“When I am suitably emplaced,” she said, “I will not forget my friends.”
“We hope to be numbered amongst them,” said Astrinax.
Poor Astrinax, I thought. He thinks she is insane.
“We are to follow the caravan of Pausanias,” said Master Desmond.
“Yes,” said Astrinax, “but, obviously, not that closely.”
“It should be easy enough to do,” said Desmond, “ten wagons, heavily laden, even should there be torrential rains.”
“I think so,” said Astrinax.
I hoped that we might return to Ar, quickly and safely, once the blind Kur had been reunited with his fellows. On the other hand, it seemed clear that this practical expediency, as sensible as it might seem, might not be congenial to either the Lady Bina or to he in whose charge I was. They might have subtler, deeper interests in this wilderness.
“The caravan of Pausanias left the Aqueduct Road,” said Desmond.
“There are hundreds of trails in the Voltai,” said Astrinax.
“And thousands of places where there are no trails,” said Desmond.
“Call Lykos, Trachinos, Akesinos,” said Astrinax. “We must harness the tharlarion and be on our way.”
It would take some time to do this, and turn the wagons, to follow the tracks of the departed caravan. I did not care to leave the road. I stood up, by the mat and harness, and jar of oil, and the rags, and looked about myself.
The Voltai Mountains are called the Red Mountains. Their color, dull and reddish, is doubtless a consequence of some property of the soil. They are, I think, the most extensive of Gor’s mountain ranges. They may also be the highest and most rugged. There are villages here and there in the Voltai, usually of herders of domestic verr. These are generally, though not always, in the foothills. I know of only one city in the Voltai, like a remote tarn’s aerie, and that is the bandit city of Treve.
The mountains are beautiful, but forbidding. They contain larls and sleen, and, in the lower ranges, wild tarsk, as well. As noted, at the higher altitudes, there is little to be found but wild verr and tiny snow urts.
The sun was high.
I could see snow on some distant peaks.
I did not care to leave the road, the aqueduct. I was afraid, very much afraid. Had I known more of this world I would have feared even to enter the Voltai. Certainly many did. Even Jane and Eve, untutored, illiterate barbarians, as myself, had known enough to fear the Voltai. They had been double chained to the slave post in the Venna camp. And Astrinax had been largely unsuccessful in recruiting drivers and guards for our small caravan.
I did not wish to go further into the Voltai.
I was terrified to do so.
Perhaps some of you feel that under the circumstances, so threatening and uncertain, I should have considered flight, but I did not do so. I would stay with the wagons. We all would, Jane and Eve, as well. I do not think it was merely that we knew ourselves safer with the wagons, though that was surely true. Certainly we did not wish to be eaten by animals. It was frightening enough, sometimes, just to gather firewood. Too, of course, we accepted that there was no escape for the Gorean slave girl. Marked, collared, and slave-clad, and given the culture, the best she might hope for, if she were not bound and returned to her master, would be, as a fugitive, to fall into a harsher and more grievous bondage. Men like to own us, and have us in collars. Too, one did not care to be hamstrung, fed to sleen, or cast to leech plants. We were aware of all these things. Too, for whatever reason, I was reluctant to leave the vicinity of the brute I so hated, Desmond of Harfax, he who had treated me so badly, who held me in such contempt, who had so scorned me. Perhaps my lips had been bred to be pressed to the leather of his whip. Might I not belong in his slave bracelets? Might he not be my master? But aside from all these things, I think, rather, primarily, and more profoundly, the reason we would not run away was quite simple, that we were now quite other than we had once been; we now well knew what we had become, and were. We now clearly understood, in every fiber of our bodies, in the bottom of our bellies and in the depths of our hearts, that we were no longer those cultural artifices which are called free women, but now something quite different, something more natural, more ancient, more biological, that we were now belongings and properties, that we were now slaves. This understanding brings about a radical transformation in a woman. She is no longer the same. She cannot be. We would not run away. We could not run away. We were owned.
I gasped, and drew back, from half under the wagon.
“Have you finished with the harness?” asked Desmond of Harfax. He had come about the wagon. I had not realized his presence until he spoke.
“Nearly!” I said.
I scrambled back, to return to the mat. I knelt, of course, as I was in the presence of a free person.
“Who gave you permission to stop work?” he asked.
“No one, Master,” I said.
“Why then did you stop work, before you were finished?” he asked.
I put my head down.
“You were listening,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said. “Forgive me, Master.”
“Curiosity is not becoming in a kajira,” he said.
I kept my head down.
“Should you not be tied to a wagon wheel and lashed?” he asked.
“It will be done with me as masters please,” I said.
“Do not speak of what you heard to Jane and Eve,” he said.
“No, Master,” I said.
“There must be no changes in their behavior which might arouse the suspicions of certain others in the party.”
“I understand,” I said.
“And you,” he said, “have heard nothing.”
“I understand,” I said.
“In particular,” he said, “you are not to avoid Trachinos.”
“Master?” I said.
“Trachinos,” he said, “finds you of slave interest. He may seize you, may press himself upon you, fondle you, and such. You are not to resist his advances.”
“A slave dare not resist the advances of a free man,” I said. “She is a slave.”
“Respond to him,” he said.
“Master?” I said.
“Have no fear,” he said. “You will not be able to help yourself.”
“I see,” I said. I feared it was true. I was a slave.
“You are a pretty slut,” he said.
“And might not others find me of slave interest, as well?” I said.
“Certainly,” he said. “Many men would find you of slave interest.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you are of slave interest,” he said.
I, kneeling, clutched my collar, with two hands, as though I would tear it from my throat.
“Rejoice,” he said, “not every woman is of slave interest.”
“I hate you!” I said.
“How long will it take you to finish the harness?” he said.
“I am nearly done,” I said. “Two or three Ehn.”
“Finish it,” he said, “and then deliver it to Master Astrinax.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“We will leave within the Ahn.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He then left.
I was so pleased that I was such as might be of slave interest. What woman does not wish to be of slave interest?
And I knew I was such, for I had been collared. It was for women such as I that men had constructed the elevated slave block, that we might be exhibited and sold.
I then bent again, to my work. I began to hum. It was only later I realized that it was a slave tune which I had heard, long ago, in the house of Tenalion.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Please,” I said, turning my head away, and I felt his mouth on the side of my neck, above the collar, and then at the side of my face, fierce, under my ear.
It was the heat of the day. We had stopped, for two Ahn.
It was the fourth day we had been following the caravan of Pausanias.
I was pinned against the wagon wheel. At least he had not tied me to it.