How dared she, a slave, so conceal herself? Surely she should have been stripped and lashed! Why did those of the polluted world not assess their women, and divide them into the slave and free, and see to it that those who were slaves, and should be slaves, were dressed accordingly, as what they were, slaves? Surely that would be pleasant, to see them so distinguished. Why should they be permitted the audacity of indiscriminately mingling amongst free women? Did they not know they were slaves?
But then are not all women slaves, bred so over a thousand generations?
But I gathered she did not know at that time that she belonged in a tunic and collar, in which she would soon find herself, a Gorean slave.
I pondered, sitting alone in the camp.
As each Ahn passed I realized the chances of locating the slave before some beast of the forest were rapidly diminishing.
Why should I care?
But I did not know where to look.
A hundred men might have combed a thousand pasangs.
I was only one man, who had perhaps followed a hundred false trails.
Even had I Tiomines at my disposal it was not clear I could have given him an unambiguous scent.
There is a game, called Blind Kaissa.
It is played in the training of high officers, in Ar, in Treve, in Kasra, and Jad, even in far Turia.
It is played much like ordinary Kaissa save that there are two boards, separated by a vertical screen, precluding each player from seeing the moves of the other. An arbiter is at hand who can see both boards. It is his role to warn against illegal moves, and to announce captures, threats to the Home Stone, and such. In this manner, as neither player can see either his opponent or his opponent’s moves, a premium is placed on intuition, sensitivity, reading the character and nature of the opponent, and probable conjecture. Such situations are not unprecedented in war, where one may not know the position of the enemy, the forces at his disposal, his plans, where he might strike, and so on. One gambles. On the board one may lose pieces; in the field one may lose cities.
I granted that the slave was highly intelligent. Were this not so she would not, in all likelihood, have been collared. But I also supposed she would be ignorant of woodcraft, and untutored in techniques of evasion. Not being a Panther Girl I doubted she could read signs, even something as obvious as territorial spoor markings. I would suppose her capable of little more than making a fire. Surely she would know enough to do that, as it is easy enough to construct a fire drill or find fire rocks and strike them together over dried leaves. In most camps, of course, a simple fire maker is used, which is more convenient. A free person will retain the fire maker, and the slave, who has usually arranged the materials for the fire, will tend it once it is burning. A slave is seldom permitted to handle such a device. Too, of course, she is not permitted to touch a weapon. This can be a capital offense. I supposed she would be unlikely to move east on the Alexandra for in that direction lay Shipcamp and if she moved west that would put her in the wake of the mariners and mercenaries who had surprised Genserich’s camp. She would, presumably, initially, try to set a difficult trail away from the river, which one might depart from in any direction, and then, later, return to the river. She would wish to cross the river, sooner or later, and then move south, particularly given the lateness of the season.
It was a gamble, surely. How soon, and where, might she return to the river? I had no way of knowing, but there are likely moves in the game. Certainly the opponent has objectives, and is playing to win. By now, given the recency of her flight, and the likely prompt detection of her departure, she would doubtless anticipate an immediate pursuit, if one were to be made. Accordingly, if her backtrail remained empty, that would be taken to mean either that no pursuit was in progress or, more likely, that her flight had been successful. If it were not successful, presumably, given the recency of her flight, and a prompt pursuit, a tracker or trackers would be close behind her, perhaps only some Ehn away. Judicious observations at various intervals would be quite sufficient to establish that this was the case, or not the case. By now, she would be confident that it was not the case. She might then be willing, I supposed, to terminate her venturing away from her likely goal, and turn back to seek it, the river. Presumably, alone, and particularly vulnerable to the elements, she would wish to cross the river as soon as possible. How fortunate, I thought, that we give them so little to wear.
So, lacking sleen, and having no viable trail to follow, I rose up, gathered my pack and weapons, and went to the river.
I crouched in the bushes, elated.
There was a seeming movement to the side, and I glanced to my right, quickly. But it was only a rustle, and shadows, stirred by the wind in the brush. I had sensed, from time to time, I might be accompanied in the forest, but if something was there, as I supposed it was not, I did not think it was concerned with me. Certainly it had given no threatening evidence of its presence.
Through the branches I could see the broad, shimmering vista of the Alexandra before me. There were no signs of patrols from Shipcamp along the shore nor of the small sounding boats which might be testing the river or preceding the slow, stately journey of the great ship to the sea. Either the ship had not yet reached this point, perhaps still moored upriver, or had already passed. I saw no advantage in delaying my crossing, supposing that I could manage it. I must manage it, somehow. Making it sooner, rather than later, also minimized the danger of being detected by our visitors from the coast, who had so discomfited Genserich and his band, and left with four stripped, neck-roped slaves, once Panther Women. They would have already passed this point.
I had planned astutely, and had carried out my plan flawlessly. I congratulated myself on my cleverness. How clever was Margaret Alyssa Cameron! Then I lifted my hand and, with my fingers, touched my collar. How absurd was that thought! Who was this Margaret Alyssa Cameron? I was not Margaret Alyssa Cameron. She was a free woman. I was a slave. I was not she. I was Laura, so named at the pleasure of masters, a slave, like many others, of Pani Warriors. I was a slave. I knew that. It was indisputable. The former Margaret Alyssa Cameron no longer existed; she who had once been she was now Laura, merely another Gorean slave girl.
Even on Earth I had sensed myself a slave. And here there was no ambiguity about the matter. Here it was so not only in the aching, longing reality of the heart, desiring to belong to and serve a master, but in the full, implacable reality of fact, truth, and law. I was rightless goods, merchandise, a slight, collared, curvaceous beast, subject to purchase and sale, and knew myself such!
But I was no ordinary slave. I was an extraordinarily clever slave. I had escaped. I had eluded the masters.
I looked across the Alexandra.
How bright, how clever, how superior, I was! I had eluded the masters. What slave can manage that?
And they said there was no escape for the Gorean slave girl! But I had escaped! They would never recapture me! I could not be recaptured. I was too clever for them!
But what could I do, marked, tunicked, and collared, easily identifiable, female and slave, where could I go?
But the difficulty now was to manage the crossing.
I glanced to my left, and my attention was suddenly arrested, fearfully so, in a moment of terror. For an instant I could not move. Again, as I had long ago, on the first day of my escape from Shipcamp, I thought I saw a beast’s head in the shadows, looking at me, a large, broad, motionless head. I had then regarded it with greater care, and found that it was no more than a misconstrued pattern in the forest, an artifact of perception, a misinterpreted mixture of brush and branches, light and shadow. It was no more than the creature of my fear.
I laughed with relief.
But then it emerged the brush, crouching, no taller than my waist. My eyes grew wide; my hand was raised before my mouth. I could not move. It was to my left, and between me and the river. Strangely it did not seem attentive to me. Rather it was looking beyond me, though, when I dared turn, I could see nothing there.
Then the beast stood up fiercely, like a threatening, pulsating mountain, broad and braced, seething, its chest expanded, its paws spread, stood up to each tiny increment of its height, lifted its large, shaggy head angrily to the afternoon sky, and roared, a terrible roar, much like those we had heard when in the camp of Genserich, but then far off, and then closer. From such a sound, even were the monster caged, I think uneasy, awed men might back away and women flee. Then from my right I heard, unmistakably, from within the brush somewhere, an answering, rumbling growl. I had occasionally sensed I might have shared the forest with some unseen companion, like a shadow amongst the trees, but I had dismissed this apprehension as, Ahn after Ahn, even following investigations, I had detected nothing. Too, if there were any warrant for my fears, why had I not, in all this time, if it were a predator, been attacked? To bring down, and feed upon, a prey such as I might be, an unarmed kajira in the forest, would pose no difficulty to any likely predator. I lacked the stealth and speed of the tabuk, the horns of the forest bosk, the tusks of the tarsk boar. But clearly, now, there was not one, but two beasts, that which had emerged from the brush of the riverside, where, suddenly disturbed, it might have been drinking, and the other, still unseen, in the brush to my right.
I remained perfectly still. I think this was less wisdom than a consequence of the fact that I found myself unable to move. I suppose I was too frightened. But, too, more consciously, I did realize, even if I felt I could move, any swift movement on my part would be likely to trigger the pursuit response common in most predators. And turning one way, away from one beast, even had I the agility and speed of the small, graceful tabuk, might have brought myself within the compass of the other. It seemed to me that my body, denying me the capacity for motion, possibly expressed a rationality deeper than one rationality itself might have recognized.
I then saw the second beast. Its mottling would have rendered it almost invisible in the lights and shadows amongst the trees, its common background. There was tall grass and brush here, however, near the river. Seemingly it had availed itself here of this natural cover. However, that might be, the grass now parted like a curtain as it pressed it aside. Half of it was then clearly visible. Its belly was low, but its head was up. It snarled. The jaws were half open. I had seen such teeth before, fangs, pierced and strung on necklaces and armlets of Panther Girls. It was clearly vicious, and determined, this beast, but, too, it was smaller than the beast which had appeared from the side of the river.
The larger beast roared, again, but the smaller beast held its ground, crouched down, snarling.
I suddenly felt miserably sick and helpless.
I now had some sense of what was transpiring. The smaller beast had been following me, seemingly content, at least for the time being, for some reason, to do no more than keep me within its range. I had been unaware of its presence. I was unclear as to why, if it were about, it had not attacked. And, in following me, the smaller beast had strayed into the range of the larger beast. The panther, like the sleen, is highly territorial. The defense of territory selects for size, power, and ferocity. The Ubarship of a territory is not easily won, nor easily maintained. Territory, obviously, contains game for harvesting. If carnivores such as the panther and sleen were permissibly gregarious, the game within a territory would be soon depleted, and starvation would ensue. Larls may pride but they usually frequent, as well, areas where game is abundant, and the prides themselves can be competitive. Larls, as noted, do not frequent the northern forests. It would not be practical for them to do so. Claiming and maintaining a territory can also figure in successful mating, as females of various species will seek out territory masters, and present themselves, wooing and seducing, for acceptance or rejection. Males without well-established territories often remain unmated. In this sense, in several species, the primary competition seems not so much directly for mates, as for food, and survival, for the achievement of territory, a consequence of which is likely to be access to one or more females, depending on the species.
The first beast then roared, again, terribly.
I supposed these threatening displays were intended to be intimidating. Surely they seem so. The hair on my forearms and on the back of my neck rose. It is clearly in the interest of the territory master, wherever possible, to avoid combat. If it can bring about the backing down, or withdrawal, of a challenger, frightening the challenger, convincing the challenger that the challenge is ill-advised, the territory master survives unscathed, and the challenger, as well, who may then try elsewhere, perhaps with better fortune. If combat actually occurs, as it might, one or both animals may be killed, and, if not, both may be weakened, bled, and impaired, with the consequence that the territory master is more vulnerable and the challenger is less well equipped to initiate a new challenge elsewhere.
Despite the fearful roar of the larger beast, the smaller animal did not retreat, but, rather, came into view, fully, parting the grass, moving through it, and, to my uneasiness, came about me, not taking its eyes from those of the larger beast, and crouched down, tail lashing, growling, between the larger beast and myself.
Then, to my further bewilderment, and trepidation, the larger beast moved about me, so that, now, it was behind my position, between me and the forest, and the smaller beast now placed itself between me and the river. Any thought that I might have had of reaching the river or slipping back into the forest, eluding the beasts as they concerned themselves with one another, was gone. They then began, each threatening and snarling, again and again, regarding one another, to traverse the perimeter of the circle in which I found myself the reluctant, trembling center.