"I do not want to please him!" I cried.
"He will make you want to please him," she said. "You will try, desperately, to please him. Whether or not you will be successful I do not know. Rask of Treve is a great warrior. He has had many women, and has many women. He is a connoisseur of us. He is, accordingly, difficult to please. You will perhaps not please him." "If I wanted to, I could," I cried.
"Perhaps," said Ena.
"But I shall resist him! I shall fight him!" I cried. "He will never tame me! He will never conquer me!"
Ena looked at me.
"I do not have the weaknesses of other women," I told her. I remembered the weakness of Verna, and of her girls, and of Inge, and Rena, and Ute! They were weak. I was not!
"What a defiant girl you are," she said.
I looked at her.
"But we must rest now," she said, getting up and extinguishing the brass lamp in the tent.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because tomorrow you will be collared," she said.
I knelt, naked, on a large fur.
"Am I not to be chained tonight?" I asked.
"No," said Ena. Then her voice reached me in the darkness. "You will not escape."
I lay down and pulled the fur about me. I clenched it in my fists and bit it with my teeth. Then I lay with my head against it, wetting it with my tears. I lifted my head. "You are a slave, Ena," I said. "Do you not hate men?" "No," said Ena.
I heard her with irritation.
"I find men very exciting," said Ena. "Often I wish to give myself to them." I heard her with horror. How shocking that she should speak so! Had she no pride? If such thoughts were entertained by her, surely she should have carefully concealed them, keeping them as her forbidden secret!
I, at least, hated men!
But tomorrow one of them would own mea€”fully. I would be his, by collar-right, by all the laws of Gor, to do with as he pleased.
I had not been chained. I had expected to be chained, heavily, and in short chains, fastened to rings, but I had not been. But I was secured, well secured, locked within the tall smooth palisade. "You will not escape," had said Ena.
Tomorrow I, Elinor Brinton, would be collared. For the first time on Gor I would wear the locked metal of a slave girl.
"You are lovely," said Ena.
I knelt, naked, on the scarlet rug in the tent of the women. I had been washed, and my hair had been combed. The slave girl replaced the glass stopper in a small, ornate bottle of Torian scent. "I shall touch you again," she said, "twice, before you are led forth."
Another girl, one of four near me, besides Ena, again knelt behind me and again began to pass the narrow, purple horn comb through my hair.
"She is combed," said one of the other girls, laughing.
"Aren't you excited," asked the girl combing my hair.
I could not answer.
"You know your part in the ceremony?" asked Ena, not for the first time. I nodded my head.
It could not be I, Elinor Brinton, who knelt in this tent on this barbaric world!
One of the girls ran to the tent flaps and looked out. I could see, outside, through the tied-back opening of the tent, men, and girls, passing back and forth. The day was sunny and warm. There were soft breezes.
I was frightened.
I could smell the scent of the perfume. It was superior to any I had ever worn on Earth, when I had been wealthy and could command the customized attentions of the finest continental perfumers, and yet her, on this barbaric planet, it was used without thought to adorn the body of Elinor Brinton, a mere slave girl. I had not been permitted cosmetics.
I knelt.
I waited. For better than a quarter of an Ahn I knelt, waiting. "Perhaps he will not collar her today," said one of the girls. Suddenly the girl at the tent flap whispered excitedly, gesturing back toward us, "Prepare her! Prepare her!"
"Stand," said Ena.
I did so.
I gasped as they brought forth a long, exquisite garment, hooded, of shimmering scarlet silk.
Behind me, swiftly, one of the girls wound my hair into a single braid and then, coiling it, fastened it at the back of my head with four pins. The pins would be undone by Rask of Treve.
The garment was placed upon me. The hood fell at my back. The garment was sleeveless.
"Place your hands behind your back and cross your wrists," said Ena. She had, in her hand, an eighteen-inch strip of purple binding fiber, about half an inch in width, flat, set with jewels.
I felt my wrists lashed behind my back.
Ena then gestured to the girl with the small, ornate bottle. The girl removed the stopper and, quickly, again, touched me with the scent, behind each ear, a tiny drop on her finger. I smelled the heady perfume. My heart was beating rapidly.
Then Ena again approached me. This time she carried, coiled in her hand, some seven or eight feet of slender, coarse rope, simple camp rope. She knotted one end of this about my neck, tightly enough that I felt the knot. My wrists would be bound by jeweled binding fiber but I would be led forth on a simple camp rope.
"You are very lovely," said Ena.
"A lovely animal!" I cried, tethered.
"Yes," said Ena, "a lovely, lovely animal."
I looked at her with horror.
But then I realized that Elinor Brinton was indeed an animal, for she was a slave.
It was thus not inappropriate that she should find herself so, as she was, tethered, about her neck, knotted, a simple length of camp rope, slender and coarse, fir for leading verr or girls.
I turned my head to one side.
Ena drew the hood up from my back and over my head.
"They are ready!" said the girl at the entrance to the tent.
"Lead her forth," said Ena.
I was led through the camp, and, here and there, some men and slave girls followed me.
I came to a clearing, before the tent of Rask of Treve. He was waiting there. On my tether I was led before him. I looked at him, frightened.
We stood facing one another, I about five feet from him.
"Remove her tether," he said.
Ena, who had accompanied me, unknotted the rope, and handed it to one of the girls.
I wore the long, scarlet garment, hooded, sleeveless. My hands were bound behind my back with binding fiber.
"Remove her bonds," said Rask of Treve.
In his belt I saw that he had thrust an eighteen-inch strip of binding fiber. It was not jeweled. It was about three quarters of an inch in thickness; it was of flat, supple leather, plain and brown, of the sort commonly used by tarnsmen for binding female prisoners.
Ena untied my wrists.
Rask and I regarded one another.
He approached me.
With one hand he brushed back my hood, revealing my head and hair. I stood very straight.
Carefully, one by one, he removed the four pins, handing them to one of the girls at the side.
My hair fell about my shoulders, and he smoothed it over my back.
One of the girls, she with the purple horn comb, combed the hair, arranging it. "She is pretty," said one of the girls in the crowd.
Rask of Treve now stood some ten feet from me. He regarded me. "Remove her garment," he said.
Ena and one of the girls from the tent parted the garment and let it fall about my ankles.
Two or three of the girls in the crowd breathed their pleasure.
Some of the warriors smote their shields with the blades of their spears. "Step before me naked," said Rask of Treve.
I did so.
We faced one another, not speaking, he with his blade, and in his leather. I with nothing, stripped at his command.
"Submit," he said.
I could not disobey him.
I fell to my knees before him, resting back on my heels, extending my arms to him, wrists crossed, as though for binding, my head lowered, between my arms. I spoke in a clear voice. "I, Miss Elinor Brinton, of New York City, to the Warrior, Rask, of the High City of Treve, herewith submit myself as a slave girl. At his hands I accept my life and my name, declaring myself his to do with as he pleases."