“No,” I had said. “Go away. Let me alone.”
“A barbarian!” had said the other.
“What do you have under that kerchief?” inquired the first. She yanked it back, down about my neck.
“Nothing!” laughed the second.
“Go away!” I had implored them, tears springing to my eyes.
“As bald as a tarn’s egg!” said the first. “She must have been quite displeasing.”
I was not bald now, but there was not much hair there either, little more than a brush of darkness, soft to the touch. Still I was happy to have so much.
“She does not please me,” had said the second.
“Is the laundry heavy?” asked the first.
“No!” I said, frightened.
“Yes it is. It is too heavy for you,” said the first.
“Stop!” I said.
The bundle was pulled away from me and cast into the gutter, which, in this district, runs through the center of the street. The two then trod it underfoot, into the drainage and mire.
“You are to accept no more customers here,” said the first girl.
“The tower of Six Bridges,” said the other, “belongs to the house of Daphne.”
I had then recovered the garments and returned to the house of Epicrates.
After that, for four trips, though I was terrified of the bridges, I had ascended a tower several Ehn from that of Six Bridges and warily made my way, by stairwells, and connecting bridges, to the tower of Six Bridges. Once I had seen the two ruffians lurking below in the street, presumably alert to intercept either me or another.
I kept to the center of the bridges as much as possible, kneeling to the side if a free person was passing. The bridges I utilized were not really narrow. Most were two to three paces in width. But they were high, and railless. Sometimes I became dizzy. It made me sick to look over the edge of such a bridge. I stayed as far from their edges as possible. “A barbarian,” laughed more than one person passing me. How superior they felt to me! How superior they were to me! Too, you tread roads, paths, and bridges to the left. I suppose this is natural, and rational. In this way your right hand, which might wield a weapon, a dagger or staff, faces the stranger whom you pass. Thus, on the left, you are better positioned to defend yourself, if necessary. On the other hand, in the part of my old world, that called Terra, or Earth, that part from which I derived, one treads to the right. How uneasy that would make you! Presumably there are historical, political reasons for that, perhaps involving a blatant declaration of differences amongst states, different symbols, different currencies, different customs, different practices, different ways of doing things. One does not know. In any event treading on the left, for a long time, made me uneasy, particularly on the high bridges.
To be sure, it was easy enough, soon enough, for the delivery girls of the house of Daphne to ascertain, from amongst their customers, that competition lurked about.
Accordingly, it took Lady Daphne’s ruffians, both natively Gorean, little time to extend their surveillance to the local bridges, this easily done from a higher bridge, or even from the roof of the tower of Six Bridges itself.
Accordingly, last week, seeing one of the two approaching rapidly on the connecting bridge, I turned about to flee, only, to my consternation, to see the other, who had been following me.
Caught between them, on the high bridge, I sank to my knees, dizzy and sick, and put down the bundle, frightened, trembling.
I knew, weak and unsteady, I could be easily swept from the bridge, and might even, trying to stand and move, stagger, and precipitate myself over the edge.
I began to shudder.
How close the edge seemed, the sharp drop much closer than it could have been in reality.
I could then not even manage to kneel.
So I lay on my belly, my hands at the side of my head, unable to move. I just did not want them to touch me. I felt wind on my tunic, I saw a wisp of cloud pass by.
“What is wrong with her?” asked one of the girls.
“I do not know,” said the other.
I was aware of the laundry being lifted, and, piece by piece, cast from the bridge, doubtless fluttering to the street far below.
The two girls from the house of Lady Daphne then withdrew.
I lay there for a long time, not daring to move, while occasionally a man or woman moved past me.
“Are you all right?” asked a man.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Do you want me to carry you into the tower?” he asked.
“No, Master,” I said.
Later, inch by inch, I crawled on my belly to the edge of the bridge and looked over the edge.
Here and there below, on a lower bridge, and on the street, I could see bits of the laundry, cast about, scattered, and crumpled. While I watched, a sheet was taken by a wind and swept from the lower bridge, whence it fluttered to the street below. An occasional person looked up, and then moved on.
After a time, I backed away from the edge, and then, on my hands and knees, carefully made my way to the security of the tower and the descending stairwell.
I recovered what laundry I could from the lower bridge, and the street, and returned to the house of Epicrates. I was not beaten. Lady Delia, companion of the pottery merchant, Epicrates, with coins received from the Lady Bina and the beast, later remunerated a number of customers who had lost their goods.
“It would be better, in the future,” said the Lady Bina, “if you kept to the streets, for it would then be easier to recover lost articles.”
“Mistress wishes to continue her enterprise?” I inquired.
“Certainly,” she said.
“Perhaps we could avoid the district of Six Bridges,” I said.
“If it were not the district of Six Bridges,” said the Lady Bina, “it would be another district.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I had said, in misery.
“Too,” she had said, “Six Bridges houses several of our best customers.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I had said.
And so it came about that I was taking a roundabout way to Six Bridges, this time, at least, again on the street level. Once more I was hoping to avoid the laundry slaves of the establishment of the Lady Daphne. I had first encountered them a month ago on the street, and then, more frighteningly, on the bridge last week. Usually, of course, I did not encounter them. Had I done so regularly our service would have been irreparably disrupted. Twice I had been accompanied in my rounds by the Lady Bina, and once by the Lady Delia. If the laundry slaves had been about then, and noted my passage, they had not disturbed me, as I was accompanied by a free person. The beast, of course, did not accompany me. It seldom went out while Tor-tu-Gor reigned amongst the towers. Had he been with me I would have had little doubt but what the laundry slaves of the Lady Daphne would have kept their distance, if not have fled altogether back to her house. Men sometimes became embroiled, as mercenaries, in the disputes between the laundering houses, but the routine policing of territories was generally entrusted to slaves.
I was within fifty paces of one of the lower entryways, a back entryway, to Six Bridges when, to my dismay, I saw my two nemeses, one emerging from a doorway to the left, the other from a doorway to my right. I had little doubt they had been waiting there, watching, for me to come close enough to surprise. Carrying the laundry, a rectangular bulk of it, steadying it on my head with two hands, I could not well have turned about and fled.
They were too close.
Both were smiling.
Both were carrying a peeled, supple branch.
I did not know how long I could hold the laundry, if those branches were laid against the back of my thighs, or across my arms and shoulders. They would avoid my face, I was sure, lest I be permanently marked or damaged.
I was, after all, goods, perhaps goods of some value.
The first of the two laundering slaves whipped her branch viciously through the air, twice. I heard its swift rush through the air. The other slapped her branch in her palm.