The Mistress was now some four slaves from me. I was the thirty-fifth in a long line of male slaves, some forty-two in length. We knelt, in brief brown tunics, in the soft earth. The sunlight~was bright; the air was Gorean in its exuberance and freshness. The homely smells of the stable yard and the barns, with their straw-filled stalls, are not really objectionable, when one grows used to them. The odors are distinctive but, when one grows accustomed to them, familiar and not really unpleasant. I rather liked the odors of the stables and barns, such complex mixed odors, ranging from straw, and hay and leather, to the organic wastes of our huge charges, some four species of draft tharlarion. We did not, in the great stables, raise saddle tharlarion, though in the house stables, here in the Mistress' villa, some forty pasangs south sect west of Vonda, there were several saddle tharlarion. The Mistress did not breed and raise racing tharlarion, incidentally. These are usually larger and more agile beasts than common saddle tharlarion and are smaller, of course, than either draft tharlarion or war tharlarion, the latter used almost exclusively in the tharlarion cavalries of Gor, huge, upright beasts, several tons in weight, guided by voice commands and the blows of spears. The Lady Melpomene of Vonda, incidentally, I had heard, for such stories reach even the stables, had fared badly in the tharlarion races in Venna. I recalled that she had hoped to recoup her lost fortunes in such races. Apparently she had failed to do so. As the story went, and my own knowledge, as far as it went, corroborated the story, she had wagered what were, in effect, her last serious financial resources, the proceeds garnered from the sale of her house in Venna, on the outcomes of certain tharlarion races. She had thought herself, in virtue of the possession of significant and secret information, assured of certain winners in these races. Unfortunately for her this information, as I suspect is often the case in such matters, proved unreliable. Her wagers had, at any rate, proved uniformly disastrous. She had become a ruined woman. She had had to flee from Venna under the cover of darkness, that she not be delivered to the mercies of her creditors. Such creditors often come for a woman with a collar and chain. She resided now in Vonda, in a tiny, dingy holding, where she, as a citizeness of that city, would have, at least against foreign creditors, the protection of its Home Stone. The Lady Melpomene of Vonda, impoverished, ruined, had little now to pride herself on save the name of her family and the splendor of her lineage. The Lady Florence, though she must have been aware of these things, never, it was said, at home or abroad, mentioned the name of the Lady Melpomene. She had, perhaps, forgotten about her.
The Mistress was still some four slaves from me. She was sharply questioning one of my fellow slaves. Stammering and cringing, he was trying to satisfy her. I observed the Mistress' ankles, which, below the swirling hem of the beige skirt, were well turned in the high, slim boots. A slaver, of course, would remove such boots before shackling her. I saw Kenneth, behind her, grinning at me. I decided I had best look away from the Mistress.
We had worked hard, the last two days, preparing the stables and the animals for the inspection of the Mistress. I did not know if she would find fault or not, but, to me, objectively, it seemed the holding was in splendid condition. Kenneth, who had held an earlier inspection, had been satisfied, and he was, I suspected, harder to please than would be the Mistress. Indeed, it was a bit unusual that the Mistress conducted her own inspections. Too, it seems she was spending longer with the slaves than one would normally expect. This sudden, exacting concern with the details of the operation of the great stables was unusual for her. She was Mistress, of course, and might do as she wished.
"Do you wish to be whipped, with the snake?" she asked a fellow down the line from me.
"No, Mistress," he said, swiftly.
"Then do your work well, Slave," she said.
"Yes, Mistress," he stammered.
I considered again the polished, black leather of her trim, high boots. A free woman, of course, if she owns slaves, does not polish her own boots. That would be done by one of the house slaves. I suspected that it was Taphris, short-legged and luscious, who polished her boots.
I saw a frown on the face of Kenneth. I then looked away from the Mistress.
I smiled to myself. Kenneth did not wish me to be torn to pieces between tharlarion, driven in opposite directions.
I no longer wore the collar of the silk slave. I now wore, like other stable slaves, a common work collar, of black iron, with an attached ring. On it was the legend `I belong to the Lady Florence of Vonda' I, like other stable slaves, was chained at night.
The Lady Florence was now two slaves from me.
Besides the line of forty-two male stable slaves, with which my Mistress was now concerning herself, there knelt to one side, backs straight and heads up, a line of five Kajirae, who were stable sluts. These were barefoot and bare-armed, and wore brown tunics which, as they now had them belted, with binding fiber, would have failed to their knees, rather demurely for slave girls, had they stood up. There were two blonds and three brunets. All were Gorean wenches. On the throat of each, though much more slender and graceful than those of the males, was a collar, too, a work collar, of black iron, with an attached ring. I relished the sight of them.
"Slave!" snapped Kenneth.
"Yes, Master," I said, quickly, startled.
The Mistress, her eyes angry, stood before me. She slapped the quirt in the palm of her left hand. She was not pleased that I had not noticed when she had moved before me.
I knelt very straight. I stared ahead, inspected. I could see the hint of her sweet thighs beneath the beige skirt. Lifting my eyes I recalled the latitudes of her white belly, now concealed beneath her skirt, and blouse and jacket; I saw the loveliness of her breasts swelling within the blouse and jacket. I remembered the slender softness of her body and shoulders, the beauty of her throat, and face and hair, now muchly concealed by the jacket, and hood and veil. I inspected her. Her lineaments, for I had once been her silk slave, were not unfamiliar to me.
Above the veil, briefly, I saw her eyes flash in anger. But then she controlled herself. She would say nothing. How could she, in such a situation, call attention to the fact that she had been inspected, and as a woman, by one who was a mere slave.
"Is this not a new slave in the stables?" she asked Kenneth.
"Yes, Lady Florence," said Kenneth, "but, still, he has been with us now for some five weeks."
"What is his name?" she asked.
"Jason," said Kenneth.
"He seems familiar," she said, lightly.
"Perhaps you remember him, Lady Florence," said Kenneth. "He was once your silk slave."
"Ah!" she said, as though suddenly recollecting the matter. "Is it truly you, Jason?" she asked.
"Yes, Mistress," I said
She stepped back two or three feet, and looked upon me. "What a sturdy brute you have become," she said.
I said nothing.
"Your face and features," she said, "seem to have coarsened. And there is a scar on your lower left cheek."
I said nothing. I had had the scar from a cut received some four weeks ago. I had been careless.
"I have, inadvertently, from time to time, overheard the speakings of slaves," she said. "Is it true that you are the champion in the stables?"
I smiled to myself. Her informant in such matters was Taphris. Kenneth had told me this.
"Is it true?" she asked.