Nomads of Gor (73 page)

      
part of her face I could see her eyes, and they seemed filled

      
with fear. "Whose wagon is it?" she pleaded.

        
"It is my wagon," I said.

    
  
She looked at me, thunderstruck. "No," she said, "it is the

      
wagon of a commander he who could command a Thou-

      
sand."

        
"I am such," I said. "I am a commander."

        
She shook her head.

        
"The collar?" she asked.

        
"It says," I said, "that you are the girl of Tarl Cabot."

        
"Your girl?" she asked.

        
"Yes," I said.

        
"Your slave?" she asked.

        
"Yes," I said.

      
She did not speak but stood looking at me, in the yellow

      
sheet, with one hand covering her face.

        
"I own you," I said.

      
Tears shone in her eyes and she sank to her knees, trem-

      
bling, unable to stand, weeping.

      
I knelt beside her. "It is over now, Elizabeth," I said. "It is

      
finished. You will no longer be hurt. You are no longer a

      
slave. You are free, Elizabeth."

      
I gently took her braceleted wrists in my hands and re-

      
moved them from her face.

      
She tried to twist her head away. "Please don't look at me,

      
Tarl," she said.

      
In her nose, as I had suspected, there glinted the tiny, fine

      
golden ring of the Tuchuk woman.

        
"Don't look at me, please," she said.

       
I held her lovely head with its soft dark hair in my hands,

       
gazing on her face, her forehead, her dark, soft eyes, with

       
tears, the marvelous, trembling mouth, and set in her fine

       
nose, delicate and lovely, the tiny golden ring.

        
"It is actually very beautiful," I said.

       
She sobbed and pressed her head to my shoulder. "They

       
bound me on a wheel," she said.

       
With my right hand I pressed her head more closely

       
against me, holding it.

        
"I am branded," she said. "I am branded."

        
"It is finished now," I said. "You are free, Elizabeth."

        
She lifted her face, stained with tears, to mine.

        
"I love you, Tarl Cabot," she said.

        
"No," I said softly, "you do not."

 
She leaned against me yet again. "But you do not want
   

 
me," she said. "You never wanted me."
          

 
I said nothing.
                                

 
"And now," she said, bitterly, "Kamchak has given me to
  

 
you. He is cruel, cruel, cruel."
                
.

 
"I think Kamchak thought well of you," I said, "that he
  

 
would give you to his friend."

 
She withdrew from me a bit, puzzled. "Can that be?" she
 

 
asked. "He whipped me, he---touched me," she shuddered,
  

 
"with the leather." She looked down, not wanting to look

 
Into my eyes.

 
"You were beaten," I said, "because you ran abbey. Nor-

 
mally a girl who does what you did is maimed or thrown to

 
Been or kaiila, and that he touched you with the whip, the

 
Slaver's Caress, that was only to show me, and perhaps you,

 
that you were female."
                         
`,

 
She looked down. "He shamed me," she said. "I cannot

 
help it that I moved as I did I cannot help that I am a
 

 
woman."

 
'fit is over now," I told her.
                 

 
She still did not raise her eyes, but stared down at the rug.
 

 
"Tuchuks," I remarked, "regard the piercing of ears as a
 

 
barbarous custom inflicted on their slave girls by Turians."
  

 
Elizabeth looked up, the tiny ring glinting in the light of
   

 
the fire bowl.

 
"Are your ears pierced?" I asked.

 
"No," she said, "but many of my friends on Earth who

 
owned fine earrings, had their ears pierced."

 
"Did that seem so dreadful to you?" I asked.

 
"No," she said, smiling.

 
"It would to Tuchuks," I said. "They do not even inflict

 
that on their Turian slaves." I added, "And it is one of the

 
great fears of a Tuchuk girl that, should she fall into Turian

 
hands, it will be done to her."

 
Elizabeth laughed, through her tears.

 
"The ring may be removed," I said. "With instruments it

 
can be opened and then slid free leaving behind no mark

 
that one would ever see."

 
"You are very kind, Tart Cabot," she said.

 
"I do not suppose it would do to tell you," I remarked,

 
'`but actually the ring is rather attractive."

 
She lifted her head and smiled pertly. "Oh?" she asked.

 
dyes," I said, "quite."

 
She leaned back on her heels, drawing the yellow silken

         
sheet more closely about her shoulders, and looked at me,

         
smiling.

          
"Am I slave or free?" she asked.

          
'Free," I said.

         
She laughed. "I do not think you want to free me," she

         
said. "You keep me chained up like a slave girl!"

         
I laughed. "I am sorry!" I cried. To be sure, Elizabeth

         
Cardwell was still in Sirik.

          
"Where is the key?" I asked.

         
"Above the door," she said, adding, rather pointedly, "just

         
beyond my reach."

          
I leaped up to fetch the key.

          
"I am happy," she said.

          
I picked the key from the small hook.

          
"Don't turn around!" she said.

         
I did not turn. "Why not?" I asked. I heard a slight rustle

         
of chain.

         
I heard her voice from behind me, husky. "Do you dare

       
  
free this girl?" she asked.

         
I spun about and to my astonishment saw that Elizabeth

         
Cardwell had arisen and stood proudly, defiantly, angrily

         
before me, as though she might have been a freshly collared

         
slave girl, brought in but an Ahn before, bound over the

         
saddle of a kaiila, the fruit of a slave raid.

           
I gasped.

         
"Yes," she said, "I will reveal myself, but know that I will

         
fight you to the death."

         
Gracefully, insolently, the silken yellow sheet moved about

         
and across her body and fell from her. She stood facing me,

         
in pretended anger, graceful and beautiful. She wore the Sirik

         
and was, of course, clad Kajir, clad in the Curia and Chatka,

         
the red cord and the narrow strip of black leather; in the

         
Kalmak, the brief vest, open and sleeveless, of black leather,

         
and in the Koora, the strip of red cloth that bound back her

         
brown hair. About her throat was the Turian collar with it'

         
chain, attached to slave bracelets and ankle rings, one of the

         
latter attached to the chain running to the slave ring. I saw

         
that her left thigh, small and deep, bore the brand of the four

         
bask horns.

         
I could scarcely believe that the proud creature who stood

         
chained before me was she whom Kamchak and I had

         
referred to as the Little Barbarian; whom I had been able to

         
think of only as a timid, simple girl of Earth, a young, pretty

         
little secretary, one-of nameless, unimportant thousands of

such in the large offices of Earth's major cities; but what I

now saw before me did not speak to me of the glass and

rectangles and pollutions of Earth, of her pressing crowds

and angry, rushing, degraded throngs, slaves running to the

whips of their clocks, slaves leaping and yelping and licking

for the caress of silver, for their positions and titles and

street addresses, for the adulation and envy of frustrated

mobs for whose regard a true Gorean would have had but

contempt; what I saw before me now spoke rather, in its

way, of the bellowing of bask and the smell of trampled

earth; of the sound of the moving wagons and the whistle of

wind about them; of the cries of the girls with the bask stick

and the odor of the open cooking fire; of Kamchak on his

kaiila as I remembered him from before; as Kutaituchik

must once have been; of the throbbing, earthy rhythms of

grass and snow, and the herding of beasts; and here before

me now there stood a girl, seemingly a captive, who might

have been of Turia, or Ar, or Cos, or Thentis; who proudly

wore her chains and stood as though defiant in the wagon of

her enemy, as if clad for his pleasure, all identity and mean-

ing swept from her save the incontrovertible fact of what she

now seemed to be, and that alone, a Tuchuk slave girl.

"Well," said Miss Cardwell, breaking the spell she had

cast, "I thought you were going to unchain me."

"Yes, yes," I said, and stumbled as I went toward her.

Lock by lock, fumbling a bit, I removed her chains, and

threw the Sirik and ankle chain to the side of the wagon,

under the slave ring.

 
"Why did you do that?" I asked.

"I don't know," she responded lightly, "I must be a Tuchuk

slave girl."

 
"You are free," I said firmly.