The City:

"Yes, I knew the reputation of Treve. It was a city rich in plunder, probably as lofty, inaccessible and impregnable as a tarn's nest. Indeed, Treve was known as the Tarn of the Voltai. It was an arrogant, never-conquered citadel, a stronghold of men whose way of life was banditry, whose women lived on the spoils of a hundred cities."

"Treve was a warlike city somewhere in the trackless magnificence of the Voltai Range. I had never been there but I knew her reputation. Her warriors were said to be fierce and brave, her women proud and beautiful. Her tarnsmen were ranked with those of Thentis, famed for its tarn flocks, and Ko-ro-ba, even great Ar itself."

'My father,' she said, 'was of the Caste of Physicians.' 'I didn't know they had physicians in Treve,' I said. 'We have all the High Castes in Treve,' she said, angrily."

"'How is it,' I asked, "that he allowed you to come to the Sardar?" 'He did not,' said Vika. 'He tried to prevent me but I sought out the Initiates of Treve, proposing myself as an offering to the Priest-Kings. I did not, of course, tell them my true reason for desiring to come to the Sardar.' She paused. 'I wonder if they knew,' she mused. 'It is not improbable,' I said. "My father would not hear of it, of course,' she said. She laughed. 'He locked me in my chambers, but the High Initiate of the City came with warriors and they broke into our compartments and beat my father until he could not move and I went gladly with them.' She laughed again. 'Oh how pleased I was when they beat him and he cried out,' she said, 'for I hated him -- so much I hated him -- for he was not a true man and even though of the Caste of Physicians could not stand pain. He could not even bear to hear the cry of a larl."

"Thurnock fetched it, and brought it to me. It was heavy, and leather. It was a purse, and it was filled with gold. In the light of a torch I counted the coins. There were a hundred of them, and they were of gold. Each bore the sign of the city of Treve."

"'Cabot,' she said, '- what if my request were on the lips of a woman of High Caste and of one of the high cities of all Gor - could you refuse it then?' 'I don't understand,' I said. She looked about herself at the plastic walls, and shivered. Her eyes met mine. I could see that not only did she not wish to stay in this place but that she was terrified to do so. Suddenly she fell on her knees, her eyes filled with tears, and extended her hands to me. 'Look, Warrior of Ko-ro-ba,' she said, 'a woman of High Caste of the lofty city of Treve kneels before you and begs you that you will not leave her here."

 
The war camps:

"This was now my second day in the secret war camp of Rask of Treve." 

"I am letting it be known in the camp of Terence of Treve, a mercenary, that there is, in my house, a wench, whose name is Elinor."

"Sometimes there were visitors to the camp of Rask of Treve, though, one gathers, these were men in the confidence of Treve. Generally they were merchants. Some brought food and wines. Others came to buy the plunder of the tarnsmen. Several of my work-mates were sold, and others, captured, brought in on tarnback, took their place, perhaps to be sold as well in turn."

"I wandered about the camp. It was a war camp, lying in a remote, hilly area, covered with trees. I suppose it to be somewhere in the realm of Ar, perhaps to its northeast, among the foothills of the Voltai range. It was a typical Gorean war camp, though small. It had its compound where tarns were hobbled, and its cooking and washing sheds. There were many warriors about, perhaps a hundred or more, the men of Rask of Treve, and perhaps some twenty girls, lovely ones, in brief work tunics, busying themselves with their tasks, cooking, cleaning leather, polishing shields."

"Earlier, I knew, he had despoiled the fields and attacked the caravans of Ko-ro-ba. He was now in the realm of Ar. He was a bold tarnsman indeed. I expected Marlenus of Ar, its Ubar, said to be the Ubar of Ubars, would give much to know the location of this small, palisaded camp. I enjoyed the smells of the camp, and its sounds. I watched two warriors practicing with their swift, short blades on a square of sand. The ringing of metal excited and frightened me, the swiftness and cruelty of it. How brave men must be, I thought, to stand so to one another, so close, in combat so near, face to face, wrist to wrist, eye to eye, short, vicious, sharpened ringing blade to short, vicious, sharpened ringing blade. I could not have done this. I would have cried out and fled. What could a woman be but the prize of such men?"

"I went to examine the palisade about the camp. It was some twelve feet high and of sharpened logs. I traced its interior perimeter. I put my fingers and hands on the logs, which had been smoothed, and were closely fitted together. I could not have scaled the wall. I was closed within. I continued to walk about the inside of the wall. I avoided this only where the tarn compound adjoined it. Soon I had arrived at the gate. It, too, was of logs, though here they were separated somewhat. It was a double gate, with, in effect, log bars. It was shut, two beams in brackets, chained, locking it. To my surprise I saw there was another gate, though of solid logs, beyond that one, and that the camp was ringed, actually, with a double palisade. The exterior palisade had a catwalk, for a defending wall. The interior palisade, on the side of the camp, was without a catwalk. I was angry. The exterior permitted them defense. The interior wall, high and smooth, a quite effective barrier, served well to keep slaves within... "You will not escape," had said Ena. "Girls may not linger by the gate," said a guard. "Yes, Master," I said, and turned away."

"I continued to walk about the wall. At one point I found a tiny door, no more then eighteen inches in height. It was such the one man, at a time, could crawl through it. And it, too, was secured, fastened shut with two heavy chains and locks. And it, too, was guarded. I saw that I could not, even standing on the chains, remotely approach the top of the palisade. I imagined myself standing on my toes and stretching my arms and fingers. My fingers would have still been several feet beneath the points... "Move on, Girl," said the guard. "Yes, Master," I said, and again turned away... I then began to walk through the camp. I saw the tents and the fires, and the men talking, and the girls about their tasks..."

"I found, in one place in the camp, a grassy area, on a slight hill. There was a heavy metal ring there, near the top of the slight hill. It was fixed in a heavy stone, buried level with the grass..."

"In another place I found a horizontal pole, itself set on two pairs of poles, leaning together and lashed at the top. It was, I gathered, a pole for hanging meat. Oddly enough, there was also an iron ring, set in stone, buried in the ground, beneath the center of the horizontal pole. Off to one side, in an open area was a small iron boa, a square some three feet in dimension. In the front of the box there was a small iron door, with two slits in it. One, near the top, was about seven inches in width and about a half inch in height; the other, its top formed by a rectangular opening in the bottom of the door, its bottom formed by the iron floor of the box, was about a foot wide and two inches in height. The door could be closed with two heavy, flat sliding bolts, and locked with two padlocks. I wondered what could be kept in such a box..."

"My steps now, inadvertently, took me towards the center of the camp. I stood before a large, low tent of scarlet canvas, suspended on eight poles. Inside, through the opened tent flap, I could see the scarlet canvas was lined with silk. It was a low tent, and only near its center could a man walk upright. Inside, in a brass pan, there was a small fire of coals. Over the coals, on a tripod, there was, warming, a small metal wine bowl."

"Inside, the tent was floored with heavy, soft rugs, from Tor and Ar, perhaps the booty of caravan raids. And, within, from extensions of certain of the tent poles, there hung, on hooks, burning tharlarion-oil lamps of brass."

 
The Raids and Wars:

"Treve is a bandit city, high among the crags of the larl-prowled Voltai. Most men do not even know its location. Once the tarnsmen of Treve had withstood the tarn cavalries of even Ar. In Treve they do not grow their own food but, in the fall, raid the harvests of others. They live by rapine and plunder. The men of Treve are said to be among the proudest and most ruthless on Gor. They are most fond of danger and free women, whom they bind and steal from civilized cities to carry to their mountain lair as slave girls. It is said the city can be reached only on tarn."

"She was said to have no agriculture, and this may be true. Each year in the fall legions of tarnsmen from Treve were said to emerge from the Voltai like locusts and fall on the fields of one city or another, different cities in different years, harvesting what they needed and burning the rest in order that a long, retaliatory winter campaign could not be launched against them. A century ago the tarnsmen of Treve had even managed to stand off the tarnsmen of Ar in a fierce battle fought in the stormy sky over the crags of the Voltai. I had heard poets sing of it. Since that time her depredations had gone unchecked, although perhaps it should be added that never again did the men of Treve despoil the fields of Ar."

"The only two cities, other than Ar, which I knew that Treve did not periodically attack were mountainous Thentis, famed for its tarn flocks, and Ko-ro-ba, my own city. If the issue was grain, of course, there would be little point in going to Thentis, for she imports her own, but her primary wealth, her tarn flocks, is not negligible, and she also possesses silver, though her mines are not as rich as those of Tharna. Perhaps Treve has never attacked Thentis because she, too, is a mountain city, lying in the mountains of Thentis, or more likely because the men of Treve respect her tarnsmen almost as much as they do their own."

"The cessation of attacks on Ko-ro-ba began during the time my father, Matthew Cabot, was Ubar of that city. He organized a system of far-flung beacons, set in fortified towers, which would give the alarm when unwelcome forces entered the territory of Ko-ro-ba. At the sight of raiders one tower would set its beacons aflame, glittering by night, or dampen it with green branches by day to produce a white smoke, and this signal would be relayed from tower to tower. Thus when the tarnsmen of Treve came to the grain fields of Ko-ro-ba, which lie for the most part some pasangs from the city, toward the Vosk and Tamber Gulf, they would find her tarnsmen arrayed against them. Having come for grain and not war, the men of Treve would then turn back, and seek out the fields of a less well-defended city. There was also a system of signals whereby the towers could communicate with one another and the city. Thus if one tower failed to report when expected the alarm bars of Ko-ro-ba would soon ring and her tarnsmen would saddle and be a flight."

"Treve's other needs seemed to be satisfied much in the same way as her agricultural ones, for her raiders were known from the borders of the Fair of En'Kara, in the very shadow of the Sardar, to the delta of the Vosk and the islands beyond, such as Tyros and Cos. The results of these raids might be returned to Treve or sold, perhaps even at the Fair of En'Kara, or another of the four great Sardar Fairs, or if not, they could always be disposed of easily without question in distant, crowded, malignant Port Kar."

"Cities, of course, would pursue the raiders from Treve, and carry the pursuit vigorously as far as the foothills of the Voltai, but there they would surrender the chase, turning back, not caring to risk their tarnsmen in the rugged, formidable territory of their rival, whose legendary ferocity among her own crags once gave pause long ago even to the mighty forces of Ar."

"....the sky had darkened with a flight of outlaw tarnsmen, more than a hundred of them, under the command of the terrible Rask of Treve, one of the most dreaded warriors on all Gor. Fortunately for Targo he had managed to bring his caravan to the edge of a vast Ka-la-na thicket just before the tarnsmen struck. I had seen several such thickets when I was wandering alone in the fields. Targo had divided his men expertly. Some he set to seize up what gold and goods they could. Others he ordered to free the girls and drive them into the thicket. Others he commanded to cut loose the great bosk that pulled the wagons, and drive them, too, into the brush and trees. Then, but moments before the tarnsmen struck, Targo, with his men driving the girls and the bosk, fled into the thicket. The tarnsmen alighted and ransacked the wagons, setting fire to them. There was sharp fighting in the thicket. Targo must have lost some eleven men, and twenty of his girls were taken by the tarnsmen, but, after a bit, the tarnsmen withdrew. Tarnsmen, riders of the great tarns, called Brothers of the Wind, are masters of the open sky, fierce warriors whose battleground is the clouds and sky; they are not forest people; they do not care to stalk and hunt where, from the darkness of trees, from a canopy of foliage, they may meet suddenly, unexpectedly, a quarrel from the crossbow of an invisible assailant. Rask withdrew his men and, in moments, the captured girls bound across their saddles, the goods of Targo thrust into their packs, they took flight." 

"Treve, I knew, was, nominally, at war with several cities. Strife is common among Gorean cities, each tending to be belligerent and suspicious of others. Rask of Treve, in his way, as other raiders of Treve, carried the war to the enemy." 

"This afternoon, for this first time in weeks, the raids of Rask of Treve had been successful. Eleven girls had been brought in, and much treasure. Laughing, bloody tarnsmen, with strings of pearls thrown about their necks, and cups and goblets tied at their saddles, and their saddle packs bulging with the weight of golden tarn disks, had brought their tarns down, wings beating, to receive the greetings of the camp. Merchants brought sides of bosk, and thighs of tarsk, and wines and fruits to camp, and cheeses and breads and nuts, and flowers and candies and silks and honeys. There was much bustle and laughter about the camp, much preparation and shouting. In the women's tent, eleven girls, tomorrow to be collared, crouched in fear. Slave girls staggered under the weight of plunder, carrying it to the tents of the warriors."

 
Example of an Aerial Tarn fights:

"No!" I cried. "No!"
     He bent to undo the lashings at my ankles.
     I screamed, helplessly.
     Suddenly, before he had even touched the lashings at my ankles, he turned about, abruptly, in the saddle.
     A crossbow bolt flashed by, like a swift, hissing needle in the sky.
     In one moment, as I screamed, terrified, thrown rudely against my bonds, he had jerked his shield from the saddle straps and wheeled the tarn, with a cry of rage, a strange war cry, to face his foe.
     He was met with another war cry, and suddenly, only feet from us, another tarn streaked past, and I heard the forcible, tearing scrape of a broad, bronze spear blade, its blow turned, sliding across the metal-bound, layered, boskhide shield of my captor.
     The other tarn streaked away, and its rider, standing in his stirrups, braced in the saddle, held to it by the broad safety strap, was redrawing his crossbow, a quarrel held in his teeth.
     My captor attacked, giving him no instant in which to set again his bow.
     When only yards separated us, the other man flung away his bow and quarrel, seizing up his shield. My captor, standing in his stirrups, flung his own great spear. It struck the other's shield, piercing it. If the other man had not been fastened in his saddle by the great strap the force of my captor's blow would have struck him from the saddle. As it was, it spun him, tearing the shield from his arm.
     He cursed. "For Skjern!" he cried.
     The two tarns wheeled again, for another passage.
     Again the other's spear struck, and again the blow countered by my captor's shield. I again heard the terrible, startling scrape of the spear blade diverted by the seven-layered, metal-bound boskhide shield. Twice more the attacker pressed in, and each time, again, the shield turned the blow, once but inches from my body. My captor was trying to close with him, to bring him within range of his own steel, his now-drawn, swift, unadorned blade.
     Again the spear struck, but this time my captor took the point in the shield. I, bound, saw, suddenly, the bronze point, a foot of it, inches from my face, explode through the hide. I screamed. My captor then wheeled away, the other, his blade now drawn, trying to press close. My captor wished to rid his enemy of his spear, because of its reach, but, to do so, his own defense was impaired. With incredible strength, his sword dangling from his wrist strap, commonly used by tarnsmen in flight, I saw him withdraw the spear from the shield, but at the same time the other's tarn struck ours, and his blade, flashing downwards, struck the heavy shaft of the spear, splintering it half severing it. He struck again and the spear shaft, with a scattering of wood, split apart. My captor now thrust his shield before him, and over my body. I heard the blade of the other strike twice, ringing on the metal hoops of the shield that guarded me. Then my captor again had his sword in his grip, but the other dragged his tarn upward, cursing, and its long, curved talons raked downwards, clutching for us. I heard the talons tear across the shield. My captor was thrusting upward, to keep the bird away. Then its talons locked over the shield and it smote its wings, ripping the shield straps, half tearing my captor from the saddle, and the tarn was away, the shield then dropping like a penny, turning toward the field below.
     "Yield her!" I heard the cry.
     "Her price is steel!" was the answer that met the attacker.
     Bound, I screamed, helplessly.
     The tarns then, rearing up in the sky, facing one another, began to tear at one another with their beaks and talons, and then, talons locked, they began, beaks snapping and tearing, to twist and roll, turning, locked together, falling, climbing, tumbling, wings beating, screaming in rage.      I was thrown one way and the other, violently, helplessly. Sometimes it seemed I was standing as the tarn would veer, or hanging head downwards as it would veer, turning wildly, in another direction. When it spun onto its back, tearing upwards at its foe, I hung stomach downwards, my full weight on the lashings, seeing in terror the earth hundreds of feet below.
     The men fought to regain control of their mounts.
     And then again, saddle to saddle, they fought, and once more steel flashed about my face and body. My ears, had they been tongues, would have screamed for mercy. Sparks from the steel stung my body.
     Then, suddenly, with a cry of rage, or frustration, the blade of the other struck downwards towards my face. My captor's steel interposed itself. I saw the broad blade of his sword but an inch from my face, for one terrifying instant of immobility, the other's blade, edge downward, resting on it, stopped. The blow would have cut my face in two.
     There was blood on my face. I did not know whose it was, even if it might be mine.
     "Sleen!" cried my captor. "I have played with you enough."
     Once more, over my head, there was a flash of steel, and I heard a cry of pain, and then suddenly the other tarn veered sharply away, and I saw its rider, clutching his shoulder, reeling in the saddle.
     His tarn spun crazily, and then, a hundred yards away, to one side and below us, turned and fled.
     My captor did not pursue him.
     I looked up at my captor, the tarnsman whose lashings bound me.
     I still lay before him, over the saddle, his.
     He looked down upon me, and laughed.
     I turned my head away."

 
Natural Defenses and Outsiders:

"Yes, I knew the reputation of Treve. It was a city rich in plunder, probably as lofty, inaccessible and impregnable as a tarn's nest. Indeed, Treve was known as the Tarn of the Voltai. It was an arrogant, never-conquered citadel, a stronghold of men whose way of life was banditry, whose women lived on the spoils of a hundred cities."

"Indeed, there was little known even of the city of Treve. It lay somewhere among the lofty, vast terrains of the rugged Voltai, perhaps as much a fortress, a lair, of outlaw tarnsmen as a city. It was said to be accessible only on tarnback. No woman, it was said, could be brought to the city, save as a hooded, stripped slave girl, bound across the saddle of a tarn. Indeed, even merchants and ambassadors were permitted to approach the city only under conduct, and then only when hooded and in bonds, as though none not of Treve might approach her save as slaves or captive supplicants. The location of the city, it was said, was known only to her own. Even girls brought to Treve as slaves, obedient within her harsh walls, looking up, seeing her rushing, swift skies, did not know wherein lay the city in which they served. And even should they be dispatched to the walls, perhaps upon some servile errand, they could see, for looming, remote pasangs about them, only the wild, bleak crags of the scarlet Voltai, and the sickening drop below them, the sheer fall from the walls and the cliffs below to the valley, pasangs beneath. They would know only that they were slaves in this place but would not know where this place in which they were slaves might be. It is said no woman had ever escaped Treve."

  
Lifestyle and Attitude:

"Vika was a bandit princess, accustomed to be clad in silk and jewels from a thousand looted caravans, to sleep on the richest furs and sup on the most delicate viands, all purloined from galleys, beached and burnt, from the ravished storerooms of outlying, smoking cylinders, from the tables and treasure chests of homes whose men were slain, whose daughters wore the chains of slave girls, only now she herself, Vika, this bandit princess, proud Vika, a woman of lofty, opulent Treve, had fallen spoils herself in the harsh games of Gor, and felt on her own throat the same encircling band of steel with which the men of her city had so often graced the throats of their fair, weeping captives. Vika was now property. My property."

"The women of Treve,' I said, 'are brave, as well as beautiful and proud."

"Her voice had borne the cruel, icy, confident, passionate menace of a woman from Treve, accustomed to have what she wanted, who would not be denied. I turned to face Vika once more, and I no longer saw the girl to whom I had been speaking but a woman of High Caste, from the bandit kingdom of Treve, insolent and imperious, though collared."

"I will have a hundred stone of gold for the use of these birds and my men," said Terence of Treve. "You shall have it," I said. "I wish payment now," said the captain of Treve. I whipped my blade from its sheath, angrily, and held it to his throat. "My pledge is steel," I said. Terence smiled. "We of Treve," he said, "understand such a pledge." I lowered the blade." 

"I will want the hundred stone," said Terence, "regardless of the outcome of your plan." "Of course," I said. Then I regarded him. "A hundred stone," I said, "though high a price, seems small enough considering the risks you will encounter. It is hard for me to believe that you ride only for a hundred stone of gold. And I know the Home Stone of Port Kar is not yours." "We are of Treve," said Terence."

"It is said that those of Treve are worthy enemies," said Samos."

"Love or not," said Samos, studying the board, "he will keep her in collar - for he is of Treve." "Doubtless," I admitted. And, indeed, I had little doubt that what Samos had said was true. Rask of Treve, though in love with her and she with him, would keep her right less, in the absolute bondage of a Gorean slave girl - for he was of Treve. "

"Warriors of Treve, I had heard, had a fondness for warm wines. I supposed that Rask of Treve might have his wine so. It seemed strange to me to think of such tarnsmen, such brutal, wild men, caring for such a small pleasantry. Too, I had heard, they were fond of combing the hair of their slave girls. Cities and men, I thought, are so strange, so different. I suspected there were few men as fierce and terrible as those of Treve, dreaded throughout Gor, and yet they enjoyed their wine warmed and were fond of so simple a thing as smoothing the hair of a girl." 

"What did she cost you?" asked Verna. "The merchant," smiled Rask of Treve, "was persuaded to give her to me, free of all costs as a token of his esteem for the men and city of Treve." Verna laughed. "I do not buy women," said Rask of Treve.

"Bosk, I am told, set my price at twenty pieces of gold, that he might, as a merchant, take his profit on me. But Rask of Treve does not buy women, for he is of Treve. My price could have been an arrow point or a copper tarn disk, but his answer would he been the same. He takes women. He does not buy them."

  
Miscellaneous Information:

The Brand of Treve: "I have never seen the brand of Treve," I said. "It is rare," said Ena, proudly. "May I see your brand?" I asked. I was curious. "Of course," said Ena, and she stood up and, extending her left leg, drew her long, lovely white garment to her hip, revealing her limb. I gasped. Incised deeply, precisely, in that slim, lovely, now-bared thigh was a startling mark, beautiful, insolent, dramatically marking that beautiful thigh as that which it could only be, that of a female slave. "It is beautiful." I whispered. Ena pulled away the clasp at the left shoulder of her garment, dropping it to her ankles. She was incredibly beautiful. "Can you read?" she asked. "No," I said. She regarded the brand. "It is the first letter, in cursive script," she said, "of the name of the city of Treve." "It is a beautiful mark," I said. She regarded the mark. "It is attractive," said she. She looked at me. Suddenly she posed as a slave girl. I gasped. "It enhances my beauty," she said."

Trevian Slaves: "She was incredibly beautiful. She wore a collar. Her garment was white, and came to her ankles, in classic folds. She did not wear the brief work tunic of the other girls. I gathered she was high girl in the camp and that I, and the other girls, would have to obey her. It is not uncommon, where several girls are concerned, to put a woman over them. Men do not care to direct us in our small tasks. They only wish to see that they are done...." ..."Men are beasts," said the woman. Rask of Treve threw back his great head, like the head of a larl, and laughed. "and you, Handsome Rask," said she, "are the greatest of the beasts." How bold she was! Would she not be beaten? Rask laughed again, and wiped his face with the back of his right hand."

Warrior's Introduction: "Lo Rask," said he, "Rarius. Civitatis Trevis." "I am Rask," he said, "of the caste of warriors, of the city of Treve."

Trevian Honor: "He regarded them. Then he said to me, "I am of Treve. Do not stain my honor." 

Warm Wine: "Warriors of Treve, I had heard, had a fondness for warm wines. I supposed that Rask of Treve might have his wine so. It seemed strange to me to think of such tarnsmen, such brutal, wild men, caring for such a small pleasantry. Too, I had heard, they were fond of combing the hair of their slave girls. Cities and men, I thought, are so strange, so different. I suspected there were few men as fierce and terrible as those of Treve, dreaded throughout Gor, and yet they enjoyed their wine warmed and were fond of so simple a thing as smoothing the hair of a girl."

Serving Wine: "Serve me wine," he said. I turned and, among the furnishings of the tent, found a bottle of Ka-la-na, of good vintage, from the vineyards of Ar, the loot of a caravan raid. I then took the wine, with a small copper bowl, and a black, red-trimmed wine crater, to the side of the fire. I poured some of the wine into the small copper bowl, and set it on the tripod over the tiny fire in the fire bowl. He sat cross-legged, facing me, and I knelt by the fire, facing him. After a time I took the copper bowl from the fire and held it against my cheek. I returned it again to the tripod, and again we waited. I began to tremble. "Do not be afraid, Slave," he said to me. "Master!" I pleaded. "I did not give you permission to speak," he said. I was silent. Again I took the bowl from the fire. It was now not comfortable to hold the bowl, but it was not painful to do so. I poured the wine from the small copper bowl into the black, red-trimmed wine crater, placing the small bowl in a rack to one side of the fire. I swirled, slowly, the wine in the wine crater. I saw my reflection in the redness, the blondness of my hair, dark in the wine, and the collar, with its bells, about my throat. I now, in the fashion of the slave girl of Treve, held the wine crater against my right cheek. I could feel the warmth of the wine through the side of the crater. "Is it ready?" he asked. A master of Treve does not care to be told that his girl thinks it is. He wishes to be told Yes, or No. "Yes," I whispered. I did not know how he cared for his wine, for some men of Treve wish it warm, others almost hot. I did not know how he wished it. What if it were not as he wished it! "Serve me wine," he said. I, carrying the wine crater, rose to my feet and approached him. I then knelt before him, with a rustle of slave bells, in the position of the pleasure slave. I put my head down and, with both hands, extending my arms to him, held forth the wine crater. "I offer you wine, Master," I said. He took the wine, and I watched, in terror. He sipped it, and smiled. I nearly fainted. I would not be beaten. I knelt there, while he, at his leisure, drank the wine. When he had almost finished, he beckoned me to him, and I went to kneel at his side. He put his hand in my hair and held my head back. "Open you mouth," he said. I did so, and he, spilling some from the broad rim of the crater, I feeling it on my chin, and throat, as it trickled under my collar, and body, poured the remainder of wine down my throat. It was bitter from the dregs in the bottom of the cup, and, to my taste, scalding. I, my eyes closed, my head held painfully back, throat burning, swallowed it. When I had finished the wine he thrust the wine crater into my hands. "Run, El-in-or," he said, "put it back, and return to me." I ran to the side of the tent and put back the wine crater, and fled back to his side."

Whipping pole: "The girl's wrists," said Ute, "are tied together, and then she is tied, suspended by the wrists, from the high pole. Her ankles are tied together and tied, some six inches from the ground, to the iron ring. That way she does not much swing. I looked at her, holding the pan. "This is a whipping pole," said Ute. "You may go now, El-in-or."

Growing-up in Treve: "...But, too, sometimes, Rask of Treve, after touching me, would hold me, and kiss me, for long hours. I did not truly understand him in these hours, but his arms lay content and fulfilled. And then one night, when the fires were low. for no reason I clearly understood, I begged that I might be permitted to know him. "Speak to me of yourself," he said. I told him of my childhood, my girlhood, and my parents, and the pet my mother had poisoned, and of New York, and my world, and my capture, and my life before it had begun, before he had seen me naked in the cell of the Ko-ro-ba pens. And, too, in various nights, he had spoken to me of himself, and of the death of his parents, and most of his training as a boy in Treve, and his learning of the ways of tarns and the steel of weapons. He had cared for flowers, but he had not dared reveal this. It seemed so strange, he, such a man, caring for flowers. I kissed him. But I feared, that he had told me this. I do not think there was another to whom he had ever spoken this small and delicate thing."