“Have mercy on us!” cried another. “We are slaves!”
“Forward,” said the guard. “Step carefully.”
“Masters!” I called.
I was not sure, fully, what was going on. It did seem that the ready banner was down, and the great ship might soon depart.
Certainly the girls in my kennel at Shipcamp had feared to be placed on the great ship, and it seemed the stockade slaves had similar trepidations.
It seemed reasonably clear to me, certainly highly probable, that slaves, both here and at Shipcamp, were to be embarked on the great ship. Were they not slaves, goods, to be sold or traded at the World’s End, or the farther islands, whatever might be the destination of that mighty frame now poised for its journey downriver to Thassa?
Why, I wondered, had they been hooded? Surely it was not necessary for purposes of security. They were back-braceleted and coffled. I supposed it might be to make clearer to them that they were slaves. But then I thought it might be more likely that they might be hooded that their faces might be concealed. If so, it did not seem likely that the fear was their beauty, and its possible effect on strong men, for, although they were beauties, it seemed there were many in Shipcamp who were their equals, if not superiors. So, I thought, the hooding must be that they not, or one or another of them, be recognized. But what difference would it make, I asked myself, if one slave or another might be recognized?
I saw the coffle begin to move slowly toward the stockade gate. The left arm of the lead girl was held by one of the fellows who had accompanied the guard. The guard himself, with his lamp, was to the left of the coffle. The two fellows with torches had turned about, and were moving toward the broad stairway leading down to the river, that which I had ascended yesterday.
“Masters!” I called out, plaintively.
But no one turned about.
The coffle proceeded on its way.
“Masters!” I cried.
If Shipcamp were abandoned, and, with it, the stockade and buildings here, on the south side of the Alexandra, what of me? Had I been forgotten? I could not free myself.
“Masters!” I cried. “Masters!” I shook the chains. I pulled at them, futilely.
Then I was alone, not only in the kennel, but in the stockade.
I had run away.
Was this my punishment, I wondered, to be left behind, alone, chained, without food and water?
Better, I thought, the brief attentions of sleen or, more lingeringly, those of leech plants.
“Masters!” I screamed. “Please, I am here! Do not leave me! Do not leave me! Have mercy on me!”
I pulled at the chains, again and again. “Masters!” I cried. “Masters!”
Tor-tu-Gor, Light-Upon-the-Home-Stone, the common star of two worlds, Earth and Gor, was rising.
It was a cold, damp morning.
In a few Ehn I could see the points on the palings, and, later, in the grayness, the clearing beyond the door of the kennel, with the food trough to the side and near it the catchment, the small reservoir or water tank, where I had been permitted to drink yesterday, though only on all fours, and leashed. I could see that the gate had been left open. Doubtless that was because they thought the stockade was empty.
“Masters!” I wept. “Masters!”
Then I was very frightened, for I smelled smoke. The torch, I feared, was being set to the local buildings. Probably the stockade, too, then, would be burned. I wondered if, too, across the river, Shipcamp was to be destroyed.
Men would be setting such fires, which would spread from building to building, and, possibly, to the stockade. Possibly the stockade itself had already been set afire, from the outside. I heard the crackling of flames. I called out, again and again, shrieking for attention, but if any heard me I received no indication that they had done so.
How I cried out! How helpless I was in the chains. I felt heat behind me, so anomalous and frightening in the cold morning. The back wall of the kennel might be aflame. Through the door I saw smoke, billowing like dark, ugly, suffocating clouds, and then there was a sudden gust of wind, which tore apart the smoke, and flung before it a shower of sparks, and then more sparks began to fall about, the wind softening, in the clearing, these now descending like hot, bright rain. I began to choke. I pulled, weeping, at the chains, coughing.
A large, dark figure appeared in the doorway. I saw it outlined, black, with flames bright behind it. It coughed, and cast about. I think it had one hand before its face. “Master!” I cried. It felt its way, through the smoke, uncertainly, toward me. I could hardly keep my eyes open, for burning tears, for the stinging of smoke in my eyes. I was aware of a key being forced into locks. A beam, burning, dropped from the ceiling to my right. Then, by a powerful hand grasped on my wrist, I was jerked to my feet, and dragged, stumbling, from the kennel, out, into the clearing, and then I was pulled across the clearing and out the gate.
“Master!” I wept, my hand imprisoned in his grip.
We stopped several paces from the gate, and I sank to my knees, gasping for air, on the grass between the stockade gate and the head of the stairway leading down to the river, and he was crouching beside me, his head down, coughing. It was he who had chained me there, to whom my keeping had been allotted.
The air seemed acrid with smoke. Behind us the stockade and kennel was aflame. I could see across the river, and Shipcamp, too, was aflame. There was a crash behind us where, I conjectured, the roof of the kennel had collapsed.
“Master has risked his life to save the life of a slave,” I gasped.
“You are valuable,” he said.
“Valuable to Master?” I said.
“Certainly,” he said. “You might bring two silver tarsks off the block.”
“You risked much for two silver tarsks,” I whispered.
“I would have done as much for a tethered verr,” he said, “or an urt on a neck string.”
“A slave is grateful,” I said. “May her lips not repay Master?”
“Do you wish to be cuffed?” he asked.
“No, Master!” I said.
“A slave,” he said, “has nothing, nothing with which to either pay, or repay. One simply takes from her whatever one might wish, whenever one wishes it, and however one wishes it.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He rose to his feet, looking across the river.
I remained kneeling. It is seldom wise to rise to one’s feet in the presence of a master, if one has not received permission. I did go to all fours, which seemed acceptable for a beast, and joined him, in looking across the river. “Shipcamp is afire,” I said.
He looked down upon me, and reached into his wallet. He flung me a small handful of wadded cloth. “Put it on,” he said.
“Yes, Master!” I said, gratefully.
“I had little time,” he said.
In a moment I had pulled on the tunic, and fastened the disrobing loop at the left shoulder.
“It is too long,” he said, “but it can be considerably shortened later.”
I thought it already short, quite short.
“A slave thanks Master for the privilege of a garment,” I said. How strange, I thought, remembering my former world, that a girl would be almost tearfully grateful for so tiny a bit of cloth, in which she was next to naked, a Gorean slave tunic. A Gorean free woman, I thought, might almost die of shame at the mere thought of being placed in such a garment, but would learn to prize it soon enough if she were collared.
My rescuer, whom I shall choose to refer to as my “captor,” for it was he who had captured me, and he in whose keeping I remained, suddenly looked about, to his right.
“On your stomach,” he said, “hands behind your back.”
Instantly I was prone, as directed. A Gorean master is to be obeyed instantly, and unquestioningly.
“Look toward the river,” he said.
I turned my face, on the grass, toward the river, which was to my left. I felt my hands fastened behind me, in slave bracelets.
“Ho!” said a voice. “What have we here?”
“On your feet,” said my captor, and I rose to my feet, and kept my head down. “A slave,” he said.
Two men had approached; each carried a torch. They had doubtless been firing the buildings and stockade.
“The ship will soon depart,” said one of the men. “Where did you get her?”
“The stockade,” said my captor.
I felt a thumb push my head up.
“She is pretty,” said the second fellow with a torch.
I put my head down again. It is usual for a slave girl, if she is permitted to stand, to stand so before free persons, humbly, head down, self-effacingly, respectfully.
“The stockade girls are being boarded,” said the first fellow with a torch. It was still burning. I could hear it crackle.
“She should have been put in the coffle, stripped, braceleted, and hooded,” said the second fellow.
“She was housed in the stockade, but she is not a stockade girl,” said my captor.
“A runaway?” asked the first fellow.
“Once,” said my captor.
“Stupid slut,” said the second fellow.
“She is a barbarian,” said my captor, I thought unnecessarily.
“Why is she clothed?” asked one of the men.
“I prefer to get her to the ship without incident,” said my captor. “It will delay things if she is jeered, accosted, or beaten.”
“She should have been fed to sleen,” said the first fellow.
“Come now,” said my captor. “Look at her. Surely you can think of something better to do with this than feed it to sleen.”
“Yes,” said the first fellow, “but there is no time. There are boats waiting. You had best come with us.”
“We will follow, shortly,” said my captor. “I wish you well.”
“And we you,” said one of the men, and then they began to descend the long stairway leading down to the beach. We watched them. They extinguished their torches in the water. Behind us the stockade was raging with flame.
“We had best descend the stairway,” said my captor. “There will doubtless be others.”
“May I speak?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“A slave is grateful that Master has seen fit to save her life,” I said.
“It is not saved yet,” he said, “or mine.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“It is political,” he said. “Do not concern yourself with it.”
“Please, Master,” I said.
“It is not pleasant to carry a live ost in one’s hand,” he said.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“Surely you do not think it would be pleasant, do you?”
“No, Master,” I said.
“Step carefully here,” he said. “The steps are broad, but, as you are braceleted, it would be well to exercise caution.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Do you not know how to follow a man?” he asked.
“Forgive me, Master,” I said.
“No!” he said, suddenly. “Precede me. I wish to keep my eye on you.”
“I welcome the scrutiny of Master,” I said. “I hope he finds a slave pleasing.”
“I do not wish you to escape,” he said.
“I fear Master is not candid,” I said, “as I am braceleted.”
“Keep moving,” he said, “or I will use my belt across the backs of your thighs.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Do not think,” he said, “that I find you of interest.”
“Yet Master risked his life for me,” I said. “And he pursued me in the forest. And I think he followed me from far Brundisium.”
“I came for sport, and gold,” he said.
“And perhaps for a slave,” I said.
“It is an unwise slave who tempts the lash,” he said.
“Forgive me, Master,” I said, contentedly.
He growled with anger.
“Here,” he said at the foot of the stairway, “move to the left, toward the small boats.”
But near the foot of the stairway there were several men, mostly mercenaries. Some were entering boats, long boats, six-or eight-oared, and small boats, two-oared, thrusting oars outboard, and some were partly in the water, preparing to launch the boats, and several were about, with weapons, supervising the beach.
It was chilly on the beach, and there was fog, flat about the surface of the stirring water, and in the sky there was smoke, drifting westward, toward Thassa. Here, close to the river, no sparks fell. Across the river one could see Shipcamp afire.
“Hold!” said a mercenary, a large fellow, bearded, with a helmet crested with sleen hair.
“Yes, Captain?” said my captor.
“We have received the signal from the dock,” he said. “The first whistle has been blown.”
“I see,” said my captor. “Then we must hurry to our boat.”
“Take your place there,” said the mercenary, indicating an eight-oared craft.
“My accouterments,” said my captor, “are in the far boat, there, along the shore.”
He pointed west along the shore, where, to be sure, there were some small boats.
“What are you doing here, on this side of the river?” asked the captain.
“Fetching a slave,” said my captor, indicating me.
“She is a camp slave,” said the captain. “Ship her here,” he said, indicating the specified craft. “It makes no difference.”
“No,” said my captor. “She is a private slave.”
“That is a camp collar,” said the officer.
“It has not yet been changed,” said my captor.
“Put her here,” said the officer, unpleasantly, indicating the same vessel he had earlier suggested.
“She was privately purchased by a high officer,” said my captor, confidentially.
“Who?” asked the captain.
“Others are interested in her,” said my captor. “It will not do to make that public until her collar is changed.”
“Am I to believe that?” asked the officer. I noted that some three or four of his men had now, perhaps sensing some difficulty, approached more closely.
“She is to be unobtrusively, privately, delivered,” said my captor.
“Seat her there, on a thwart there!” said the captain, pointing to the designated vessel, angrily.
“Of course, as you will,” said my captor. “But may I inquire your name?”
“Why?” asked the officer, warily.
“I will not have this on my head,” said my captor. “I must report it.”
“To whom?” asked the captain.
My captor leaned forward, and said, softly. “To Lord Okimoto, lord in Shipcamp, high lord of the Pani.”