He smiled. "No," he said. "You are a Kajira." Then he turned me about and, with a proprietary slap, sped me through the gate. He then closed the gate and locked it.
I pressed against the bars putting my hands through, trying to touch him. He came back to the bars and took my hands, holding me against the bars. "When will you use me?" I asked.
"You are white silk," he had said, and turned away.
I had moaned, leaning against the bars, lonely. I was filled with strange sensations. The three moons were bright in the sky. I shook the bars, but I was locked within. I saw him disappear in the darkness, toward the wagons. I held the bars, and pressed my cheek against them, and wept.
Ute, and several of the girls, I realized, were laughing at themselves and us. It had been a splendid joke on us, the charge of an animal! What a jolly conclusion to the mountebank's performance. I could not laugh, but I did smile. The girls were now waving to the mountebank and he, smiling and bowing, acknowledged our attention and then, with his large, strange animal on its chain, turned and left.
How precious and delightful Ute was!
Soon we were all laughing with her. Several of the girls began to sing. My sense of pleasure returned. I raced Inge to the end of the compound and back, and beat her. Some of the girls began to play tag, and games. Even some of the northern girls joined with us. We had a cloth ball, stuffed with rags, and, laughing, we threw this about. Some of the girls sat in circles, telling stories. Others faced one another, kneeling, and, with string and their fingers, played an intricate cat's cradle game. Others played «Stones» where one player guesses the number of stones held in the other's hand. I tried cat's cradle game but I could not play it. I always became confused, trying to copy the intricate patterns. How beautifully they would suddenly, in all their complexity, appear. The other girls laughed at my clumsiness. The northern girls, incidentally, were very skilled at this game. They could beat us all.
"It takes much practice," said Ute.
"There is nothing much else to do in the villages," said Lana, who refused to try the game.
At «Stones» however, I was genuinely pleased with myself. It has two players, who take alternate turns. Each player has the same number of "Stones," usually two to five per player. The «Stones» are usually pebbles or beads, but in the cities one can buy small polished, carved boxes containing ten "stones," the quality of which may vary from polished ovoid stones, with swirling patterns, to gems worth the ransom of a merchant's daughter. The object of the game is simple, to guess the number of stones held the other's hand or hands. One point is scored for a correct guess, and the game is usually set for a predetermined number of paired guesses, usually fifty. Usually your opponent tries to outwit you, by either changing the number of stones held in his hand or, perhaps, keeping it the same. I was quite successful at this game, and I could beat most of the girls. I could even beat Inge, who was of the scribes. I challenged Lana to "Stones," bur she would not play with me. Ute, however, of all those I played with, I could not beat. This irritated me, for Ute was stupid. She even made mistakes in speaking her own language. She was only of the leather workers, too! But it was hard to remain angry with Ute. I was pleased with the afternoon. I was now Eleven Girl. I had seen the mountebank's performance, and I had enjoyed myself afterward.
I saw that a cart loaded with jugs of paga, arrived at the compound. It was greeted with cheers by the guards. Tonight was a night to for celebration. Tomorrow we would leave the compound and begin the overland journey across the river and southeast to Ko-ro-ba, and from thence to Ar.
Targo's wagons, now in the number of sixteen, the additional wagons and teams purchased in Laura, were scattered about at various distances from the compound, forming, in groups of twos and threes, small, isolated camps for the guards. Besides the nine guards who had been with him when I was captured, he had now eighteen additional men. They had been hired in Laura, known men, vouched for, not drifting mercenaries. Targo, in his way, may have been a gambler, but he was not a fool.
Ute came rushing to me, happily, and seized my arm.
"Tonight," she laughed, " when the food is served, you and I, and Lana, are not to go to the food line."
"Why not? I asked, in dismay. On Earth I had been a very finicky eater. On Gor, however, I had developed a fantastic appetite. I was not at all pleased with the prospect of losing my supper. What had we done?
Ute pointed through the bars at one of the groups of wagons, some hundred yards from the compound, toward the forests. Some five guards camped there.
"They had asked Targo to permit us to serve them," she said.
I flushed with pleasure. I liked to be outside the compound, and I enjoyed being near to the men. Never before had I served so small and intimate a group. Moreover, I knew the guards, for they had been with Targo since my capture. I liked them.
That evening, as it was growing dark, Ute and I, and Lana, did not go to the food line. A girl, however, was given a pan of food to give me for the new girl, chained in the dormitory. I took this food, and a water bag, within the darkened log enclosure.
It had been a beautiful day, and I was pleased. Moreover, I was looking forward to the evening.
This time, when I fed the new girl, the former Lady Rena of Lydius, I permitted her to eat at her own pace, and gave her the water bag more than once. When she had finished she looked at me. "May I speak?" she asked.
I saw that the hood, her gag and the bonds had taught her slavery. "Yes," I said.
"Thank you, she said.
I kissed her, and then regagged her and rehooded her.
When I went outside I returned the water bag to its hook outside the door of the dormitory, and gave the pan back to the girl who had given it to me. She was doing kitchen work that night. She was one of the village girls. The kitchen was an open, roofed shed abutting on the log dormitory, outside the bars. She was gathering pans inside the compound. They she was released to go to the kitchen, where, with some other of the northern girls, their arms immersed to the elbows in wooden tubs of heated water, she set about washing the pans. Targo had not had his older girls subjected to this kitchen work. We were pleased by this. It was surely work more fit for the blond, northern girls. I knelt with Ute and Lana inside the gate, leading from the girl cage. I was hungry, and it was now dusk.