Taphris shrank back.
"No, Kenneth," said the Lady Florence. "Do not give him a woman."
"He is a man," said Kenneth. "He needs meat and a slave girl."
"He is not to be given a woman," she said. "Is that clearly understood, Kenneth?"
"Yes, Lady Florence," he said, angrily.
"Kenneth," she said.
"Yes, Lady Florence," he said.
"I will later find a slut for him," she said. "I have a slut in mind."
Kenneth looked at her, puzzled. "Very well, Lady Florence," he said. Then he turned about, to thrust me ahead of him down the corridor, I looked back, seeing again, at the gate, the Lady Florence and, beside her, the Lady Melpomene. Then I yielded to the pressure of Kenneth's arm and was guided down the corridor, toward the stall set aside for our fighters. Bares was close behind us, and then Taphris. Back, behind the gate, from the tiers, I could hear shouting. Another match was in progress.
21 THE INCUBATION SHED
I was naked and sweating profusely. It is hot in the incubation shed.
"The Mistress seems in a good mood," I said.
"Shhh," Bares, who was stripped to the waist, cautioned me. "Listen." He put his ear down to the warm sand.
I joined him, listening. Beneath the warm sand, say a foot below the surface, we heard a tiny noise, a scratching.
"It will be coming out soon," said Bares, grinning, straightening up.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Taphris," said Bares, "put more sticks in the flame ditch."
She looked at us. She was naked. Bares had made her remove her clothes in the incubation shed. She was covered with sweat. Her flesh, in the light from the flame ditch, it almost encircling the buried clutch before us, glowed reddishly. Girths cloths lay at hand. These, sewn from feed sacks, are used to dry and wrap the hatchlings. Snout straps, too, coiled, used to secure their jaws, also lay nearby.
"I should not have to do this work," said Taphris.
"Get on your hands and knees," said Bares. "Carry the sticks, one by one, in your mouth."
"Yes, Master," she said, angrily. I smiled to myself to see the Mistress' spy, commanded by a free man obeying.
"It is too bad she is not to be used," said Bares. "She needs raping"
I shrugged. What Bares said was doubtless true.
"Kenneth, too, is displeased with her," said Bares to me. "One can scarcely make a move in the stables without knowing that the little she-sleen is going to report it to the Mistress."
I nodded.
We watched Taphris, on her hands and knees, carry a stick to the edge of the flame ditch and, shutting her eyes, drop it in, then quickly drawing back. She then looked at us.
"Continue, Slave," said Barns.
"Yes, Master," she said, returning on her hands and knees to the box for another stick.
"It is irritating, having such a spy about," said Barus. "Too, she thinks she is important. She thinks she is still a house girl, and not a stable slut. Her presence in the stables is not good for the discipline of the other girls."
That was true. If she were not to be whipped and chained, and disrobed and raped, as might be the others, and for no obvious reason, such as being the favorite of one of the keepers, a reason a slave girl can understand, then puzzlement, and perhaps even consternation and dissension, might soon manifest itself in the kennels. The other girls might then soon want the same privileges. And if such matters were allowed to proceed unchecked soon half-naked slave girls might aspire to the pretensions of free women, desiring to be the mistresses of their own clothing and bodies. But matters, of course, would never be permitted to reach that point. Long before that point was reached the leather would have been removed from its nail in the whipping shed.
"We must do something about Taphris," said Barns.
I shrugged. It seemed to me now, objectively, that Taphris was under sufficient discipline. She was crawling about, naked, on her hands and knees, carrying sticks in her mouth, feeding the slow fires in the flame ditch. To be sure, it had for a moment this afternoon seemed otherwise.
"Taphris," said Barns, sharply.
"Yes, Master!" she said, startled.
"Bring water," he said.
"Yes, Master," she said. She got to her feet and went to the side of the shed, where the water bucket was placed, to get the yellow, half-gourd dipper.
We watched her.
"She is pretty," said Barus.
"Yes," I said.
"It is a pity she is not to be raped," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
She filled the half-gourd dipper.
"It will not be difficult to get rid of her when we wish," said Barns. "Kenneth has already intimated to the Mistress that she has the makings of an excellent stable slut."
"I see," I smiled.
"Soon the Mistress will fear to trust her in the stables, where you are," he said.
"I see," I said.
"Two of the sluts in the kennels have been whining for you," said Barns.
"Might I inquire which ones?" I asked.
"Tuka and Claudia," he said. "And I do not think Peliope or Leah would much mind having your hands on them either."
I shrugged.
"They sweat in their chains," he said.
"I wish I could have them," I said.
"It is not the wish of the Mistress," he said.
"Your drink, Master," said Taphris.
He looked at her and, suddenly, frightened, she fell to her knees. She put her head down. She pressed the yellow, rough-skinned half-gourd, brimming with water, deep into her belly. Then she lifted the yellow side of the gourd to her lips and, lingeringly, turning her head, kissed it; then she lifted it to him with both hands, her head down between her extended arms.
Barus took the gourd and drank. He had seen that the Mistress' spy had served him well.
He held the cup. "Are you under perfect discipline, Taphris?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," she said, trembling.
"It did not seem so this afternoon," he said.
"Forgive me, Master," she said, trembling. "Please do not have me slain." Taphris, a Gorean slave,girl, knew that she was at the complete mercy of free persons. Barns, as one of the Mistress' slave keepers, could kill her, or have her killed, at a whim. The Mistress, she knew, could always send another spy to the stables, perhaps Pamela or Bonnie, other house slaves. Neither Pamela nor Bonnie, incidentally, were Earth girls, though they wore Earth-girl names. Such names, as I have mentioned, are often used as slave names on Gor.
Taphris kept her head down.
"Do not kneel me with those sluts!" she had cried out, angrily.
The other girls, kneeling in a circle, referred to as sluts by one who was herself obviously only a stable slut, even to the rag and collar, cried out in protest, in outrage.
"Kneel," had said Barus.
"Yes, Master," had said Taphris, and she had knelt, taking her place in the circle.
She had not been pleased, but she had obeyed.
The other girls, I had seen, had glanced at one another. The outburst of Taphris had not been punished. She had not been slapped until she cried out for mercy, or kicked, or disrobed or beaten. Obviously, in some way, she was special. Barus, I had seen, had been angry.
"Sew," he had said, irritably.
He threw the girls feed sacks. To Tuka he gave a pair of scissors. To all of them he gave a needle and thread. The sacks were to be used to make girth cloths for the expected hatchlings.,
The incident had occurred in the sewing shed, which has a large window. The stitching on the sacks is opened, and then the sacks are cut into appropriately sized strips, which are then joined and hemmed. Commonly this is a pleasant time for the girls, kneeling on cloths on the wooden floor, sewing and chatting, but today they were quiet and, heads down, worked and did not speak. The finished girth cloth is about ten feet in length and a yard in width. Taphris, too, sewed. She had a slight smile about her lips. The cloth of feed sacks, incidentally, though it is a coarse cloth, is seldom used for slave garments. The wool of the hurt is usually used for male slave garments; it absorbs perspiration well; and rep-cloth is commonly used for female slave garments; it is quite thin and clings well to the curves of the female body.