"Forgive me, Mistress," wept the girl.
"You are not a paga slut," said the Lady Sabina. "You are the slave maid of a free woman."
"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.
"Have I not set you always a model of elegance, an example of nobility and self-respect?" asked the Lady Sabina.
"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.
"When you were twelve, my father bought you from the pens in Ar, and gave you to me."
"Yes, Mistress," she said.
"You were treated with great kindness. You were not put in the kitchens. You were not given to tharlarion drivers. You were taken into our own apartments. You were permitted to sleep in my own chamber, at the foot of my couch. You were trained diligently as a lady's maid."
"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.
"Is that not a great honor for a slave slut?"
"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.
"And yet," said the Lady Sabina, sadly, "how have I been repaid?"
The girl dared not answer, but kept her head down, trembling.
"I have been repaid with ingratitude," said the Lady Sabina.
"Oh, no!" cried the girl. "Lehna is grateful! Lehna is grateful to Mistress!"
"Have I not been kind to you?" demanded the Lady Sabina.
"Oh, yes, Mistress," said the girl.
"And yet I find you like a copper-tarsk rent slave in the arms of a retainer!"
"Forgive your girl, Mistress," begged the cringing slave.
"Have I often whipped you?" demanded the Lady Sabina.
"No," cried the girl. "No!"
"Do you think me weak?" inquired the Lady Sabina.
"No, Mistress," said the girl. "Kind, but not weak!"
"Beg," said the Lady Sabina.
"I beg to be whipped," said the girl.
The camp's leader, he with the sword slung over his shoulder, who had come forth from his tent, looked at the soldier in whose arms the girl had been discovered. He indicated the slave girl with his head. "Strip her and tie her," he said.
Angrily the man tore away the girl's gown and, with a bit of binding fiber, tied her on her knees, her wrists crossed and bound behind one of the spokes on the supply wagon.
"You are worthless," said the Lady Sabina to the bound slave. "You should carry paga in a paga tavern."
The slave cried out with misery, to be so demeaned.
A number of men had gathered about, to witness the scene. The captain was clearly irritated. "I shall speak to you later," he said to the soldier, dismissing him. The soldier turned and left.
The Lady Sabina extended her hand to one of the two slave girls who were with her. In her gloved hand was placed the switch the girl had carried for her.
She then approached the bound slave, who trembled. "Have I not always set you an example of nobility, dignity and self-respect?" asked the Lady Sabina.
"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.
"Naughty, naughty, salacious slave!" cried the Lady Sabina, striking her.
The girl cried out with the misery of her switching. I was startled at the fury with which the Lady Sabina struck the bound, collared girl. Richly did she lay the disciplinary device to the back and body of the imbonded wench, well punishing her for her lascivious indiscretion. Then, wearied, furious, the Lady Sabina cast aside the switch, turned, and went back to her tent. She was followed by the two girls who had accompanied her, one of whom retrieved the switch. The whipped beauty knelt against the wagon wheel, bound there, shuddering. I saw the gold of her collar beneath her dark hair.
When the Lady Sabina had finished her work and returned to her tent, followed by the two gowned slave girls, the leader of the camp, or captain, angrily, returned, too, to his tent, and the men, who had gathered around, returned to their duties, their rest or recreations.
The girl was left tied at the wheel, whipped.
My master looked upward, at the moons. From through the trees, on the other side of the camp, came what I took to be the sound of a bird, the hook-billed, night-crying fleer, which preys on nocturnal forest urts. The cry was repeated three times.
"Quiet is the night," called one of the camp guards, and this call was echoed by the others.
Again, three times, I heard the cry of the fleer.
My master slipped behind me. He held me, with his left hand. I felt, from the side, his knife slip beneath the veils at my face and throat. Then the knife's edge, I feeling it, thin, obdurate, pressed at my jugular.
"What is the duty of a slave girl?" he asked.
"Absolute obedience, Master," I whispered, frightened. "Absolute obedience." I scarcely dared to whisper, for fear of moving my throat beneath the knife.
I felt the knife leave my throat. I felt the black cloak in which I had been wrapped, concealing the largely white, rich, shimmering raiment in which I had been robed, slipped away.
"Run," said my master, indicating a path through the trees, past the far end of the camp. "And do not let yourself be captured."
He thrust me from him and I, miserable, confused, began to run.
I had gone no more than a dozen steps when I heard one of the guards at the camp cry out, "Halt! Stand! Name! City! Stand!" I did not stop, but pressed on.
"Who is it?" cried a man. "A free woman!" I heard. "Is it the Lady Sabina?" I heard cry. "Stop her!" I heard. "After her!"
I ran, madly.
The men, as I now think of it, must have been as confused as I was. I knew only that I feared them, and had been commanded to run. Too, my master had told me to avoid capture. Ignorant, wild, terrified, I ran.
I stumbled and fell, and scrambled to my feet, and ran again. I heard men crying out, and then, more frighteningly, I heard several leaving the camp, splashing across the stream, crashing through brush behind me. I was now among the trees, out of sight of the camp, but I was being pursued, by how many men I did not know.
They were Gorean men.
I fled in terror.
"Lady Sabina!" I heard. "Stop! Stop!"
As I ran I realized that the probabilities of there being a free woman, robed, in the vicinity of the camp, who was not the Lady Sabina, were extremely low. Perhaps she had fled from the camp? Perhaps, for some reason, she wished to flee the match with Thandar of Ti, whom I understood she had never seen. There must have been men in the camp who, almost immediately, would have verified that the Lady Sabina was still within the camp, but many, having only moments to act, would be unable to make that verification. If the running woman was the Lady Sabina she must be caught for her loss would mean the failure of the alliances pending between the Salerian Confederation and Fortress of Saphronicus. Too, she must be caught swiftly, for the forests at night were dangerous. Sleen might take her or, perhaps, prowling outlaws. Too, in the camp were no hunting sleen. Accordingly, the sooner she could be retaken the better. It was night, and, even in the morning, her trail would be less fresh, less obvious. And, if the woman were not the Lady Sabina she should, anyway, be brought in. Surely a free woman in the midst of the night forest constitutes a mystery which must be solved. Who is she? From whom is she running? Is she alone?
I had no time to think. I was only running.
Too, I believe the men of the camp had little time to ponder their courses of action.
It was natural that many of them should have leapt to my pursuit.
I fled through the thickets. I heard men crashing through the brush behind me. I did not know how many followed. I suspect that of the seventy or eighty men in the camp twenty or more had immediately plunged after me, perhaps even more. Surely, too, attention was drawn to that end of the camp near which I had been first seen. It was there that men would have peered into the darkness, there that they would have been marshaled into more organized defensive groups or more organized search parties.
"Stop!" I heard. "Stand! Stand!"
I ran, stumbling, striking branches and brush away from me. My robes were torn.
The crashing in the brush behind me grew louder.
No more swiftly could I run. It was not merely that I was encumbered by the robes. I knew that I could not, in any case, outrun the men. They were stronger and swifter than I. I was only a girl. Nature, whatever might be her reasons, had not fitted me to outrun males. I was frightened suddenly that it had not been her intention that women escape men. Then I realized how foolish this was, to so personalize na-ture, to ascribe to the cruel, blind processes of the world deliberate intentions. Rather it had been the selections of nature which had determined this. Women who had escaped men would have been lost to the gene pool. Caught women would have been led back to the caves, to suffer the indignities of impregnation by their captors, being forced to reproduce their kind. Similar considerations may have a bearing on the smaller size and strength of women. Yet matters are far more complicated than these considerations suggest. For, in the intricacies, and interplay of both natural and sexual selection, not merely a swiftness, a size and strength would have been selected for in women but an entire set of genetic dispositions; it seems inconsistent to suppose that evolution would select only for the outside of an animal and not for its inside as well, that only matters such as external configuration would have a bearing on its survival or desirability and not its dispositions to respond in certain ways. Surely the same evolution which has selected for the fangs of the lion and the speed of the gazelle has selected as well for the disposition to hunt and the disposition to flight, that has selected for the strength of the male and the weakness of the female has selected as well for the disposition to conquer and the disposition to surrender. We are, to a large extent, one supposes, the products of environments, but it is well to remember that the maximum, shaping environments in which our nature was stabilized and forged are ancient ones; the sense in which environment determines endowment is the sense in which it determines which endowments are to be perpetuated.
With misery I suddenly realized my genetic heritage was that of a type which could be caught by men.
The hands of a man seized me.
"Hold, Lady," said he.
I gasped, and shook, held in his arms.
"Why have you fled, Lady Sabina?" asked he. "It is dangerous." Then he called out, "I have her."
I tried to escape, but I was held fast.
In a moment several more men were about me. He who had held me then released me. I stood, captured, in their midst. I did not speak. I averted my head.
"Is it the Lady Sabina?" asked a voice.
"Face me," said a voice.
I did not face him, but kept my head averted. I felt hands put on my shoulders.
Firmly I was turned to face the speaker. "Lift your head," he said. "To the moonlight."
I kept my head down, but he, with his hand, lifted my head up, that the moonlight might fall upon my veiled face.
I saw that it was the captain, or camp's leader. Suddenly I realized he should not have pursued me. He should have remained in the camp.
He studied what he could see of my eyes in the uncertain moonlight, shattered, through the branches of the forest. He backed away, and studied the robes I wore. Then he said, "Who are you?"
I did not speak. If I had spoken he would instantly have detected my accent, my faltering Gorean, and would have marked me as a barbarian girl.
"You are not the Lady Sabina," he said. "Who are you?"
I kept silent.
"Do you flee an unwanted companionship?" he asked. "Was your retinue ambushed? Do you flee outlaws?"
Again I did not respond.
"Do you flee slavers?" he asked. "We are honest men," he said. "We are not slavers." He regarded me. "You are safe with us," he said.
Moonlight filtered through the branches.
"Who are you?" he said.
I again did not respond. This time he seemed angry.
"Do you choose to be face-stripped before men?" he asked.
I shook my head, negatively.
His hands were at the first veil, the street veil.
"Well?" he asked.
I did not answer.
I felt the veil lifted away from my face. "Remove your gloves," he said.
I slipped the gloves from my hands. He took them and threw them to my feet.
My hands felt the night air.
"Speak," he said.
When I did not respond to him, he pulled away the house veil. The men crowded more closely about. The flesh of my face was now concealed from the direct vision of the strong males by only three veils, the pride veil, the veil of the citizeness and the sheer fifth, or last, veil. Already, in stripping me of the house veil, outrage had been done to me. It was as though the privacy and intimacy of my house had been violated. It was as though they had invaded my house and taken my dress from me, forcing me to stand before them in my slip.
"Who are you?" asked the man again. How could I tell him who I was? My master had not even given me a name.
"The pride veil will be next, if you do not speak," said the man.
I wondered what these men would do with me if they discovered I was not even a free woman. I forced the thought from my mind. Free men do not take it lightly that a Kajira would dare to don the garments of a free woman. This is regarded as an extremely serious offense, fit to be followed by terrible punishments. It can be worth the life of one to do so. I began to tremble.
The pride veil was ripped from me. It was as though my slip had, been torn away by the invaders in my house.
The lineaments of my face could now be detected beneath the veil of the citizeness. The last veil, in its sheerness, and transparency, is little more than a token.
"Perhaps now, dear Lady," said the captain, "you will choose to speak, choose to reveal your name and city, and your business in this vicinity so late in the night?"
I dared not speak. I turned my head to the side, with a wild sob, as the veil of the citizeness was torn away. I wore now only the last veil. It was as though in my own home an almost final shield of modesty had been taken from me, leaving me only a bit of wide-strung netting, inviting the ripping hand of a master.
The hand of the man reached to the last veil. His hand hesitated. "Perhaps she is free?" asked one of the men.
"Perhaps," said the captain. He lowered his hand.
"She is quite pretty to be free," observed one of the men. Some assent was given to this.
"Let us hope, for your sake, my dear," said the captain, "that you are free."
I lowered my head.
"Consider yourself my prisoner, Lady," said the man. He felt my forearms, detecting that I was right handed. I felt a loop of leather put about my right wrist and drawn tight. It was a double loop, drawn through itself, and tightened.
The other end of the closed loop, about a foot from my hand, was taken in the grasp of a soldier. My captor then turned about and began to return to the camp. He was followed by his men. I was led, wrist-thonged, with them.
I had been captured.
In a few minutes we approached the camp. I was carried across the stream, into the camp area. Many were the torches, much was the confusion we encountered there.
The soldier who carried me put me on my feet. I was then again the prisoner of the wrist thong in his grasp.
Aman ran toward us, holding up a torch. "The Lady Sabina," he cried, "she is gone! She has been taken!"
With a cry of rage the leader, or captain, ran toward the tents, his men racing behind him, I struggling and gasping, jerked and dragged by the thong which held me.
Straight to the pavillion of the Lady Sabina sped the captain.
I, on the tether, accompanying the soldier who controlled me, hurried, too, to that pavillion. I was pulled within, on the thong. Aman within turned, white-faced, to the captain. "They came," he said. "They took her!"
To one side lay two soldiers, wounded. The maids of the Lady Sabina, who had been with her in the tent, stood terrified to one side. One held her shoulder, where there was a large bruise.
"They were here!" sa
id the soldier, pointing to the shuddering slaves.
"What happened?" demanded the captain.
One of the girls, she with the bruise, spoke. The back of the tent was slashed. "In force they came," she said, "many of them. We tried to defend the mistress. We were buffeted aside. They were men, warriors. We were helpless!" She pointed to the back of the tent. "They entered there, and withdrew similarly, the mistress in their power!"
The application of numbers and power is an element of strategy. The men of my master had been outnumbered, surely, by the many soldiers of the camp, but at the point of attack their numbers were superior, overwhelming. Twenty men may breech a wall held by a hundred men, if the twenty men but attack where the wall is defended by only two. In the confusion, as the attention of men had been directed elsewhere, the forces of my master, though not impressive numerically, had been sharply and irresistibly applied,. His stroke, in the context, had not been difficult.
John Norman - Counter Earth11 Page 16
