"What is the news, Tina?" I asked.
"About what?" she asked.
"About anything," I said.
"There is not much," she said. "There is some fear for the Sa-Tarna crop, because of the great deal of rain. There is going to be a celebration in Ar because of the birthday of Marlenus, the Ubar there. Lactantius thinks that is important."
"Is there any news from the west?" I asked.
"The usual," she said.
"What is that?" I asked.
"You have heard about the escape of the Tatrix of Corcyrus?" she asked.
"No," I said.
"That is strange," she said. "It happened some days ago. There is a great search on for her."
"I did not know that," I said. "Where do they think she went?"
"No one knows," said Tina.
"Oh," I said.
"There is now a reward of a thousand gold pieces for her," she said.
"That is a great deal of money," I said. I felt sick.
"Tina," I said.
"Yes?" she said.
"Lactantius, your master, is from Ar's Station. What is he doing on this road?"
"He picked up freight in Ar," she said. "He is taking it west."
"Where?" I asked.
"To Argentum," she said. "What is wrong?"
"Nothing," I said.
"What is he doing on this road?" I asked.
"What do you mean?" she asked. "He is doing exactly what he is supposed to be doing."
"What road is this?" I asked.
"It is the road to Argentum," she said.
I pretended to be dissatisfied with one or two of the tunics I had washed. I dallied by the stream until Tina had finished her work and returned to the vicinity of her master's wagon. Then, when no one was looking, I bent down and picked up a small, sharp stone from the edge of the stream. This I inserted in the hem of my slave tunic. Later I would hold it in my mouth, for the tunic would be taken from me before I was put in the trunk. The trunk, though sturdy, was not an iron or steel slave box. It was a trunk, made of wood, banded with iron.
21
The Road
I fled along the stone road, eastward, back toward the Viktel Aria.
The road was wet. The night was cloudy.
It had taken me two nights, with the sharp stone, to cut through the wood, under the blanket, in the trunk. I had begun by drawing deep, even scratches. The scratches had then, repeatedly, been deepened, slowly and carefully. I had worked only with great caution, and very silently, and even then only when I was assured that Speusippus was asleep. By day I hid the stone in the blanket, and the blanket itself covered the traces of my work. I rejoiced that Speusippus was not more fastidious about the conditions of my confinement. Yesterday morning, before dawn, the bottom of the trunk had been loosened and, rolling to one side, I could get my fingers beneath it. Tonight, a few Ahn ago, I had lifted it, inside the trunk. I had then, tipping and lifting the trunk, been able to slip between the two iron bands which reinforced its strength, bands which joined with the hardware of the two locks, making it impossible to cut or saw around the locks. I had then eased the trunk back into place, slipped from the wagon, sneaked from the camp, and run.
I was naked again, as I had been, in the camp of Miles of Argentum. I did not know where my slave tunic was, as, each night, Speusippus would put it somewhere after I had been locked in the trunk. There was no clothing of a free woman in the camp as far as I knew. It was a camp of free men and slaves.
I made my way eastward, gasping, and walking and running, on the Argentum road, back toward the Viktel Aria. I did not think they would expect me to keep to the road. Yet, of course, on it, I could make my best time. Too, I did not think they would expect me to retrace the route to the Viktel Aria. Not only would this bring me into areas of greater population concentrations but, too, it would take me closer to Ar. This would be almost as bad from my point of view, they would suppose, as moving toward Argentum itself. They would expect me, I supposed, to follow the stream, wading in it, and then, a few pasangs later, strike out northward. Speusippus would recall that I had, on my knees, begged him not to take me to Ar.
I hurried on.
An additional reason for keeping to the road was that I thought, on the hard, wet surface, it might be more difficult to follow my sign, if sleen were later used. Also, of course, my sign would be confused, or I hoped it would, with that of other travelers. To be sure, there were no sleen at the campsite and Speusippus might not be able to rent one for days. By that time, especially with the rains, it might be impossible, even for such fine, tenacious hunters as sleen, to follow my scent. Too, I did not think he would have anything that would be particularly useful for setting sleen on my trail. I had deliberately left the blanket in the trunk. It would bear not only my own scent but that of numerous other women as well. The tunic I had worn, too, had been worn by others, presumably slaves, before me. Also, in the evening I had washed it thoroughly and, not donning it, handed it humbly to Speusippus before I had entered the trunk, presumably to be locked helplessly in it.
It was becoming more cloudy. I felt a few drops of rain.
Speusippus might not even rent sleen. By the time he could do so, he would recognize, as a rational man, that the scent presumably would have faded. Too, he had little of practical value in giving such beasts the initial scent. Too, it is expensive to rent sleen, and Speusippus, who was a poor man, might even lack the means to do so. It is much more expensive, for example, to rent a sleen than a slave. Sleen are often rented by the Ahn. Slaves are commonly rented by the day or week. One of the greatest advantages I had, I thought, was that Speusippus, being an intelligent man, would presumably keep the secret of my identity. It would do his coin box little good if I fell to the chain of some burly huntsman from the foothills of the Voltai. Besides, who would believe that he had ever had the Tatrix of Corcyrus in his keeping? They would surely think him mad. If authorities should search for me, I was sure it would be only as the girl of Speusippus, a runaway slave named Lita.
It now began to rain more heavily. I welcomed the rain, hoping it would diminish and wash away the scent my body and bare feet might be leaving behind me.
There was another reason I was retracing our steps on the Argentum road. Yesterday I had seen another open slave wagon, a long, wide wagon much like I had seen a few days ago. It, too, had contained several girls, their individual neck chains strung to a common central chain, their hair cropped as insolently short as mine. The similarity of the two wagons and the chaining arrangements suggested that a single company was involved. I had made inquiries. These were girls of the sort sometimes referred to as female work slaves. It is a very low form of slave, indeed, perhaps the lowest. Seldom can they aspire even to the status of the kettle-and-mat girl. They do not bring high prices. They are usually sold in multi-item lots in cheap markets and are usually purchased to be used in such places as the public kitchens or laundries, and the mills. From these applications, they are sometimes referred to, naturally enough, as "kitchen girls," "laundry girls," "mill girls," and so on. These particular girls, it had been conjectured, had been obtained from markets in the north, where prices are often cheaper. They were now being brought south and east, probably, from their shearing, for work in the mills. It was my hope that I could make secret contact with these women, and obtain food, and perhaps advice, from them. I was naked, ignorant and illiterate. I was little better off than when I had escaped from the yard of the inn several days ago. Surely they would feed me, and be kind to me. Even though I was far superior to them, as I was free and they were mere slaves, it was my hope that they would be kind to me in my need. We shared a common sisterhood in the sense that we were all ultimately helpless women on a world where men had never relinquished their sovereignty.
Toward morning the rain stopped and I, fearful of discovery as it grew lighter, left the Argentum road.
22
The Wagon;
Caught!
/> "Please, do not make any noise," I whispered.
"Who is there!" said the woman, frightened. I heard the movement of a chain.
"Please be quiet," I whispered. "I will not hurt you."
"What is going on?" whispered another woman. I heard the movements of bodies, of chains.
"Be quiet, please," I said. I had crawled over the side of the slave wagon. I had lowered myself, in the darkness, to the interior. I felt the wood of the wagon bed, beneath a blanket, or blankets, beneath my knees. The wagon, unhitched, was drawn among some trees. Two tharlarion were tethered nearby. Also a few yards away there was a tent.
"Please be quiet," I whispered. I lowered myself to my belly in the wagon. I did not wish to risk my upper body being seen over the side of the wagon.
Although the wagon was normally open when on the road it was now, on this night, on which it had rained off and on, rigged with a temporary, now-partially-rolled-up cover. The cover consisted of a tarpaulin sewn about long poles on two sides. This cover was placed over a frame which consisted of five poles; two of these poles, braced, crossed and tied together near the top, were at the front of the wagon; a similar pair was fixed at the back of the wagon; between these two pairs of poles there lay, across them, parallel to the long axis of the wagon, like a ridgepole, a fifth pole. The tarpaulin, then, was laid over this long pole and held in place by its own two poles, resting against the sloping sides of the crossed poles at the front and back of the wagon. The tarpaulin was rolled up and tied about its poles in such a way that there was a gap of about a yard between itself and the side of the wagon.
"Please," I begged. I lay on my stomach in the wagon. My body was wet; my feet were muddy.
"Who are you?" whispered a woman.
"I am one who is hungry, and in desperate need of help," I said.
"But we are naked slaves," said a woman.
"And we are chained," said another.
"Give me some food," I begged. "I must have food!" I had not eaten in more than twenty Ahn, indeed, since I had received a feeding from Speusippus, and a rather sparing one, on the evening preceding my escape. He had on the whole fed me intelligently, but seldom generously. It seemed to be his intention, through diet and exercise, in so far as he could, to see to it that my body became as shapely as that of a pleasure slave.
"There is no food in the wagon," said a woman.
I moaned in misery.
"Our food is measured out to us in small, exact quantities," said a woman, "and then we must, under supervision, consume it entirely."
"There must be food," I said.
'There is food within the tent," said a woman, "but the drivers are there, and it is kept locked up."
"You must help me," I said. "I am as sheared as you."
"What can we do?" asked a woman.
"You had best flee," said another.
"I do not know what to do, or where to go," I sobbed.
"Who are you?" asked a woman.
"I am a free woman," I said.
I heard a reaction, a shrinking back in the chains.
"Do not be afraid," I said. "I will not hurt you. Too, do not kneel, please."
"You are not a free woman," said a woman.
"You are a runaway slave," said another.
"If you were a free woman," said another, "you would not come to slaves. You would go to free persons!"
"I am hungry and miserable," I said. "I need help. I do not care whether you think I am slave or free."
"She is not branded, I do not think," said a woman. I pulled back. I felt hands checking my left and right thighs, the two most common brand sites for a Gorean slave.
"No, I do not think so," said another woman, apprehensively.
"Some men do not brand their slaves," said a woman.
"They are fools," said another.
"Yes," said another.
"But she is sheared," said another, feeling my head.
"She must then be a slave," said another.
"Some free women have themselves sheared, to sell their hair," said another.
"I am a free woman," I sobbed.
"She is naked," said another woman.
"She doesn't even have a string on her belly," said another. I pulled back, angrily, from them.
"Free women do not run about the countryside naked, my dear," said another woman.
"Nonetheless," I said, "I am a free woman!"
"Where are your clothes?" asked a woman.
"A man captured me," I said. "He took my clothes! He sheared my hair, too, for money!"
"Why didn't he keep you?" asked a woman.
"She must be ugly," said one of the women.
"I am not ugly!" I said.
"Then why didn't he keep you?" asked the woman.
"I don't know!" I said.
"You are a slave," said a woman.
"No!" I said.
"Liar!" said another.
"I am a free woman," I sobbed. "I am a free woman!"
"If you are a free woman, and are not from this area," said one of the slaves, "I think you should flee. It is not safe for you here."
"I do not understand," I said.
"Surely it would not do for you to be caught here," she said.
"No!" I said, frightened.
"Then I think you should flee, now, while there is still time."
"Where can I go?" I asked. "Where can I run?"
"Anywhere," said a woman. "But hurry!"
"Why?" I asked.
"It is nearly time for slave check," said a woman.
"Slave check?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"It is too late!" whispered a woman.
I looked wildly about. Not feet away I saw a lantern approaching the back of the wagon. I quickly lay down, with the others, huddled against them, as if asleep.
I heard the wagon gate being lowered in the back. It swung down on its hinges, striking against the wagon. I heard the boards of the wagon bed creak as they were subjected to additional weight. I sensed the light of the lantern in the wagon, under the tentlike tarpaulin, illuminating bodies.
I lay very still.
"Well," said a voice, "what have we here?" I felt a foot kick me.
I turned about, blinking up into the light of the lantern, terrified.
"You have been caught, Slave!" said a woman near me, elatedly.
23
The Chain
"On your back," said the man, "and put your hands, palms up, where I can see them."
I did so.
"Now cross your wrists, in front of you," he said.
I did this and he, with one hand, grasped them both. In this grip I was held as helplessly as a child. He pulled me to my knees and, lifting the lantern, examined where I had lain.
He then put me again to my back and released my hands.
"I am unarmed," I said. "I have no weapons. I am utterly defenseless. Please be kind to me."
"Durbar!" he called. He then hung the lantern from a hook on the ridgepole, beneath the damp, brown tarpaulin.
"I am not what you think," I assured him. "I am a free woman. I am not a slave. I am neither collared, as you can see, nor branded, as you may easily determine."
"You are a free woman?" he asked skeptically.
"Yes," I said. "And I am desperately in need of help. It is my hope that you will be kind to me, giving me food and clothing, and money and guidance, so that I may return to my home in Lydius. That is on the Laurius river. The town Laura is east of it."
"Is Lydius north or south of Kassau?" he asked.
"North," I said.
"No," he said. "South."
There was laughter from the women.
"Your accent," he said, "suggests that you might be from Tabor."
"Yes!" I said, seizing on this. "I am. My parents had arranged an unwanted companionship for me. I fled. I now want to go somewhere else."
"Tabor is far away," he said. "Did you come all this way on foot?"
"Yes!" I said.
"That is amazing," he said, "for Tabor is an island."
Tears sprang to my eyes. The women in the wagon laughed.
"What is going on?" asked a fellow coming up to the wagon, fastening a belt of accouterments about himself.
"See what we have here," said the first fellow.
"Ah!" he said.
"She claims to be a free woman," said the first fellow.
"Of course," said the second.
"A man captured me," I said. "He took my clothes! He sheared my hair, for money!"
"If you are a free woman," said the second man, he, I gathered, who was Durbar, "what are you doing here, crawling about with slaves?"
"I was afraid," I said.
"If you are truly a free woman," said the first man, "what were you afraid of?"
"You are right," I said. "I am a free woman. I should not have been afraid."
The two men laughed, and the chained women, as well. I looked about, at them, from face to face. I saw their amusement. I saw the collars and chains on their necks. How foolish I felt. I had again been tricked. Obviously, in a situation like this, a free woman might have a great deal to fear.
"I am hungry," I said. "I am desperately hungry. I am starving. Please give me something to eat."
"Bring her something to eat," said the first man to him called Durbar, "something appropriate."
Durbar left. In a few moments he returned with a small wooden bowl filled with dried, precooked meal. He poured some water into this.
I was then handed the bowl.
Some of the women laughed.
"Mix it with your fingers," said the first man. Then he turned to Durbar. "Look about the camp," he said. "See if there are any more skulking about."
"I am alone," I told them.
But Durbar went to check.
I, mixing the water with the precooked meal, formed a sort of cold porridge or gruel. I then, with my fingers, and putting the bowl even to my lips, fell eagerly upon that thick, bland, moist substance.
By the time Durbar had returned I had finished, even to the desperate wiping and licking of the bowl, that I might secure every last particle of that simple, precious, vitalizing provender.
Kajira of Gor Page 30