Nomads of Gor (57 page)

          
apologized.

           
"That is all right," I assured him, "take your time."

          
I then followed Harold along one of the smooth, stone

          
paths leading among the trees, brushing our way through the

          
clusters of blossoms, skirting the edge of the nearer blue

          
pool. I could see the three moons of Gor rejected in its

          
surface. They were beautiful shining among the green and

          
white blossoms on the water.

          
The masses of flowers and vegetation in Saphrar's Pleasure

          
Gardens filled the air with mingled, heavy sweet fragrances.

          
Also the fountains had been scented and the pools.

          
Harold left the walk and stepped carefully to avoid tram-

          
pling a patch of talenders, a delicate yellow flower, often

 
associated in the Gorean mind with love and beauty. He

 
made his way across some dark blue and yellowish orange

 
grass and came to the buildings set against one wall of the

 
gardens. Here we climbed several low, broad marble steps

 
and passed down a columned porch and entered the central

 
building, finding ourselves in a dim, lamp-lit hall, bestrewn

 
with carpets and cushions and decorated, here and there,

 
with carved, reticulated white screening.

 
There were seven or eight girls, clad in Pleasure Silks,

 
sleeping in this hall, scattered about, curled up on cushions.

 
Harold inspected them, but did not seem satisfied. I looked

 
them over nod would have thought that any one of them

 
would have been a prize, presuming it could be safely trans-

 
ported somehow to the wagons of the Tuchuks. One poor

 
girl slept naked on the tiles by the fountain. About her neck

 
was a thick metal collar to which a heavy iron chain had

 
been fastened; the chain itself was attached to a large iron

 
ring placed in the floor. I supposed she was being disciplined.

 
I immediately began to worry that that girl would be the one

 
who would strike Harold's eye. To my relief, he examined

 
her briefly and passed on.

 
Soon Harold had left the central hall and was making his

 
way down a long, carpeted, lamp-hung corridor. He entered

 
various rooms off this corridor and, after, I suppose, inspect-

 
ing their contents, always emerged and trekked off again.

 
We then examined other corridors and other rooms, and

 
finally returned to the main hall and started off down another

 
way, again encountering corridors and rooms; this we did

 
four times, until we were moving down one of the last

 
corridors, leading from one of the five main corridors off the

 
central hall. I had not kept count but we must have passed

 
by more than seven or eight hundred girls, and still, among

 
all these riches of Saphrar, he could not seem to find the one

 
for which he searched. Several times, one girl or another,

 
would roll over or shift in her sleep, or throw out an arm,

 
and my heart would nearly stop, but none of the wenches

 
awakened and we would troop on to the next room.

- At last we came to a largish room, but much smaller than

the main hall, in which there were some seventeen beauties

strewn about, all in Pleasure Silk. The light in the room was

furnished by a single tharlarion-oil lamp which hung from the

ceiling. It was carpeted by a large red rug on which were

several cushions of different colors, mostly yellows and or-

anges. There was no fountain in the room but, against one

        
wall, there were some low tables with fruits and drinks upon

        
them. Harold looked the girls over and then he went to the

        
low table and poured himself a drink, Ka-la-na wine by the

        
smell of it. He then picked up a juicy, red larma fruit, biting I

        
into it with a sound that seemed partly crunching as he went

        
through the shell, partly squishing as he bit into the fleshy,

        
segmented endocarp. He seemed to make a great deal of

        
noise. Although one or two of the girls stirred uneasily, none,

        
to my relief, awakened.

        
Harold was now fishing about, still chewing on the fruit, in

        
a wooden chest at one end of the table. He drew out of the

        
chest some four silken scarves, after rejecting since others

        
which did not sufficiently please him.

        
Then he stood up and went to where one of the girls lay

        
curled on the thick red carpet.

        
"I rather like this one," he said, taking a bite out of the

        
fruit, spitting some seeds to the rug.

        
She wore yellow Pleasure Silk, and, beneath her long black

        
hair, on her throat, I glimpsed a silverish Turian collar. She

        
lay with her knees drawn up and her head resting on her left

        
elbow. Her skin color was tarnish, not too unlike the girl I

        
had seen from Port Karl I bent more closely. She was a

        
beauty, and the diaphanous Pleasure Silk that was the only

        
garment permitted her did not, by design, conceal her

        
charms. Then, startled, as she moved her head a bit, restlessly

        
on the rug, I saw that in her nose was the tiny golden ring of

        
a Tuchuk girl.

          
"This is the one," Harold said.

          
It was, of course, Hereena, she of the First Wagon.

        
Harold tossed the emptied, collapsed shell of the larma

        
fruit into a corner of the room and whipped one of the scarves

        
from his belt.

        
He then gave the girl a short, swift kick, not to hurt her,

        
but simply, rather rudely, to startle her awake.

          
"On your feet, Slave Girl," he said.

        
Hereena struggled to her feet, her trend down, but Harold

  
      
had stepped behind her, pulling her wrists blind her back

        
and tying then with the scarf in his hand.

          
"What is it?" she asked.

          
"You are being abducted," Harold informed her.

        
The girl's head flew up and she spun to face him, pulling to

        
free herself. When she saw him her eyes were as wide as

        
larma fruit and her mouth flew open.

          
"It is I," said Harold, "Harold the Tuchuk."

 
"No!" she said. "Not you!"

 
"Yes," he said, "I," turning her about once again, routinely

 
checking the knots that bound her wrists, taking her wrists in

 
his hands, trying to separate them, examining the knots for
   

 
slippage; there was none. He permitted her to turn and face
   

 
him again.
                  
                  

 
"How did you get in here?" she demanded.
      

 
"I chanced by," said Harold.
                   

 
She was trying to free herself. After an instant she realized

 
that she could not, that she had been bound by a warrior.

 
Then she acted as though she had not noticed that she had

 
been perfectly secured, that she was his prisoner, the prisoner
    

 
of Harold of the Tuchuks. She squared her small shoulders

 
and glared up at him.

 
"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

 
"Stealing a slave girl," he said.

 
"Who?" she asked.

 
"Oh, come now," said Harold.

 
"Not I!" she said.

 
"Of course," said he.

 
"But I am Hereena," she cried, "of the First Wagon!"

 
I feared the girl's voice might awaken the others, but they

 
seemed still to sleep.

 
"You are only a little Turian slave girl," said Harold, "who

 
has taken my fancy."

 
"Nor" she said.

 
Then Harold had his hands in her mouth, holding it open.

 
"See," he said to me.

 
I looked. To be sure, there was a slight gap between two

 
of the teeth on the upper right.

 
Hereena was trying to say something. It is perhaps just as

 
well she could not.

 
"It is easy to see," said Harold, "why she was not chosen

 
First Stake."

 
Hereena struggled furiously, unable to speak, the young

  
Tuchuk's hands separating her jaws.

   
"I have seen kaiila with better teeth," he said.

   
Hereena made an angry noise. I hoped that the girl would

   
not burst a blood vessel. Then Harold removed his hands

   
deftly, narrowly missing what would have been a most savage
  
!

 
bite.

   
"Sleen!" she hissed.

   
"On the other hand," said Harold, "all things considered,

   
she is a not unattractive little wench."

          
"Sleen! Sleen!" cursed the girl.

   
       
"I shall enjoy owning you," said Harold, patting her head.

          
"Sleep! Sleen! Sleen!" cursed the girl.

        
Harold turned to me. "She is, is she not all things con

       
sidered a pretty little wench? I could not help but regard the angry, collared Hereena, furious in the swirling Pleasure Silk.

 
"Yes," I said, "very."

 
"Do not fret, little Slave Girl," said Harold to Hereena.

          
"You will soon be able to serve me and I shall see that you

          
shall do so superbly."