Vagabonds of Gor (82 page)

"Is the slave, Ina, not pleasing to her master?" she asked.

"You are pleasing to me," I said.

"Is there anything wrong, Master?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Master seems sad," she said. I looked at her, sharply.

"Forgive me, Master," she said.

I gestured that she should approach me, and she did so.

She stood near me, frightened. I think she was afraid that she was to be beaten.

"Sit here," I said. "Cross your ankles."

"Master seems suddenly in a better mood," she said.

"Oh!" she said, her ankles now tightly chained together. She could not now run.

"What is Master going to do?" she asked.

"Sleep," I said.

"Master?" she asked.

"If anyone approaches within ten yards, awaken me. If none so approach, awaken me in what you take to be an Ahn."

"Of course, Master," she said, puzzled.

I now felt strong, and pleased. I had permitted myself, the preceding night, to lose sleep. That could be extremely dangerous. I would now rest for an Ahn, unless interrupted. I had been so much a fool as to be sad. That is not the mood in which to enter battle, even the battle which one knows one cannot win, even the ultimate battle in which one knows one is doomed to defeat. Do not be sad. Better to take the field with laughter, with a joke, with a light thought, with a buoyant heart, or to go forward with sternness, or in fury, or with hatred, or defiance, or calculation, but never with self-pity, never with sadness. Never such things, never them! The warrior does not kill himself or aid others in the doing of it. It is not in the codes.

"It seems an odd time to sleep, Master," she said.

"Quite so," I said. "Keep watch."

"Yes, Master," she said.

Chapter 47 - THE SLAVE CAMP

I rose up and stretched, and laughed. Ina looked at me, startled.

I was well rested.

"You are unchaining me," she said.

"Stay close to me," I said.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Curiosity," I said, "is not becoming in a Kajira."

I would go to the temporary slave camp. There, in cages, and on chains, and such, there were hundreds of slaves, and women awaiting the collar and iron. There might be a chance, I thought, though I was not sanguine about it, for Ina to slip away there, or hide, or lose herself among others. I might even be able to switch her for another girl, one outbound on a slave wagon, keeping the other hooded for a time, to deceive pursuers.

"Hold!" said a fellow, stepping forth to bar my path. "You are not to leave your camp!"

"Stand aside," I said, "or I will cut you from my path." He laughed.

"You killed him!" cried Ina.

I wiped the blade on his tunic. I was in no mood for trifling.

"What did he want?" she asked. "Why did he not want you to leave?"

I looked about. Some six or seven other fellows seemed to have materialized from among the tents.

"What do they want?" cried Ina.

"Do not block my path," I said to the fellow before me. He looked down at his fellow, fallen, his head oddly to the side, at the blood in the dirt.

I moved menacingly toward the man before me and he, and another, a few feet from him, both before me, moved back, quickly, to the side.

I strode between them, blade ready. Ina scurried behind me.

As soon as I had passed them they fell in about me and behind me, not coming close enough to engage.

I turned about, threatening them, and they drew back. I advanced on one and he swiftly backed away. "Master!" cried Ina. I spun about, and another fellow, who had now approached more closely, backed away.

"Come ahead, any of you," I invited. My voice must have been terrible with menace. Ina whimpered. I think she was afraid to follow me.

"Do not go with him, little vulo," called one of the men.

"Come with us," coaxed another.

"He is mad," said another. "See his face, his eyes!"

"I must go with him," called Ina "He is my master!"

"We will be your master," said one of them.

"Why do they want you?" she asked. "What have you done?"

"Come along," I told her.

I then sheathed my blade, as though in arrogance, and, turning my back, strode away. I counted three and, without warning, spun and drew. Ina leaped from between us.

The fellow spit up blood, backed away, turned, and fell into the dust. I spun about. None of the others had come forward more than a yard or so, and they had then stopped. I looked back at the fellow who had fallen. He was the fellow who had tried to strike from behind before. I had thought it would be he. I had expected him to repeat his pattern, and he had done so. By such a ruse, in such a way, with suitable timing, a fellow can sometimes be drawn in.

"He is dead," said one of the men, turning the fallen fellow over in the dust.

Ina screamed.

She looked at me with horror. I was afraid she would run.

I took her by the hair with my left hand and held her head by my side in a common slave-girl leading position. I then moved carefully toward the temporary slave camp. None of the other fellows offered to bar my way. They, however, hung about me, as closely, I gather, as they dared.

I continued on my way.

Various fellows in the camp turned to watch us.

I increased my pace.

Ina bent over, her small, pretty hands on my wrist, gasping, wincing, hurried beside me.

"Master!" she wept.

"Be silent, female slave," I said.

"It look like she is going for a beating," said a fellow, jocularly, as we passed.

"Perhaps she has not been pleasing," speculated another.

"Perhaps he is going to feed her to sleen," said another.

"Or sell her," suggested another.

Then they noted the fellows who accompanied us, like shadows, and were puzzled, and silent.

"Master!" begged Ina.

"Oh!" she cried, suddenly, in pain, my hand angrily tightening and twisting in her hair.

"You were warned to silence, were you not, slave girl?" I asked.

"Yes, Master!" she wept. "Forgive me, Master!"

I was angry. I did not think, now, that I would be able to switch Ina in the slave camp. The fellows were too close. I could not well get at more than one or two of them, and the others could then withdraw, or, indeed, more likely, take advantage of the opportunity to make off with, or kill, the slave.

I then drew Ina through the portals of the slave camp.

A fellow at the gate laughed, amused at the mode in which the lovely slave was being brought to the camp. But then, he, too, was silent, as he observed the cloud of fellows behind us, now more than four or five, now something closer to a dozen, their numbers having been added to in our progress.

I continued for a time in the camp, making my way among tents, and under open, roofed structures, like those of some markets, and under great awnings, through corridors of cages and kennels, past chains of women, the chains secured between great stakes, among slave wagons and cage wagons, past processing points, an infirmary, commissaries, shops where one might obtain cosmetics, perfume, garments such as camisks, ta-teeras and tunics, ropes, binding fiber, slave bracelets, whips, collars and such, registration desks, storage areas, where one might find slave boxes and holding chains, mat areas, where slaves might be tried out or trained, punishment areas, sales areas, and so on. At last I stopped, somewhere near the center of the camp. There there was a round, sunken area, a sales area for stock lots, one of several. I could get its fence, about which wholesalers would crowd during sales, bidding on the lots displayed below, in the stock pit, at my back.

Our menacing companions, armed and surly, like shadows, were still with us. There were now some fifteen of them. No more seemed to be adding to the number at present. Octantius, as I recalled, had said he would return with a hundred men. Apparently he had left several on duty during the night, or at least posted in the vicinity.

I released Ina, and she, terrified, sobbing, probably in pain, knelt beside me. I looked down, briefly, and she lifted her eyes to mine. They were terrified. The collar, simple as it was, little more than a strap of iron, was pretty on her. She should have been in one long ago.

"It is to you I belong?" she asked, terrified.

"Yes," I said. "Stay close."

"Come to us, little vulo," called one of the fellows.

"You will be safe with us," said another.

"We will rescue you," called another, softly.

"Keep with me," I said.

"It is he whom we want," said one of them, "not you."

"Get out of the way," said another. "Run, leave, you may be hurt."

"Run, little vulo," called another. "Stray, if you wish. It does not matter. You will soon be picked up by another master."

"Run," said another. "There is nothing to fear. You will not be long off a chain."

"Stay close," I said.

"I am afraid!" she wept.

"Stay close," I said.

"I do not know what to do!" she wept.

"Stay close to me," I said.

"I am only a slave!" she wept.

"Stay close," I said.

Suddenly, with a wild sob, she leaped to her feet and ran toward the men, but she had scarcely gone a step or two when she stopped, in terror. The nearest fellow had hurried forward, his sword raised. She screamed and fell to her knees, covering her head. There was a flash of sparks as I blocked his blow. Then, she on her belly between us, weeping, we fought over her. No more than two or three times the blades clashed and then he staggered back, a tiny bit of blood, little more than a line, on his tunic, over the heart.

"Get the girl!" cried a fellow.

She had apparently crawled out from between us, risen to her feet and fled back. I caught one fellow in the gut with the blade as he made to rush past me, after her. Another went past and I cut him down, at the neck, from behind. I looked about. I was alone. One of the gates leading down the steps to the stock pit had been opened and she had apparently fled through it, to cross the pit and ascend the steps on the other side, to flee back further in the camp. Most of the men had followed her through the gate, some had circled about the fence.

"Where is she?" I heard someone call. I heard a woman scream.

"That is not she!" said a man.

"Search the area!" cried a man.

"Search the camp!" cried another.

I circled the sunken sales area. I saw men rushing about among the cages and poles. Some of the girls naked in the tiny cages, in chains, shrank back, as far as they could, behind the bars. One of the women chained kneeling to a slave pole by the wrists clutched it as men rushed past. Another, backed against a slave pole, her hands chained together behind it, over her head, sucked in her belly and pressed, terrified, back against it.