She who had been the Lady Tina looked at her with fear.
"Yes," I said.
I turned the head of the tarn toward Lydius.
"We are flying in the direction of Lydius, Master," said Constance, her hair lifted by the wind.
"We shall stop there for a time," I said. "I acquired a girl in the fields. She has not yet been branded. It is my intention to have her marked."
She turned white.
"Did you expect to escape the brand?" I asked.
"No, Master," she said. She, Gorean, knew well that slave girls are marked.
She was silent.
I would let her anticipate the iron.
"I, too, acquired a girl in the fields," said Ram. "I may, in Lydius, as well, see that her thigh is clearly marked, that identifying her as what she is, a slave."
I looked at the naked girl clinging fearfully, helplessly to Ram. "She is so beautiful," I said, "there could be little doubt in anyone's mind that she is a slave, whether she is branded or not."
"She is comely," admitted Ram. "But I will nonetheless have her incontrovertibly marked."
"The mark will improve her beauty," I said, "making it doubly desirable."
"True," said Ram, "perhaps even infinitely more desirable."
"Perhaps," I said. It was true that a brand incredibly enhanced the beauty of a female. Some women did not know what male lust was, until they became slaves, and found themselves, suddenly, vulnerably exposed to its full predations.
She who moments before had been free held to Ram, her master, clutching him, desperately, that she might not fall.
I let her hold to Ram for a while; then I said to her, "Extend your wrists to me, crossed."
"I will fall," she wept.
"If your master pleases," I said, "he will hold you."
"Hold me, Master," she wept. "I beg you!'
"Perhaps," he said.
She extended her wrists to me, crossed. I lashed them together with binding fiber.
She knew that it was only her master's hands on her which prevented her from failing to the ground, hundreds of feet below. She depended on him totally for her life, that he would hold her.
Then her hands were bound, and I drew her up and over the saddle. I then lifted up Constance's arms and thrust the new slave's tied wrists over the pommel, then placed Constance's bound wrists over hers.
The load was thus balanced on the tarn, the weight of the two beauties on one side, that of Ram on the other.
I had placed Constance's bound wrists over those of the new slave for Constance was first girl. She would be first to be lifted from the pommel.
"You are first girl," I told Constance.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Constance is first girl," I told her who had been the Lady Tina of Lydius.
"Yes, Master," said she who had been the Lady Tina of Lydius.
"Address her as Mistress," I told the former free girl. "Mistress," said she who had been the former Lady Tina of Lydius, frightened, to Constance.
"Slave," responded Constance to her confirming the former free woman as second girl.
"Now, on to Lydius!" I said.
"Yes, Master," said the two girls, the blond and the brunet, first girl and second girl, yet both really new slaves, neither of whom had as yet even been branded.
7
I Am Careless In Lydius: I Am Taken Captive
I kicked in the door. It splintered inward. I was through the door, sword drawn.
The man at the desk leaped up.
"Where is Bertram of Lydius?" I asked.
"I am he," said the man, in fur jacket. "What do you want? Are you an assassin? You do not wear the dagger. What have I done?"
I laughed. "You are not the man I seek," I said. "One in the south who meant me harm, who seemed a sleen master, had assumed your identity. I thought perhaps ho might truly have been Bertram of Lydius."
"I do not know you," said the man.
"Nor I you," I said.
I described to him the man who had called himself Bertram of Lydius. But he could not identify him for me. I wondered at who he might truly be.
"You have an excellent name in sleen training," I said. "It is known even in the south. Else I would not have permitted the man to my house."
"I am pleased I am not he whom you seek," said Bertram of Lydius. "I do not envy him."
"The one I seek," I said, "is skilled with the knife. He is, I suspect, of the assassins."
I threw a tarsk bit to the desk. "Your door will need repairing," I said.
Then I turned and left the place. I had not thought the man at my house, he, too, whom I had seen in the tent of the curio dealer, had been truly Bertram of Lydius, but I had wished to clarify that. Too, I had thought he might be one known to Bertram of Lydius, if it were not he. It is easier to assume an identity where one knows a subject reasonably well. Yet one, to assume that identity, would have to know little more than the streets of Lydius and the training of sleen. I hoped to renew my acquaintance with the fellow. Little love is lost betwixt the castes of warriors and assassins. Each deems himself the superior of, and the natural foe, of the other. The sword of the warrior, commonly, is pledged to a Home Stone, that of the assassin to gold and the knife.
I walked through the streets of Lydius until I came to the small metal worker's shop, one out of the main ways of the city.
I entered the shop.
"Are you still crying?" I asked Constance.
She sat in the straw beside an anvil. A chain ran from the anvil and was padlocked about her neck.
"My brand hurts, Master," she said.
"Very well," I said, "cry."
"There," said the metal worker. He eased the heavy iron collar, with the short, dangling chain, from Ram's neck.
"Ah," said Ram.
Beside him, on the floor, knelt Tina, which was now her slave name.
Ram directed the metal worker to saw away an inch and a half of the opened collar. He put it in a vise on his workbench and did so.
"Did you find Bertram of Lydius?" asked Ram.
"Yes," I said.
"You slew him?" asked Ram.
"No," I said. "He was not the man I sought."
"Oh," said Ram.
"I did not think he would be," I said.
I looked down at Tina. "Show me your thigh, Girl," I said. She did so.
"How did she take the iron?" I asked.
"She screamed like a she-sleen," he said, "but she is quiet now."
"The brands," I said, "are excellent, both of them."
"Thank you, Master," said Constance, smiling. Tina, too, I noted, straightened herself a bit.
I threw the metal worker a silver tarsk.
"My thanks, Warrior!" he said.
Both of the girls had been beautifully branded. I was pleased.
The metal worker finished sawing the portion off the heavy collar Ram had worn.
Ram then pulled Tina to the feet by her hair and forced her head down on the anvil.
The metal worker looked at him.
"Put it on her neck," he said.
I watched while the heavy collar, shortened now to fit a woman, was curved expertly about her neck by blows of the hammer, and then, decisively, struck shut.
"Lift your head, Slave Girl," said Ram.
She did so, tears in her eyes. The chain on the collar dangled between her breasts.
I signaled the metal worker to free Constance of the chain on her neck. I tossed both girls a light, white rep-cloth slave tunic which I had purchased in the city.
Gratefully, half sobbing, they drew them on. I smiled. Did they not know, to a man's eye, they were almost more naked in such a garment than without it? Garments are an additional way, incidentally, in which to control slave girls. Knowing that the master may not permit her even such a rag if he chooses tends to make her more eager to please him, that she not be sent into the streets without it.
"I will march her barefoot, clad so,
through the streets of Lydius," said Ram.
"Excellent," I said. It would be a rich joke. Who would recognize in her the former lofty lady of Lydius, the rich Lady Tina, who had often trod these streets aloof and hidden, probably escorted, in her several veils and multitudinous robes of concealment? Looking upon her, and look they would, they would see only a bond girl, only a lovely, half-naked slave at the heels of her master.
"I will have her serve me paga, publicly, in her own city," said Ram.
"Let us go to the tavern of Sarpedon," I said. "It is a fine tavern." I had been there before, some years earlier. I remembered a girl who had once been wench there, named Tana. It was I who had informed Sarpedon, her master, of her skill in dancing. She had been danced that very night for the patrons, but I had had business, and had not dallied to see her perform.
In less than a quarter of an Ahn we had come to the tavern of Sarpedon.
It was, however, in an angry mood. On the wharves leading to the tavern, in many places, I had seen bales of hide. It was hide of the northern tabuk.
"I must leave Lydius tonight," I said. `There is much here I do not understand. It must be investigated."
"I shall accompany you," said Ram.
"I am a tarnsman," I said. "It is better that you remain."
"The reins of a tarn are not unfamiliar to me," said Ram.
"You are a tarnsman?" I asked.
"I have done many things," he said. "In Hunjer I worked with tarn keepers."
"Do you know the spear, the bow, the sword?" I asked.
"I am not a warrior," he shrugged.
"Remain behind," I said.
"Do masters desire aught?" asked the proprietor, a paunchy man, in leather apron.
Ram and I sat behind one of the small tables. Our girls knelt by us.
"Where is Sarpedon?" I asked.
"He visits in Ar," said the man. "I am Sarpelius, who is managing the tavern in his absence." He regarded the girls. "Lovely," he said. "Would masters care to sell them? I can always use such wenches in the alcoves."
"No," I said.
The girls seemed then less tense.
"There are many bales of hide on the wharves," I said.
"From Kassau, and the north," he said.
"Did the herd of Tancred this year emerge from the forests?" I asked.
"Yes," said the man. "I have heard so."
"But," said I, "it has not yet crossed Ax Glacier?"
"I would not know of that," he said.
"On the wharves," I said, "there are thousands of hides."
"From the northern herds," he said.
"Are there traders come south from the north?" asked Ram.
"Few," said the man.
"Is it common," I asked, "for the hides to be so plentiful in Lydius in the spring?" Normally hide hunters prefer the fall tabuk, for the coats are heavier.
"I do not know," said the man. "I am new in Lydius." He looked at us, smiling. "May I serve, Masters?" he asked.
"We will be served by our own girls," said Ram. "We will send them shortly to the vat."
"As masters wish," beamed Sarpelius, and turned about and left us.
"Never have there been hides in this quantity in Lydius," said Ram to me, "either in the spring or fall."
"They are perhaps from the herd of Tancred," I said.
"There are other herds," he said.
"That is true," I said. But I was puzzled. If the herd of Tancred had indeed emerged from the forests why had it not yet crossed Ax Glacier? Surely hunters, even in great numbers, could not stay the avalanche of such a herd, which consisted of doubtless two to three hundred thousand animals. It was one of the largest migratory herds of tabuk on the planet. Unfortunately for the red hunters, it was also the only one which crossed Ax Glacier to summer in the polar basin. To turn such a herd from its migratory destination would be less easy than to turn the course of a flood. Yet, if reports could be believed, the ice of Ax Glacier had not yet, this year, rung to the hooves of the herd.
I was now more pleased than ever that I had had Samos send a ship with supplies north.
But I was suddenly afraid that the ship might not have gotten through. Ram had said that the north was closed.
"Worry upon the morrow," suggested Ram. "Tonight let us divert ourselves with the pleasures of slave girls and paga."
I put a golden tarn on the table. "Remain," I said. "But I fear I must go. There is much here which is seriously amiss. I fear the worst."
"I do not understand," he said.
"Farewell, my friend," said I. "Tonight I take tarn for the north."
"I will accompany you," he said.
"I cannot share this business," I said. "My flight will be fraught with peril, my work is dangerous." I thought of Zarendargar, Half-Ear, waiting for me at the world's end. Now, more than ever was I certain that the works of the Kurii flourished concealed among the snows of the northern wastes. The pattern was forming. The north was closed. The red hunters were to die by starvation. The frozen north. in its wind-swept desolation, was to keep its secrets in silence from men. "No, my friend," I said. "You cannot accompany me." I turned and strode to the door.
At the door I encountered Sarpelius. "Master asked many questions," he observed.
"Stand aside," I said.
He did so, and I brushed past him. Constance fled after me, in the brief tunic of white rep-cloth. Outside the tavern I turned and looked at her. She had slim, lovely legs, and sweet breasts. She was very beautiful in my collar. I knew where, on the wharves, there was a slave market. I had once bought a dark-haired, captured panther girl named Sheera there. I had broken her swiftly to my collar. She had been excellent in a man's arms. Months later I had freed her. What a fool I had been. It was not a mistake I would make again with a woman. Keep them slaves; They belong in collars.
"Master?" asked Constance.
"It will not be hard to sell you," I said. "You are quite beautiful."
"No!" she begged. "Do not sell me, Master!"
I turned my back upon her. I thought I would probably obtain a silver tarsk for her. She was new to the collar, but she had incredible potentialities. Any slaver could determine that.
With a few more havings I thought she would be helpless, and paga hot.
I strode toward the market. I must leave soon. The girl stumbled after me, weeping. "Please, Master!" she wept. I did not tell her to heel. It was not necessary. She was slave.
I thought she would bring me a tarsk.
Suddenly I heard her cry out, startled. I spun about. "Do not unsheath your blade. Fellow," said a man.
I was covered with four crossbows, the quarrels set. Fingers were tense at the triggers.
I raised my hands.
Two woven canvas straps, some two inches in width, had been looped about the girl's throat and drawn close about it. She was bent backward. Her fingers pulled futilely at the straps. She could scarcely breathe. The man behind her, the straps looped about his fists, tightened them slightly and instantly, terrified, eyes wild, she stopped all attempts to resist.
"In there, between the buildings," said the man, the leader of the others.
Angrily I moved between the buildings and stood in the half darkness of the alley, my hands raised. The girl, rudely, the straps on her throat, was dragged into the darkness with us.
"The bolts," said the man, indicating the missiles at rest in the guides of the weapons, "are tipped with kanda. The slightest scratch from them will finish you."
"I see you are not of the assassins," I said. It is a matter of pride for members of that caste to avoid the use of poisoned steel. Too, their codes forbid it.
"You are a stranger in Lydius," said the man.
"I scarcely think you are magistrates investigating my business," said I. "Who are you? What do you want?" I was angry. My thoughts had been too filled with fear and tumult, and fury at the mysteries of the north. I, though a warrior, had been insufficiently alert. I had been careless.
"You are not common robbers," I said.
"Welcome to Lydius," said the leader of the men. He proffered to me a metal cup. He had filled this from a verrskin canteen slung at his left hip, behind the scabbard.
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