"When do we eat? I asked Ute.
"After the masters," said Ute, referring to the guards in the plural, "if we please them."
"If we please them?" I asked.
"I am always fed," said Lana.
"Do not fear," said Ute, laughing at me, "you are white silk!"
I looked down.
"You will please them," Ute reassured me. "We all will. Why do you think they asked for us?"
"Perhaps we should have eaten in the food line," I said.
"And be beaten?" asked Lana.
"No," I said, confused.
"A hungry girl often serves better," said Ute. Then she laughed at me. "Do not fear," she said. "If they like you, they will throw you food."
"Oh," I said.
I was irritated. Elinor Brinton, of Park Avenue, of Earth, did not care to be thrown food like an animal, provided she pleased her masters!
"Wenches! boomed a voice.
We jumped. I flushed with pleasure. We leaped to our feet. Our guards had come for us!
The gate was unlocked.
We knelt on the grass. How pleasant it was not to be behind the bars of the girl cage.
Three guards had come for us. I knew them, and the other two, with whom they camped. They were among my favorites. I was excited. Sometimes, before falling asleep, or even in my dreams, I had fancied myself in their arms. I could imagine the pleasure of being held, helpless, in their strong arms. But beyond this I had only the white silk girl's dim sense of the changes they could bring about in my body, only the vague instinctual sensing, deep in my femaleness, of the fantastic pleasures to which a slave girl may be subjected by her master, pleasures by means of which he may, if it pleases him, totally and completely dominate her, making her helplessly, irreservedly his, naught but a yielded slave girl.
The men were in fine humor.
One of them pointed across the grass to the fire between the wagons. It was more than a hundred yards off, glowing in the darkness, away from the compound.
The men then removed their sword belts, holding the short swords and scabbards in their left hand, the belts in their right.
"No!" laughed Ute. "No!"
Ute and Lana sprang to their feet and raced toward the fire. I was slower than they. I was suddenly stung, smartly, with the fierce slap of a sword belt. "Oh! I cried, in pain, and leaped to my feet, and ran stumbling toward the fire. They were swifter than we, of course. Ute, Lana and I ran, laughing and stumbling, barefoot, squealing in protest, crying out in pain, through the darkness over the grass toward the fire.
Ute reached it first, laughing, falling to her hands and knees and putting her head down to the grass, her hair falling over the sandal of one of the two guards waiting there. "I beg to serve you, Masters!" she gasped, laughing. Lana was but an instant behind her and she, too, fell to her hands and knees, head down. "I beg to serve you, Masters!" she cried.
I was stung once more and then, like Ute and Lana, I too was on my hands and knees, head down, touching the grass. "I a€“ I beg to serve you, Masters!" I cried.
"Then serve!" cried one of the fellows at the fire, he whose sandal was lost in Ute's dark hair. Suddenly there were three more sharp slaps of the sword belts and, crying out, protesting, begging for mercy, laughing, we leapt to our feet to busy ourselves.
Lana, Ute and I knelt in a line, facing the players. Our hands were bound behind our backs with binding fiber.
The men, wagering, tossed us pieces of meat.
We caught them, in the firelight. A catch was two points. A piece which was dropped was fair game for any. We fought for the dropped pieces. The retrieval of such a piece was one point. Ute dropped a piece and Lana and I fought, each holding to a part of the fallen prize, rolling and tearing. I struggled back to my knees, tearing my head to one side. "Mine!" I cried, swallowing the meat, almost choking, laughing.
"Mine!" cried Lana, gorging the other half of the meat.
"Point for each," adjudicated one of the guards.
We were excited, and wanted to play further.
"We are weary," said one of the guards. We saw copper disks being exchanged. Elinor Brinton had done well for her guard. He was pleased with her. She suffused with pleasure as he snapped his fingers for her to approach him. She leaped to her feet and ran to him, where he shook her head roughly, and unbound her.
"Fetch me paga," he said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I went to the wagon to fetch a large bota of paga, which had been filled from one of the large jugs.
Lana and Ute, too, went to the wagon, to fetch other botas, so commanded by other guards.
Soon I returned to the firelight, the heavy bota of paga, on its strap, slung over my shoulder. Ute and Lana, with theirs, behind me.
The grass felt good to my bare feet. It seemed I could feel each blade. I felt the rough fabric of the camisk on my body as I moved, the pull of the strap on my shoulder, the heavy, swaying touch of the bota as, in the rhythm of my walk, it touched my side. Beyond the fire, in the distance, like an irregular margin, a torn, soft, dark edge hiding the bright stars of Gor, I could see the lofty, still blackness of the borders of the northern forests. Far off, I heard the scream of a hunting sleen. I shivered.
Then I heard the laughing of the men, and turned again toward the fire. Back away toward the compound, here and there on the meadow, I could see other fires, and clusters of wagons. This was a night for paga, for celebration. Tomorrow, Targo, and his men and his merchandise, would make their way to Laura and, crossing the river there, begin their long, overland journey to Ko-ro-ba, called by some the Towers of the Morning, and from thence to luxurious Ar itself. The journey would be not only long and hard but dangerous.
"Paga!" called the guard.
I hurried to him.
"Let Lana dance," whimpered Lana.
The guard handed me a piece of meat and I took it in my teeth kneeling beside him, where he sat cross-legged, I lifting and squeezing the bota of paga, filled from one of the large jugs, guiding the stream of liquid into his mouth. I bit through the charred exterior of the meat, into the red, hot, half-raw, juicy interior.
The guard, with one hand, gestured that he had had enough.
I laid the bota aside on the grass.
I closed my eyes, running my tongue about the inside of my mouth, and over my teeth and lips, savoring the juice and taste of the externally charred, hot, half-raw meat.
Tomorrow we would begin the journey to Ko-ro-ba, and from thence to luxurious, glorious Ar.
I opened my eyes.
The fire was very beautiful, and the shadows on the wagon canvas.
Ute was humming.
"I want to dance," said Lana. She was lying beside one of the guards, her head at his waist. She bit at his body through the fabric of the tunic. "I want to dance," she teased. Her body was beautiful in the parting of the camisk. "Perhaps," he encouraged her.
The guards had liked us, muchly, and had apparently expected that they would for, to our delight, they had purchased a small bottle of Ka-la-na wine, in a wicker basket, which they had permitted us, swallow by swallow, to share. I had never tasted so rich and delicate a wine on Earth, and yet here, on this world, it cost only a copper tarn disk and was so cheap, and plentiful, that it might be given even to a female slave. I remembered each of the four swallows which I had had. I tasted them even still, with the meat and bread which I had eaten. It was the first Gorean fermented beverage which I had tasted. It is said that Ka-la-na has an unusual effect on a female. I think it is true.