Ellen stood, instantly. Gorean slave girls obey masters, instantly and with perfection. Goreans, you see, do not coddle their slave girls. The least hesitancy can be cause for discipline.
The soldier then took a length of rope and knotted it to the length of rope which was already on her neck, that which Mirus, in his attempt, during the fray, to make away with her, had slashed short, an attempt foiled by Selius Arconious. The knot was jerked tight. Ellen was leashed.
The eyes of more than one of the soldiers glinted upon her. Ellen cast a glance downward, and trembled. She knew that few sights were more stimulatory to masculine beasts than a leashed woman. The leash, too, made it clear to her that she was no more than an animal.
The officer returned his attention to the spokesman, who knelt before him, in the grass, naked and bound, hand and foot.
“You were going to speak,” the officer reminded him.
“Secure the beasts,” said the spokesman.
The officer cast a glance at the three beasts, but, again, there seemed nothing of interest there.
“That will not be necessary,” he said.
“Then I will not speak,” said the spokesman.
“Who will bind them?” asked the officer, looking skeptically at the beasts.
“Let others speak, those others,” said the spokesman, indicating Mirus, the sleenmaster and the wounded man, the latter bound, as the two others, but he unconscious in the grass, “let them speak first!”
“If you would save the lives of your friends,” said the officer, irritably. “Speak.”
“No, no,” said the spokesman.
Mirus and the sleenmaster pulled at their bonds, and regarded the spokesman with fury.
“It must be pleasant to have such a friend,” mused the officer. Then he said to one of his men. “Free those brigands.”
The spokesman watched with horror as the bonds restraining Mirus, the sleenmaster and the wounded fellow were slashed away. Mirus and the sleenmaster stood, rubbing their wrists, angrily regarding the spokesman.
“No, no, no,” said the spokesman.
“He knows nothing,” said the officer, contemptuously. “Kill him.”
A dagger was whipped from its sheath. A hand seized the spokesman by the hair and pulled his head back, exposing his throat.
“No!” whispered the spokesman.
The dagger paused, wavering, the energy of the arm behind it revealing itself in the conflicted hesitation of the blade, narrow, bright, quivering, arrested by a sudden monitory glance from the officer.
In this moment, Mirus, within the cover of this distraction, all eyes on the officer, the spokesman, the threatening soldier with the dagger, with a flash of robes, threw himself across the grass, toward the place to which the slave had earlier seen him glance. There, as men looked about, startled, he seized up from the thick grass a closed holster and, in a moment, had freed the sixth pistol from its sheathing.
Even Tersius Major, who held a weapon, was taken aback.
Mirus now faced the group, the pistol, removed from its hiding place, ready in his hand. The slave had no doubt that he was adept with the weapon.
“Put it down,” said the officer, in horror. “It is a forbidden weapon!”
“Stand where you are,” said Mirus. “And spare me the prattle about weapons, forbiddings, laws, Priest-Kings and such! I am not a child!”
Fel Doron would have moved toward Mirus, but he was warned back by Portus Canio.
“What do you want?” asked the officer.
Mirus fixed his eyes upon the slave. He gestured toward himself with the weapon, violently. “Here, slave girl,” said he, “now!”
“Do not move,” snapped Selius Arconious.
“Come here!” snapped Mirus.
“I cannot, Master!” said Ellen. “My master has forbidden it.”
“Your master?” said Mirus.
“Yes!” cried Ellen. “My master!”
“Who is your master?” said Mirus.
“Selius Arconious, of Ar,” cried Ellen. “I am owned by Selius Arconious of Ar, tarnster, of the caste of Tarn Keepers!”
“I will have you!” said Mirus.
Ellen sank to her knees in the grass, in terror, weeping.
“Stand back,” she heard Mirus say. Then he was standing beside her. She felt the muzzle of the weapon through her hair, pressing, at the side of her head. It cut her there.
“If I cannot have her,” said Mirus, “no one will!”
“You will never be able to leave the camp,” said the officer. “Foes lurk, poised, unseen.”
“If I cannot have her, no one will!” cried Mirus.
Ellen shut her eyes. The muzzle of the gun hurt her. She wondered if she would even hear the report of the weapon. She remembered the boards irrupting from the corner of the wagon. Surely, at point blank range, it would tear half her head away.
“Stop!” said Selius Arconious.
Mirus straightened.
“I will give her to you before I will have her die,” said Selius Arconious.
The slave lifted her head, startled.
There was a terrible pause. Mirus lowered the weapon, it then at his thigh. “Then it seems,” said he, “that your love is greater than mine.”
Ellen knelt in the grass, shaken, startled, disbelievingly, bewildered. Had these men, such men, spoken of love? Love? Did they not know she was a slave? Love, for a slave?
“No, Master!” cried Ellen, for Mirus had then lifted the weapon slowly, and held it now at his own temple.
“No, Master!” cried Ellen.
“Do not be a fool,” said Selius Arconious.
“Put it down,” said the officer. “Put it with the other lightning devices, at the edge of the camp.”
“No!” said Tersius Major. “Give it to me!”
Mirus turned away, his head down. He pulled the weapon to the side, angrily, wearily, not permitting Tersius Major to snatch it from him.
He thrust the weapon in his belt.
Then he knelt to one side, his head in his hands.
“There are many markets,” said a soldier. “You can buy a girl in any of them. The shelves and cages are filled with shackled, unsold beauties, beauties begging for a collar, beauties needing a master, beauties needing to love and serve, to give all, and more.”
Ellen regarded the standing, bound Selius Arconious. He seemed angry.
“Do you love me, Master?” she asked.
“Do not be stupid,” he said. “You are a slave.”
“Yes, Master,” she said. “Forgive me, Master.”
Ellen wondered if she were a beauty. She certainly knew at least, now that she had come to understand bondage and her nature, that she was such that she would unhesitantly beg for a collar. On Gor she had learned explicitly what she had only suspected on Earth, that she needed a master, that she needed to love and serve, to give all and more.
“Sir!” called a guard from the periphery. “The sleen, the wild sleen, approach more closely.”
“Warn them back,” said the officer. “I think we will have something for them in a moment.”
“No, no!” said the spokesman.
“I have lost patience with you,” said the officer. He gestured, a nod of his head, to the soldier who carried still the unsheathed blade which had but moments ago so closely threatened the spokesman.
Ellen recalled the man the spokesman had earlier murdered in cold blood, his own ally, who had at one time been taken as the interpreter for the beasts.
Ellen glanced at the beasts. They seemed somnolent, as before. This reassured her. She wished Selius Arconious was free. She could see portions of that huge mound, that intertwined assemblage of meat and fur, move, as one or another of the beasts might twist or stretch. One lifted its head, and yawned. She could also detect breathing, where one or another of the giant barrel-like rib cages would lift and then subside. The breathing, where she could detect it, seemed deep, and regular, not quick, not agitated. The two domestic sleen were awake now, and had come out from under the wagon, the tharlarion now in its traces. If they were aware of their wild brethren outside the camp they gave no indication of it. The fur of the three beasts was matted, and spattered with mud, and glistened with water. Like the sleen, they had a strong animal odor. It reminded Ellen a little of that of bears. Ellen recalled the large man who had seemed so quietly formidable, Bosk of Port Kar, and his friend, Marcus of Ar’s Station, who had trekked with them earlier. She had seen him occasionally lifting his head and sampling the wind, doubtless taking scent. She now supposed that he had caught the scent of local sleen. Perhaps that is why, she thought, he and his friend deserted us, the reason why they fled the camp.