by John Norman
"Yes," she said, "so drink your fill."
"How came I here?" I asked.
"Your wrists were bound together before you," she said, "and a doubled rope put through them. When you were within our reach, and we could hold you, the other end of the rope was dropped, and it was then withdrawn. We removed your bonds." "Of what nature was the bond?" I asked.
"Binding fiber," said Tupita.
"Is it not strange that a beast would have such fiber?" I asked.
"It would seem so," said Tupita.
"Of what nature is this place?" I asked, looking up.
"It is apparently an abandoned well," said Tupita, "but it had been changed in some respects."
"How is that?" I asked.
"The bottom of the shaft, below us, is not open to the ground, to sand, or soft dirt, but filled, apparently for several feet, with large boulders. We cannot lift them. Even if we could there is no place to put them. The floor, in effect, is made of rock."
I nodded. This place was no longer a simple well, even an abandoned one. It had now, for most practical purposes, been converted into a holding hole." "If there is such a beast," said Mina, "what does it want of us?" "It is such a thing, doubtless," said Tupita, "which fed upon the aedile, outside Venna."
"Then it may be saving us, to eat us," whispered Mina.
"Perhaps," said Tupita.
We shuddered. Clearly it was possible we were being kept for such a purpose. Indeed, this place might be, in effect, its larder.
"But, as far as we know," said Tupita, "no one has been taken from this place to be eaten."
"It could be saving us for later," said Mina.
"Mina and Cara were caught days ago," said Tupita. "Indeed, the recovery period is over where they are concerned. Anyone who came on them could now claim them." To be sure, they remained, even now, the slaves of Ionicus, but this proprietorship was now such that, if the case arose, it must yield to a new claimancy. This point in Gorean law is apparently motivated by the consideration that a slave always have some master. In the case of a master" s death the slave, like other property, passes to the heirs, or, if there are no heirs, to the state. "They have not been eaten."
"Not yet," pointed out Mina.
"Consider," said Tupita. "All of us here are female."
"Yes," said Mina.
"That seems to me of interest," said Tupita.
"Yes!" I said. "It may well be it which, too, robbed the aedile." "It is surely possible," said Tupita.
"It has some sense of the value of money then," I said, "and perhaps some way of utilizing it."
"Yes," said Tupita.
"And I am told I was bound with binding fiber when I was lowered into the pit." "You were," said Tupita. "It is over there."
"What are you both saying?" asked Mina.
"We are thinking," said Tupita, "if I am not mistaken, that although this thing might eat humans, and might eat us, it may not be that we have been brought here, really, for food."
"I do not understand," said Mina.
:It may be working with men," said Tupita. "If so, they might be slavers." "But you do not know that!" said Mina.
"No," admitted Tupita. "But look about yourself. Do you not note something else of interest here? Do you not think we might not, all, be of interest to men?" I looked down, embarrassed. I, of all of the girls in the pit, was naked. Mina and Cara had the shreds of work tunics, and Tupita, too, still had much of her tunic, it ripped only a bit, perhaps when the beast had seized her. Tela had the soiled narrow rectangle of silk.
"It seems likely to me," said Tupita, "that we are being kept not for food, though such a thing, or things, might eat us, but to be turned over to our kind, to slavers."
"I remember now," I said, "in the darkness, before I was cuffed unconscious, it put me to my knees before it!"
"Excellent!" said Tupita. "Then I suggest we kneel before these beasts, and behave with them much as we might with men. They may well regard us, and correctly, as female slaves. Thus they may expect suitable subserviences." We kissed one another, then, in hope.
"What is there to do now?" asked Mina.
"You wear a collar and chains," said Tupita. "You are kajira. What do you think you will do?"
Mina looked at her.
"You will wait," said Tupita.
"How could the thing come into the work camp?" I asked.
"It dug under the fence," said Tela. "It did not strike me unconscious in the tent, perhaps for fear of the master or you hearing. I was dragged under the side of the tent and into the night. After a time it moved aside a bush, concealing a tunnel and then dragged me after it, through it. On the other side of the wire fence, ascertaining no one was about, it struck me unconscious."
"How is it that you are hear?" asked Tupita of me.
"I came with Aulus to the camp of Pietro Vacchi," I said, "where he wished to conclude negotiations pertaining to the purloined chains. I was chained at his stirrup."
"That explains why you are naked," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"You would look very beautiful chained to a stirrup," said Tupita.
"So, too, would you," I said."What beasts they are, to so display us for their pleasure," she said.
"They are the masters," I said.
"I wager you were proud at the stirrup," she said.
"Of course," I laughed.
"Slave," said Tupita.
"Of course, I am a slave," I said. "Are you not a slave, and a total slave?" "Yes," she smiled. "I, too, am a slave, and, like you, my dear Tuka, a total slave."
"You said that you served in the tent of Pietro Vacchi," I said.
"Yes," she said.
"You must have been very beautiful," I said, "to have been selected for his tent."
"If you came to the camp with Aulus, at his stirrup," she said, "I wager you, too, are not unfamiliar with the neck chain of Pietro Vacchi."
I looked down. "No," I smiled. "I am not unfamiliar with it."
"He made me scream with pleasure," said Tupita.
"I, too," I smiled.
"Seldom have I been in the arms of such a man," she said.
"Nor I," I said.
"He is a soldier, and a captain," she said. "He knows well how to teach a woman her collar."
"True," I said.
"It was on my return to the girl pen that I was captured by the beast," she said.
"Doubtless it was because of you that he permitted me a guard, to conduct me to the pen," I said. "I gathered, or had intimations, that something might have happened to a girl shortly before me, perhaps within even a few days, that she might have disappeared, or have been mysteriously stolen, perhaps even on the route from his tent to the pen."
"It was probably I," she said.
"Undoubtedly," I said.
"It is interesting that both of us served in the tent of Vacchi, and that we are both here now," she said.
"What do you mean?" I asked. "Do you think Vacchi is implicated in our abduction?"
"Certainly not," she said. "He could have put either of us in his collar, at his whim. Who is going to gainsay him with his company of mercenaries?"
"True," I said.
"But," she said, "there may be more than a coincidence here. Might it not be that the beast, not of our kind, was, in effect, utilizing the choices of Vacchi, as guaranteeing that his pickups would presumably be such that they would be attractive to human males?"
"Yes!" I said. "That is possibly it! And Tela was first on the chain, and serving in the tent of the overseer! That, too, might have convinced the beast that she was a suitable acquisition!"
"What of me, and Cara?" asked Mina.
"Were you serving near the fence?" I asked. "Was your chain there shortly before your capture?"
"Yes," said Mina.
"Perhaps you were pointed out, by men, to the beast," I said, "in effect designated as suitable quarry."
"Perhaps the aedile came on the beast unawares," said Tupi
ta.
"Perhaps," I said. "But, too, it may have merely been hungry."
"Could it not have killed for gold?" asked Mina.
"Assuredly," I said. "But it could have killed for both, for gold, and food." "True," said Mina, shuddering.
"Tuka," said Tela.
"Yes," I said.
"How is the master?" she asked.
"The master?" I asked.
"Aulus," she said.
"He is all right, as far as I know," I said.
"Good," she said, relieved, kneeling back.
I looked at her, sharply, and she put down her head. I suspected then that her belly had found its love master. To be sure, we slaves must leap to the touch of any man. I did not see any need to tell her of the "gentlewoman," to whose female training Aulus had been asked to contribute.
"You know that most of the men with the chains were freed?" said Tupita.
"Yes," I said.
"He went toward Venna," she said.
"I know," I said.
"He made no attempt to negotiate for me, or secure me," she said.
"I am sorry," I said.
"apparently your blood is of more interest to him than my love," she said. "You think he still desires to kill me?" I asked.
"I know he does," she said.
I shuddered. I was helpless at the bottom of the shaft. Were he to come upon me here how could I escape? Perhaps he would lower the rope and bucket for the others, and not me? Perhaps he would throw great stones down upon me? Perhaps he would lower poisonous insects or snakes into the pit? Perhaps he would leave me here to starve?
Tupita then began to tear her tunic, about the hem.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"I am going to give you some clothing," she said, "if you want it." "Your tunic barely covers you," I said.
She had then torn a narrow strip from about the hem of the garment, and where the strip parted, tied the lengths together. "This will give you a belt," she said. She then tore down a part of her bodice.
"Tupita!" I protested.
"We will both be bare-breasted slaves," she said. "Are you former Earth women, ashamed of the beauty of your breasts?"
"No," I said.
"Here," she said, handing me the narrow strips, knotted together, taken from the hem of her skirt. "Roll it. Twist it in your hands. It will be stronger. That is it. Good. Now tie it about your waist."
I fastened this fragile, narrow, improvised cordlike belt of twisted and rolled cloth about me, knotting it at the left hip. It was a slip knot, such that masters might remove it at a tug.
"Here," she said, handing me the strip of cloth she had torn from her bodice. I placed it carefully, gratefully, the loose end inside, next to my belly, over the rolled cloth. I smoothed it out.
"I see that you know how to insert a slave strip in a belly cord," she said. "Of course," I said.
"Let us see you now," she said, "in your collar and cloth." She inspected me. "I gather you are a low slave," she said, "from the exposure of your bosom and the poor quality of the belt and cloth you wear."
"Yes, Mistress," I smiled.
"Yet you are pretty," she mused.
"Thank you, Mistress," I smiled.
"And the cloth you wear, aside from questions of its quality, is suitable," she said, "It is such that it may be easily pulled aside."
"Yes, Mistress," I said. The wearing of such cloths, and tunics, that may be removed with ease, and such, serves various purposes. For example, obviously it provides her some shielding. On the other hand, because of its precarious nature, and its dependence on a man" s permissions and indulgence, it also acutely increases her sense of possible exposure and vulnerability. Such clothing, then, tends to help remind her, and quite clearly, that she is a female slave. It also, of course, because of its nature, and in spite of what might be her wishes or desires in the matter, tends, on a deep psychological and physiological level, to be erotically arousing to her. It puts her more at the mercy of men. It is difficult to be dressed as a slave and not, in time, even if one is a free woman, come to feel, and desire, as a slave. Indeed, it is a not uncommon first step in the enslavement of a free woman merely to dress her as a slave.
"Am I ready to go out on the floor now?" I asked. The "first girl" in a tavern often inspects her inferiors, before she permits them on the floor.
"I think now," she smiled. "But you would perhaps do in the hay for the rough pleasures of a drover."
I laughed, and so, too, did Tupita, but then we looked about ourselves, at the sheer walls of the shaft about us, and up at the opening, doubtless wide enough, but from here, seemingly so small, seemingly so far above. I noticed again, oddly enough, yet interestingly, how one could see the stars from this place even during the afternoon.
We then sat down in the pit, on the dried leaves, on the gravel, quiet, subdued, our backs against the sides of the shaft.
We did not know what our fate would be.
"Is there one beast, or more?" asked Tela.
"We do not know," said Tupita.
"We are kept in ignorance!" cried Tela. "They do not let us know anything! We do not know where we are! We do not know the nature of our captors, or even their number! We do not know what they intend to do with us! They treat us likea€”likea€”"
"Like slave girls?" asked Tupita.
Tela looked at her, and struck her small fists on her bared thighs in frustration.
"Yes!" she wept.
"You are no longer the free woman, Lady Liera Didiramache of Lydius," said Tupita. "You are now Tela, a slave."
"They treat us as they wish!" she cried.
"And so, too, do they with their tharlarion, their tarsks, and their other animals."
"Yes," she whispered, and I saw her draw back, frightened. But, too, in a moment, I saw her shudder, suddenly thrilled to the quick. Then she lay down, in her collar, and her bit of silk, at the side of the shaft, trembling, not meeting our eyes.
We were then very quiet, all of us.
We did not know what our fate would be.
We were slaves. We must wait to learn.
29 The Meadow
"Not enough! Not enough!" cried the small, twisted fellow, with the yellowish, sallow complexion, crouching down, his back to us, pointing to the blanket spread there on the ground. The entire right side of his face was a whitened mass of ancient scar tissue. The ear on the right side of his head had been half torn away. It was almost as thought the right side of his face had been abraided by some terrifying, fierce passage, by some swift, lengthy, terrible friction, as of being dragged over rock. So disfigured one might doubt if he dared consort with his own kind. He seemed obviously to be held in contempt by the five men who squatted near him, on the other side of the blanket. To the right of the blanket, on the ground, there was a pack, filled, it seemed, with trinkets, a peddler" s pack. The small man was, it seemed, a peddler, or one who was concerned, at least, to give that impression.
"If you disapprove of our offer," said the leader of the five (382) men, a bearded fellow, "return to Tharna, and there mine the difference."
The small fellow sat back on his heels, angrily. "Too, there was to be meat, much meat!" he said.
"Do not be stupid," said one of the men squatting across from him. "We have brought you a quarter of a dried tarsk. That is enough for you to chew on for a month."
"It is not enough!" said the small fellow. "We need more!"
Do you have a pen of sleen?" asked one of the men.
The small fellow did not answer. But then, after a time, he repeated, guardedly, "We need more."
"You can buy more with the silver," said the man across from him, the leader of the five men.
The small fellow had two cohorts with him, who, like the others, were squatting down, but to our left. These felloes looked uneasily at one another.
"We are offering fifteen pieces of silver, fifteen solid, sound, unclipped silver tarsks," said the leader. "That is enough."
>
"It was to have been twenty-five!" said the small man. "Five for each!" "We will give you three for each," said the leader, putting his finger on his helmet, which was beside him, upturned, in the grass.
"No!" said the small fellow, and leaped up, angrily, and limping, approached us. "See them!" he said.:There is not one there who, stripped, would not bring high bids on the block! Is there one there whom a man would not dream of marching home naked before him, to fasten her to his slave ring! See those faces, those slave curves! There is not one of them who is not worth five tarsks!" "Three tarsks for each," said the leader. "Good tarsks."
"These two," said the small fellow, indicating Tupita and myself, "served in the tent of Pietro Vacchi. I know! I was in the camp!" he, then, I assumed, must be the human contact, or one of them, of the beasts. "And this one," he said, pointing to Tela, "was an overseer" s choice, a man who could pick from almost a hundred women, all slaves!"
"Work slaves," said the leader.
Tela stiffened in her bonds. To be sure, she had been brought to the camp of the black chain as a work slave. So had we all, for that matter.
"She was a rich woman from Lydius!" said the small fellow.
"She now wears a brand," pointed out the leader.
"And this one," said the small fellow, returning his attention to me, "is a dancer!"
"Dancers are nothing," he said. "They go ten for a tarsk."
I tightened, angrily. Men in Brundisium had been willing to pay much for me. I had been supposedly, one of the finest dancers in that city.
"And these two," said the small fellow, indicating Mina and Cara, "are obviously beauties."
"Work slaves," grinned the leader.
Tupita was to my right. Tela was to my left. Then came Mina, and Cara. We were kneeling. We had been backed on our knees to a railing, until the backs of our necks were in contact with it. This railing, is front of the remains of what had apparently once been a long low building, perhaps a stable, or bunk house, or ranch house of sorts, was a hitching device, for beasts, probably tharlarion. At one time, I supposed, this might have been a ranch for tharlarion, or perhaps a boarding or training facility for racing tharlarion. Venna was not far away. It was now abandoned. Once we were in contact with the railing, once we could feel it hard against the back of our neck, we were roped to it, by the neck. Our hands were tied behind us. That had been done as soon as we had been brought up from the pit. That had been a frightening ascent, crouching in the bucket, supported by it, swaying back and forth, clinging to the rope, while being drawn upward. We made little noise during this ascent, terrifying though it might have been, for we had coiled and placed binding fiber in our mouths, this in accordance with instructions called down to us from above. Lengths for Tela, Tupita and myself had already been in the pit, it apparently having figured, with a long rope, in our descent. Lengths had been dropped down for Mina and Cara. The long, doubled rope used in lowering us had, in their cases, apparently simply been put under their wrist chaining. In this way, at least with Tela, Tupita and myself, they recovered their fiber, which would be used, in any case, again, and, in this particular mode of transporting it, prevented us from communicating, at least by explicit utterances, our terror to the others still below. By this device, too, of course, with the lengths dropped to them, Mina and Cara were kept quiet in their ascent. I was only too pleased when the hooked stick reached out and drew the bucket and rope to where a man could reach me. I was then knelt on the grass by the well. The binding fiber I must quickly force from my mouth with my tongue into a man" s hand. It was then, still wet, used to secure my hands behind me. I did not mind this, though, so pleased I was to be once more on the ground. I had then been taken to the railing, knelt, backed against it, and roped to it. Then my ankles, too, had been crossed, and tied. Tupita had already been so secured. After me had come Tela, and then Mina and Cara. In the case of Mina and Cara the binding fiber had been simply threaded through links close to their manacles and shackles. These links had then, with the fiber, been drawn close to one another and then tied there, closely together. Thus, in our various ways, all of us, the five of us, had been made absolutely helpless, exactly where and as we had been placed. We had been all, in our various ways, secured with typical Gorean efficiency. From where we knelt we could see the remains of the well, about forty yards away. It seemed to rise up from a small meadow, rather behind us, and to the left, trees across from us, smaller and wilder, had probably been abandoned for years.