"Make an offer for her," said Melina.
Tup Ladletender rose to his feet and reached into his pouch. "Here, little vulo," he said. He took something from his pouch and thrust it in my mouth, pressing it between my teeth with his thumb, depositing it in the side of my mouth. I was startled, kneeling in the dirt at the post, my hands bound about it. "Thank you, Master," I said. It was a small, hard candy. It was sweet. I closed my eyes. It was the first sweet I had had since I had been brought to Gor. In the plain diet of a slave girl, such things are very precious. Girls would fight and tear at one another for a chocolate. Confections are commonly used by masters as rewards in the training and conditioning of their girls. Beyond this they may continue to function as control devices and incitements. Even a slave girl of many years never loses her taste for a bit of candy, for which she may have to work for hours. It is common to give the girl the candy while she is in a kneeling position, putting it in her mouth for her. On the other hand, in training, candies are commonly thrown to the girls. Sometimes, too, for the amusement of the master, candies will be thrown to the floor among several girls, to observe their struggle to obtain these prizes.
"Make an offer for her," said Melina.
"Why do you want to sell her off?" asked Ladletender.
"Make an offer," said Melina.
"Perhaps," he said, looking at me.
"Is she not pretty?" demanded Melina.
"Yes, she is pretty," he said.
"Imagine her, collared, naked in your furs," said Melina, "rubbing against you, desperate to please you."
"I am a merchant," said Ladletender. "If I buy her, I buy her to sell her for a profit."
"But surely you could richly use her before you sell her," suggested Melina.
Ladletender grinned. "Two copper tarsks," he said.
A strange sensation came over me. I realized a price had been offered for me. It is a very strange feeling. The price, of course, even for an Earth girl such as myself, was not realistic. It was intended only to begin the bargaining. Surely I would be worth at least four or five copper tarsks in any market.
"I will sell her to you for less," said Melina.
Ladletender seemed startled.
I opened my eyes, startled, too.
"I need something from your wagon," she said. She looked at me, narrowly. "Come away from the post," she said to Ladletender. They left me tied at the post. She and Ladletender, who seemed puzzled, went to his wagon, with the two long handles. They conversed there. I could not hear their conversation. I sucked at the candy. It was delicious. I wanted it to last as long as possible. I did move a bit about the post where I might look, as though inadvertently, at the pair of free persons at the wagon. I was curious. I was puzzled. From one of the many drawers in the wagon, Tup Ladletender gave into the keeping of Melina, companion of Thurnus, a tiny packet, such as might contain a medicine or powder. I then turned about at the post, so that they would not know I had observed them, and continued to relish the candy. In a short time Melina returned and untied me from the post, and, to my surprise, removed the long rope, though not the rope collar, from my neck. I had expected to be bound, wrists behind my back, and tethered by the neck of the rear of Ladletender's wagon, to follow him, his slave girl, naked and barefoot from the village.
"Put on your tunic," said Melina to me. "Get a hoe. Go to the sul fields. Hoe suls. Bran Loort will fetch you and bring you back when it is time. Speak to no one."
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"Hurry," said Melina, looking about.
I donned the brief, woolen slave tunic, slipping it swiftly over my head.
Melina seemed agitated.
"May a slave speak, Mistress?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"Have I not been sold, Mistress?" I asked.
"Perhaps, pretty Dina," said Melina, companion to Thurnus. "We shall see."
"Yes, Mistress," I said, puzzled.
"Tomorrow, my pretty little she-sleen," she said, "you will belong either to Tup Ladletender or Bran Loort."
I looked at her, puzzled. "Go," she said. "Hurry! Speak to no one!"
I turned about and, hurrying, went to fetch a tool. The last of the candy dissolved in my mouth. There was no one to speak to.
I chopped at the dry earth about the sul plant.
It had not rained in fifteen days, and it had been dry, too, before that time. The land was in drought.
Tup Ladletender's cart had now disappeared down the road leading from Tabuk's Ford, he between its handles, bent over, drawing it. Left behind now was not even a bit of dust.
It was late afternoon.
I was totally alone in the fields, unprotected.
I did not understand much of what had happened to me. I did not know why I had been brought to Gor. I had awakened naked and chained by the neck. Men had demanded slave beads of me. I had not understood them. They had prepared to kill me. I had been rescued by Clitus Vitellius, who had branded me and made me a slave. He had toyed with me, making me love him helplessly, and had then, for his amusement, given me away! How I hated him! How I loved him! Always I would remember his hands upon me! Always in my heart I would be his slave girl. I wondered if he ever called to mind the girl he had so casually, contemptuously, discarded. Of course not! She was only a slave. And he had his pick of women, even free women, who would wear a collar for his touch. He would not remember me, a slave he once briefly owned and sported with. But I would remember him, always. I loved him. I hated him! Always in my heart I would think of him as my master. I so loved him, and hated him! If only I could have vengeance upon him! How sweet it would be to subject him to the revenge of a scorned slave girl! But what chance had a slave girl for revenge? She was only slave. I cut down at the suls, viciously. I thought of the strange dream I had had, in which I, naked and collared, kneeling on tiles in a beautiful room, as though in a palace, had been strangely commanded to bead a necklace. "Who commands me?" I had asked. "You are commanded by Belisarius, Slave Girl," was the response. The response, somehow, had seemed oddly fitting, expected, though I had known no Belisarius. "What is the command of Belisarius, the slave girl's master?" I had asked. "It is simple," had said the voice. "Yes, Master," I had said. "Bead a necklace, Slave Girl," had said the voice. "Yes, Master," I had said. Then my hands had reached toward the strands of thread on the table, and toward the cups of tiny beads. Then I had awakened. I had not understood the dream. Bran Loort had been near the bars of the cage. He had startled me. "I am going to be first in Tabuk's Ford," whispered Bran Loort. "When I am first," he said, "Melina will give you to me." He had then slipped away from the bars. I had huddled in the straw, trembling. Today, I had thought that I was sold, and perhaps had been, but I did not know. Tup Ladletender, I knew, had left the village without me. I had been sent to the fields. Melina had purchased something from Ladletender, a packet, containing a powder or medicine. I was to say nothing. Bran Loort would fetch me, I had been told. I was to remain in the fields until then. I understood little of this.
I cut down at the suls. I was to say nothing.
I was alone in the fields.
I lifted the heavy hoe, with the stout staff and great metal blade, again and again. It was terribly hot work, and hard. My hack hurt. My hands hurt. My muscles ached. I worked hard, very hard, for I was a peasant's girl. Such girls are not treated gently if they do not do full work. I did not wish to be whipped.
The sun was sinking.
My tunic was soaked with sweat. My feet and legs were black with dirt and sweat.
The rope collar clung and scratched about my throat.
I stood upright, in pain. I was too slight a girl for peasant work. I held the hoe, breathing deeply, my head back.
How I had wanted Tup Ladletender to purchase me, to take me from the labors of the fields. I would have been willing to be anything he had wanted at the post, anything to interest him, anything to escape Tabuk's Ford, but he and Melina, in their cleverness, had manipulated me
in such a way that I was unable to be anything but what I was, an Earth-girl slave whose passions put her helplessly at the mercy of men. Willing to be a whore, I had been forced to be naturally myself, a slave girl, more helplessly a whore than any whore could be. A slave girl must be at least a whore, and a marvelous one at that. Being a whore is but a small step in the direction of being a slave girl. But I did not care. I would have done anything to escape Tabuk's Ford. A slave girl owns nothing. She has nothing to offer a man but her service and her beauty. She has nothing with which to pay but herself. That is the way men want it.
I was sure that Tup Ladletender had found me appealing.
I did not know if he had bought me or not.
I bent again to my arduous labors.
Suddenly I straightened myself. "Bran Loort!" I cried.
He stood a few feet from me, a coil of rope in his hand. My hands clutched the handle of the hoe.
He looked at me.
I flung it down. A girl dares not raise a weapon against a free man. Some girls have been slain, or had their hands cut off, for so much as touching a weapon.
"I have come to fetch you, Dina," he said.
I looked about. There was another peasant lad on my left. He, too, carried rope. I turned quickly. Four others were behind me. Another was on my right. Two others, too, appeared, behind Bran Loort. One of them carried, too, a coil of rope.
There was nowhere to run.
"She is the clever girl who eluded us in the game of girl catch in the village," said one of the lads.
"Greetings, clever girl," said another.
"Greetings, Master," I said to him.
I extended my wrists, crossed for binding, to Bran Loort. "You are going to take me to my master," I said.
He laughed.
I drew back my wrists. I looked about, fearfully. The boys approached more closely, closing about me.
I spun and ran, but fled into the arms of one of the young males, who roughly threw me back to the center of the circle. I tried again to break the circle and was again caught and flung again to its center. They were now close about me.
I extended my wrists, crossed, to Bran Loort. "Bind me," I said, "and take me to my master."
He smiled.
I trembled, and shrank back before him, almost into the arms of one of his brawny young cohorts.
"Are you going to rape me, Bran Loort?" I asked.
"And more," said he.
"Thurnus will not be pleased," I said.
"Tonight," he said, "you will belong to me."
"I do not understand," I said.
"Tonight," he said, "you will be a feast and a festival to us, Dina."
I trembled.
"Hold her," said Bran Loort.
Two boys held my arms.
"Ankle-leash her, both ankles," he said. This was done. I stood before them, ropes on my ankles.
"Put your arms at your sides," said Bran Loort, "out a bit from your body."
I did so.
I then stood before them, double wrist-leashed, ropes placed knotted on my wrists. The ropes on my wrists and ankles, serving as leashes, were cut from the coils of rope brought to the field. The remainders of the coils swung in the hands of Bran Loort and one of his cohorts. I knew I might be beaten with them.
"You will obey," said Bran Loort.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Remove your kerchief," he said.
I lifted my leashed wrists and pulled away the kerchief, shading my head, freeing my hair.
"Pretty," said one of the boys.
"Tear the kerchief," said Bran Loort.
"Please," I said. I did not wish to destroy the kerchief. It. like the girl, Dina, whom I was, belonged to my master. Dina was responsible for it. The master might not be pleased if it were torn or soiled. Dina might be beaten.
"Tear it," said Bran Loort. I, with difficulty, tore the kerchief, the boys amused at my weakness.
"Drop it upon the ground and, step upon it, grinding it into the dirt," said Bran Loort.
I did so, with the heel of my leashed foot. I was sure now that I would be beaten upon my return to the village.
I looked at the boys. I realized, suddenly, I had more to fear from them than from the swift switch of an angry Thurnus or Melina. Their eyes terrified me. My limbs were leashed. I stood alone among them, their prisoner.
I knew I must please them.
"Are you docile and cooperative?" asked Bran Loort.
"Yes, Master," I whispered.
"Strip," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said. I reached to pull the coarse, brief tunic over my head. I hoped they would be soon done with me.
But my hands, held by the ropes on my wrists, could not reach the bottom of the tunic. My fingers struggled to reach it, but an inch from its wool, clinging about my thighs. I tried again to seize the tunic but was prohibited by the ropes from doing so. I looked at Bran Loort in alarm, in protest.
"Strip," he said. He swung the coil of rope which he carried, whiplike, easily in his hand. Behind me there was another lad, with such a coil of rope.
Wildly I tried to seize the garment, to pull it over my head, but the boys would not let me touch it. I struggled to get my fingers on the white, coarse wool, but I could not reach it.
"Are you docile and cooperative?" asked Bran Loort.
"Yes, Master!" I cried. "Yes, Master!"
"Strip," he said.
Again I tried to reach the garment but again was not permitted to do so. Then I tried to seize the garment at the neck and tear it away but the boys would not let my hands reach the garment.
"You are a rebellious slave," said Bran Loort.
"No, Master!" I cried.
"Obey then," he said.
I tried again to tear away the garment. Again I was not permitted to do so.
"Rebellious slave," said Bran Loort.
Suddenly the rope, coiled, held by the boy behind me, hissed and cut into the back of my thighs.
"Oh," I cried.
At the same time Bran Loort himself struck down at me with the rope he carried, striking me across the shoulder and neck.
The boys yanked the ropes on my ankles, and, by their means, and by means of those held by the other two boys, those fastened on my wrists, I was turned and thrown to my stomach, in the dirt, spread-eagled.
Bran Loort and the other lad struck me again and again with the ropes they carried and then I, sobbing, cut by the ropes, marked even through the tunic, was, by the leashes on my limbs pulled to a kneeling position before him, my arms held out from my sides. There was dirt on the side of my face and on my body, blackening and staining the sweat-soaked tunic. I could taste dirt in my mouth.
"Bring her," said Bran Loort.
I was jerked to my feet by the ropes on my wrists and stumbling, dragged among them, was conducted from the ml field. The ruined kerchief and the hoe lay behind.
Many are the clever things which may be done to a girl who is, as I was, fully limb-leashed. Much sport had the cruel peasant boys with me. They made me fall when they pleased, and as they pleased; sometimes they threw me forward, sometimes backward; sometimes they carried me, face up or face down, suspended between them: sometimes they dragged me by an ankle or a wrist on my back or stomach, or twisting; sometimes they dragged me or made me walk where they wished, though it might be through rocks or gravel.
I did not know if I could live, so led.
We stopped once. I was still clothed at.that time. I was held by the ropes before Bran Loort. I was covered with sweat and dirt; I was gasping; I was trembling, shaken with muscular stress from the cruel march, as well as with fear, knowing myself fully in their hands, not knowing what fate they might choose to inflict upon me. We stood in the vicinity of a thicket of thorn brush, of the sort which is occasionally used to wall camps.
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