“That’s something no one will have to be told,” Tandro said with a snort of amusement. “Slavers do love their trade, even more than most men enjoy having slaves around them. You weren’t able to completely understand the lure of having a slave before, I think, but my guess would be that your understanding has been going through a change.”
“Yes and no,” Jake admitted, deciding he might as well share his own viewpoint. “There’s no question that it’s very pleasant to have a woman available who has to obey everything you say, but unless there’s something seriously wrong with you—or you have no experience with any other arrangement—the novelty wears off fairly quickly. There can be so much more to a relationship with a woman than having her serve you in bed and out that you have to have experience with that something more before you can know what losing it means.”
“You almost sound as if you pity me for not having experienced that something more,” Tandro mused, happily showing nothing of insult as he studied Jake. “Can you describe the kind of thing you’re talking about?”
“I don’t know if I can,” Jake answered, trying to figure out a way to explain color to a blind man. “When a woman is free and self-confident and whole, you can share things with her that you’d never share with another man. Say you’re feeling depressed for some reason. If the woman is your friend as well as your lover, she’ll do or say something to pull you out of the dark mood. A slave wouldn’t know how to do something like that even if she weren’t afraid of being punished if she intruded on your mood.”
“What if I didn’t want to be pulled out of the dark mood?” Tandro said, possibly playing devil’s advocate as he frowned with the attempt to understand. “Sometimes a man needs to think dark thoughts so he can figure out a way to deal with the things bothering him.”
“A woman who was your friend would understand the point and leave you alone to brood,” Jake said, smiling faintly. “Sometimes women have the same needs, and the really wise ones will recognize the need when you have it. And you have no idea how much fun arguing with a free woman can be. After the argument comes the time of making up, and no man who hasn’t dealt with a free woman can know what that’s like.”
“You’d better not mention arguing with a woman when you speak to Gordi,” Tandro advised after shaking his head at the grin Jake’s smile had become. “Gordi can be made to see reason up to a certain point, but beyond that point he’ll dig in his heels and refuse to listen. He has a very large following among the men of this world, so getting him on our side is the first step in abolishing female slavery. I’m glad you’re not insisting that we take the females back to your base before your interview with him, but you will have to watch what you—and the females—say.”
“Since the women will be under orders to say nothing, we don’t have to worry about them,” Jake assured the other man. “And I’m not about to throw away the opportunity I was given when Gordi agreed to hear what I had to say. If he has to wait too long for me to get there, he could well change his mind about listening. And I intend to be very careful of what I say. New ideas have to be handed out slowly, one at a time, so the people involved have a chance to get used to one before they’re exposed to the next.”
“Then until Gordi agrees to go along with the first idea, you’d better act as if you’re not considering any others,” Tandro said, handing Jake a piece of the dried meat he’d already taken out of one of his saddlebags. “Our new slaves need to be properly trained, and this is part of the right way to do it. When we reach Gordi’s town you’ll have to be even more careful to do everything right.”
Jake took the dried meat with an inner sigh, knowing that if he refused to take Tandro’s advice he’d be wasting his time speaking to Gordi. And he couldn’t afford to waste his time, not when the success of this assignment would mean a change for the better for everyone on the planet.
The dried meat didn’t make all that pleasant a meal, but a few swallows of water afterward helped some. When the meal was over Jake joined Tandro’s silence for a while, going over in his head what he would say to Gordi during the interview. And especially what he would not say. One new idea at a time, saving the next concept for—
“Am I imagining things, or are those men riding right for us?” Jake suddenly found himself asking, the approach of the strangers odd enough to bring him out of his thoughts. When he glanced at Tandro with the question, his surprise changed to suspicion. There were another two men approaching from the right, and they were coming as directly toward Jake’s little procession as the first two.
“My guess would be that someone’s found out why you want to talk to Gordi,” Tandro said without taking his gaze from the two men on his side. “I hope you’re as good with that knife at your belt as you claim to be. I’m willing to bet that we’ll both find out the truth of the claim in just another couple of minutes.”
“No bet,” Jake said at once, knowing Tandro was right. The native had had to give some kind of reason for why Jake wanted to talk to Gordi, and lying about the proposed subject would have alienated Gordi completely. So Tandro had had to tell the truth, both he and Jake hoping there would be no leak, but obviously there had been.
“The two on your side are yours, the other two mine,” Tandro commented as he pulled his horse to a stop, still as calm and unruffled as he usually was. “We’ll be fighting on foot, so let’s get off our horses right now. If you give two assassins on foot a chance to come at you while you’re still mounted, you won’t live to make the same mistake a second time.”
Jake didn’t entirely agree with that opinion, not when he’d had a lot more training than Tandro had, but he still didn’t argue. He dismounted quickly, then took care of a necessary chore just as quickly.
“You slaves stay back out of the way,” he called to Tain and the girl, who had also noticed the newcomers, and then he gave all his attention to the men Tandro had called assassins.
Each of the two men on Jake’s side were dressed in the same way he was, wearing nothing but a body cloth with a leather knife belt around the waist. The fairly large knives were the weapon of choice among the planet’s mercenaries, their technology unable to handle making any more advanced weapons, their personal skills not up to using anything as large as a sword. Jake did know how to use a sword, but that wasn’t the technique he meant to use against the attackers. Knife fighting was an art in itself, and Jake had even more practice with that art than he had with swords.
So the first thing Jake did was take off the belt his knife was hung from, then he freed the sheathe from the belt and put the belt around his saddle horn. The two soon-to-be attackers were already on foot and approaching with their knives in their fists, and they seemed to be sneering at what Jake was doing. Obviously they didn’t understand that Jake hadn’t wanted to simply drop the belt, not when leaving it on the ground could end up making a foot hazard for him during the fight.
The two also didn’t seem to understand why Jake had taken the knife sheathe off the belt. When he unsheathed the knife as he moved forward away from his horse, the attackers didn’t even glance at the heavy leather sheathe being held in Jake’s left hand. He held to the wider end, of course, and his grip was just as firm as the grip he had around the hilt of his eight inch knife.
If it hadn’t been cloudy, all three blades would have gleamed as Jake and the two assassins reached each other. The two men jumped forward at the same time in an effort to reach their target before he set himself, but Jake had been set the minute he had his weapons in hand. And the empty sheathe was a weapon of sorts, which the attacker on the left found out when Jake blocked his thrust. At the same time Jake used his knife to block the attack from his right, and then it was his turn.