to send men to Lydius to purchase her, and return her to Port Kar that she might
be, under his direction, thrown to urts in the canals. “She cannot be depended
on,” said Samos. “And she knows too much.”
“There are better things to do with a beautiful slave,” I told him, “than throw
her into the canals, to feed the urts.”
Samos had grinned at me. “Perhaps,” he had said. “Perhaps.”
What a fool I had been to be willing to return such a luscious piece of female
to Earth. Had I had my wits about me I would have put a collar on her then and
fastened her to the slave ring at the foot of my couch. I could not deny that I
was now pleased she was not, in innocuous triviality, ensconced on Earth. I was
pleased rather that her beauty was on Gor, where I, and other males, might have
access to it. She might have been safe on Earth; she had chosen to be unsafe, as
any beautiful woman without a Home Stone must be, on Gor. She would now pay the
penalties, and well, exacted of her beauty by the powerful men of a primitive
culture. She had gambled. She had lost. I was pleased she had lost. My only
regret was that I had not bought her in Lydius, and returned her to Port Kar, to
keep her as one of my own slaves. I had thought, at that time, however, that I
would find Talena. Talena, unless she, too, were collared, and had no choice,
would not be likely to accept such a beauty beneath the same roof with her. If
she did not kill her, she would have soon sold her, probably to a woman, or, for
a pittance, to the most despicable master she could find. I had not known until
Lydius that Vella, the former Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, of Earth, was a true
slave.
I glanced casually back to look upon her, kneeling beside, the slender,
silvered, long-spouted vessel of black wine, resting over its tiny brazier, she
only one of a pair, a matched set, of slaves. Her eyes were angry, over her
veil. Her bare midriff, long, between the high, hooked vest of red silk and the
low-slung, sashed chalwar, about her hips, some inches below her navel, was
quite attractive. To see her was to want her; and to want her was to wish to own
her.
Alyena now to a swirl of music spun before us, swept helpless with it, bangles
clashing, to its climax.
Then she stopped, marvelously, motionlessly, as the music was silent, her head
back, her arms high, her body covered with sweat, and then, to the last swirl of
the barbaric melody, fell to the floor at the feet of Ibn Saran. I noted the
light hair on her forearms. She gasped for breath.
Ibn Saran, magnanimously, gestured that she might rise, and she did so, standing
before him, head high, breathing deeply.
Ibn Saran looked at me. He smiled thinly. “An interesting slave,” he said.
“Would you care to bid upon her?” I asked.
Ibn Saran gestured to Suleiman. He acknowledged the courtesy. “I would not bid
against a guest in my house,” he said.
“And I,” said Ibn Saran, “would not feel it gracious to bid against the host in
whose house I find such welcome.”
“In my Pleasure Gardens,” smiled Suleiman, “I have twenty such women.”
“Ah,” said Ibn Saran, bowing.
“Seventy weights of dates for the stones,” said Suleiman to me. The price was
fair, and good. In his way, he was being magnanimous with me. He had bargained
earlier, and had, in this, satisfied himself as a trader of the desert. It was
now as Suleiman, Ubar and Pasha of Nine Wells, that he set his price. I had
little doubt it was firm. He had cut through much haggling. Had he been truly
interested in bargaining and dates I suspected I would not have been permitted
to deal with him at all, but one of his commissary officers.
“You have shown me hospitality.” I said, “and I would be honored if Suleiman
Pasha would accept these unworthy stones for sixty weights.”
Had it not been for Ibn Saran, I suspected I would not have been admitted even
to the presence of the Pasha of Nine Wells.
He bowed. He called a scribe to him. “Give this merchant in gems.” said he, “my
note, stamped for eighty weights of dates.”
I bowed. “Suleiman Pasha is most generous.” I said.
I heard a noise from afar, some shouting. I did not think either Ibn Saran or
Suleiman heard it.
Alyena stood on the scarlet tiles, head back, sweating, breathing heavily, nude
save for her ornaments and collar, the bangles about her ankles and wrists, the
armlets, the several chains and pendants looped about her neck. She brushed back
her hair with her right hand.
I now heard some more shouting. I heard, too, incongruous in the palace of the
Pasha of Nine Wells, from afar, the squealing of a kaiila.
“What is going on?” asked Suleiman. He stood, robes swirling.
Alyena looked about.
At that instant, buffeting guards aside, sending them sprawling, to our
amazement, in the carved, turret-shaped portal of the great room, claws
scratching on the tiles, appeared a war kaiila, in full trappings, mounted by a
veiled warrior in swirling burnoose. Guards rushed forward. His scimitar leapt
from its sheath and they fell back, bleeding, reeling to the tiles.
He thrust his scimitar hack in his sheath. He threw back his head and laughed,
and then tore down the veil, that we might look on his face. He grinned at us.
“It is the bandit, Hassan!” cried a guard.
I drew my scimitar and stood between him and Suleiman.
The kaiila pranced. The man uncoiled a long desert whip from his saddle.
“I come for a slave,” he said.
The long blade of the whip lashed forth. Alyena, her head back, cried out with
pain. Four coils of the whip, biting into her, lashing, snapped tight about her
waist. He yanked her, stumbling, the prisoner of his whip, to the side of his
kaiila. By the hair he yanked her across his saddle.
He lifted his hand to us. “Farewell!” he cried. “And my thanks!” He then spun
the kaiila and, as guards swarmed after him, to our astonishment, leapt the
kaiila, catlike, between pillers, through one of the great arched windows of the
palace room. He struck a roof below, and then another roof, and then was to the
ground, racing away, men turning to look after him.
I, and others, turned back from the window. On the cushions lay Suleiman, Pasha
of Nine Wells. I ran to him. I saw Hamid, who was the lieutenant of Shakar,
captain of the Aretai, slip swiftly behind hangings, a dagger, bloodied, held
within his cloak.
I turned Suleiman. His eyes were open. “Who struck me?” he said. There was blood
deep in the silk of the cushions.
Ibn Saran drew forth his scimitar. He did not seem languid now. His eyes blazed.
He seemed a silken panther, lithe, tensed for the spring. He pointed the
scimitar at me. “He!” he cried. “I saw it! He did it!”
I leaped to my feet.
“Kavar spy!” cried Ibn Saran. “Assassin!”
I spun about, facing steel on all sides.
“Cut him down!” cried Ibn Saran, raising his scimitar.
6 A Slave Girl Testifies
The bodies of the two girls, stripped, lay on the narrow rectangles, networks,
of knotted ropes, on the racks. The ropes, slung, were pressed down with their
weight. Their hands were at their sides, but ropes were attached to them, and
fixed on the axle of the windlass, above their heads. Both wore collars. Their
ankles were roped to the foot of the device.
I knelt on the circle of accusation. My wrists were manacled behind my back. On
my neck, hammered, was a heavy ring of iron, with two welded rings, one on each
side, to which chains were attached, these chains in the hands of guards. I was
stripped. My ankles were chained.
“Cut him down!” had cried Ibn Sarah, raising his scimitar.
“No!” had said Shakar, captain of the Aretai, staying his arm. “That would be
too easy.”
Smiling, Ibn Saran had sheathed his weapon.
Ropes had been put upon me.
I struggled in the chains. I was helpless.
“Let the testimony of slaves be taken,” said the judge.
The red-haired girl on the rack cried out in misery. The testimony of slaves, in
a Gorean court, is commonly taken under torture.
Two brawny male slaves, stripped to the waist, spun the two handles on the
racks.
The red-haired girl, she who had been one of the matched set of slaves, who had
had in her charge the tray of spoons and sugars, wept. Her wrists, and those of
the other girl, as the long wooden handles turned, were pulled up and over her
head. The red-haired girl writhed on the cords. “Master!” she wept.
Ibn Saran, in silken kaftan, and kaffiyeh and agal, strode to the rack.
“Do not be frightened, pretty Zaya,” he said. “Remember to tell the truth, and
only the truth.”
“I will, Master!” she wept. “I will.”
At a sign from the judge the handle moved once, dropping the wooden pawl into
the ratchet notch. Her body was now tight on the rack; her toes were pointed;
her hands were high over her head, the rough rope slipped up her wrists,
prohibited from moving further by its knots and the wide part of her hands.
“Listen carefully, little Zaya,” said Ibn Saran. “And think carefully.”
The girl nodded.
“Did you see who it was who struck noble Suleiman Pasha?”
“Yes.” she cried. “It was he! He! It was he, as you, my Master, have informed
the court.” The girl turned her head to the side, to regard me. “He!” she cried.
Ibn Saran smiled.
“Hamid it was!” I cried, struggling to my feet. “It was Hamid, lieutenant to
Shakar!”
Hamid, standing to one side, did not deign to look upon me. There were angry
murmurs from the men assembled in the court.
“Hamid.” said Shakar, not pleased, standing near, “is a trusted man.” And he
added, “And he is Aretai.”
“Should you persist in accusing Hamid,” said the judge, “your penalties will be
the more severe.”
“He it was,” said I, “who struck Suleiman.”
“Kneel,” said the judge.
I knelt.
The judge signaled again to the slave who controlled the handle of the
red-haired girl’s rack. “No, please!” she screamed.
Once more the handle moved and the pawl slipped into a new notch on the ratchet.
Her body, now, was lifted from the network of knotted ropes and hung, suspended,
between the two axles of the rack.
“Masters!” she cried. “Masters! I have told the truth! The truth!”
The pawl was moved yet another notch. The girl, now hurt, screamed.
“Have you told the truth, pretty Zaya?” inquired Ibn Saran.
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!” she wept.
At a signal from the judge the handle was released. The axle of the windlass at
the girl’s head spun back and her body fell into the network of knotted ropes.
One of the slaves removed the ropes from her wrists and ankles. She could not
move, so terrified she was. He then threw her to the side of a wall, where
another slave, pushing against the side of her neck, fastened a snap catch on
her collar, securing her by a chain to a ring in the floor. She lay there,
trembling.
“Let the testimony of the second slave be taken,” said the judge.
Her wrists were already over her head. She was stripped. She looked at me. She
wore a collar.
“Think now, my pretty,” said Ibn Saran. “Think carefully, my pretty.”
She was the other girl of the matched set, the other white-skinned wench, who
had had in her charge the silvered, long-spouted vessel of black wine.
“Think carefully now, pretty Vella,” said Ibn Saran.
“I will, Master,” she said.
“If you tell the truth,” he said, “you will not be hurt.”
“I will tell the truth, Master,” she said.
Ibn Saran nodded to the judge.
The judge lifted his hand and the handle on the girl’s rack moved once. She
closed her eyes. Her body was now tight on the rack; her toes were pointed; her
hands were high over her head, the rope tight, taut, on her wrists.
“What is the truth, pretty Vella?” asked Ibn Saran.
She opened her eyes. She did not look at him. “The truth,” she said, “is as Ibn
Saran says.”
“Who struck noble Suleiman Pasha?” asked Ibn Saran, quietly.
The girl turned her head to look at me. “He,” she said. “He it was who struck
Suleiman Pasha.”
My face betrayed no emotion.
At a signal from the judge the slave at the handle of the girl’s rack, pushing
it with his two hands, moved the handle. When the pawl slipped into its notch
her body was held, tight, suspended, between the two axles of the rack.
“In the confusion,” said Ibn Saran, “it was he, the accused, who struck Suleiman
Pasha, and then went, with others, to the window.”
“Yes,” said the girl.
“I saw it,” said Ibn Saran. “But not I alone saw it.”
“No, Master,” she said.
“Who else saw?” he asked.
“Vella and Zaya, slaves,” she said.
“Pretty Zaya,” said he, “has given witness that it was the accused who struck
Suleiman Pasha.”
“It is true,” said the girl.
“Why do you, slaves, tell the truth?” he asked.
“We are slaves,” she said. “We fear to lie.”
“Excellent,” he said. She hung in the ropes, taut. She did not speak.
“Look now again, carefully, upon the accused.”
She looked at me. “Yes, Master,” she said.
“Was it he who struck Suleiman Pasha?” asked Ibn Saran “Yes, Master,” she said.
“It was he.”
The judge gave a signal and the long handle of the rack, fitting through a
rectangular hole in the axle, moved again. The girl winced, but she did not cry
out.
“Look again carefully upon the accused,” said Ibn Saran. I saw her eyes upon me.
“Was it he who struck Suleiman Pasha?”
“It was he,” she said.
“Are you absolutely certain?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“It is enough,” said the judge. He gave a signal. The handle spun back. The
girl’s body fell into the network of knotted ropes. She turned her face to me.
She smiled, slightly.
The ropes were removed from her wrists and ankles. One of the male slave
s lifted
her from the rack and threw her to the foot of the wall, beside the other girl.
The slave there took her by the hair, holding her head down, and, between the
back of her neck and the collar, thrust a snap catch, closing it. He then,
roughly, burning the side of her neck, slid the catch about her collar, to the
front; there he jerked it against her collar, the chain then, which fastened
her, like the other girl, to a ring in the floor, ran to her collar, under her
chin. She kept her head down, a slave.
7 I am Informed of the Pits of Klima; An Escape is Arranged
I lifted my head.
I smelled it, somewhere near. But I saw nothing. I tensed. I sat against the
stone wall, formed of heavy blocks. I pulled my head out from the wall, but it
would not move far. To the heavy collar of iron, to each of its two, heavy
welded rings, one on each side, there was fastened a short chain, fixed to a
ring and plate, bolted through the drilled stone. My hands, each, were manacled
to the wall, too, on short chains, to my left and right. I was naked. My ankles,
in close chains, were fastened to another ring, in the floor, before me, it,
too, on a plate, bolted through the floor block.
I sat forward, as far as I could, listening. I sat on the stone, on straw,
soiled, which was scattered on the floor to absorb wastes. I looked to the door,
some twenty feet across the stone floor; it was of beams, sheathed with iron.
There was a small window, high in the door, about six inches in height, eighteen
inches in width. It bore five bars. There was a musty smell, but the room was
not particularly damp. Light reached it from a small window, barred, some twelve
feet above the floor, in the wall to my right. It was just under the ceiling. In
the placid, diagonal beam of light, seeming to lean against the wall, ascending
to the window, I saw dust.
I distended my nostrils, screening the scents of the room. I rejected the smell
of moldy straw, of wastes. From outside I could smell date palms, pomegranates.
I heard a kaiila pass, its paws thudding in the sand. I heard kaiila bells, from
afar, a man shouting. Nothing seemed amiss. I detected the odor of kort rinds,
matted, drying, on the stones, where they had been scattered from my supper the
evening before. Vints, insects, tiny, sand-colored, covered them: On the same
rinds, taking and eating vints, were two small cell spiders. Outside the door I
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