Nomads of Gor (29 page)

      
she was laughing and leaping beside his kaiila, weeping with

      
joy; I last saw her running beside his stirrup, trying to press

      
her head against his fur boot. Dina, though she was slave, 1

      
had placed on the saddle before me, her legs over the left

      
forequarters of the animal; and had ridden with her from the

      
wagons, until in the distance I could see the gleaming, white

 
walls of Maria. When I had come to this place I set her on

 
the grass She looked up at me, puzzled.

 
"Why have you brought me here?" she had asked.

 
I pointed into the distance. "It is Turia," I said, "your

 
city."

 
She looked up at me. "Is it your wish," she asked, "that I

 
run for the city?"

 
She referred to a cruel sport of the young men of the

 
wagons who sometimes take Turian slave girls to the sight of

 
Turia's walls and then, loosening bole and thong, bid them

 
run for the city.

 
"No," I told her, "I have brought you here to free you."

 
The girl trembled.

 
She dropped her head. "I am yours so much yours," she

 
said, looking at the grass. "Do not be cruel."

 
"No," I said, "I have brought you here to free you."

 
She looked up at me. She shook her head.

 
"It is my wish," I said.

 
"But why?" she asked.

 
"It is my wish," I said.

 
"Have I not pleased you?" she asked.

 
"You have pleased me very much," I told her.

 
"Why do you not sell me?" she asked.

 
"It is not my wish," I said.

 
"But you would sell a bosk or kaiila," she said.

 
"Yes," I said.

 
"Why not Dina?" she asked.

 
"It is not my wish," I said.

 
"I am valuable," said the girl. She simply stated a fact.

 
"More valuable than you know," I told her.

 
"I do not understand," she said.

 
I reached into the pouch at my belt and gave her a piece

 
of gold. "Take this," I said, "and go to Turia find your

 
people and be free."

 
Suddenly she began to shake with sobs and fell to her

 
knees at the paws of the kaiila, the gold piece in her left

 
hand. "If this is a Tuchuk joke," she wept, "kill me swiftly."

 
I sprang from the saddle of the kaiila and kneeling beside

 
her held her in my arms, pressing her head against my

 
shoulder. "No," I said, "Dina of Turia. I do not jest. You are

 
free.'

 
She looked at me tears in her eyes. "Turian girls are never

 
freed," she said. "Never."

 
I shook her and kissed her. "You, Dina of Turia," I said,

     
"are free." Then I shook her again. "Do you want me to ride

     
to the walls and throw you over?" I demanded.

     
She laughed through her tears. "No," she said, "no."

     
I lifted her to her feet and she suddenly kissed me. "Tarl

     
Cabot!" she cried. "Tarl Cabot!"

     
It seemed like lightning to us both that she had cried my

     
name as might have a free woman. And indeed it was a free

     
woman who cried those words, Dina, a free woman of Turia.

     
"Oh, Tarl Cabot," she wept.

     
Then she regarded me gently. "But keep Dina a moment

     
longer yours," she said.

     
"You are free," I said.

     
"But I would serve you," she said.

     
I smiled. "There is no place," I said.

     
"Ah, Tarl Cabot," she chided, "there is all the Plains of

     
Turia."

     
"The Land of the Wagon Peoples, you mean."

     
She laughed. "No," she said, "the Plains of Turia."

     
"Insolent wench," I observed.

     
But she was kissing me and by my arms was being lowered

     
to the grasses of the spring prairie.

     
When I had lifted her to her feet I noted, in the distance, a

     
bit of dust moving from one of the gates of the city towards

     
us, probably two or three warriors mounted on high thar-

     
larion.

     
The girl had not yet seen them. She seemed to me very

     
happy and this, naturally, made me happy as well. Then

     
suddenly her eyes clouded and her face was transformed with

     
distress. Her hands moved to her face, covering her mouth.

   
  
"Oh!" she said.

     
"What's wrong?" I asked.

     
"I cannot go to Turia!" she cried.

     
"Why not?" I asked.

     
"I have no veil!" she cried.

     
I cried out in exasperation, kissed her, turned her about by

     
the shoulders and with a slap, hardly befitting a free woman,

     
started her on the way to Turia.

     
The dust was now nearing.

     
I leaped into the saddle and waved to the girl, who had

     
run a few yards and then turned. She waved to me. She was

     
crying.

     
An arrow swept over my head.

     
I laughed and wheeled the kaiila and raced from the

 
place, leaving the riders of the ponderous tharlarion far

 
behind.

 
They circled back to find a girl, free though still clad

 
Kajir, clutching in one hand a piece of gold, waving after a

 
departed enemy, laughing and crying.

 
When I had returned to the wagon Kamchak's first words

 
to me had been, "I hope you got a good price for her."

 
I smiled.

 
"Are you satisfied?" he asked.

 
I recalled the Plains of Turia. "Yes," I said, "I am well

 
satisfied."

 
Elizabeth Cardwell, who had been fixing the fire in the

 
wagon, had been startled when I had returned without Dina,

 
but had not dared to ask what had been done with her. Now

 
her eyes were on me, wide with disbelief. "You sold her?"

 
she said, uncomprehendingly. "Sold?"

 
"You said she had fat ankles," I reminded her.

 
Elizabeth regarded me with horror. "She was a person"

 
said Elizabeth, "a human person"

 
"No!" said Kamchak, giving her head a shake. "An ani-

 
mal! A slaver" Then he added, giving her head another

 
shake, "Like yourself!"

 
Elizabeth looked at him with dismay.

 
"I think" said Kamchak, "I will sell you."

 
Elizabeth's face suddenly seemed terrified. She threw a

 
wild, pleading look at me.

 
Kamchak's words had disturbed me as well.

 
I think it was then, perhaps the first time since her first

 
coming to the Wagon Peoples, that she fully understood her

 
plight for Kamchak had, on the whole, been kind to her

 
he had not put the Tuchuk ring in her nose, nor had he

 
clothed her Kajir, nor put the brand of the bask horns on her

 
thigh, nor even enclosed her lovely throat with the Turian

 
collar. Now, again, Elizabeth, visibly shaken, ill, realized that

 
she might, should it please Kamchak's whims, be sold or

 
exchanged with the same ease as a saddle or a hunting sleen.

 
She had seen Tenchika sold. Now she assumed that the

 
disappearance of Dina from the wagon was to be similarly

 
explained. She looked at me disbelievingly, shaking her head.

 
Por my part I did not think it would be a good idea to tell

 
her that I had freed Dina. What good would that information

 
do her? It might make her own bondage seem more cruel, or

 
perhaps fill her with foolish hopes that Kamchak, her master,

 
might someday bestow on her the same beautiful gift of

      
freedom. I smiled at the thought. Kamchak, Free a slaver

      
And, I told myself, even if I myself owned Elizabeth, and not

      
Kamchak, I could not free her for what would it be to free

      
her? If she approached Turia she would fall slave to the first

      
patrol that leashed and hooded her; if she tried to stay

      
among the wagons, some young warrior, sensing she was

      
undefended and not of the Peoples, would have his chain on

      
her before nightfall. hand I myself did not intend to stay

      
among the wagons. I had now learned, if the information of

      
He that the golden sphere, doubtless the

      
egg of Priest-Kings, lay in the wagon of Kutaituchik. I must

      
attempt to obtain it and return it to the Sardar. This, I knew,

      
might well cost me my life. No, it was best that Elizabeth

      
Cardwell believe I had callously sold the lovely Dina of

      
Turia. It was best that she understand herself for what she

      
was, a barbarian slave girl in the wagon of Kamchak of the

      
Tuchuks.

      
"Yes," said Kamchak, "I think I will sell her."

      
Elizabeth shook with terror and put her head to the rug at

      
Kamchak's feet. "Please," she said, in a whisper, "do not sell

      
me, Master."

      
"What do you think she would bring?" asked Kamchak.

      
"She is only a barbarian," I said. I did not wish Kamchak

      
to sell her.

      
"Perhaps I could have her trained" mused Kamchak.

      
"It would considerably improve her price," I admitted. I

      
also knew a good training would take months, though much