I smiled. Did she not realize that she had seen in Schendi, in those brief moments, the slave she had for so long concealed within herself, that she had seen then, frightened, scarcely daring to recognize her, her own self? What cruelties could men inflict upon women, I wondered, which could half compare with those they inflict upon themselves.
She leaned forward, and examined the wound on her leg.
"It is superficial," I said. "It will not scar."
"I have a slave's vanity, don't I?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Is it permissible?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Good," she said.
She continued to look at the wound on her leg.
"I do not think I could stand to bring a lower price than Tende or Alice," she said.
"What a slave you are," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Have no fear," I said. "Your value on the sales block has not been reduced."
"Thank you. Master," she said.
I then rose to my feet and walked a few yards away, to a fan palm. From the base of one of its broad leaves I gathered a double handful of fresh water. I returned to the girl and, carefully, washed out the wound. She winced. I then cut some leaves and wrapped them about it. I tied shut this simple bandage with the tendrils of a carpet plant.
"Thank you, Master," she said. She reached up and put her arms about my neck. I took her hands and, slowly, pulled them from my neck. I put them to her sides. She looked at me. I cuffed her, snapping her head to the right. "Master?" she asked.
"Next time," I said, "stay behind me."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Stand, Slave," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
It had been this morning, shortly before noon, that we had surmounted the height of the falls, that almost on the summit of which Kisu, in the face of the distant, oncoming forces of Bila Huruma, had danced a naked slave called Tende.
I went over to the slain tarsk.
We had then continued on, up the river, for several hours. In the late afternoon we had brought the canoe to shore, concealed it, and then went inland to make our camp.
"I feel the desire for meat," had said Kisu. "I, too," I said. "I will hunt" Kisu and I, warriors, wanted meat. Too, ahead of us we suspected that the river, as we had been warned at the last village, would become ever more dangerous and treacherous. We felt the long-term strength of meat protein would be a useful addition to our diets.
"I will need a beast of burden," I had said.
The blond-haired barbarian, immediately, had sprung to her feet. She had stood before me, her head down. "I am a beast of burden," she had said.
"Follow me," I had said.
"Yes, Master," she had said.
I lifted up the wild tarsk.
We had proceeded into the rain forest for better than two Ahn before we had come upon the tarsk. It had charged. I had killed it.
"Bend down," I told the girl.
I threw the tarsk across her shoulders. She staggered under its weight.
I then turned from her and left the clearing. My hands were free for the use of the spear. Gasping, behind me, stumbling, staggering under the weight of the tarsk I had killed, came my slave.
I looked upward, through the trees. "It is growing dark," I said. "We will not have time to reach the encampment before nightfall. We will make a small camp in the forest, and proceed in the morning."
"Yes, Master," she said.
As the girl, on her knees, tended the roasting tarsk, I cut a long stake, some four and one half feet in length and some four inches in width. About its top, about two inches from the end, I cut a groove, about an inch deep.
"What is that for?" she asked.
"It is a slave stake," I said, "for securing you for the night."
"I see," she said. She turned the tarsk on its spit. It glistened. From its sides droplets of fat and blood, popping and sizzling, dropped into the fire.
With a large rock, blow by blow, heavily, inch by inch, I drove the long, thick stake into the ground. I left about four inches of it exposed.
"The tarsk is ready," she said.
I took one end of the spit in two hands and lifted the tarsk from the fire, putting it down on leaves. I then crouched beside it, and began to cut into it, to the spit I looked up. The girl, kneeling by the fire, watched me. I rose to my feet I tied a long leather strap on her neck and led her to the slave stake. I tied the free end of the strap about the slave stake, using the prepared groove in the stake which I had earlier cut. "Kneel," I told her. "Yes, Master," she said. She then knelt there, tethered to the stake by the neck. I ha4 left her about seven feet of slack in the strap. I then returned to the meat, and began to cut slices from it, and feed. After I had begun to feel full I looked at the girl. I threw her a piece of meat, which struck against her body. It fell to the ground. She picked it up in two hands and, watching me, began to eat it.
After a time I wiped my face with my forearm. I was finished eating. I again looked at the girl. "Do you want more?" I asked. "No, Master," she said.
We had drunk earlier, from the water cupped at the base of the leaves of fan palms.
I then lay on one elbow, near the fire. I regarded the beautiful slave. It is pleasant to own women.
"Are you going to tie my hands behind my back before you retire?" she asked.
"Yes," I told her.
"That is common in slave security, isn't it?" she asked.
"It is common in the open," I said, "when one does not have cages, or chains and slave bracelets, at one's disposal. A girl's hands, of course, need not be tied behind her back. They might be tied over her head or before her body, usually about a small tree."
"Are girls secured at night, in the cities?" she asked.
"Sometimes," I said, "sometimes not. They are collared. The cities are walled. Where would they run to?"
"But not all girls wish to escape, do they?" she asked.
"No," I said. "All the evidence supports the thesis that very few girls desire to escape their masters. Slavery apparently agrees with them. But all girls, whether they wish to escape or not, know that escape is almost impossible. Besides, if they should escape, they would doubtless soon fall to another master, perhaps worse than the first"
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Too," I said, "I am not certain that it is altogether wise for a girl to attempt to escape. For example, if she is caught, her feet may be cut off."
"I would be afraid to try to escape, Master," she said.
"You tried to escape in Port Kar," I said. I had caught her, and tied her and returned her to Ulafi, who had been at that time her master. I had wanted her shipped to Schendi that I might, by means of her, following her sales and exchanges, be led to the lair.pf the treacherous Shaba, traitor to Priest-Kings.
"I did not even begin to understand at that time," she said, "what might be involved, the almost total impossibility of escape and the drastic nature of the penalties which Gorean men might, without a second thought, so casually inflict upon me. I did not even begin to understand at that time what it might mean to be a slave girl on Gor."
"But you understand a little of what it might mean now, don't you?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said, kneeling there by the slave stake, the tether tied on her throat. She fingered the tether. "If I had known then what I now know," she said, "I would not have dared to move."
I nodded.
"I would have been afraid," she smiled, wryly, "to have moved even so much as a muscle, for fear one of Ulafi's men would have put me under the lash."
"Of course," I said.
Intelligent women learned swiftly the realities of Gor.
"Master," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"Not all masters would secure their slaves at night, would they, even in the open?"
"No," I said. "Much depends on the girl and the area."
"A master would not be likely to secure a conquered love slave, would he?" she asked.
"He might," I said, "if only to remind her that she is a slave."