I ran lightly down the hall.
Suddenly, ahead, from a side passage, I saw two men emerge. They held a girl, Tupa, between them.
I turned again, to flee back down the hall.
But, behind me, now, came two more men, doubtless those I had heard behind the small iron door, who had then entered the quarters for slaves, examined them, and the room for slave girl preparation, and emerged through the two gates.
I was trapped in the corridor. I shrank back against the wall.
They approached. "It is the Dina," said one of them.
"Let her go," said the other.
Then the four men joined and went hack toward the great hall, taking Tupa with them.
I stood back against the wall, breathing heavily, bewildered, terrified. They had not secured me.
I did not understand this. Did they not want me? Was I not suitable for them?
Was I to be left free?
At the far end of the hall, away from the gates leading to the quarters of slaves, I saw a figure, that of a man, tall, handsome, strong, splendid, with the bearing of one who leads Gorean warriors.
It was he called Rask of Treve. I turned and fled away.
I crouched in the dark passageway, cornered. I saw the tiny lamp approach, from far down the passageway. I felt the walls of the passageway about me.
Behind me there was a barred gate, locked.
The lamp came closer.
There were walls of stone on either side of me.
He lifted the lamp, and the light fell upon me. I knelt. "Be merciful to a poor slave, Master," I whispered.
"Kneel," said he, "with your belly and cheek against the wall, and place your hands behind your back, with your wrists crossed."
I did so. He placed the lamp he carried on a shelf to one side. He placed the sword he carried behind him on the stones of the flooring and crouched behind me. Binding fiber was looped about my wrists and pulled tight; then it was tied; I winced; I was helpless. He took me by the arms and turned me, sitting me down on the flooring, my knees up, my back against the stone wall.
"Be merciful to a poor slave, please, Master," I whispered. I had muchly taunted him, and much had I delighted myself at his expense. Now I wore his binding fiber, and was alone with him, in a dark passageway deep below the keep of Stones of Turmus.
I blinked against the light of the lamp.
He withdrew an object from his pouch, and held it before me. "Do you know what this is?" he asked.
It was like a small, veined, metal leaf, narrowly ovate in shape. It had a tiny hole in the wider end, in which, in a tiny loop, there was twisted a small wire. On the leaf, indented m, was a sign, and some tiny printing.
"Do you know this sign?" asked the man.
"No, Master," I whispered.
"It is the sign of Treve," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Can you read this?" asked the man, pointing to the printing.
"No, Master," I said. I could not read Gorean. I was illiterate in the language. This was not uncommon. Many masters think it desirable to keep a girl illiterate in their language, thinking it makes them easier to control and puts them more at their mercy. Other masters differ in this, relishing the ownership and absolute domination of literate girls, preferably those who are well educated, highly intelligent and gifted. Such girls must be regarded as quite valuable; on the block they commonly bring the highest prices. It is also said they make the best slaves. Had I been sold on Earth I would have counted as such a girl; on Gor, however, I was only another piece of illiterate collar meat.
"It is my name," said the man. "Rask."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"It is with these devices," said the man, holding up the tiny leaf, with its wire, sign and printing, "that we of Treve, in our various ventures of raiding, mark our booty."
"Please, no, Master!" I cried.
I shrank back against the wall. He held my left ear lobe, pulling it taut. I cried out, wincing, as the wire pierced the lobe, and then he threaded the wire through and, twisting the ends together, formed a tiny loop, from which the silver leaf dangled. I felt it at my left cheek.
"It will be pleasant to tag you," he had said to me earlier. I had not understood him at the time. I now understood him. I looked at him with horror. I had been tagged.
"You do not now appear so insolent as formerly," he said.
"No, Master," I wept.
He then seized my ankles and pulled me from the wall. I threw my head back, moaning. An ear had been pierced. This, in itself, is little or nothing, but on Gor it is mighty in its portent. The other ear, almost certainly now, to match its mate, would sometime be pierced, and I would then be a «pierced-ear» girl, the lowest of female slaves. I had heard another girl crying out earlier, as she had been tagged, although at the time I had not understood what had been done to her. It had not been the pain which had made her cry out so miserably but its meaning. An ear had been pierced.
I looked up at Rask of Treve reproachfully. He laughed. He well understood what he had done to me, and he knew well, too, that I understood.
"Is your vengeance sweet, Master?" I asked him.
"I have not yet begun to take my revenge, pretty little slave," he said. He thrust apart my ankles.
I resolved to resist him. I turned my head to the side, and heard the small sound of the silver leaf, on its tiny loop, fastened in my ear, touch the stones of the flooring of the passage.
But his hands were sure.
"No," I begged, "do not make me yield to you!"
But he did not see fit to show me mercy. I cried out with misery, lost in sensation, lifting my body to him, piteous for his slightest touch.
When he finished with me I lay between his feet, a shattered, yielded slave girl.
He lifted his head. "Smoke," he said.
I, too, smelled smoke.
"The keep is afire," he said. "On your feet, Slave."
I struggled to my feet, bent over.
We journeyed through flaming halls. In a few Ehn we emerged, after climbing stairs, on the roof of one of the buildings, and, thence, by a narrow bridge, crossed to one of the parapets. There there were several tarns, great fierce saddle birds of Gor. I could see fire licking through the roof of one of the buildings. The parapet was crowded. Goods were bound over the saddles of tarns. Strings of plates and vessels were tied at the pommels. Girls stood beside the winged monsters, their hands over their heads, slave braceleted through the stirrups of the beasts. They would dangle from the stirrups in flight, two on a side. Behind some of the beasts there were tarn baskets, on trailing ropes. Girls, too, and various goods, had been thrust in these. I saw Sucha, her hands braceleted over her head, at one of the stirrups. She looked terrified. Men mounted swiftly to the saddles. Below in the courtyard, chained together, I could see Borchoff, and the soldiers and staff of the keep. There was much smoke about them. I saw tharlarion, released, in the courtyard. Men struggled not to be trampled. I was pulled along by the arm, by my captor. "Let us hurry, Captain," said one of the men.
"We must move under the cover of darkness," said a lieutenant. "We must be at the merchant rendezvous before dawn."
"To your saddle, Lieutenant," grinned Rask of Treve.
The man grinned, and leapt to the ladder leading to the high saddle of the great beast.
I saw below that the great gate of the keep had been swung open. Tharlarion rushed through.
I was thrust into the hands of a soldier, who conducted me to one of the tarn baskets.
Borchoff, below in the courtyard, looked upward. Rask of Treve lifted his hand to him, in a salute of warriors. The gate had been opened. Borchoff and his men might make their way, though chained, to safety.
Then Rask of Treve looked about himself, making swift inspection of his men and tarns, and their burdens, riches and slave girls.
The soldier lifted me lightly from my feet and thrust me, feet first, through a hatchlike opening, with flat door, in the top of the tarn basket. He pushed my head down, thrusting me down between the other girls. I crouched down, wedged in. I could scarcely squirm. I looked up, seeing the flat door swung shut. In an instant he had tied it closed. I knelt. We could not stand upright. Eight of us were imprisoned in the basket. Our wrists were tied behind our backs. Silk, and gold, too, had been thrust in the basket. I looked about. Scarcely could we move. From the left ears of the other girls, as from mine, there dangled a silver leaf, a tag, which had been placed upon them by the men who had taken them.