Master Grendel, as the Lady Bina apparently was not, was well aware of the possible jeopardy in which an unguarded free woman might find herself on Gor. Too, she had no Home Stone, no family, no clan, no caste.
I wondered if the beast was aware of how beautiful the Lady Bina actually was, how attractive she might prove to a human male. Probably not, I thought. She was not of his kind. He, a beast, would be unaware of such things.
The next day, about the Seventh Ahn, miserable and sore, walking stiffly, I had returned to the second floor of the house of Epicrates.
“What is wrong?” asked Master Grendel.
“Put the larmas here,” said the Lady Bina. “Is there change?”
“A tarsk-bit,” I said.
“You are improving in your bargaining,” said the Lady Bina.
“I did not let them know I had two,” I said.
“Excellent,” she said. “She is clever,” she said to the beast.
One learns such things.
“Why are you bruised?” asked the beast.
“No matter,” said the Lady Bina.
“No,” said the beast. “Why?”
I looked to the Lady Bina, frightened.
“You may speak, Allison,” she said.
“Soldiers,” I said.
I had not been within a hundred paces of the Central Cylinder when a lowered spear had blocked my way.
I had made clear my business, that I was to deliver a message to the Ubar, or to some high officer, who might then convey it to him, and the note was then taken from me by an officer, not of high rank, perhaps the commander of a ten, who read it, laughed uproariously, slapped his thigh, and then, to my unease, shared it with others, while I knelt.
It, and its bearer, were obviously the cause of much amusement.
“Is there an answer, Master?” I had asked.
“Yes,” he said, and availed himself of a marking stick, and wrote something on the back of the note.
Still kneeling, I took the note.
“Thank you, Master,” I said.
“Is your ‘Mistress’ free?” asked the officer.
I fear he thought some jest was afoot, perhaps sprung from the humor of some fellow officer.
“Certainly Master,” I said.
Surely a mistress would be free.
“We will give you something for her then,” he said. Then to four of his subordinates, he said, “Seize and spread her wrists and ankles and belly her.”
“Master?” I said.
“This,” said he, “is for your Mistress.”
He then, and some others, with feet and spear butts, belabored a slave.
I wept with misery.
“Here is one for your Mistress!” said a fellow.
“And here is another!” said another fellow.
“And another!” said yet another.
“Aii!” I cried. “Please no, Masters! Please, no, Masters!”
Then I was released, and lay before them, on the stones, sobbing, and bruised, a beaten slave.
One may not, of course, strike a free woman. They are not to be struck. They are to be held immune from such corporeal indignities. They are free. Indeed, there are penalties for such things. On the other hand, I then learned, and later confirmed, that a slave may stand proxy for a Mistress’s punishment.
Supposedly this is disconcerting to the free woman, and she much suffers, being outraged, scandalized, and humiliated at her subjection to this vicarious chastisement.
The Lady Bina, however, who knew little of Gorean culture, failed to detect the insult intended, and bore up well under the ordeal.
“I do not think anything is broken,” said the beast.
“No,” I said.
When a slave is beaten the point is usually to correct her behavior, or improve her, not to injure or maim her.
Still they had not been gentle.
“It is past the Seventh Ahn, Allison,” said the Lady Bina. “Did you dally, flirting about the stalls and shops?”
“No, Mistress,” I said. I had been pleased, incidentally, that I had seen nothing of the offensive Metal Worker, for whom I had looked, the better to avoid him, of course. Certainly I would not have wished him to see me as I was then, stiff and aching, miserable and bruised.
“Four larmas for a tarsk-bit, especially in the morning, is quite a good buy,” said the Lady Bina.
“I did smile at the stallsmen,” I said.
“Excellent,” said the Lady Bina. “Men are such manipulable weaklings.”
“Some men,” said the beast.
“Squeeze the larmas,” said the Lady Bina. “There are biscuits, and honey breads, in the pantry.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
“Wait,” said the beast. “There was a response to the note?” he said.
“Written on its back,” I said.
“It will not be important,” said the Lady Bina.
The large paw, five-digited, like a human hand, was thrust toward me, and I withdrew the note from my tunic, and, head down, handed it to the beast.
The beast perused the note.
Apparently he could read, unless he was merely taking the scent of the hand which had written the note.
“Oh!” I said, for the beast then did something which seemed shockingly incomprehensible. The lips of the beast drew back about its fangs, and it uttered a snorting exhalation of air, and then, three or four times, it leapt into the air and spun about.
I was muchly alarmed.
The beast was very large, and I did not know its ways. Had it gone suddenly, unexpectedly insane the apartment might have been damaged, and life lost. How long might such a behavior, or fit, endure? I backed away, on my hands and knees, terrified. The Lady Bina, on the other hand, seemed more annoyed than frightened.
I gathered she was familiar with such spontaneous, apparently irrepressible, exhibitions.
“Surely,” she said, “it is not so amusing as all that.”
Apparently the beast could read.
Such exhibitions I would later learn may, with slight variations, betoken enthusiasm or jubilation, high spirits, the appreciation of a deft witticism, an excellent move in a game, pleasure at unexpectedly glimpsing a friend, a fine shot in archery, a victory in the arena, one’s foe slaughtered at one’s feet, a splendid jest, and such.
“What does it say?” asked the Lady Bina, for the beast seemed in no hurry to surrender the paper.
“‘Put on a collar, and visit the barrack’,” read the beast.
“Do you think that would further my project?” she asked.
“No,” he said. Then he turned to me. “Squeeze the larmas,” he said to me.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
And so I made my way toward the tower of Six Bridges.
I was wary, as I did not wish my laundry to be soiled.
There was a reason for my fear.
All this was before the incident of the blind Kur.
I had taken a roundabout way to Six Bridges, to avoid encountering the laundry slaves of the establishment of the Lady Daphne, a private laundering house in the vicinity of Six Bridges. In Ar there are several private laundering houses and they tend to live in an uneasy truce with one another, allotting districts amongst themselves. Six Bridges was in the district of the house of Lady Daphne. These houses do not relish intrusions into their territory, either by other houses or by independent services. Two of her girls, large girls, for such are best at such things, had intercepted me twice, once a month ago, and once last week.
“Discard your laundry,” had said one last month.