"Did master summon me?" I would ask.
"El-in-or," he would say, opening his arms, and I would run to him. And then he no longer summoned other women to his tent. Then it was only El-in-or, whom he summoned. And then I, to the anger of some of the other girls, was the acknowledged favorite of Rask of Treve, his preferred slave. A heavy, long strap thrust through the wicker, behind me and to the left. It was passed several times about my throat and then drawn through the wicker behind me and to my right. I felt my throat jerked back against the wicker by the strap. The same strap, passing in and out of the wicker, similarly fastened the other girls in place.
Inge and Rena were not in the basket with me. They had been given to the huntsmen, Raf and Pron. In the fashion of Gorean huntsmen, both girls had then been freed and give a head start of four Ahn, that they might escape, if it were in their power. After four Ahn, Raf and Pron, running lightly, carrying snare rope, left the camp. The next morning they had returned, leading Inge and Rena. The thighs of both girls had been bloodied. Their wrists were bound behind their backs with snare rope. Their slave leashes, too, were formed of a loop of snare rope.
"I see you have caught two pretty birds," had laughed Rask of Treve. About the throats of the girls were locked new collars, again of inflexible steel, but now those of huntsmen, vine engraved and bearing the names of their masters.
No scribe it seemed would own Inge, but she would belong to a brutal and powerful huntsman, the handsome Raf of Treve' and Rena's captain of Tyros, he who had contracted for her capture, must now surely be disappointed, and his gold lost, for his lovely prize had been taken by another, at whose feet she kneels joyfully, the handsome and splendid Pron, skilled huntsman of lofty Treve. The next day they left the camp, taking their girls with them. We kissed one another good-bye. "I love you, El-in-or," had said Inge. "I love you, too, Inge," I had wept. "I love you, El-in-or," had said Rena. "I, too, love you," I had said. "I wish you all well."
They then, in the brief green tunics of the slaves of huntsmen, shouldered their burdens and followed their masters through the double gate of the palisade. Their lives would be hard, but I did not think them dismayed, nor unhappy. The huntsman lives a free and open life, as wild and swift, and secret as the beasts he hunts, and his slaves, whom he insists on accompanying him, must, too, learn the ways of the forests, the flowers and the animals, the leaves and wind. I do not know where Raf and Pron may now be, but I know them well served by two wenches, the slave girl, Inge, and the slave girl, Rena, who were well trained in the pens of Ko-ro-ba, and who loves them.
I looked up.
The heavy lid of wicker was now being placed on the tarn basket. Immediately, on the body of the girl across from me, there was a reticulated pattern of shadows. I could not free myself.
The lid was tied down.
The man who would fly the tarn then went to the kitchen shed, to have his lunch. I had sought to please Rask of Treve in many ways, and found, to my astonishment, that I was eager to do so, and took great pleasure in doing so. I wanted to be many women to him, and yet the same, always El-in-or. A man is a strange beast I think, for he both desires one woman and many women, and perhaps most he desires one woman who will be to him many women, others, delicious others, and yet always, too, herself. I became many women to Rask of Treve, fresh females, yet again El-in-or. Sometimes I would be a new girl, frightened, young, much fearing him, as Techne might have been; sometimes I would be as though of the scribes, much as Inge might have been, refined, dismayed at her fate' sometimes as a fine lady, of wealth and position, of high caste, as Rena had been, who now must find herself to be humbled as a mere, rightless, collared wench' and sometimes I would be a lonely slave, or a drunken slave, or a defiant girl, determined to resist, or a cruel red-silk slave, determined herself to conquer, and in all this, always, his El-in-or.
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 in 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-ban pens. And, too, in various nights, he had spoken to me of himself, and of the death of his parents, and of his training as a boy in Treve, and his learning of the ways of tarns and of the steel of weapons. He had cared for flowers, but had not dared to 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.
We had begun to take long walks beyond the palisade, hand in hand. We had much spoken, and much loved, and much spoken. It was as though I might not have been his slave. It was then that I had begun to fear that he would sell me. Oh when his need was upon him he would sometimes use me as a slave girl, with harsh authority, sometimes even making me suffer under his domination, and, too, sometimes when my need was upon me I would beg him for chains and cords, that I might be fully owned, or would present myself to him as a contemptuous, untamed girl, who must be conquered, provoking him to my utter conquest, but, too, now, we would sometimes love tenderly, and at sweet length. It depended much upon our moods. Sometimes we were master and slave, and sometimes we were something else, that I dare not speak, but I feared now, much, that he would sell me. For what place could there be for this other thing in the war camp of Rask of Treve.
But mostly we sported and pleasured, hiding from ourselves this other thing, both of us perhaps not wishing to speak it. In one week I had even begged him to place in my nose the tiny golden ring of a Tuchuk slave girl, and in that week I had served him as such, clad even in the Kalmak, Chatka and Curla, my hair bound back with the red Koora. In another week, I had, the nose ring removed, served him as a Torian girl, and in another as a simple wench of Laura, and in another as an exquisite pleasure slave of Ar.
Then one day we had done little but speak to one another, at great length, with much gentleness and intimacy, and in the night, after our lovings, had spoken together, long, lying before the fire. He had held me, sadly. I had known then that he would sell me.
In the morning, after I had returned to the shed, he again summoned me to his tent.
"Kneel," he had said.
I did so, his slave.
"I am tired of you," he told me, suddenly, angrily.
I put down my head.
"I am going to sell you," he said.
"I know," I said, "master."
"Leave, Slave," he said.
"Yes, Maser," I said.
I did not weep until I returned to the shed.
I felt the knots of my wrists being checked, and I winced, as they were tightened. Then my throat, by the straps, was drawn back tighter against the wicker, and this bond, too, was tightened. The other girls, too, winced in protest, some crying out.
I had asked one thing of Rask of Treve, before, stripped, I had entered the tarn basket.
"Free Ute," I had asked him.
He had looked at me strangely. Then he had said. "I will."
Ute, freed, might then do what she wished. she might go to Rarir, or Teletus, I supposed. But I knew that she would seek out one named Barus, of the Leather Workers, whose name she had often moaned in her sleep. I did not even know his city.
"Into the basket," had said the man who would fly the tarn.
"Yes, Master," I had said to him. I was no longer the slave of Rask of Treve. I now belonged to this stranger, to whom I, and the others, had submitted ourselves. It was he, now, who held absolute power over my life and body. There was now a fresh, but locked, steel collar on my throat.