some degree of accuracy, the nature, the movements, the marching orders, and such, of the Cosian forces in the north.
I must now, however, find a place to dally until morning, until the searching was done in the camp.
They will have him before morning, had said a fellow. I trusted he was mistaken.
I thought I knew a possible place. 

2. A Copper Tarsk

She made the tiniest of stifled noises, her head pulled back, my hand held tightly, mercilessly, over her mouth.
She was kneeling. I was crouching behind her.
Make no noise, I whispered to her.
I felt her face and head move the tiniest bit, as it could, indicating obedience.
I then removed my hand from her mouth and, from behind, my hand on her arm, drew her to her feet, and conducted her to the nearest of the small alcove tents in the paga enclosure. I had entered the enclosure from the Vosk side, under the railing. In a moment I had thrust her into the small tent. You cannot stand up within it.
I lit the tiny lamp in the tent. I lowered the flame so it was little more than a flicker.
You! she said, twisting about in the tiny space, on the silken carpet.
Do not make noise, I warned her, softly.
She was pretty there, now naked, save for her collar, inside the canvas.
Your silk is gone, I said.
They removed it before they lashed me, she said.
Turn about, kneeling, I said.
She did so.
It is common that clothing is removed before the adminis-tration of the discipline of leather. In this way the clothing is not likely to be cut or stained. Too, in a formal whipping, as opposed to an occasional stroke or two, perhaps called forth on a given occasion, not even as meaningless, fragile or symbolic a shield as slave silk is allowed to ob-trude itself between the slave and the justice, or mere attention, of the lash. Similarly, in such a formal situation, even the hair of the slave is normally thrown forward, before her shoulders.
Seven strokes, I said. Yes, she whispered. Count them, I said.
Tears sprang to her eyes, in memory of the lashing.
One, she said, for parting my silk unbidden; two, for putting myself to the dirt before a customer, unbidden; three, for speaking without asking permission; four, for not speaking clearly; five, for not answering directly; six, because I am a slave; seven, because it pleased the master to strike me again.
In many cases, I said, with a private master, I do not think you would have been beaten at all this evening. For example, a private master, though he might be particular about such things, is less likely than a public master, in public, to administer discipline for, say, speaking without permission. To be sure, if your speech is thought insuffi-ciently respectful, or too bold or forward, or you have been recently warned not to speak, or it is obviously not a time in which he wishes to hear you speak, or such, you might be beaten. Similarly, a private master would not be likely to beat you for parting your silk before him or for putting yourself to his feet and writhing there piteously, in begging need, and such. Indeed, he would be more likely to be pleased. Indeed, with private masters many girls actually escape beatings by recourse to just such delightful strategies. Similarly, unclear or evasive discourse is not likely to win you a beating unless it is clear the master objects to it, and, in effect, will not accept it. Then, of course, you must speak with what clarity and directness you can. Your problem this evening, of course, is that you are a paga slave and that your master, Philebus, is before customers. You must do nothing to suggest to the customers that you are not helplessly subject, and absolutely, and perfectly, and completely, to Philebus. And you are, you know.
Yes, Master, she said, wincing.
But if your behavior should suggest that this is not the case it might be offensive to Philebus, and, indeed, to the customers. In such a case, you should rejoice you received such a light beating. You understand these things?
Yes, Master, she said.
You are not stupid, are you? I asked. No, Master, she said.
Then why did you behave as you did? I asked. I knew.
Because of him! she said. Because of him!
Speak, I said, but do so, softly.
It is difficult to speak softly of such things! she said, fire in her eyes.
Beware, I said. You are in a collar. She turned white.
Now speak, I said.
Let me speak with tenseness, she said. But softly, I said.
Yes, Master, she said.
She was trying to gain control over herself. Speak, slave, I said.
You saw that it was he, he, here, in the paga enclosure, he who so scorned and abused me at the Crooked Tarn!
Of course, I said.
Surely you recall he would not even permit me to serve him, though I was naked and in chains, at the Crooked Tarn!
You were then a free woman, I reminded her.
He preferred a slave to me, to me! she said.
But you yourself are now a slave, I said.
You permitted me to serve you! she said.
Yes, I admitted. But then I am a tolerant, broad-minded fellow, I pointed out. I smiled inwardly. I had enjoyed having the proud wench, so distraught and resentful in her chains, serve me. It is pleasant to take a proud free woman and teach her her womanhood.
He shook me, and cruelly, she exclaimed, softly, tensely. He flung me from him to the floor in disgust. Though I was free he held me in contempt!
He wanted a woman, I said.
I was a woman!
But at that time not as a slave is a woman, I said.
She shuddered deliciously in her collar, sensing my mean-ing. But in a moment she had again addressed herself to her grievances.
He used a slave in preference to me! she said.
And you watched in awe, as I recall, I said.
Master, she said, reproachfully.
And enviously.
Master! she protested.
Perhaps you wished that it was you who was serving him rather than the slave in his power.
Please, Master! she protested.
Continue, I said.
And later, when you were kind enough to have me brought to your space at the inn, he was there, too!
Kind enough? I said.
Forgive me, Master, she said.
I wanted a female to relieve my tensions, and as you were then free, a debtor slut, you came cheap.
Yes, Master, she said.
Too, you were attractive, I said.
Even as a free woman? she asked.
Yes, I said.
And now, she asked, as a slave?
Thousands of times more attractive, I said. Good, she said, and her body moved excitingly, I think inadvertently.
So do not speak of kindness, I said.
Forgive me, Master, she said.
Proceed, I said.
And he was there, the rude brute, the monster!
I recall, I said.
He spoke of me as fat, she said, as stupid, as a she-tarsk, as not being worth sleen feed!
I recall, I said.
And he wanted me taken from his sight!
And he made you address him as Master, " I said.
Yes! she said.
Was he the first man you ever addressed as Master? I asked.
Yes, she said.
I thought so, I said.
But I was free, free! she pointed out.
And you are now a slave, I said.
Yes, she said. She would now call all free men Mas-ter, and, of course, all free women Mistress.
But I was then free! she said.
But yet you called him Master, " I reminded her.
Yes, she said.
And he was the first to whom you, even though at that time free, addressed that title of respect and sovereignty.
Yes, she said. The brute, the monster!
I looked at her in the light of the tiny lamp. She was very beautiful.
Oh, she said, bitterly, you may well wager that I never forgot the monster!
I am sure you did not, I said.
Oh, she said, I hate him! I hate him!
I see, I said.
And then he was here, and I within his reach, though now as a slave!
I can well imagine your feelings, I said.
Why are you smiling? she asked.
It is nothing, I said.
I determined that I would present myself before him! she said.
Under the circumstances, as it turned out, you had no choice, I said.
She looked startled. I suppose that is true, she said.
It is, I assured her.
I determined that I would show him a female, a female, indeed!
And you did, I said.
Did you see? she asked. He did not even recognize me!
True, I said.
Did you see his eyes, his expressions! she laughed, softly.
Certainly, I said, and heard as well his moans of desire, his cries of anguish.
Did I not move him, did I not excite him as a woman?
You certainly did, I said.
I paraded, she laughed. I moved. I parted my silk. I writhed. I danced!
And men came even to the railings to watch, I said.
And did I not have my vengeance? she asked.
Yes, I said.
He desired me mightily, she said.
Yes, I said.
And did he not exclaim that I was the most beautiful slave he had ever seen! she said.
That he did, I said.
So enthralled I had him in the toils of desire that he was in pain! she said.
Indeed, I said.
He did not ask for me to be taken from his sight this night! she said.
No, indeed, I said.
And thus I proved my womanhood to him, and that he had been wrong in scorning me, in holding me in contempt, in casting me from him!
It was Temione, the free woman, I reminded her, whom he had rejected, not Temione, the slave.
But we are the same! she said. Do you really think so? I asked. Surely, in some way, she said.
Perhaps, in some way, I granted her.
He wanted me! she said, but he could not have me! I am too expensive, too desirable, for a mere courier!
Beware of playing a dangerous game, I said.
What do you mean? she asked.
You could come easily enough into the possession, com-pletely, of the courier, I said.
I do not understand, she said.
Whether he could afford you or not, I said, does not depend on you. It depends on other things, for example, on the market, and how much he has, and is willing to spend. Too, it depends on Philebus, and what he will let you go for. He could sell you for a copper tarsk, you know.
I suppose that is true, she said.
To anyone, I added.
She looked at me, frightened.
And then you would be theirs, completely.
Yes, she whispered.
Too, I said, you are a paga slave, and thus, for a tarsk bit, or a copper tarsk, or whatever Philebus is charging, you could be put into his power for Ahn at a time.
But he would not own me, she said.
He would have use rights over you, I said. Perhaps you remember how he snapped the whip?
Yes! she said. That is a sound, of course, that a beauti-ful, half-naked slave is not likely to forget.
I expect, I said, that you would serve him, in those Ahn, dutifully enough.
She shuddered.
It is well for you to remember, I said, that the last word in these matters, in the nature of things, belongs not to the slave but to the whips, and the masters.
Yes, Master, she said.
I heard men outside. It was toward morning.
I hate him! she said, suddenly. I hate him!
No, you do not, I said.
What? she said.
You love him, I said.
That is absurd! she said.
You have loved him since the first moment you saw him, at the Crooked Tarn.
Absurd! she said.
It was then, even when he spurned you, and scorned you, that you first wanted to be his slave.
Absurd! she whispered.
You wanted to be subject to his animality, his power, his authority, totally.
Do not joke, she said.
I watched you as he handled the slave. I could see your jealousy. I could smell your desire.
Please, she said.
You wished it was you, I said.
No, please, no, she said, frightened.
You wanted even then to wear his chains and be subject to his whip, to belong to him, and to belong to him in the most complete and perfect way a woman can belong in a man, helplessly, hopelessly, selflessly, as his total slave.
She regarded me, frightened. Her breast heaved. Her small hand was before her mouth.
And that is why you displayed yourself as you did in the parade of slaves, and after, far beyond what was required by the occasion, or your legal master, Philebus. You were at-tempting to seduce the courier, to lure him to your conquest. You were begging to be bought, as the slave you are. You were begging to be taken to his tent, bound and on his leash. You were begging to be his, and his alone.
She put her head down, weeping softly.
Even in your freedom you had addressed to him the word Master,  I reminded her.
Her small shoulders shook.
Do not weep, I said. It is a natural and good thing that you long for a master. You will not be complete until you have one.
Why are you saying these things? she asked, lifting her head, red-eyed. You risked your life to protect me from him, when he was going to whip me.
I do not think he was going to whip you, I said, though I expect he is quite capable of it, and would unhesitantly do so if it seemed appropriate, or upon various occasions, if it pleased him.
Why then did you interfere? she asked, puzzled. Why did you call attention to yourself when obviously there was something between you two, and you would be in danger, if recognized.
Do you truly not know? I asked.
It was to protect me, surely.
No, I said.
Why then? she asked, wonderingly.
Because, I said, soberly, you were serving me.
That is what you said, she said.
And that was the reason, I said.
It was so tiny a thing, she asked, a point of propriety, of precedence? she asked.
Yes, I said.
You risked so much for a mere point of honor? she asked.
There are no mere points of honor, I told her. Turn about. Put your head down to the carpet. Clasp your hands behind the back of your neck.
I amused myself with her.
Afterwards I put her gently to her side. She looked up at me, turning her head, as, with a bit of binding fiber, I tied her hands behind her back. I am binding you, I said, that your master, and others, may think you were used in all helplessness. I then jerked her ankles up, crossed them, and bound them to her wrists. She winced.
I am helpless, she said.
You are more helpless than you know, slave, I said. But your true helplessness is not a matter of such things as a bit of binding fiber, serving to hold you, however perfectly, in a desired position at a given time, but your condition, which is bond.
Tears sprang to her eyes.
You are owned, I said. You are a property. You are subject to the will of others.
She sobbed.
I think she understood then, perhaps better than before, something of the true helplessness of the slave. She could be taken anywhere. She could be bought and sold. She could come into the ownership of anyone.
What does your master charge for paga, and girl use? I asked.
A copper tarsk, she said.
I dropped it to the carpet, beside her.
I withdrew from my wallet two scarves.
I am to be gagged, she said.
It will be better, I said.
I folded one scarf over several times, forming a narrow rectangle, several folds thick. This I placed beside her. I then rolled the other scarf into a tight, expandable ball. This I thrust into her mouth. It, in its expansion, filled the oral orifice. I then secured it in place with the first scarf, which I knotted tightly behind the back of her neck. She looked up at me, over the gag. She squirmed. She was pretty.
I then blew out the lamp and, after reconnoitering, with-drew from the tent.
I recalled the copper tarsk I had left in the tent, on the carpet, beside her. That had been fitting. With it I had paid for paga, and for her use.

3. Prisoners

The road below was a dirt road. It was dusty and hot. It was long and narrow. It stretched northward.
I considered it.
It was empty.
It was hard to believe that somewhere northward, perhaps somewhat to the west now, in the vicinity of the Vosk, was the expeditionary force of Cos, and somewhere to the south, beyond Teslit, in the vicinity of Holmesk, lay the winter camp of Ar, supposedly housing a considerable commissary and depot, and one of the largest concentrations of troops ever seen in the north.
It was late afternoon. I shaded my eyes. Not a stain of dust lifted from that long, brown surface, lying like a dry line between two vastnesses of dried grass. The overarching sky was bright and clear, almost cloudless. Like the road, it seemed empty.
It was lonely here.
Yet such times are good in the life of a warrior, times to be alone, to think.
He who cannot think is not a man, so saith the codes. Yet neither, too, they continue, is he who can only think.
Teslit, a small village to the south, save for a family or two, had been abandoned. Women and livestock had been hurried away. i did not think this had been unwise. Cos was to the north, Ar to the south. Had they sought to engage, it seemed not improbable that they might meet on the Holmesk road, perhaps in the vicinity of Teslit, approximately halfway between the Vosk and Holmesk. I looked down on the road. It was said that once, long ago, there had been a battle there, more than two hundred years ago, the battle of Teslit, fought between the forces of Ven and Harfax. Many do not even know there is a village there. They have heard only of the battle. Yet it is from the nearness of the village that the battle took its name. Such historical details seem curious. I listened for a moment, and it seemed to me then, as though from below, and yet from far away, as from another time, faintly, I heard the blare of trumpets, the rolling of the drums, the crying of men, the clash of metals. Once I supposed that that placid road below, that ribbon of dust between the brown shores of grass, had run with blood. Then once again there was only the silence and the dry road, stretching northward. The camp of Ar near Holmesk, incidentally, was situated on, or near, the same site as had been the camp of Harfax two hundred years ago. Such things are not coincidences. They have more to do with terrain, water, defensibility, and such. The land, its fall and lie, wells, watercourses, their breadth and depth, their swiftness, fords, climate, time of year, visi-bility, precipitation, footing, and such, provide the four-dimensional board on which are played the games of war. It is no wonder that fine soldiers are often astute historians, careful students of maps and campaigns. Certain routes, situ-ations and times of year are optimal for certain purposes, and others are not, and might even prove disastrous. Certain passes on Gor, for example, have been used again and again. They are simply the optimal routes between significant points. They bear the graffiti of dozens of armies, carved there over a period of centuries, some of it as much as three thousand years ago.
I had been in this vicinity, keeping a small, concealed camp, overlooking the road, some five days. In the north, on the morning after my small altercation with the redoubtable Borton, that in the paga enclosure, I had volunteered for, and had been welcomed into, a search party, one formed to move southward, looking for the spy and thief. They had not managed to find him, I am pleased to report, or at least to their knowledge. This party, except for myself, consisted of five men, mercenaries, under the command of a Cosian regu-lar. They had been pleased to have my company, as it was difficult to obtain volunteers for a search southward, toward the presumed position of Ar. I had explained that I was pleased to join them, particularly as my business carried me in that direction. Similarly, I confessed to them my pleasure at being able to profit, at least for a time, from their protec-tion. This was truer than they realized. They afforded me a priceless cover, for example, from the investigations, if not the sudden, unprovoked attacks, of Cosian tarnsmen. It was also nice to be able to move openly, during the day. Then after three days, by which time they were eager to return to the main body, particularly after having seen two tarn patrols of Ar, I had bidden them farewell, and continued southward.
The road below seemed as empty as ever.
I had cut my camp into the side of a small, brush-covered hill, west of the road. The natural slope of the hill would not suggest a leveling at this point. A needle tree provided practi-cal cover from the sky.
I watched the road.
I had passed a night in Teslit, at one of the few huts still occupied. There I had shared kettle with a fellow and two of his sons. I had made my inquiries, purchased some supplies and then, in the morning, had left, southward. In an Ahn, I had doubled back, of course, to my camp.
The sun was warm.
I had expected that I might find Marcus here, somewhere, that in accordance with his carefully laid contingency plan, we having become separated in the Cosian camp, thanks to my inadvertent encounter with the courier, Borton. But I had seen no sign of him. Similarly I had heard nothing in the village, from the folks there. I assumed he must have left the camp expeditiously, as would have been wise, lest his puta-tive affiliation with me be recalled, and then, after perhaps waiting a few Ahn in the vicinity of Teslit, not making his presence known, had hastened southward, that he might con-vey his intelligence speedily to the men of Ar near Holmesk. That is precisely what I would have expected. He was an excellent young officer, with a high sense of duty. He would not daily foolishly in the camp of Cos, as I might have, in the event that it might prove possible to render some assistance to an imperiled colleague. Such imprudence would jeopardize his opportunity to convey his data to the south. Marcus could be depended upon to do his duty, even if it meant the regrettable sacrifice of a comrade. To be sure, he himself, as he had made clear to me, with much firmness and in no little detail, back in the Cosian camp on the Vosk, was similarly ready, in such a situation, to be sacrificed, and cheerfully. Indeed, he had even insisted upon it. I had not gainsaid him, for, as I have mentioned earlier, it is difficult to argue with people who are reasonable.
The road was empty.
I myself, without Marcus, was not eager to approach the camp of Ar near Holmesk. I might be taken for a spy there. This sort of thing had already happened in Ars Station. My accent, if nothing else, would probably render me suspect. Too, by now, Marcus was presumably already at Holmesk, or in its vicinity. Even if he were not, I suspected that the commandant at Holmesk was as much aware of the position and movements of the Cosian expeditionary force as either Marcus or I. Marcus refused to believe this, given the inactiv-ity in the winter camp. There was, of course, a simple possible explanation for this inactivity, the cruelest conse-quence of which, to date, had been the failure to relieve the siege at Ars Station. This possible explanation was simple. It had to do with treason in high places.
I examined the sky, as well. It, too, was empty. The sun, though it was late in the afternoon, was still bright.
I considered returning to Port Kar. I did not know if it would be safe to do so or not. At the left of the threshold of the house of Samos, my friend, first slaver of Port Kar, there was a banner bar. On this bar, where the bar meets the wall, there were some slave chains. Usually tied there with these chains was a bit of scarlet slave silk. If this silk had been replaced with yellow silk it was safe to return. Yet there seemed little to call me now to Port Kar. I would sooner try to enter Torcadino that I might there communicate with its current master, Dietrich of Tarnburg, at bay there like a larl in its lair. I would inform him of my betrayal in Ar, and my suspicions of treason. Perhaps he could treat with Myron, Polemarkos of Temos, commander of the main forces of Cos on the continent, if it were not too late, for a safe withdrawal from Torcadino. Dietrichs boldness and gallantry, the bril-liance of his action, that of seizing Torcadino, Cos supply depot in the south, thereby stalling the invasion, now seemed relatively ineffective. Ar had not marched to meet Cos in the south but had invested its main forces northward. By now, too, it seemed likely, over the winter, that Myron would have been able to rebuild his vast stores. Too, now, the winter over, he could bring his numerous mercenaries together again, recalling their standards from a dozen winter camps. No longer did Torcadino stand in the way of the march to Ar, unless it be as a matter of principle. This, of course, would not serve to extricate Dietrich from his post at Torcadino. Ar, I was sure, would not come to his relief, any more than they had come to the relief of their own colonial outpost on the Vosk, Ars Station, now in ashes. Too, I wanted, sooner or later, to venture again to Ar herself. I had business there.
I looked down at the empty road.
It seemed to me that I should venture to Torcadino. Yet I knew, in deference to Marcus, I should attempt to approach the winter camp of Ar. I, unlike Marcus, had no lingering allegiance to Ar. Yet that is what he had wanted, to inform the high command of Ar near Holmesk of the movements and position of the Cosian expeditionary force. I could not be certain he had gotten through. Accordingly, I would try to reach the winter camp.
It had been days since I had had a woman. Indeed, I had not had one since the lovely Temione, in the tiny tent within the paga enclosure.
I wondered if Borton had purchased her. I did not think he would have found it easy to do so, however, as her slave value, which was considerable, had been publicly manifested in the paga enclosure, in the parade of slaves, and in the utterly liberated licentiousness of her slave dance. Philebus would now want a good deal for such a slave, a prize slave, if he were willing to part with her at all. Too, Bortons eco-nomic problems were undoubtedly complicated by the fact that I had relieved him of his secret cache of coins in his tent. I had left some slaves beads in recompense, of course, pretty beads of cheap wood, such as are cast about in festivals and carnivals, sometimes even being seized up secretly by free women who put them on before their mirrors, in secret, as though they might be slaves. In many cities, incidentally, a woman who is discovered doing such a thing may be re-manded to magistrates for impressment into bondage. There will then be nothing inappropriate, even from the legal point of view, in their wearing such ornaments, assuming that they have their masters permission.
The road was empty.
In the morning, I must consider breaking camp, making my way southward, toward Holmesk.
I would again assume the guise of a merchant.
It was long since I had a woman.
I had hoped to find a woman in Teslit. But the women, and the livestock, including the two-legged form of livestock that is the female slave, had been removed. I would have settled even for a peasants slave, usually large, coarse girls, in rope collars, but the gates to their pens hung open. The under-ground kennels and sunken cages, too, were empty. Even such women, of course, may be utilized. They, too, in many ways, serve men. Not only are they useful in the fields, drawing plows, hoeing, carrying water, and such, but they, too, as they can, are expected to serve the pleasures of their masters, just as would be slighter, more beautiful damsels. Peasants, incidentally, are famous for being strict with their slaves. The threat to sell a girl to a peasant is usually more than sufficient to encourage her to double, and then redouble, her efforts to please. Better to be a perfumed love slave, licking and kissing, than a girl sweating and stinking in the dusty fields, under a lash, pulling against plow straps. To be sure, what many of the urban slaves do not understand is that the peasants who buy in the rural markets are seldom looking for their sort of woman, the normal type of beautiful slave commonly sold in the urban markets, but rather for a different sort of woman, one who appeals more to their own tastes, and also, of course, will be useful in such things as carrying water and plowing. There was much point, of course, in removing the women and livestock from the village, in the current situation. If the armies did approach one another, advance scouts, foragers, and such, might seize what they could, both women and livestock, of all varieties, two-legged and otherwise. The slave, incidentally, understandably enough, is usually much safer in certain sorts of dangerous situations than the free person, who may simply be killed. The slave is a domestic animal, and has her value. She is no more likely to be slain, even in a killing frenzy, than kaiila or verr. Sometimes a free woman, seeking to save her life, even at the expense of a slave, will remove the slaves collar and put it on her own throat, thinking thereby to pass for a slave. The slave, of course, is likely to bare her brand to any who threaten her. She may then, her fair wrists incarcerated in slave bracelets, and leashed, be commanded to point out the woman who now wears her collar. She must do so. What the woman in her collar seldom understands is that she, herself, is now also, genuinely, a female slave. She, by her own action, in locking the collar on her own neck, as much as if she had spoken a formula of enslavement, is now also a slave. Perhaps they will make a pretty brace of slaves, drawn about on their leashes. She who belonged to the former free woman will now, undoubtedly, be made first girl over her, the new slave. Also, she will probably administer her first whipping to the new slave. It will undoubtedly be an excel-lent one.
I glanced down again, toward the road.
It was empty.
I thought of Ephialtes, the sutler, at the Crooked Tarn, and seen later at the camp of Cos outside Ars Station. I supposed him to be traveling with the expeditionary force. He, rather like Temione, had been much abused by Borton, the courier. Indeed, Borton, wanting his space at the Crooked Tarn, a rather good space, a corner space, had simply thrown Ephialtes out of it, and taken it. It had been fairly neatly done. Ephialtes had later assisted me in discomfiting the courier. We had arranged that the courier, thinking himself at fault, would wish a bath in the morning, a circumstance which I turned to my advantage, making away with the fellows uniform, be-longings, tarn and dispatch case. Too, Ephialtes had acted as my agent in certain respects. He was a good fellow. Even now, I supposed, he was keeping four women for me, a slave, Liadne, serving as first girl, and three free women, Amina, of Venna, and Rimice and Phoebe, both of Cos. Amina and small, curvaceous Rimice were debtor sluts. I had picked them up at the Crooked Tarn. I had also picked up slim, white-skinned, dark-haired Phoebe there, who had muchly stripped herself before me, acceding to her pleas that I accept her, if only as a servant. She needed the collar desperately. As yet I had denied it to her.
In the morning I would break camp. I would trek south, toward Holmesk.
Suddenly I leaned forward. It was a very tiny thing, in the distance. I was not sure I saw it. I then waited, intent. Then, after a few Ehn, I was sure of it. On that road, that dirt road, that narrow road, almost a path, long and dusty, the dried grass on each side, a figure was approaching.
I waited.
I waited for several Ehn, for almost a quarter of an Ann. Gradually I became more sure.
I laughed softly to myself.
Then, after a time, I took a small rock and, when the figure had passed, hurled it over and behind the figure, so that it alit across from it, to the east of the road. As there was no cover on the east the figure did as I expected. It spun about, immediately, moving laterally, crouching, every sense alert, its pack discarded. It faced the opposite direction from whence had come the sound. The danger in a situation such as this, given the sound of the rock, surely an anomaly coming from the figures left, most clearly threatened from the hill and brush, not from the grass. The late afternoon sun flashed from the steel of the bared blade. He was already yards from his pack. In moments he would move to the cover of the brush.
I stood up, and lifted my right hand, free of weapons, in greeting.
His blade reentered its sheath.
I see they still train warriors well in Ar! I called to him. At Ars Station! he called to me, laughing. He recov-ered his pack and scrambled up the hill.
In a moment we clasped hands.
I feared you had been taken, he cried, in relief.
I have been waiting for you, here, I said. What kept you? 
He reddened, suddenly. I was delayed at the Vosk, he said. I could come no sooner.
Business? I asked.
Of course, he said, evasively.
I laughed.
You were waiting to hear news of me, if I had been taken, I said.
No! he said, rather too quickly.
You should have come south immediately, I said, to the vicinity of Teslit, and from thence, after a suitable inter-val, expeditiously, toward Holmesk.
Perhaps, he said.
But you did not do so, I observed.
He blushed.
That was our plan, was it not? I asked him, with an innocence that might have done credit to a Boots Tarsk Bit. It was not for nothing that I had traveled with a group of strolling players. To be sure, I had been used mostly to help assemble the stage and free the wheels of mired wagons.
It doesnt matter, now, he said, somewhat peevishly.
But surely one must stick to a plan, I said. For example, one must be willing to sacrifice the comrade, the friend.
Of course, he said, irritably. Of course!
It is well that there are fellows like you, to instruct sluggards and less responsible fellows, like me, in their duty.
Thank you, he said.
But yet it seems in this instance you did not do so. He shrugged.
Thank you, my friend, I said.
Again we clasped hands.
Hist! said he, suddenly. Below!
Hola there, fellows! called a man from the road, cheer-fully. There were two others with him, tall, half-shaven, ragged, angular-looking fellows. All seemed dangerous, all were armed.
The hand of Marcus went to the hilt of his weapon.
Hold, I whispered to him. I lifted my hand to the men on the road. Tal, I called to them.
We are travelers, called the man. We seek directions to Teslit.
It lies on this road, to the south, I said.
They are not travelers, said Marcus to me.
No, I said.
Far? called the fellow.
A pasang, I said.
They have come from the south, said Marcus to me.
I know, I said. I had been watching the road. Had they been following Marcus, on the road, in the open, I would have seen them. More importantly, from this height, with the sun on the road, one could see the tracks in the dust.
They carry no packs, said Marcus.
Their packs are probably in Teslit, I said. I was not the only one who could make inquiries in Teslit.
They may have followed me, said Marcus, bitterly.
I think it unlikely, I said, that is, directly. Surely you would have been alert to such surveillance.
I would have hoped so, he said. It is dangerous to follow a warrior, as it is a larl or sleen. Such, too often, double back. Such, too often, turn the game.
Have no fear, called the fellow on the road.
They may have anticipated your trek southward from the camp, I said. They may have thought you had left earlier. In Teslit they would learn someone of my description had been recently there, but alone, and had then supposedly gone south. They may have hurried southward as far as they dared, but are now returning north. More likely, as I was alone in Teslit, they may have suspected a projected rendezvous, that I would be waiting in the vicinity for you to join me.
We would speak with you! called the fellow.
I did not blame them for not wanting to approach up the hill.
Perhaps they are brigands, said Marcus.
I do not think so, I said.
What then? asked he.
Hunters, I said. Hunters of men. Then I called down to the men on the road. We are simple merchants, I said.
Come down, he called, that we may buy from you!
You fellows may be from Ar, I called. It would surely seem to them possible, I suspected, that Ar might have secret patrols in the area.
They looked at one another. Something was said among them. Then, again, the fellow lifted his head. No, he called. We are not of Ar.
It is likely then, smiled Marcus, that they are from the camp near the Vosk.
Yes, I said.
Do not be afraid! called the man. You have nothing to fear from us.
We are simple merchants, I reminded him.
We would buy from you, he called.
What would you buy from us? I asked.
We have need of many things, he called. Display your wares!
Come up, I called to him.
Come down, he called.
It will be dark in two or three Ahn, said Marcus.
Yes, I said. It was not unlikely that we could hold this small camp until then. Then, in the darkness, we might slip away. I did not think they would wish to ascend the hill toward us. But, too, I suspected they would like to complete their work quickly.
They could follow us in the morning, said Marcus.
Yes, I said.
Come down! called the man on the road.
Perhaps we should see what they wish, I said.
Yes, said Marcus, grimly.
Smile, I advised him.
We then, together, slipping a bit, descended from the camp to the road.
You did not bring your wares, said the man, grinning. His two fellows moved away from him. In this fashion they would have room for the movement of steel.
Packs are heavy, I said. I thought it best to first ascertain your interests. Surely he did not seriously think I was going to encumber myself with a pack, not descending the hill, not regaining my balance at its foot, not carrying it to the road.
You are still afraid, said the man.
No, I said.
He drew forth from his tunic a blue armband, which he thrust up, over his sleeve, above the left elbow, grinning. You see, he said, there is nothing to fear. We are not of Ar. His two fellows, too, grinning, affixed identificatory insignia on their left arms, one an armband, the other a knotted blue scarf. Many mercenaries do not wear uniforms. Insignia such as armbands, scarves, ribbons and plumes, of given colors, serve to identify them, making clear their side. Needless to say, such casual devices may be swiftly changed, the colors sometimes alternating with the tides of battle. Many mercenary companies consist of little more than rabbles of armed ruffians, others, like those of Dietrich of Tarnburg, Pietro Vacchi and Raymond, of Rive-de-Bois, are crack troops, as professional as warriors of Ar or Cosian regulars. In dealing with mercenaries, it is extremely important to know the sort of mercenaries with which one is dealing. That can make a great deal of difference, both with respect to tactics and strategy. More than one regiment of regular troops has been decimated as a result of their commanders having taken a mercenary foe too lightly. With respect to switching sides, given the fortunes of the day, incidentally, the turncoat, so to speak, to use the English expression, is not unknown on Gor. A tunic may be lined with a different color. The tunic may then, after dark, for example, be turned inside out. Such tunics, however, are seldom worn on Gor. For one thing, a fellow found wearing one is usually impaled, by either side. They have been used, of course, for infiltration purposes, much like civilian garb, false uniforms, and such.
You are mercenaries, I observed, in the pay of Cos.
And you, grinned he, are also loyal to the cause of Cos, as was clear from your presence in the Vosk camp.
Perhaps you wish to purchase something? I asked.
The three of them, together, drew their swords. My sword, too, had left the sheath.
It is him we want, said the leader of the men to Marcus. Do not interfere.
Marcus, of course, stood his ground.
Stand back, I said to Marcus.
He did not move.
Who is first sword? I asked the leader.
I am, said a fellow to the leaders left. I was sure then that it would not be he. Too, he was on the leaders left, where he could protect his unarmed side. His strengths would probably be in defense. It is difficult to break the guard of a man who is purely on the defensive. While concerning myself with the fellow on the left, or worrying most about him, the leader himself might have freer play to my own left. Too, I suspected the leader would be himself first sword. In small groups, it is often superior swordplay which determines that distinction. In Kaissa matches between clubs and towns, and sometimes even cities, incidentally, a certain form of similar deception is often practiced. One sacrifices the first board, so to speak, and then has ones first player engaging the ene-mys second player, and ones second player engaging the enemys third, and so on. To be sure, the enemy, not unoften, is doing the same thing, or something similar, and so things often even out. This tends not to be practical among members of the caste of Players, of course, as their ratings are carefully kept, and are a matter of public record.
Very well, I said, seeming to measure the fellow on the left.
Who is first sword? asked the leader.
I am, said Marcus. That interested me. It was possible, of course.
We are not interested in you, said one of the men, uneasily. You may withdraw.
Marcus did not move. If he withdrew, of course, that would put three against one. And then, of course, if they wished, it could be again three against one.
I thought you wished to buy something, I said to the leader.
He laughed. What are you selling? he inquired.
Steel, said Marcus, evenly.
The fellow on the leaders left backed a little away, putting another stride between himself and Marcus. The young man emanated menace.
Bold young vulo cock, mocked the leader.
Steady! I said to Marcus.
I feared he would be lured prematurely forward, rashly.
Go away, said the fellow on the leaders left to Marcus. We do not want you.
Marcus did not move.
Because I am young, said Marcus, you think that I am stupid. You are mistaken.
No, said the fellow on the left.
It seemed to me for a moment that the earth seemed to move a bit beneath our feet. Certainly it was a very subtle thing.
You think we are spies, said Marcus. You want us both, but only one at a time.
No, said the fellow. No!
So that is what this is all about, I exclaimed, as though in relief. You are not mere brigands out to rob honest folks, as we feared. I think we may clear this all up quickly. It is simply a case of mistaken identity.
Squirm, said the leader.
Who do you think we are? I asked.
Our quarry, said the leader, grinning.
Spies? I asked.
It makes no difference to me whether you are spies or not, said the leader.
How did you find us? I asked. There were three of them. I did not know Marcus skill with the blade. I wished, if at all possible, to protect him.
Policrates himself, it was, said he, leader of the expe-ditionary force in the north, who summoned us to his tent. It was he who speculated that you might be most easily found to the south, in which direction lay Holmesk, after the official searches had concluded. It was then he speculated that you would least expect pursuit, that you would be most off your guard. Too, it was he who forbade the taking of the young fellow, but rather that he be permitted to leave the camp, unmolested, that he might lead us to you. He left southward, toward Holmesk.
I am sorry, Tarl, my friend, said Marcus. Aii!
The leader looked at me, wildly, and then his sword low-ered, slowly. He slipped to his knees, and fell to the dust in the road. I turned then to face the fellow who had been to the leaders right. Marcus stood quickly, white-faced, between myself and the fellow who had been on the left.
Your leader, I said to the fellow who had been on the leaders right, might have been better advised not to have en-gaged in explanations, conversation, and such. Had he been as clever as his commander, Policrates, I do not think he would have done so.
The fellow before me backed away.
I did not even see your sword move, said Marcus, in awe.
Your leader, I said to the man before me, permitted himself to be distracted. Perhaps you will do the same.
The fellow shook his head, backing away.
The leader had thought himself the aggressor. He had thought me diffident, frightened. If there was a blow to be struck first he thought it his prerogative. He did not expect the thrust when it came, laterally, between the ribs, smoothly, only to the heart, no deeper, withdrawn instantaneously.
The earth then again seemed to move. Moreover, there was dust about.
I did not want to take my eyes off the man in front of me.
I heard a scream of fear from in back, from Marcus man. Then the fellow before me, looked back, wildly, and then turned and ran.
I heard a voice behind me, from the dust. It was only when the ground had shaken near me, and I had spun half about, almost buffeted by a saddle tharlarion, and saw the running mercenary caught between the shoulder blades with the point of the lance, thrown then to the dust, rolling and bloody, and saw the tharlarion trampling the body, then turning about in a swirl of dust, the rider lifting the blood-stained lance, that I registered the voice I heard. Tarsk! it had said. That is a command used often in tarsk hunting, a signal to ride the animal down, plunging your lance into its back or side.
Greetings, men of Ar! said Marcus, lifting his hand. He had sheathed his sword. To one side, struck down by another lance, mangled, trampled in the dust, was the fellow who had been facing him. One could scarcely make out the blue of the identificatory scarf, tied high on the left arm, with the blood, the dust.
Sheath your sword! called Marcus to me.
I did so. There were some ten fellows about, all on tharlarion. Some five of them had crossbows. Three were trained on Marcus, two on me.
Lower your bows, said Marcus.
The weapons did not lower.
We are safe now, said Marcus to me. These are men of Ar!
I did not know this, of course, and if Marcus had been older, and more experienced, he might not have been as sure of this as he was. We did know they wore the uniforms of Ar. If it was a patrol of Ar it seemed rather far to the north. It could, of course, be a far-ranging patrol. Perhaps, too, the main body had left the winter camp, and was now marching toward the Vosk. If that were the case, the patrol might not be as far from its base as it might seem. The best evidence that these were indeed fellows from Ar, of course, was that they had ridden down the mercenaries, unhesitantly, merci-lessly, giving no quarter. They would have been identified as being of the party of Cos, of course, by their recently affixed insignia, in the one case, by the blue armband, in the other case, by the blue scarf.
We thank you for coming to our aid, said Marcus. Glory to Ar!
Glory to Ar! said four or five of the fellows about, high above us, in their saddles.
The leader of the men, however, did not respond to Mar-cus. He seemed weary. He was covered with dust. He looked at him, narrowly. His wind scarf hung down about his throat. This is commonly drawn down before engaging, that com-mands not be muffled, that air can more easily enter the lungs. His hood, too, was thrown back. This also is com-monly done before engaging, to increase the range of periph-eral vision. The men and beasts were covered with dust. The men seemed worn and haggard. I feared they were far from their base. Whereas the main forces of Ar might be well rested in their winter camp, perhaps unexercised, perhaps grown sleek and fat, men such as these, foragers, rangers, scouts, and such, had probably had more than their share of alarms and labors, of suspicions and dangers, more than their share of contacts with the enemy, more than their share of skirmishes in the no mans land that separated armies. I saw in their faces that these men were not strangers to hardship and war. They had seen times in which only the swift, ruthless and inexorable survive.
I am Marcus Marcellus, of the Marcelliani! said Marcus.
I saw no recognition in the eyes of the leader.
Of Ars Station! announced Marcus.
Renegades! said one of the riders.
Take us to Saphronicus, commandant at Holmesk! said Marcus. We are spies! We have come from the camp of Cos, to the north. We bring information!
I think they are spies, all right, said one of the men.
Take us to Saphronicus! said Marcus.
Sleen of Ars Station! spat a man.
Renegades! said another.
We of Ars Station are not renegades! exclaimed Mar-cus, angrily.
Ars Station was bought by the Cosians, by bribery, said a man.
No! cried Marcus.
She now stands for Cos in the north, said a man.
No! said Marcus.
And you two are spies! said a man.
Are you, too, from Ars Station? asked the leader of me.
No, I said.
From whence, then? inquired he.
I was not too pleased to convey this information to these fellows, but on the other hand, there seemed little use in concealing it.
"From Port Kar, I said, adding, Jewel of Gleaming Thassa.
Worse than Ars Station, laughed a fellow. That is a den of cutthroats and pirates!
In Port Kar, I said, there is a Home Stone.
Take us to Saphronicus, said Marcus, angrily.
Spies, said a man.
If we were spies, said Marcus, how is it that we were threatened by those of Cos, one of whom lay slain by my fellow before you came.
In such a way, said the leader, you might think to allay our suspicions. Perhaps they were mere dupes, sent to be slain, that we might be convinced of your authenticity.
I choose not to deal further with underlings, said Marcus. I charge you, in virtue of the authority of my commission in the forces of Ars Station, colony to the state of Ar, to conduct us into the presence of Saphronicus, your com-mander, at Holmesk. This is to be done as expeditiously as possible. If you do not do so, the responsibility will be fully yours.
Saphronicus is not at Holmesk, said the leader. Marcus looked at him, wildly.
The winter camp has been broken? I asked. Yes, said the man.
Ar marches, said another fellow, proudly. Where? asked Marcus, stunned.
West, said the leader.
Toward Brundisium? asked Marcus, incredulously.
Yes, said the leader.
I betrayed no emotion, but I, too, was puzzled by this intelligence. Such a line of march would not carry the army of Ar toward the Cosians, certainly not directly. Perhaps they intended to cut the Cosians off from Brundisium. That would make sense.
We have come from the camp of Cos, said Marcus, where, at great risk to ourselves, we have spied for Ar. We have information. I am no longer certain of the value of this information. A judgment on its value, however, should be made by Saphronicus. Take us to him.
The leader spoke to subordinates. Two men dismounted.
What are you doing? asked Marcus, angrily, his hands jerked behind him, then snapped into manacles. My hands, too, were similarly secured. Our sword belts, weapons and accouterments were removed. Two other fellows then tossed down chain leashes, terminating in collars. These collars were locked about our necks. The other ends of the leashes were looped about the pommels of saddles.
We have some things on the hill, above, I said, indicat-ing the direction of the small camp I had kept.
The leader made a small sign. One of his men made his way up the hill and, in a moment, returned with our packs. These were thrown, tied together, with our other things, over the neck of one of the tharlarion.
Your guise was that of merchants, said the leader of the men, looking about.
Yes, I said. That had been told from the packs. They had been inspected.
These fellows were following you? asked the leader, indicating the fallen mercenaries.
Yes, I said.
It would seem that that was their mistake, he said.
It would seem so, I said.
What did they purchase from you? he asked.
Nothing, I said.
No, he said, they purchased death. Then he told one of his men to drag the bodies into the brush. Leave them for sleen, he said. They would be removed from the road, of course, the better to conceal the movements of a patrol of Ar.
Free us! said Marcus, jerking his wrists in their obdu-rate confinements, moving his neck in the collar.
But the leader paid him no attention.
The butts of lances entered saddle boots. The crossbows were restored to their hooks on the saddles.
We are partisans of Ar! called Marcus, angrily.
They do not know that, I said to him.
What are you going to do with us? called Marcus, angrily.
Take you to Saphronicus, said the leader.
Then, said Marcus, cheerfully, turning to me, all is well!
I wish, said one of the men, looking down at us, that you were slave girls.
He, I suspected, long on patrol, was as needful as I. The allusion, of course, was to a perhaps somewhat ostentatious custom, that of displaying beautiful slaves, chained naked to ones stirrup. There is perhaps a certain vanity in this, but they are beautiful there, and I suspect, we have all known women whom we would not have minded putting in such a place, women who would quite appropriately occupy such a place, and indeed, would look very well there. One of the pleasures of Gor, incidentally, is treating women in such ways, as they deserve.
Marcus struggled futilely, angrily, with his bonds.
The leader lifted his hand, his men now mounted.
We have nothing to fear, Marcus called to me. We are being taken to Saphronicus!
You will not converse, said the leader. He then lowered his hand and his tharlarion strode forth, leading the way.
Marcuss neck chain was attached to the pommel of the second tharlarion. He looked back at me. Then, half pulled, the collar tight against the back of his neck, he stumbled forward, beside the tharlarion.
Six tharlarion then, in single file, that their numbers might be obscured, followed. Then the ninth tharlarion strode forth and I, too, afoot, in chains, accompanied it. The tenth tharlarion brought up the rear.
It was hot, dusty.
Indeed, Marcus and I would not converse, for he was yards ahead. It was natural that male prisoners would be thusly separated. In this fashion, given independent interrogations, they cannot adequately corroborate one anothers stories. One does not know what the other has said, or been told, and so on. Similarly the possibility of active collaboration is signifi-cantly reduced. Interestingly, on the other hand, captive women are often kept together, that their suspicions, speculations, fears and apprehensions may reinforce one another, bringing them to a state of common ignorance and terror. This is also useful in increasing their sexual arousal and readying them to please.
It was hot, dusty.
Marcus had it somewhat better I thought. He was almost at the front. There was less dust there. It was natural, I sup-posed, that he had been placed in this position of precedence. The leader had apparently accepted that he was an officer, and in command of our small party. Surely he had been our spokesman. Too, he was of Ars Station, and not merely Port Kar. I, I supposed, was understood, naturally enough under the circumstances, to be his subordinate, or man. It might also be mentioned, however, that there was an additional reason for this position of Marcus near the leader, one which puts the matter in a certain perspective. In case of trouble he, Marcus, the presumed leader of the captives, could be quickly dispatched.
We increased our pace. I did not think the trek would be pleasant. Already I was thirsty.
One must distinguish between the slave girl who is put to a stirrup as a discipline, who might be taken into the country like this, even on dirt roads, to gasp and sweat, and struggle, at the stirrup, and the girl who, in a city, or on a smooth stone road, of great fitted blocks, serves primarily, and proudly, considering the honor bestowed upon her, the implicit tribute to her beauty, as a display item in her masters panoply.
It would probably be dark in an Ahn. I wondered where might be the army of Ar.
I looked at the riders.
Doubtless they would have preferred, indeed, that we were females.
Men such as these, of course, who have lived with hard-ship and danger, when they return to camp, know well how to handle women. In their presence the slaves do not dally. They hurry quickly, frightened, to their chains.
I, too, wanted a woman.
The shadows were growing long now.
A sting fly hummed by. Chained, it would be difficult to defend oneself from such a creature. It was the second I had seen this day. They generally hatch around rivers and marshes, though usually somewhat later in the season. At certain times, in certain areas, they hatch in great numbers.
The dust rose like clouds, stirred by the heavy, clawed paws of the tharlarion.
Marcus had assured me that there was nothing to fear, that we were being taken to Saphronicus.
The chain was on my neck.
I trusted that Marcus was correct, that there was nothing to fear.
I moved my hands in the close-fitting steel circlets which held my hands pinioned so perfectly behind my back.
Yes, there would be nothing to fear.
I hoped, at least, there was nothing to fear.
In any event, we were helpless prisoners. We were totally at the mercy of our captors.

4. The Delta

Through the eye, I screamed, struggling in the ropes, naked, they tight about my upper body, my hands crossed and bound behind me, fastened closely to my ankles, kneel-ing in the bow of the small craft, of bound rence. Through the eye!
Men screamed about me, and cried out with fear, rage.
The fellow had been taken from the rence craft before me, the comparatively small, less than a foot in breadth at its thickest point, triangular-jawed head, on the long, muscular, sinuous neck, lifting suddenly, glistening, dripping water, from the marsh, turning sideways, and seizing the fellow, then lifting him a dozen feet, on that long neck, screaming, writhing into the air.
Through the eyes! I begged him.
He cannot reach the eyes! cried a man.
A fellow smote at the side of the creature with his paddle. It backed away, propelled by its heavy, diamondshape, paddlelike appendages, its tail snapping behind it, splashing water.
There was much screaming. Within a hundred yards there was a flotilla of small craft, rence craft, flatboats, barges, scows, fishing boats and rafts, perhaps four or five hundred men.
We heard the snapping of the backbone of the fellow in the air.
If he had been able to get his thumbs to the creatures eyes, he might have been able to utilize those avenues, to reach the brain. But he had been unable to do so.
He is dead, said a man.
The body hung limp, save for tremors, contractions, the wild stare in the eyes.
He is not dead! cried another fellow.
Kill him! begged another.
I cannot reach him! cried a fellow with a sword, stand-ing unsteadily, almost falling, in one of the light rence craft.
No, he is dead, said another. The man was dead.
The creature then submerged, and turning, struck against one of the barges, lifting it up a yard, from the water, then was under it, the barge sliding off its back, half turned, and was moving away, under water, through the reeds.
A fellow cried out near me. The narrow snout of a fishlike tharlarion thrust up from the water, inches away. Another fellow pushed at it with his paddle. It disappeared under the bound rence.
Unbind me! I begged. I was utterly helpless.
Be silent, spy! snarled a man.
My knees were wet, from water come up between the bound, shaped bundles of tubular rence.
Reform! called an officer, a few yards away. Reform! Forward! He was in the bow of a small fishing craft. Men moved it with poles.
Turn back! I called to him. Can you not understand what has been done to you?
He paid me no attention.
Forward! he cried. Pursue the sleen of Cos! They shall not escape!
Help! we heard, from our left. One of the scows was settling in the water, foundering.
Break the wood! cried a fellow. Form a raft! Men were in the water, some swimming, Some wading, chest deep.
Take us aboard! called men.
Some were assisted to other craft, some of these now dangerously low in the water.
Forward! called the officer. Hurry! They cannot be far ahead now.
The reeds are broken in two places, said a man.
We shall divide our forces, said the officer. Another contingent of men was behind us. He could hear their shouts, now.
I squirmed in my bonds.
Saphronicus and Seremides had now had their revenge, I thought. Once, long ago, they had been lieutenants of Cernus of Ar, my enemy, whose machinations, and political and economic manipulations, had been successful in bringing down Minus Tentius Hinrabius from the throne of Ar. Later Cernus himself, though only of the Merchants, ascended the throne. He was later deposed by the popular Marlenus of Ar who, having returned to the city, was backed by the populace. Cernus had been killed by a kur, a beast not native to Gor. Saphronicus and Seremides, as traitors, had been put in chains and sold to the galleys whence, I gathered, they had been rescued by some who perhaps might find use for men such as they. Saphronicus had been the former captain of the Taurentians, the palace guard in Ar. Seremides had been leader of the forces of Ar. I had heard, of course, that a man named Seremides was now high general in Ar, but I had not supposed that this might be the Seremides of the time of Cernus. On Gor, as elsewhere, there are many common names. Many are named Tarl, for example, particularly in Torvaldsland, and, generally, in the northern latitudes of Gor. The Seremides of the time of Cernus had even been by birth of Tyros. It seemed incredible, then, that such a fellow could have risen again in the services of Ar, except in the absence of Marlenus, and abetted by conspirators. That this was indeed the same Seremides had been made clear to me, however, by an amused Saphronicus himself, in a midnight interview in his tent. I had been knelt naked and bound before him. This also explained, of course, the matter of the betraying message which I had unwittingly carried at great risk to Ars Station on behalf of Gnieus Lelius, regent in An, that message which had identified me as a Cosian spy. I had not seen Saphronicus in Ar, of course. I did not know if Gnieus Lelius was involved in the treason now rampant in Ar or not. I did know, from deciphered documents seized in Brundisium, the name of at least one of the traitors. It was a female. Her name was Talena, and she had once been, until disowned, the daughter of Marlenus of Ar. Her fortunes, I gathered, were now on the rise in Ar. She had been restored to citizenship and some spoke of her, though in hushed voices, as a possi-ble Ubara.
Are you going to kill me now? I had asked Saphronicus.
No, he had laughed. I am going to send you to the delta.

5. The Ul

I would speak with your officer, I said to the soldier.
I have again conveyed your request to him, said the fellow. Now be silent.
I lay back in the ropes, on the sand.
I gritted my teeth against the insects crawling on my body. I turned, 1 shifted my position. I could not much use my hands to protect myself. 1 wanted to cry out in misery. 1 wondered if such torment could drive a man insane. I was silent. I lay then again on my back, looking up. I could see stars, two of the three moons. I heard a fellow a few feet away cry out in pain, and slap at his body. There were many men about. The delta is treacherous, and difficult to navigate. Its channels change almost overnight. There is often very little visibility in it, for more than a few feet ahead, for the rence. Its sluggish, muddy waters vary from channels deep enough to float a round ship, to washes of a few inches deep. Its average depth, at this time of year, after the spring thaws upriver, is three to five feet. There are many sand bars in it. On one such bar I and some fifty or sixty men now camped. Their small craft were drawn up about the bar. In the first night, ten nights ago, several of these had been lost. The number and configuration of the sand bars, in virtue of the currents, is subject to frequent rearrangements, their materials being often swept away and redistributed. After that first night, the small craft had been tied together, some of the ropes fastened ashore, to stakes. My bound ankles were fastened by a short rope to one of these stakes, my neck, by a rope, to another.
Fellow, I called.
The soldier looked over at me.
Am I the only prisoner in the delta? I asked.
I do not know, he said.
Marcus and I had been kept separate even from the time of our capture. I had, however, known his location at least, until we had arrived, after several days, in the temporary camp of Ar, then west of Holmesk. We were then put apart, I caged, and he taken somewhere else. I assumed he had been taken to see Saphronicus, or at least conducted into the presence of appropriate officers, this in accord with the expressed inten-tions of our captor, the leader of the patrol encountered near Teslit.
"I was brought to the camp of Ar, I said, with my fellow, a lad from Ars Station.
Your officer? he asked.
My fellow, I said.
Spies, both of you, said he, grimly.
What became of him? I asked.
What do you suppose became of him? he asked.
I do not know, I said.
He was a spy, said the fellow.
Do you know what became of him? I asked.
I suppose he was castrated, tortured and impaled, said the fellow.
He was of Ars Station, I said, colony to Ar, and of ancient and honorable family.
Of high family? he asked.
Of the Marcelliani, I said.
Perhaps, then, said he, he was merely scourged and beheaded.
Is that known to you? I asked.
No, he said.
You do not know where he is, then, I said.
No, he said.
I have been brought to the delta, I said. Why?
That you may see the unavailingness of your lies, he said, that you may see us close with the sleen of Cos, that you may see the slaughter of your friends, your paymasters, that you may see wreaked upon them the vengeance of the state of Ar! Glory to Ar!
Glory to Ar, repeated a nearby fellow. The low, spread-ing, sloping mound of sand, that bar in the delta, was crowded.
How many Cosians have you taken? I asked.
We will soon close with them, he said, angrily. Yes, said another fellow, listening.
Tomorrow, maybe tomorrow, said another.
Yes, maybe tomorrow! said the fellow near me.
Sleep now, said one of the fellows in the vicinity. The men were then silent.
I lay there for a time, looking up at the sky. I once saw, outlined against one of the moons, membranous, clawed wings outspread, the soaring shape of the giant, predatory ul, the dreaded winged tharlarion of the delta. It is, normally, the only creature that dares to outline itself against the sky in the area. I tried not to feel the tiny feet on my body. Toward morning, somehow, I fell asleep

6. Forward

One of the men behind me, with the paddle, cursed. Our knees were in water.
The bow of the rence craft, still dry, nosed through reeds. Other craft, too, were about.
Surely we must be upon the sleen of Cos by now! wept a man.
Hold! called a voice, ahead.
A gant suddenly fluttered out of the reeds, darting up, then again down, away.
There is a body here, in the water, said a fellow ahead, to the left, on a narrow raft.
A Cosian? asked a man, in a rence craft nearby.
No, said the man.
We approached. The officers boat, too, the fishing craft, propelled by poles, approached, he and others, as well.
In the marsh water, half submerged, its face down, floated a body.
It is one of our fellows, said a man.
Cosians did this, exclaimed a man.
It is unlikely, I said.
Who then? asked a fellow.
Consider the wounds, I said. There were three of them, in the back.
He was struck three times, said a fellow.
No, once, I said.
There are three wounds, said the man.
Consider them, I said, the rectlinear alignment, their spacing.
A trident, said a man.
Yes, I said. The three-pronged fish spear.
That is not a weapon, said a man.
It may be used as such, obviously, I said.
And in the arena, it is, said a fellow. He referred to one of the armaments well known in the arena, that of the fish-erman, he who fights with net and trident. There are a number of such armaments, usually bearing traces of their origin.
Surely here, in the delta, there are no arena fighters, said a man.
The body was pulled up, onto the raft.
But it is by means of such weapons, I said, that fishermen often fight. Indeed, it is from that practice, im-proved and refined, and made more deadly, that arena fight-ers have taken their example.
Rencers? asked the officer, of me.
Undoubtedly, I said. Rencers live in the delta. They inhabit rence islands, huge floating rafts of woven rence. As the rence rots at the bottom, it is replaced, more rence being added to the surface. The sand bars, as I have suggested, are unsuitable for permanent locations. And, indeed, the rence islands, inhabited by the rencers, as they float, are movable. An entire village thus, on its island, may be shifted at will. Needless to say, this mobility can be very useful to the rencers, enabling them, for example, to seek new fishing grounds and harvest fresh stands of rence, their major trading commodity, used for various purposes, such as the manufac-ture of cloth and paper. It is also useful, of course, in withdrawing from occasional concentrations of tharlarion and avoiding undesired human contacts. The location of such villages is usually secret. Trade contacts are made by the rencers themselves, at their election, at established points. Such villages, given their nature, may even be difficult to detect from the air.
Do you think there are any about? asked the officer.
I do not know, I said. There might be. There might not be.
They could be anywhere in the rence, said a fellow, uneasily.
True, I said. To be sure, I doubted that there were any in the vicinity. Troops of Ar, in their numerous craft, some men even wading, were all about.
Why would they have struck this fellow? asked a man. Who knows? I asked. Actually I had a very good idea what might have been the case.
Consign the body to the delta, said the-officer. The body was rolled from the raft, into the water. Forward, said the officer.

7. Glory to Ar

There! cried a fellow. The rence is broken there!
There was a cheer from the several craft about us. This cheer was echoed, from flotilla to flotilla, of the small craft behind us, as well as to the sides.
They cannot be far ahead now! cried a man.
Eagerly the men of Ar then pressed through the break in the rence.
Those behind, in their numbers, for pasangs back, may have thought the enemy himself had been sighted.
By late afternoon, however, nothing more had been seen.
I am hungry, said a man.
The fin of a marsh shark cut the water nearby. Men thrust it away with the butts of their spears.
A wading fellow discarded his shield. He could perhaps no longer bear its weight. He held to his spear, his eyes closed, using it like a pole, to keep his balance in the soft bottom.
Are such sharks dangerous? asked a fellow.
Yes, I said. The common Gorean shark is nine-gilled. There are many varieties of such shark, some of which, like the marsh shark and the sharks of the Vosk and Laurius, are adapted to fresh water. In the recent conflicts at Ars Station, blood had carried for hundreds of pasangs downriver, even to the gulf. This had lured many open-water sharks into the delta and eastward. Hundreds of these had perished. Their bodies could still be found along the shores of the Vosk.
I saw a fellow bend down from one of the small craft and lift water to his mouth, and drink. This, like the fin of the marsh shark, earlier, told me we were still far from the gulf. It was perhaps as much as four or five hundred pasangs away. I wondered if these men of Ar knew how fortunate they were. At this point in the delta, east of the tidal marshes, the water was still drinkable.
Al! cried the fellow behind me, with the paddle. More water swirled up through the rence of our small craft. The water was now over our calves. I did not think the small craft would last another day. Normally a rence craft will last weeks, even months. Ours had begun to deteriorate in days. I did not think this was inexplicable. About us, too, many men were already wading, some clinging to the sides of rafts and small boats.
Glory to Ar! cried a fellow.
Glory to Ar! called others.

8. The Pursuit has Continued

I would speak with your officer, I said to the fellow, he tethering my ankles to a stake.
I have spoken to him, said he. Such permission has not been granted.
I was then thrust back to the sand. Another fellow then put the rope on my neck, that I might be again affixed, bound, between two stakes.
You know something of the delta, do you not? asked the fellow who had tethered my ankles, standing near me, looking down at me.
Something of it, I said. I had once come to Port Kar through the delta.
Where are we? he asked.
Only a rencer would know, if he, I said.
We are well within the delta, he said.
Yes, I said, two or three hundred pasangs. "Further, said he.
Perhaps, I said. That could be true.
Where are your fellows, the Cosian sleen! he suddenly cried.
I was silent.
Do not expect to be fed, he snarled.
There is little enough to feed anyone, said a fellow, wearily, nearby.
The delta, of course, is teeming with wildlife. To be sure, the men of Ar, in their numbers, in their haste, with the relentlessness of their pursuit, only lately slowed, had not been in a position to take advantage of it. Too, the distur-bance of their passage, given the noise, the splashing and such, had doubtless driven much of the normal game, particu-larly birds and fish, from the area.
He is to be kept alive, said one of the men.
Very well, said the first fellow. I am sure we can find him something to eat, something delicious, something fit for a spy. He looked down at me, in hate. He fingered the hilt of the dagger at his belt. But not tonight, he said.
He turned away from me.
How could we not have yet closed with the sleen of Cos? asked a fellow.
In the delta, one could hide a dozen armies, said another. Surely we would see some signs of them, said another fellow.
Yes, said another. How is it that we have seen no signs of them?
We have seen signs of them, growled another.
Yes, said another.
I doubted that this was true.

9. The Barge

Move ahead, said the fellow in the bow of the small rence craft.
I struggled forward, pressing against the water, up to my chest, stumbling, pushing through rence, the rope on my neck going back to the small craft. My hands were now manacled behind me. For the purpose of comfort, I much preferred this to rope. That thoughtfulness had not been, of course, the motivation of my captors. Rather they wished, now that my hands were not in view, to be assured as to my continued helplessness. Perhaps rope might be worked free, or slipped, somehow, unseen, beneath the surface. The metal, on the other hand, would hold me well. I did not object. I, too, were our positions reversed, would presumably have taken similar precautions. I did not know who held the key.
My head went briefly under the water, and then, coughing, I struggled again to the surface. There are many such irregu-larities in the bottom. Rence cut at my face. I spit water.
Move! Pull! I heard behind me.
I turned my head to the side, that the rope would draw against the side of my neck. I struggled to tow the small craft. It was hard to paddle now, being heavy, the rence soaked with water. I had been put before it, the rope on my neck, this morning, wading, that it need not bear my weight. In this fashion it might last another day or two.
Hurry, pull, lazy sleen! I heard. The bow of the craft came beside my shoulder, the rope dropping back in the water. The fellow there thrust out, striking me in the back with the paddle. I stumbled. I regained my balance. I then struggled ahead again, through the rence.
I nearly cried out. Something under the water, moving, had touched my leg.
Nearby was a barge, one of the larger craft in our make-shift flotilla, carrying perhaps fifty men. It was poled by ten men to a side, working in shifts. Some other fellows, with their helmets, cast water out of it. Other men clung to its stern.
I could not see far from the water, but there were men and small boats, rafts and such, all about.
I was not the only fellow in the water. There were many there. Most of these fellows were in long lines. In this fashion, the first fellow can mark out footing for those who follow and each man can keep his eye on the fellow before him. Too, a small craft would normally bring up the rear of such lines.
A rence craft floundered near us, settling in the water.
Pull, sleen, ordered the man behind me.
Again I struggled to move the small craft forward.
Had I a whip, he cried, you would move faster!
Leech! I said. Leech! I could feel it on my back. It was large. It may have been what had touched me in the water. I could not reach it with my chained hands.
Help! I heard. Help!
I turned about and saw a fellow several yards back, to one side, his eyes wild with horror, lift his hands. I cannot move! he cried. I sink! He had sought a shallower course. There are many such, here and there. The water there had come only to his knees. But as I watched he had sunk to his waist.
Quicksand! said another fellow.
A spear was extended to the first fellow and he seized it, eagerly, desperately, the water now about his neck, and was drawn free.
Stay in line! chided an officer.
But the fellow, I think, uttering accessions, covered with sand, needed no further encouragement. He swiftly, grate-fully, took his place in one of the long lines.
The loss of men to quicksand was rare now, given the lines, in the first days in the delta over two hundred men had been lost, in one case an entire platoon. Several others, unaccounted for, may also have been victims of the treacher-ous sand.
Move, called the fellow behind me.
On my back, I said, I can feel it! A leech! Take it off!
You can be covered with them, spying sleen, snarled the man, for all I care.
I ask that it be removed, I said.
Do not fear, said the fellow. "They are only hungry. When they have their fill, they will drop off.
Here is another, said a fellow wading near me, holding up its wet, half-flattened, twisting body in his hand. It was some four inches long, a half inch thick.

There are probably a great many of them here, said the fellow, dropping it back in the water.
I shuddered.
Do not approach the boat, warned the fellow behind me.
I shuddered again. I felt another such creature on my leg, high, in the back.
Ho, hold! cried a man, high on a platform, set on the bow of one of the barges. He could, from that coign of vantage, look over the rence. There! he cried. A covered barge, ahead! An officer climbed up beside him. He shaded his eyes. Yes, lads, he called down. A barge! Not one of ours! We are on them now!
There were cheers, from perhaps a thousand voices.
Forward, lads! cried other officers. Forward!
Men pressed forward.
I could hear cheers from far behind me now, so swiftly had the word spread through the rence.
There, cried the man behind me. The pursuit draws to a close. The vengeance of Ar is at hand!
My neck was sore.
Now soon, sleen, gloated he, will you see your Cosian masters beneath our blades!
I stood unsteadily in the water. I could feel the leeches on my body, one on my back, another on my leg. Then, shud-dering, I felt yet another. It was fastening itself near the first, on my back.
Pull, ordered the fellow behind me.
Again I drew the craft forward, straining against the rope, it cutting into the side of my neck.
The sun was high overhead now.
We made little progress, it seemed, in closing the gap between ourselves and the alleged barge ahead. From time to time it was sighted again.
The men of Ar, in their boats, and wading, after a time, began to sing. The marsh echoed with their songs.
What barge is that? I asked, suddenly.
It, gliding by, poled by several men, seemed an apparition in the marsh. It was purple, and gilded, its bow in the graceful shape of the neck and head of a long-necked, sharp-billed gant, its stern carved to represent feathers, It had an open, golden cabin, covered with translucent golden netting. The poles propelling the craft were golden. Such a vessel made a startling, unconscionable contrast with the meanness, that wretched, ragged, numerous miscellany, of other craft about. Certainly it belonged not in the delta but in some canal or placid waterway.
She wants to be in on the kill, said a fellow.
She? I said.
Ina, Lady of Ar, said a fellow.
 Ina, I said, that could be the name of a slave. Such names, Ina, Ita, Tuna, Tula, Di, Lita and such, are common slave names. They, and many such names, are worn by hundreds of women in bondage. Earth-girl names, such as Shirley, Linda, Jane, and such, are also com-monly used as slave names. One girl, of course, may, from time to time, have many different names, according to the whim of her master, or masters. She is a domestic animal, to be named as the master pleases.
That is no slave, said a fellow.
No, laughed another, perhaps ruefully.
That is Ina, Lady of Ar, said a man, attached to the staff of Saphronicus, a political observer, said to be a confidant of, and to report to, the Lady Talena, of Ar, herself.
Where is the barge of Saphronicus? I asked.
It is back there, somewhere, doubtless," said a man.
Doubtless, I said.
Other vessels pass you, said a man.
Pull! ordered the fellow behind me.
Again I put my weight against the rope, once more moving the sodden craft forward.

10. Morale is High

Lie still, said the fellow crouching next to me.
I shuddered, lying in the sand. The reaction was uncontrol-lable, involuntary, reflexive.
Still, he said. He held the bit of rence stalk, still smoking from the fire, to one of the creatures on my back. I could feel it pulling out of my skin. He then picked it from my back, dropping it to the side, with others.
I did not know how much blood I had lost, though I suppose, objectively, it was not much. How much can one of those creatures, even given the hideous distention of its diges-tive cavity, hold? Yet there had been many during the day. Many had released their hold themselves.
That is the last one, observed the fellow, turning me about.
My thanks, I said.
He had removed, by my count, eleven of the creatures. He had put them to the side. There are various ways in which they may be encouraged to draw out, not tearing the skin. The two most common are heat and salt. It is not wise, once they have succeeded in catching hold, to apply force to them. In this fashion, too often part of the creature is left in the body, a part, or parts, which must then be removed with a knife or similar tool.
Bring a torch, here! I heard a fellow call.
I was again, as was done with me at night, tethered be-tween mooring stakes, my ankles to one, my neck to another. My wrists were held behind me, in the manacles.
Friend, I said.
I am not your friend, said he. I am your enemy. He stood up, discarding the smoking rence.
Call your officer to me, I said. I would speak with him.
That is for your keeper to do, said he, not me.
Ho! called a fellow from a few yards away. Look!
Kill it! cried a fellow, joyfully.
Here, help me! said another. I heard the sounds of two or three men.
What is it? I asked, turning in the sand, looking up.
It is a marsh turtle, a large one, said the fellow, come up on the bar.
Why would it do that? I asked. There are men here, many of them.
Now they have it confused, with fire and spears, re-ported the man, standing beside me. It does not know which way to turn.
Why is it not retreating to the water? I asked, alarmed.
It does not know which way to turn, he said. They have it surrounded now. It is not moving now, it is in its shell now!
Together, men! I heard.
There was a hissing sound, the grunting of men.
They have it on its back now, said the fellow, pleased. For once we shall eat well in the delta.
Why has it come up on the bar, with men here! I said. I felt suddenly very helpless in the manacles, the ropes.
I do not understand, he said.
Beware! I said, pulling at the manacles. Beware!
Aiii! cried a fellow, a few yards away.
It is gigantic! cried the fellow near me. I heard a hideous hissing, a thrashing in the sand. Men parted between us and the creature. I struggled up a few inches, turning my head. Moving toward us, dripping, was a gigantic, short-legged, long-bodied tharlarion. Its tail snapped to one side, scattering sand.
Fire! I screamed. Torches!
The opening of its long, narrow jaws may have been as much as five foot Gorean.
Torches! cried the fellow with me.
It wants the meat, I said. Drive it away! That is why the turtle came to the bar. It was fleeing!
The tharlarion looked about, its body lifted off the sand, its tail moving.
A fellow rushed toward it, thrusting a lit torch into the jaws. The beast hissed with fury, drawing back. Then another fellow threatened it with a torch, and then another. The beast lowered its body to the sand and then, pushing back in the sand, backed away.
More fire! cried a fellow.
Men rushed forward, with torches, and spears. Suddenly the beast slid back into the water, and, with a snap of its tail, turned and disappeared, beyond the ring of torchlight.
It is gone, said the fellow near me.
They fear fire, said a man.
Keep torches lit, said a fellow.
Feast! called a fellow. Feast!
Build up the fire! called another.
Slay the turtle! called another.
It is done! said a fellow.
There was much good cheer then in the camp.
I lay neglected in the darkness, naked, in the manacles, between two stakes, helpless.
After a time my keeper, chewing, came near to me. Are you hungry? he asked.
Yes, I said.
Tomorrow we will close with your fellows, he said. Tomorrow glorious Ar will have her vengeance.
I would speak with your officer, I said.
The rence craft is rotted, he said. It would not last tomorrow.
I was silent. I wondered if he had ever considered the oddity of the deterioration of the rence, in only days. I supposed not. He was not of the delta. He might think there was nothing unusual about it.
I have made arrangements for our group to share a three-log raft, he said.
I am hungry, I said.
The raft is heavy, he said. There are two poles only.
Feed me, I said.
We will want a draft beast, he said.
I am hungry, I said.
We will arrange a harness for you, he said.
I am hungry, I said.
Are you hungry? he asked.
Yes, I said. I could smell the turtle. I could hear the good humor, the jokes, of the men.
I turned my head away.
Eat, said he, spying sleen of Cos.
I regarded him.
It is food fit for spies, said he, laughing. Eat, he said.
I opened my mouth and he put one of the leeches into it.
Eat, he said.
Later he forced another leech into my mouth and waited until I had eaten it. He then took the remaining leeches and, with a shiver of disgust, with two hands, hurled them out from the bar, into the water.
Sleep well, sleen, said he. He then left.
I lay there for a time, hearing the joviality of the men on the bar. Morale this night was high among them.
I rose up a bit and turned my head, looking toward the water. Some torches were fixed there, at intervals, near the waters edge. Beyond them the marsh was dark. I then lay back, and, after a time, slept.

11. A Victory is Claimed

So this, said the officer, is our spy.
He was on a barge, a few feet away. The sun was high overhead. It seemed one could almost see the steam rising from the water. There were almost no shadows from the rence on the water.
I was in the water to my chest, before the raft I drew. I wore a small, improvised yoke, drilled in three places. This was fastened on me by means of three straps, one about each wrist and one about my neck, these straps then being threaded back through the three holes, one behind each wrist and one behind the neck, each then being fastened in its respective place, bound about the wood. This same type of simple yoke, though much lighter, sometimes no more than a narrow board of branch, is sometimes used for female slaves. If the yoke is somewhat stouter and her arms are extended a bucket may be hung on either side of such a yoke. It was good to have my hands in another position. The manacles now, due to frequent exposure and submersion, were muchly rusted. At night, however, I wore them as usual, and in their usual fashion, pinioning my hands behind my back. Sometimes during the day, out of the water, or in shallow water, I was permitted to wear them before my body, usually fastened closely to my belly with a strap. The center of such a strap is tied about the chain of the manacles and the two ends of the strap are joined behind the back. In this way one cannot reach the knot which fastens the strap in place. A similar arrangement is often used with binding fiber and slave bracelets, on women. I now, besides the yoke, wore a harness of straps which fas-tened me to the raft I drew.
In the sanguine prosecution of your espionage, sleen, smiled the officer, I wager you did not expect to find yourself as you are now, at our mercy, serving us, yoked in the delta.
I would speak with you, I said.
You look well, in our service, sleen, said he.
I would speak with you, privately, I said. It is urgent.
Such a request is to be forwarded through channels, smiled the officer.
The fellow behind me on the raft, he acting as my keeper, laughed.
Where is Saphronicus, leader of the forces of Ar in the north? I challenged.
In the rear, said the officer.
Have you reported to him, or to any who have? I asked. He looked at me, puzzled. We have our standing or-ders, he said. Communication is difficult in the delta.
We, as I understood it, were in the center. There were also on the left and right, the flanks.
I submit, I said, that Saphronicus is not in the delta! He looked at me, angrily.
Where is the army of Cos? I demanded.
Ahead, said the officer. We are closing.
I submit-
Gag him, said the officer, angrily.
The fellow behind me left the raft, swiftly, plunging into the water. In a moment I felt rags thrust in my mouth, and then tied there, the cloth binding drawn back between my teeth, deeply, then fastened tightly before the yoke, behind my neck.
The officer then turned away.
Scarcely had he done so, however, than shouts were heard from the right, in a moment we heard men crying out that a great victory had been won on the right. There were cheers about. It seemed the delta itself rang with their sound.
There! said the officer, turning to me, leaning on the railing of the barge. There, you see? Victory itself, won with the steel of Ar, has gainsaid your seditious intimations!
The men behind me cheered.
The fellows poling the barge then moved it forward.
I stood in the water, stunned. I could not believe this. I could not understand what had occurred. Could my conjectures, my suppositions, my suspicions, be so profoundly awry?
Pull! said my keeper. Pull!
One of the two poles used by the fellows on the raft dug into my back forcing me forward.
Pull! commanded the keeper.
I then, in consternation, put my weight against the traces and, after a moment, my feet slipping in the mud, felt the raft move forward. I had not struggled forward for more than a few feet when I realized, with a sinking feeling, what must have happened.

12. It is Thought That There are the Cries of Vosk Gulls

There is one who would see you, said my keeper. 
I looked up from the sand, where I lay, gagged, tethered between two stakes, my hands manacled behind my back. 
Clean him up, said a fellow, one I had not seen before. Brush his hair, wash him, quickly, said another, also a fellow I had not seen before. Make him presentable. 
My ankles were freed. The rope on my neck was removed for the moment it took them to kneel me, and then it was restored, now measured to my kneeling position. Sand and mud were wiped from me. My hands remained manacled behind my back. My hair was brushed.
Remove his gag, said one of the men. Leave its materials on the neck-rope, where they may be easily re-placed. This was done.
Do you want a cloth for his loins? asked my keeper.
That will not be necessary, said the other man.
What is going on? I asked.
You are to be interrogated, said one of the men.
Is he securely manacled? asked a voice. I was startled. So, too, might have been any who heard such, here in the delta. It was a womans voice!
That he is, Lady, said one of the two men.
She approached daintily, distastefully, disdainfully, across the wet sand, in her slippers. They were probably quite expensive. I think she did not want to ruin them.
She regarded me.
She was small and her figure, obscured to be sure under the heavy fabrics of the robes of concealment, surely uncom-fortable, and seemingly incongruous, in the delta, seemed cuddly. She was veiled, as is common for Gorean women in the high cities, particularly those of station. In some cities the veil is prescribed by law for free women, as well as by custom and etiquette; and in most cities it is prohibited, by law, to slaves.
Withdraw, said she to those about. I would speak with him privately.
My keeper checked the manacles on my wrists and the length, stoutness and fastening of the neck-rope. Then he, with the others, withdrew.
She lifted the hems of her robes a tiny bit, lifting them a bit from the wet sand, holding them in one hand. She did not, I gathered, wish them soiled. She seemed haughty, displeased, disdainful, fastidious. Doubtless there were places other than the delta which she would have preferred to frequent, such as the arcades, the courts and shops of Ar. I could see the toes of her embroidered slippers.
Do you know who I am? she asked.
I looked beyond her, out, back past torches. Now that I was on my knees and the men were to one side, I could see the lines of the barge, purple and gilded, near the bank, that with the golden cabin, covered with golden netting.
Do you know who I am? she asked.
I saw that she did not raise the hems of her robes more than a hort or two, scarcely enough to lift them from the sand. The soldiers of Ar, regulars, were closely and exactly disciplined. Yet I suspected that she had enough womans sense not to reveal her ankles among them. They were, of course, men, and Gorean men, and had been long from a woman.
It seems you have been gagged, she said, looking at the binding, and the sodden wadding, wrapped about my neck-rope.
Yes, I said.
Susceptibility to the gag is a liability of prisoners, she said, enforceable at a moments notice, at the whim of a captor.
Of course, I said.
And I, she said, have the authority. I assure you, to have it replaced on you, perfectly, immediately.
I understand, I said.
I am Ina, Lady of Ar, she said, of the staff of Saphronicus, general in the north.
I know, I said.
I am an observer, she said, on behalf of Talena, Lady of Ar, daughter of Marlenus.
Once daughter of Marlenus, I said. She was sworn from him, disinherited, disowned, fully.
It seems you are familiar with the politics of Ar, she said.
It seems to me unusual, I said, that such a woman, disowned, disinherited, surely once sequestered in the central cylinder, in disgrace, should be able to post an observer in the delta.
Her fortunes rise, she said. I gather so, I said.
You are Tan, of Port Kar? she asked. Perhaps, I said.
You will answer my questions expeditiously! she said. I was silent.
Spread your knees! she snapped. I did so.
You are Tarl, of Port Kar, she said.
I have been known variously, I said, in various places.
You are Tarl, of Port Kar! she said, angrily. Yes, I said. I was Tarl, of Port Kar, city of the great arsenal, city of many canals, Jewel of Gleaming Thassa.
You are a handsome fellow, Tarl, she said.
I was silent.
But there are many marks on your body, she chided. From various things, I said, from blows, from ropes, from harness, from the slash of rence, from the bites and stings of insects, from the fastening places of marsh leeches.
She shuddered.
It is difficult to traverse the delta unscathed, I said, particularly when one is naked, in the water, harnessed, drawing a raft.
Such employments are suitable for a spy, she laughed.
Doubtless, I said.
You look well, naked, shackled, on your knees before me, she said, spy of Cos.
Doubtless your robes of concealment are uncomfortable in the delta, given the moisture, the heat, I said.
She looked at me, angrily.
Doubtless you would be more comfortable, if they were removed.
Today, she said, angrily, we have won a great victory.
Over Cosians? I asked.
In a way, she said, petulantly.
No, I said, over rencers.
Her eyes flashed over the veil.
Men of the right flank stumbled on a village of rencers, I said. That is all. I had surmised this, from the informa-tion coming from the right this afternoon.
Rencers are allies of those of Cos! she said.
The influence of Cos was strong in the delta, to be sure, there as it was in the western reaches of the Vosk, but I did not think the rencers would be explicit allies of Cos. They, in their small, scattered communities, tend to be secretive, fiercely independent folk.
The village was destroyed, she laughed.
I am sorry to hear it, I said.
That is because you favor Cos, she said.
Those of Port Kar, I said, are at war with Cos. To be sure, this war was largely a matter of skirmishes, almost always at sea, and political formality. There had not been a major engagement since the battle of the 25th of SeKara, in the first year of the sovereignty of the Council of Captains in Port Kar, or, to use the chronology of Ar, 10,120 C.A., Contasta Ar, from the Founding of Ar. In that battle the forces of Port Kar had defeated the combined fleets of Cos and Tyros.
Those of Port Cos doubtless have their traitors, as well as those of other cities, she said.
I suppose so, I said.
But you may lament for your allies, the rencers, she laughed.
It was not only they for whom I was sorry, said I.
For whom, then? she asked.
For those of Ar, as well, said I.
I do not understand, I said.
Surely there were warning signals, cloth on wandlike rence stems, white, then later red, raised in the vicinity of the rencers village.
Such were mentioned in the reports, she said.
Yet your scouts proceeded, I said.
Ar goes where she pleases, said she. Too, such mark-ers could have been set up by Cosians.
They serve to warn away strangers, I said. In the vicinity of such markers Cosians would be no more welcome than those of Ar.
We of Ar do not fear, she laughed. Too, it does not matter now. Victory was ours. The village was destroyed.
Was your barge seen in the vicinity of the village? I asked.
I suppose so, she said. Were there survivors? I asked. I do not know, she said. I was silent.
It was a great victory, she said.
I was silent. I had once known some rencers. To be sure, the groups with which I was familiar were far to the west, indeed, in the vicinity of the tidal marshes themselves.
Concern yourself with the matter no longer, my helpless, handsome spy, she laughed. It is over, it is done with. It is finished.
Perhaps, I said.
Listen, she said. I hear Vosk gulls, out in the marsh.
Perhaps, I said. What do you mean? she asked. I was again silent.
I have men at my beck and command, she warned me.
For what purpose have you come, I asked, to torment me?
Spread your knees more widely, she snapped. I did so.
She laughed. As I understand it, she said, you were, though a prisoner, earlier displeasing in speech.
Have you the ear of an officer? I asked, suddenly.
Present them to officers, I said. Plead that they be considered!
I think not, she said.
Why? I asked.
They are the quaint ravings of a spy, she said.
You do not believe that, I said.
No, she said. Of course not.
Convey them then to officers, I said, swiftly, clearly!
No, she laughed.
I suddenly knelt back. You! I said. You are the spy! You are with them!
Yes, she laughed. I am with them!
It is for that reason you wished to interrogate me, I said, to see what I might know, or have guessed.
Of course, she said.
I have been a fool, I said.
Like all men, she said.
But I think, said I, that I am not the only fool here.
How is that? she asked.
You are in the delta, too, I said.
My barge will protect me, she said. It is known. Cosians have orders not to fire upon it, to let it pass.
I do not think I would care to trust that information, I said.
What do you mean? she asked.
You know a great deal, I said. Your life, in my opinion, is not as safe as you seem to think it is.
I do not care to listen to such nonsense, she said. I shrugged.
But there is another reason I wanted to interrogate you, she said.
What is that? I asked.
I heard from slaves in Ven, serving slaves, collared sluts, who saw you caged, before we came west, that you were an attractive and powerful beast. She laughed. It seems the sight of you made them juice.
They know perhaps what it is to obey a man, I said.
Perhaps, she laughed.
And you, I said, do you juice?
Do not be vulgar! she said.
But perhaps there is less to fear for your life than I thought, I said. Perhaps there is another disposition planned for you.
What? she asked.
The collar, I said.
Sleen! she hissed.
If when stripped you proved sufficiently beautiful, I added.
Sleen, sleen! she said.
Let us see your legs, I said. She stiffened in anger.
The robes of concealment must be bulky, hot, uncomfort-able in the delta, I said. The rence girls go barefoot, commonly, or wear rence sandals, and short tunics.
It is you who are the prisoner! she said.
And their slaves are sometimes not permitted clothing at all.
Sleen, she said.
Except perhaps a rope collar, I said.
It is you who are stripped, she said. It is you who are shackled, who have a rope on your neck!
Perhaps stripped, and in chains, in the shadow of a whip, I said, you, too, could learn to juice before men.
She trembled with rage. I thought she would hurry for-ward, to strike me, but then I did not think, even shackled as I was, that she cared to approach within the ambit of my neck rope. Then her body relaxed. Ah, she laughed, you are clever, for a man. You seek to make me angry.
I shrugged. They are simple conjectures, I said.
Again she stiffened in anger, but then, again, relaxed. She looked down at me. What an impudent fellow you are, she laughed. I think I shall have you beaten.
I was silent.
Has it been long since you have had a woman? she asked.
Yes, I said. Perhaps you have one or two serving slaves with you, one of whom, perhaps, as a discipline, you might order to my pleasure?
Alas, she laughed. I have not brought such slaves with me into the delta. They might learn too much. Also, their presence, such scantily clad, collared creatures, might too severely test the discipline of the men.
It must be difficult for you, I said, to be in the delta without serving slaves.
It is terrible, she admitted. I must even comb my own hair.
A significant hardship, I acknowledged.
And an embarrassing one, she said.
Without doubt, I said.
You speak ironically, she said.
Not at all, I said. For a woman such as you, such inconveniences must be all but intolerable.
They are, she said.
Is Saphronicus your lover? I asked.
No, she said.
I nodded. A man such as Saphronicus could have his pick of slaves, of course. With such an abundance of riches at his disposal he would not be likely to concern himself with a free female. To be sure, they are sometimes of economic, political or social interest to ambitious men, men interested in using them to improve their fortunes, further their careers, and so on. To satisfy their deeper needs, those of pleasure and the mastery, for example, slaves may be kept on the side. The slave, of course, like the sleen or verr, a mere domestic animal, like them, is seldom in a position to improve, say, a fellows social connections. An occasional exception is the secret slave whom most believe to be still free, her true relationship being concealed, at least for a time, by her masters will, from the public. This deception is difficult to maintain, of course, for as the woman grows in her slavery, it becomes more and more evident in her, in her behavior, her movements, her voice, and such. Also she soon longs for the openness of bondage, that her inward truth may now be publicly proclaimed, that she may now appear before the world, and be shown before the world, as what she is, a slave. Sometimes this is done in a plaza, or other public place, with a public stripping by her master. It is dangerous, sometimes, to be a secret slave, then revealed, for Goreans do not like to be duped. Sometimes they vent their anger on the slave, with blows and lashings, though it seems to me the blame, if any, in such cases, is perhaps less with the slave than the master. To be sure, she probably suggested her secret enslavement to begin with, perhaps even begging it. In any event, she is normally joyful to at last, publicly, be permitted to kneel before her master. By the time it is done, of course, many, from behavioral cues, will have already de-tected, or suspected, the truth. Such inferences, of course, can be mistaken, for many free women, in effect, exhibit similar behaviors, and such. That is because they, though legally free, within the strict technicalities of the law, are yet slaves. It is only that they have not yet been put in the collar. And the sooner it is done to them the better for them, and the community as a whole. But then I thought that the Lady Ina, perhaps, would not have high enough standing to be of interest in, say, political modalities to a man such as Saphronicus. To be sure, she might be of interest in some other fashion.
Saphronicus does not interest me, she said.
Perhaps he has you in mind for a collar, I said.
Sleen, she laughed.
Then you would have to attempt desperately to interest him, I said.
She drew her robes up a little, to reveal her ankles. She was a vain wench. This she did I think not only to show herself off, for it seemed to me that she was muchly pleased with herself, but also to torture me. She knew that so little a thing, event the glimpse of an ankle, may be torture to a sex-starved man.
My ankles, she said.
Lady Ina is cruel, I observed. She laughed.
They are a bit thick, are they not? I asked. She thrust down her robes, angrily.
But they would look well in shackles, I said. I will have you whipped, she said.
Do you not think they would look well in shackles? I asked.
I do not know, she said, hesitantly. She stepped back.
Surely you would be curious to know, I said.
No! she said.
Surely all women are curious to know if their ankles would look well in shackles, I said.
No! she said. As I have mentioned, Lady Ina was short, and her figure, though muchly concealed beneath the robes, suggested cuddliness, that it would fit very nicely, even deliciously, within the arms of a master. Similarly I did not, in actuality, regard her ankles as too thick. I thought that they were splendid, and, indeed, would take shackles very nicely.
And surely, I said, they are interested in knowing what they would bring on the auction block.
No! No! she said.
What do you think you would bring? I inquired.
Sleen! she said.
Perhaps not much, I said.
Do you not clearly understand, she asked, that it is you, not I, who are the prisoner?
I think, I said, you would sell for an average amount of copper tarsks.
It will be ten lashes for you! she said.
Strange, I said, "that it is I who have labored on behalf of Ar who kneel here in the sand, shackled, said to be a spy for Cos, and that it is you who are precisely such an agent who should stand here, above me, thought to be a partisan of Ar.
I am a free woman! she said. I am priceless!
Until you are stripped and sold, I said.
I would bring a high price! she said.
I doubt it, I said.
I am beautiful! she said.
Perhaps, I said. It is hard to tell.
Beware, she said, lest I be truly cruel to you, lest I truly torment you, lest I lower my veil and permit you to glimpse, ever so briefly, my beauty, a beauty which you will never possess, which you will never kiss or touch, a brief glimpse which you must then carry with you, recalled in frustration and agony, through the marsh!
Could you not part your robes, as well, I asked, that I might be even more tormented?
She stiffened again in anger, in fury.
Your figure, at least, I said, from what I surmise, would be likely to look quite well on a slave block.
She made an angry noise.
I saw that she wanted to lower her veil.
Am I not to be permitted, I asked, to look upon the face of my enemy?
I was silent.
Doubtless we will never see one another again, she said.
Doubtless, I said.
Look then, she said, reaching to the pin at the left of her veil, on the face of your enemy!
Like all women she was vain. She wished an assessment of her beauty.
Slowly, gracefully, was the veil lowered. I looked upon her.
AYes, she said, eagerly. I am your enemy! m I not beautiful? she challenged.
I shall now know you, I said, if ever we meet again.
You tricked me, she said.
I shrugged. I had wanted, too, to see her, of course. Too, I was sure she had wanted me, a male, to look upon her. One of the things which many free women resent about female slaves is that they are commonly denied the veil, that men may look openly, as they please, upon them.
I do not think we shall meet again, she said.
Probably not, I said.
Am I not beautiful? she asked.
I do not know if you are beautiful, I said. You are pretty.
Beautiful! she demanded.
Your face is too hard, too tense, too cold, to be beauti-ful, I said.
Beautiful! she insisted.
If you were in a collar for a few weeks, I said, your face would soften, and become more sensitive, more delicate and feminine. Too, as you learned service, obedience and love, and the categoricality of your condition, and your inal-terable helplessness within it, many changes would take place in you, in your body, your face, your psychology, your dispositions, and such. Your entire self would become more loving, more sexual, more sensitive, more delicate and femi-nine. You would find yourself, too, more relaxed, yet, too, more alive, more eager, more vital, such things connected, simply enough, with your depth fulfillments as a woman.
As a slave! she said.
Yes, I said. That is what a woman is, most deeply, most lovingly, a slave.
She shuddered.
And then, I said, I think it possible that your face might be no longer merely pretty, but, flushed and radiant, tending to express in its way your happiness, your fulfill-ment, your truth, your awareness that you then occupied, and would continue to occupy, and helplessly, your proper place in nature, very pretty.
And then my price? she asked.
There are many beautiful women on Gor, I said.
And then my price! she insisted.
For a superb, cuddly slut? I asked. 
My price! she demanded.
Probably an average number of copper tarsks, I said.
Guards! she cried, in fury, at the same time angrily lifting the corner of her veil, fumbling with it, repinning it. Men had hurried to her side. She pointed to me. It is true, she cried. He is a spy, a sleen of Cos. Too, he intends to spread seditious rumors among the troops. Give him ten lashes, of suitable severity!
It will be done, lady, said my keeper.
Then see that he is gagged, thoroughly, she said.
Yes, lady, said the keeper.
Already a fellow was loosening one of the shackles. In a moment my hands were manacled before my body.
Kneel to the whip, said the keeper. 
I knelt, my head to the sand.
In a moment I heard the hiss of the lash. Then it had fallen on me ten times.
I was then pulled up, kneeling, and my hands were again fastened behind my back. The wadding of the gag was thrust in my mouth, deeply. It was then fastened in place, the binding knotted behind the back of my neck, tightly, pain-fully. I was then flung to my belly in the sand, my ankles bound closely to one stake, my neck-rope, considerably short-ened now, keeping my body stretched, to another.
There was some blood in the sand, near me. See that he is worked well, she said.
We shall, lady, my keeper assured her. She then, I think, withdrew.
I lay in the sand, my head turned to the side.
I heard two sting flies hum by, needle flies, as the men of Ar called them.
It had been very hot in the marsh today. It had been oppressively hot, steamingly hot. I supposed the heat must have been hard for the Lady Ina, in her robes. Muchly she must have suffered in them. Such sacrifices must be made by the fashionable and high born, however. Much more practical for the delta would have been the skimpy garments of female slaves, the brief tunics, the short, open-sided, exciting camisks, the scandalous ta-teeras, or slave rags, indeed, the many varieties of stimulating slave garments, sometimes mere strips and strings, garments deliberately revelatory of imbonded beauty. How unfortunate, I thought, that Lady Ina had no serving slaves with her, to assist her in the intricacies of her toilet. She even had to brush her own hair.
In time my back hurt less.
It had been very hot in the marsh today.
I recalled the ankles of the Lady Ina, and her face. She had shown me her ankles of her own will, and, I suspect, had desired to reveal to me, also, her face. I wondered if it were good that I had looked upon her ankles, her face. It is not like looking on the beauty of a female slave whom one may then, with a snap of the fingers, send to the furs.
It was hot today, said a man.
Yes, said another.
Indeed, it had been. I had had an uneasy feeling in that heat, that quiet, oppressive, steaming heat. I had felt almost as if something lay brooding over the marsh, or within it, something dark, something physical, almost like a presence, something menacing.
What do you think of the Lady Ina? one fellow asked another.
A she-sleen, said the other.
But I would like to get my hands on her, said the first fellow.
I, too, laughed the second.
It occurred to me how much refuge women have in a civilized world, protected by customs, by artifices, by con-ventions, by arrangements, by laws. Did they understand, I wondered, the tenuousness of such things, their fragility, their dependence on the will of men. Did they wonder some-times, I wondered, what might be their lot, or how they might fare, if such things were swept away, if suddenly they no longer existed? Did they understand that then they would as vulnerable as slaves? One wants a civilization, of course. Civilizations are desirable. One would wish to have one. But then, again, there are many sorts of civilizations. Suppose an old order should collapse, or disintegrate, or be destroyed. What would be the nature of the new order? Surely it need not be built on the failed model of the old order. That was an experiment which was tested, and found wanting. It was a mistake. It did not work. What would the new order be like? Let us hope it would be a sounder order, one, for once, fully in harmony with nature. What would the position of women be in the new order, I wondered. Would women have a place in the new order, I wondered. Certainly, I thought, a very secure place.
It would be hard to sleep tonight, for the ropes.
I thought again of the Lady Ina. I wondered, idly, what she might look like, stripped, kneeling, in a collar and chains. She would probably be acceptable, I thought.
I listened to birdlike cries in the marsh. The Lady Ina had thought them Vosk gulls. So, too, did the men. They may, of course, have been right.
Eventually I slept.

13. We Proceed Further into the Delta

Hold! whispered a fellow ahead, wading, his hand held back, palm exposed.
I stopped in the yoke. The three-log raft, the harness settling in the water between myself and it, moved slowly forward. In a moment I felt the logs touch my back, gently, beneath the yoke. I heard weapons about me, unsheathed.
The officers barge was to my right, he forward, with others. The fellow on the observation platform on the barge, crouched down.
We have them now, lads, whispered the officer to some of the men wading between the raft and barge. He made a sign. Subalterns, with signs, deployed their men.
I felt an arm placed over the yoke and about my neck, holding me in place. At my throat, too, my chin now lifted, my head back against the yoke, I felt the edge of a knife. Do not move, whispered my keeper, he lying on his stomach now, on the raft. They did not fear my crying out, as I was gagged. They would take no chances, however, with my attempting to make noise, perhaps by splashing or pound-ing my yoke against the raft.
Files of men waded past me. I could see other files, too, on the other side, once they were beyond the barge. Some were held in the rence, others were circling to the left, and, I suppose, on the other side, to the right.
For days we had plunged deeper and deeper into the delta, in pursuit of Cosians. Several times before we had caught glimpses of an elusive barge ahead, not of Ar. It had, rightly or wrongly, become something of a symbol, a token of the Cosians, the pursued foe. Even from a sober military point of view, of course, given the suppositions of the men of Ar, it was natural to associate the barge with the Cosians, conjec-turing it to be, say, one of their transport craft or a vessel of their rear guard. The fact that it had been so difficult to close with it had, of course, encouraged such suppositions.
Go ahead, sleen, whispered the keeper behind me, his knife at my throat, try to warn your fellows. Go ahead!
I remained absolutely still.
Soon, said he, the swords of the lads of Ar will drink the blood of the sleen of Cos.
I felt the edge of his knife at my throat.
I was absolutely still.
More men waded by, silently.
It is for this reason that you have been brought to the delta, said he, that you might witness with your own eyes the unavailingness of your espionage and the destruction of your fellows.
I did not move.
But then, as a spy, he laughed, I suppose you would not try to warn them. You would be too clever to do so. Spies are more concerned, as I understand it, with their own skin. He chuckled. But your skin, my Cosian sleen, said he, belongs to Ar. Does the yoke on you, and the harness on your back, not tell you that?
I did not move. I feared he might, in his excitement, with the closing on the barge, slip with the knife, when the attack signal was uttered.
"Your skin, spy, said he, belongs to Ar, as much as that of a slave girl to her master.
I sensed the signal would be soon given. By now the men must be in position.
Perhaps you would like to try to escape? he asked.
I felt the knife at my throat. It was of Gorean sharpness. Then he turned the blade a little so that I felt its side and not its edge. Almost at the same instant, from ahead and the sides, ahead, I heard the war cries of Ar and the movements of large numbers of men, hundreds of them, hastening in the marsh, converging doubtless on the barge. At the same, time, too, I felt the side of the knife press against my throat, reflexively, almost like an eye blink, given the sudden clamor in the marsh. Then, in an instant, the blade was turned again, so that the edge was again at my throat.
Steady, steady, whispered my keeper.
I did not move.
But there was no sound from ahead of clashing metal, of shouts, of cries for quarter.
We did hear men ascending the barge.
The keeper was far more surprised, I am sure, than I was. The knife remained at my throat for a time. If fleeing Cosians came through the marsh, plunging toward us, it was his intent, I gathered, at least if it seemed prudent, to cut my throat. In this fashion he could both prevent my escape and free his hands to deal with, or defend himself from, fugitives.
But in a few moments he removed the knife from my throat and stood up, puzzled, I think, on the raft.
No fugitives came plunging through the rence.
As I have suggested, this was not surprising to me.
In a few Ehn, however, a fellow did approach, covered with mud, cut from the rence. He had, I gathered, forced his way through the rence, in the charge. His weapon was still unsheathed. Bring the prisoner forward, he said.
My keeper put a rope on my neck and then freed me from the harness.
The raft was thrust up, on a small bar, that it not drift away.
Precede me, he said, pointing forward.
I went before him, through the rence. In a few yards we had come to the side of the low, covered barge. Many men were standing about, in the water. Too, there were now many of their small craft about, brought from the rear. The barge was aground, tipped, on a sand bar. In another Ahn, or with a change of wind, and current, it might be swept free.
Come aboard, said the officer, now on the barge.
I looked up at him, over the gag.
I was pushed forward. Men reached down from the barge. Others, in the water, thrust me up. I was seized beneath the arms and drawn aboard. My keeper, my leash in his grasp, clambered aboard, after me.
On the deck of the barge, toward the stem, I could see that the small, slatted windows on the port side of the barge had been burst in. The door aft, leading down two or three steps to the interior of the cabin, hung awry.
The captain looked up at me.
I knelt.
Remove his gag, he said.
This was done, and wrapped about the leather strap looped twice about my neck, that threaded through the center hole in the yoke, behind my neck. It felt good to get the heavy, sodden wadding out of my mouth.
Some think you know the delta, he said to me.
I am not a rencer, I said. It is they, if any, who know the delta. I am of Port Kar.
But you have been in the delta before, he said.
Yes, I said.
Have you seen barges of this sort before? he asked.
Yes, I said. Of course.
Wrap his leash about the yoke, said the officer to my keeper. I will take charge of him.
The keeper wrapped the rope leash about the yoke, behind my arm.
Come with me, said the officer.
I rose to my feet. This can be difficult to do in a heavy yoke, a punishment yoke, but was not difficult in the lighter yoke, a work yoke, which I wore. I put down my head, and followed the officer through the small door and down the two stairs, to the interior of the cabin. His mien made it clear that others were not to follow.
The cabin was not completely dark, as the windows at the sides had been broken in. Some, perhaps, might have been broken before. But I had little doubt that it was due to the men of Ar, themselves, in the vigor of their attack, that others had been destroyed, and that the door in the back, that awry in the threshold, through which we had entered, had been broken. I looked about the half-dark interior of the large, low-roofed cabin.
A great victory, I commented.
The cabin was, in effect, empty, save for some benches and other paraphernalia. To be sure, there was some debris about, much dust. There was no sign that the area had been recently occupied.
I do not understand it, said the officer to me. I did not respond.
Where are the Cosians? he asked me.
Did you question the crew? I asked.
There was no crew, he said, angrily.
I was again silent. I had not thought that there would have been. If there had been, it was not likely the barge would be still aground, particularly with pursuers in the vicinity. The men of Ar, of course, were moving during the day, and in numbers. Too, they were strangers to the delta. They did not move with the silence, the stealth, of rencers.
There may have been a crew, said the officer. They may not have had time to free it of the bar.
But there is little evidence that there has been a crew here for some time, I observed. To be sure, perhaps some fellows had poled it from time to time, earlier. But there was little evidence, as far as I could tell, of even that, certainly not in the cabin itself.
Where are the Cosians? he demanded.
I looked about the dusty, half-lit cabin. It seems not here, I said.
We have pursued this barge for days, said he, angrily. Now we have closed with it. And it is empty!
It is my surmise, I said, that it has been empty for weeks.
Impossible! he said.
I suspect it is simply an abandoned barge, I said. Such are not unknown in the delta.
No, said he, it is a vessel of the Cosian rear guard!
Perhaps, I said.
Or one of their transports, straggling, abandoned!
Perhaps, I granted him.
He went to one of the small windows, and looked out, angrily.
It would seem, however, would it not, I asked, to be an unlikely choice for a troop transport?
What do you mean? he asked.
You are not of this part of the country, I said, not from the delta, or the Vosk, or Port Kar, I said.
I do not understand, he said.
Examine the window before you, its screen, I said. He looked at the apparatus, burst in, hanging loose. Yes? he said.
Consider the position of the opening lever, I said. Yes! he said.
The window could not be opened from the inside, I said. Only from the outside.
Yes, he said.
Also, in this particular barge, I said, given the depth of the cabin floor, one could not, sitting, look directly out the windows, even if they were opened. One, at best, would be likely to see only a patch of sky.
I see, he said, glumly.
And if the shutters were closed, I said, the interior of the cabin would be, for the most part, plunged into darkness. Too, you can well imagine the conditions within the cabin, the heat, and such, if the shutters were closed.
Of course, he said.
Examine, too, I said, the benches here, within, where they are still in place.
I see, he said, bitterly.
You or I might find them uncomfortably low, I said, but for a shorter-legged organism, they might be quite suitable.
Yes, he said.
And here and there, I said, attached to some of the benches, I think you can detect the presence of ankle stocks, and, on the attached armrests, wrist stocks.
But for rather small ankles and wrists, he said.
Yes, I said, and here and there, similarly, you can see, still in place, the iron framework for the insertions of the neck planks. You will note, too, that the matching semicircu-lar apertures in the planks, there are some there, on the floor, are rather small.
Yes, he said.
This barge, I said, is of a type used in Port Kar, on the canals, and in the delta, for example, between Port Kar, and other cities, and the Vosk towns, particularly Turmus and Ven, for the transportation, in utter helplessness and total ignorance, of female slaves.
Yes, he said. I see.
Of course, such vessels are used elsewhere, as well, I said.
In the south, he said, we often transport slaves hooded, or in covered cages. Sometimes we ship them in boxes, the air holes of which are baffled, so that they may not be seen through.
I nodded. There are many such devices. One of the sim-plest and most common is the slave sack, into which the girl, gagged, and with her hands braceleted behind her back, is commonly introduced headfirst. These devices have in com-mon the feature of ensuring the total helplessness of the slave and, if one wishes, her ignorance of her destination, route and such. Sometimes, of course, one wishes the slave to know where she is being taken, and what is to be done with her, particularly if this information is likely to increase her arousal, her terror, her desire to please, and so forth. For example, it seldom hurts to let a former free woman know that she is now being delivered as a naked slave to the gardens of a mortal enemy. One of the most common ways of transporting slaves, of course, is by slave wagon. The most common sort is a stout wagon with a central, locking bar running the length of the wagon bed, to which the girls are shackled, usually by the ankles. Most such wagons are squar-ish and have covers which may be pulled down and belted in place. In this way one may shield the girls, if one wishes, from such things as the sun and the rain. Too, of course, the cover may be used to simply close them in. Many slave girls, too, of course, are moved from one place to another on foot, in coffle.
The officer came away from the window, angrily, and looked down at the benches. Several of them had the varnish worn from them. The barge, in its day, I suspected, had frequently plied the delta, probably between Port Kar, and other cities, and Turmus and Ven. Slave girls are normally transported nude.
And so, said the officer, angrily, we have spent days pursuing a slave barge.
It seems so, I said.
The Cosians, then, he said, must still be in front of us.
I was silent. This did not seem to me likely, or at least not in numbers.
At this moment we heard some shouting outside, some cries.
The officer looked up, puzzled, and then, paying me no mind, went up the stairs to the stern deck.
I followed him.
We seldom saw them! cried a fellow. It was as though the rence were alive!
I emerged onto the stern deck, blinking against the sun, where my keeper, who was waiting for me, unlooping the rope leash from the yoke, and, keeping me on a short tether, about a foot Gorean in length, the remaining portion of the leash coiled in his hand, recovered my charge.
We had no chance, wept a fellow from the water. We did not even see them!
Where? demanded the officer, at the barge rail.
On the right! called up a fellow.
Following my keeper, who, too, was curious, I went to the rail. In the water, below, with the many others who had originally surrounded and charged the barge, were some six or seven other fellows, distraught, haggard, wild-eyed, some bleeding, some supporting their fellows.
Numbers? inquired the officer.
There must have been hundreds of them, for pasangs, said a fellow from below, in the water.
We could not fight, said another. We could not find them. There seemed little, if anything, to draw against!
Only a shadow, wept a man, a movement in the rence, a suspicion, and then the arrows, and the arrows!"
What were the casualties? asked the officer.
It was a rout, a slaughter! cried a fellow.
What is your estimate of the casualties? repeated the officer, insistently.
The right flank is gone! wept a man.
Gone! cried another.
I could see other fellows making their way towards us, through the rence, some dozens, more survivors, many wounded.
I did not personally think the right flank was gone, but I gathered it had grievously suffered, that it had undergone severe losses, that it was routed, that it was decimated. These fellows near us, for example, were from the right flank. They had not been able, it seemed, to rally, or reform. When one has been in a disastrous action, particularly a mysterious one which has not been anticipated, one which one does not fully understand, there is a tendency of the survivors to overesti-mate casualties. A fellow, for example, who has seen several fall near him, in his own tiny place of war, often as narrow as a few yards in width, has a tendency to suppose these losses are typical of the entire field, that they characterize the day itself. Similarly, of course, there are occasions in which a fellow, victorious in his purview, learns only later, and to his dismay, that his side is in retreat, that the battle, as a whole, was lost. Still, I did not doubt but what the losses were considerable. The entire right flank might have to be reorganized.
We will counterattack, said the officer.
Your foe will not be there, I said.
This is a tragic day for Ar, said a fellow.
More soldiers were wading, some staggering, toward us, these come from the right.
The first engagement to Cos, said a fellow bitterly.
Who would have thought this could happen? said a man.
Vengeance upon the Cosian sleen! cried a man.
The missiles used against you were not quarrels, not bolts, I said.
No, said a fellow, arrows.
Arrows, said I, sped from the peasant bow. In the last few years, the use of the peasant bow, beginning in the vicinity of the tidal marshes, had spread rapidly eastward throughout the delta. The materials for the weapon and its missiles, not native to the delta, are acquired largely through trade. Long ago the rencers had learned its power. They had never forgotten it. By means of it they had become formida-ble foes. The combination of the delta, with its natural de-fenses, and the peasant bow, made the rencers all but invulnerable.
The officer looked at me.
You are not dealing with Cosians, I said. You are dealing with rencers.
People of scaling knives, of throwing sticks, and fish spears! laughed a fellow.
And of the peasant bow, I said.
Surely you jest? said the officer.
Did you hear, before the attack, I asked, the cries of marsh gants?
Yes, said one of the fellows in the water.
It is by means of such cries that rencers communicate during the day, I said. At night they use the cries of Vosk gulls.
We will counterattack, said the officer.
You will not find them, I said.
We will send out scouts, he said.
They would not return, I said. To be sure, it was possible to scout rencers, but normally this could be done only by individuals wise to the ways of the delta, in most cases other rencers. The forces of Ar in the delta, if I were not mistaken, would not have experienced scouts with them. Even so small a thing as this constituted yet another indica-tion of the precipitateness of Ar, her unreadiness to enter the delta.
We must not allow them to press their advantage, said the officer.
Men were still streaming in from the right.
They will not press their advantage-as yet, I said.
 As yet? he asked.
It is a different form of warfare, I said.
It is not warfare, said a man. It is brigandage, it is ambush and banditry!
I would not pursue them," I said. They will melt away before you, perhaps to close on your flanks.
What is your recommendation? he asked.
I would set up defense perimeters, I said.
Labienus is in command, said a fellow, angrily. Labienus was the name of the officer.
Do not listen to him, said another. Surely he is in sympathy with them.
He may be one of them! said another.
He is an enemy! said another.
Kill him! said another.
You anticipate another attack? asked the officer.
Perimeters against infiltration, I said. Preferably with open expanses of delta. Beware of straws, or rence, which seem to move in the water.
You do not anticipate another attack? asked the officer.
The element of surprise gone, I said, I would not anticipate another attack, not now, at least, not of a nature similar to that which has apparently just occurred.
You speak of simple rencers as though they were trained warriors, of ruses, of strategems and tactics which might be the mark of a Maximus Hegesius Quintilius, of a Dietrich of Tarnburg.
Or of a Ho-Hak, or a Tamrun, of the Rence, I said.
I have not heard of such fellows, said a man.
And many in the rence, I said, may never have heard of a Marlenus of Ar.
There were angry cries from the men about.
You are now, unbidden, in their country, I said.
Rencers! scoffed a man.
Wielders of the great bow, the peasant bow, I reminded him.
Rabble! said a man.
Apparently your right flank did not find them such, I said.
Set up defense perimeters, said the officer.
Subalterns, angrily, signaled to their men.
With such perimeters set, I said, I think the rencers will keep their distance-until dark.
They will never dare to attack Ar again, said a fellow.
It is shameful to be bested by rencers, said a man.
They may have been Cosians, said a fellow.
Or under Cosian command, said another.
I do not think so, I said, though I would suppose the Cosians have many friends, and many contacts, in the delta. They have, for years, cultivated those in the delta. I would not doubt but what agents, in the guise of traders, and such, have well prepared the rencers for your visit. You may well imagine what they may have been told.
Men looked at one another.
I think there is little doubt that those of Cos are more politically astute than those of Ar, I said. An excellent example of this was Cos backing of Port Cos entry into the Vosk League, presumably hoping thereby to influence or control the league through the policies of her sovereign col-ony, while Ar refused this same opportunity to Ars Station, thereby more than ever isolating Ars Station on the river. Cos comes to the delta with smiles and sweets, as an ally and friend. Ar comes as an uninvited trespasser, as though she would be an invading conqueror.
The rencers have attacked us, said a man. They must be punished!
It is you who are being punished, I said.
 We? said the fellow.
Yes, I said. Did you not, only yesterday, destroy a rence village?
There was silence.
Was that not the great victory? I asked.
How could rencers retaliate so quickly? asked the offi-cer. The reports suggest there were hundreds of them.
There may have been hundreds, I said. I suspect they have been gathered for days.
Surely they know we only seek to close with those of Cos, with their force in the north, said a fellow.
I think they would find that very hard to believe, I said.
Why? asked a man. I looked at the officer.
No, said the officer, angrily. That is impossible.
We have no quarrel with rencers, said a man. We do now, said another, bitterly. Why did they not show themselves? asked a man. We did not even see them, said a man.
Perhaps they struck and fled, like the brigands they are, said a man.
Perhaps, said another fellow.
No, I said. They are still in the vicinity, somewhere.
The delta is so huge, said a fellow beside us, on the deck, looking out.
It is so vast, so green, so much the same, yet everywhere different, said another. It frightens me.
We need scouts, said another.
We need eyes, said another.
Look! cried a fellow, pointing upward.
There are our eyes! said the fellow who had spoken before.
There was a cheer from the hundreds of men about. A tarnsman, several hundred feet above us, coming from the south, wheeled in flight. Even at the distance we could make out the scarlet of his uniform.
He is bringing the bird around, said a man.
He will land, said another.
Several of the fellows lifted their hands to the figure on tarnback who was now coming about.
The lookout on the observation platform behind us, on that barge which served the officer as his command ship, began, with both hands, to call the tarnsman down.
I watched the pattern in the sky. I was uneasy. There was a smoothness in it, the turning, and now, as I had feared, the wings of the tarn were outspread.
He is arming! I said. Beware!"
I watched the smooth, gliding descent of the bird, the sloping pattern, the creature seemingly almost motionless in the air, but seeming to grow larger every instant. The tarns claws were up, back, beneath its body. Beware! I cried. It is not landing! Men looked upward, puzzled. Be-ware! I cried. It is an attack pattern! Could they not see that? Did they not understand what was happening? Could they not understand the rationale of that steadiness, the men-ace of the motionlessness of those great wings? Could they not see that what was approaching was in effect a smoothly gliding, incredibly stable, soaring firing platform? Take cover! I cried. The fellow on the observation platform, on the barge, watching the approach of the bird and rider, low-ered his arms, puzzled. Take cover! I cried. One could scarcely see the flight of the quarrel. It was like a whisper of light, terribly quick, little more than something you are not sure you have really seen, then the bird had snapped its wings and was ascending. It then, in a time, disappeared, south.
He is dead, said a fellow from the deck of the captains barge, where the lookout had fallen, the fins of a quarrel protruding from his breast. It had not been a difficult shot, it might have been a stationary target, a practice run on the training range.
Those are not your eyes, I said to a fellow looking up at me. Those are the eyes of Cos. The tam had returned southward. That was as I would have expected.
Men stood about, numb.
Where are our tarnsmen? asked a fellow.
Cos controls the skies, I said. You are alone in the delta.
Kill him, said a man.
Surely, I said, you do not think the paucity of your tarn support in an area such as this, and even hitherto in the north, in the vicinity of Holmesk, is an accident?
Kill him! said another.
Kill him! said yet another.
What shall we do, Captain? asked a man.
We have our orders, said the officer. We shall pro-ceed west.
Surely, Captain, said a man, we must daily, to punish the rencers!"
Then Cos would escape! said a fellow.
Our priority, said a man, is not rencers. It is Cosians.
True, affirmed a man.
And we must be now close upon their heels, said a man.
Yes! said another.
I would recommend the swiftest possible withdrawal from the delta, I said.
Excellent advice, from a spy! laughed a fellow.
Yes, laughed another, now that we are nearly upon our quarry!
It is you who are the quarry, I said.
Cosian sleen, said another.
We shall continue west, said the officer.
To be sure, I said, bitterly, you will encounter the least resistance from the rencers to such a march, for it takes you deeper into the delta, and puts you all the more at their mercy.
Prepare to march, said the officer to a subordinate.
The rencers are not done with you, I said.
We do not fear rencers, said a man.
They will hang on your flanks like sleen, I said. They will press you in upon yourselves. They will crowd you. They will herd you. Then when you are in close quarters, when you are huddled together, when you are weak, ex-hausted and helpless, they will rain arrows upon you. If you break and scatter they will hunt you down, one by one, in the marsh. Perhaps if some of you strip yourselves and raise your arms you might be spared, to be put in chains, to be taken, beaten, to trading points, thence to be sold as slaves, thence to be chained to benches, rowing the round ships of Cos.
Sleen! hissed a man.
To be sure, I said, perhaps some will serve in the quarries of Tyros.
Kill him! cried a fellow.
You must withdraw from the delta, in force, immedi-ately, I said.
There are many columns in the delta, said the officer.
This column, I said, is in your keeping.
We have our orders, he said.
I urge you to withdraw, I said.
We have no orders to that effect, he said.
Seek them! I urged.
The columns are independent, he said.
Do you think it an accident that you are in this place without a centralized chain of command? I asked.
He looked at me, angrily.
Ar does not retreat, said a fellow.
You are in command, I said to the officer. Make your decision.
We did not come to the delta to return without Cosian blood on our blades! said a fellow.
Make your decision! I said.
I have, he said. We continue west.
There was a cheer from the men about.
Saphronicus is not even in the delta! I said.
If that were true, said the officer, it could be known only by a spy.
And I had it from a spy! I said.
Then you, too, are a spy, said a fellow.
Spy! said another.
Gag him, said the officer.
I was again gagged. This was done by my keeper.
Let me kill him, said a man, his knife drawn, but the officer had turned away, consulting with his fellows.
"He tried to warn Aurelian of the tarnsman, said a man.
He feared only for his own skin, said my keeper.
And let him fear even more, now, said the other fellow. I felt the point of the knife in my belly, low on the left side. Its blade was up. It could be thrust in, and drawn across, in one motion, a disemboweling stroke.
I stood very still.
Angrily the fellow with the knife drew it back, and sheathed it. Cosian sleen, he said. He then, with others, turned away.
My keeper then, pushing on the back of the yoke, thrust me over the rail of the barge, and I fell heavily, yoked, into the water and mud. I struggled to my feet, slipping in the mud. I tried to clear my eyes of water. Precede me, he said. In a moment I was stumbling forward, before him, returning to the raft, the rope on my neck over the yoke, running behind me, to his grasp. I shook my head, wanting to get the water out of my eyes. I felt rage, and helplessness. I wanted to scream against the gag. The men of Ar, I thought, wildly, are mad! Do they not understand what has been done to them! I wanted to cry out to them, to shout at them, to tell them, to warn them! But the gag in my mouth was a Gorean gag. I could do little more in it then whimper, one whimper for Yes, two for No, in the common convention for communicating with a gagged prisoner, the verbal initiatives, the questions, and such, allotted not to the prisoner but to the interests or caprices of the captors. But then I thought they would not listen to me even if I could speak to them. They had not listened before. They would not now! I must escape from them, I thought. I must escape! Somehow I must avoid the fate into which they seemed bound to fall. I had no interest in sharing their stupidity, their obstinacy, their doom. I must escape! I must escape! We were then at the raft. It was where it had been left, where it had been thrust up, on a small bar, that it might not drift away when we went forward. He bent down. He picked up the harness attached to the raft. I tensed. I saw a fellow, wading by. Face away from me, said my keeper. I faced away. Another fellow waded by. Stand still, draft beast, said my keeper. Another fellow moved by. I stood still. Do not move, he said. Another man was approaching. I did not move. The harness was fitted about me. The fellow waded by. Angrily I felt the harness buckled on me. I did not know how long the rencers would give them, perhaps until dark. Already the stones might be striking together beneath the water. It seemed then for a moment that we were alone, that none were immediately with us. I spun about, in the rence. His eyes were wild for one instant, and then the yoke struck him heavily, on the side of the head. Surely some must have heard the sound of that blow! Yet none seemed about. None rushed forward. I looked down at the keeper. He was now lying on the bar. He had fallen with no sound. I drew the raft off the bar, into the water. If I could get beyond the men of Ar I was sure I could break the yoke to pieces, splintering it on the togs of the raft, thus freeing my hands, then in a moment discarding the harness and slipping away. I moved away, drawing the raft after me.
For several Ehn I was able to keep to the thickest of the rence. In such places, one could see no more than a few feet ahead. Sometimes I heard soldiers about. Twice they passed within feet of me. The raft tangled sometimes in the vegeta-tion. Once I had to draw it over a bar. Once, to my dismay, I had to move the raft through an open expanse of water. Then, to my elation, I was again in the high rence.
Hold," said a fellow.
I stopped.
I felt the point of a sword in my belly.
Another fellow was at the side.
These were of course pickets, pickets of the defense perim-eter. It had been in accord with my own recommendation I realized, in fury, that this perimeter had been so promptly set, that it was so carefully manned.
I heard men wading behind me.
Do you have him? I heard.
I knew that voice. It was that of my keeper. He was a strong fellow.
Yes," said one of my captors, the fellow with the point of the sword in my belly. He pressed the blade forward a little, and I backed against the raft. I was then held against it, the point of the sword lodged in my belly. I could not slip to one side or the other. I was well held in place, for a thrust, if my captor desired. I did not move. Here he is, waiting for you, yoked and harnessed, and as docile as a slave girl.
I heard the sound of chain, of manacles.
Put iron on his wrists, said my keeper. No, before his body.
In this way my back would be exposed.
One manacle was locked on my right wrist before that wrist was freed of the yoke. Then, as soon as it was free of the yoke, it was pulled to the left, and the other manacle was locked on my left wrist. Only then was I freed of the yoke. My manacled hands were then tied at my belly, the center of the tie fastened to the linkage, the ends of the tie knotted together, behind my back.
Has the beast been displeasing? asked a fellow, solicitously.
Men laughed.
My keeper was now behind me, on the raft. Others, too, were there, it seemed, from its depth in the water.
I heard the snap of a whip.
Turn about, draft beast, said my keeper. We are march-ing west!
My wrists were helpless in the clasping iron.
Hurry! said the keeper.
I felt the lash crack against my back. Then, again, it struck.
Hurry! he said.
I turned about and, my feet slipping in the mud, my back burning from the blows, wet with blood, turned the raft. I then began to draw it westward, deeper into the delta.
Hurry! said he, again.
Again the lash fell.
Again I pressed forward, straining against the harness, westward.
