by John Norman
"They have not yet served," said the man.
Borchoff appeared angry.
"But I will speak when it pleases me," said the man.
"We are humbly grateful," said Borchoff.
The prisoner inclined his head.
"You are of the warriors," said Borchoff.
"Perhaps," said the man.
"I like you," said Borchoff. Then he called out, "Sulda, Tupa, Fina, Melpomene, Dina, feast and please our mysterious guest, he who finds it difficult to recall his caste, his name or city."
We fled to the kneeling, chained man, obeying.
"Come nightfall next, we trust," said Borchoff, "his memory will be much improved."
"Is it the nineteenth hour?" asked the prisoner.
"No," said Borchoff.
"I shall speak," said he, "at the nineteenth hour."
"You fear the persuasions of the morrow?" inquired Borchoff.
"No," said the prisoner, "but there is a time and a place for speaking, as there is a time and a place for steel."
"It is a saying of the warriors," said Borchoff.
"Is it?" inquired the man.
Borchoff lifted his cup to him, saluting him. Borchoff, too, was of the warriors.
"It is unfortunate," said Borchoff, "that you fell living into our hands. The tharlarion pens of Turia require slaves for their cleaning."
There was much laughter about the tables at the witticism of Borchoff. I, too, and the other girls, laughed merrily. Much insult had he done to the prisoner, should he be of the warriors. I, and the others, found the thought amusing that the fellow should be enslaved and set to such lowly tasks. He had intimidated me in the courtyard, in spite of the fact that he had been helpless and chained. I thus found the thought of his prospective enslavement and labors particularly delicious. It would serve him so right!
The prisoner did not respond to Borchoff. Borchoff nodded to us, and then drank from his cup.
"Poor Master," I said to the kneeling, chained prisoner. I knelt beside him and took his head in my hands and pressed my lips to his, kissing him. "Poor Master," I said.
He looked at me. "You are the slut of the courtyard," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"It will be pleasant to tag you," he said. I did not understand him.
I, and the other girls, then began to kiss and caress him, to bring him wines and feed him delicacies. Much did we move about him, and serve him.
"It is the time of general pleasure!" called Borchoff.
The men in the room responded eagerly. "Dina!" called the fellow to whom I had earlier served the spiced hot meat.
I kissed the kneeling, chained prisoner swiftly, with the insulting kiss often given by the wives of Earth to their husbands. "Forgive me, Master," I said, "I must now serve another." Then I hurried away.
I heard the prisoner inquire the hour of Borchoff. "It is the eighteenth hour," said Borchoff.
* * * *
I lay in the arms of the Turian soldier, on the cushions on the tiles of the hall of Turian pleasures. I kissed him. He was the fourth one to whom I had been thrown. "How marvelous you are, Master," I whispered to him. I cuddled up to him, delicately lifting my head. I wanted him to give me a cube of meat, honeyed, from the metal plate which lay near him. I, and the other girls, might not take such food for ourselves. Our hands could be cut off. We are not fed hours before the feast, and, in serving the feast, are not permitted in the least to partake of it. The feast was not ours to eat, but to serve. We were slave girls. We might, however, be fed by the men. If we would eat, we must earn our food. "Please, Master," I wheedled, "feed Dina." He put a cube of meat, boiled in wine, honeyed, in my mouth, thrusting it between my teeth and cheek with his finger. "Thank you, Master," I whispered, kissing him, the meat in my mouth.
I looked up, savoring the meat. I looked across to Sulda. I had fed better than she this evening.
I was well learning, in the keep of Stones of Turmus, how to serve men.
I smiled at Sulda, and she looked at me, angrily. I looked over to the kneeling prisoner, now abandoned. He knelt alone on the tiles, chained. I was surprised to see his eyes upon me. More than once, though, this night, I had noted his eyes upon me. I smiled at him. I pursed my lips and blew a kiss to him, brushing it toward him with my fingers. I was permitted this gesture of insolence. The man with whom I lay laughed. I continued to look at the prisoner. Well had I and the other girls earlier mocked him this night. Well pleased were we with ourselves, and I thought that I had been the best in this work. How dared he adopt the attitude of a master toward me when he was only a chained captive? We had given him of wines, and of delicacies upon which to feast. Often had we spoken to him soothingly as though in deference and pity, as though he might not be kneeling chained in the fortress of enemies; sometimes, too, we had spoken to him in husky whispers, as though he had much aroused our feminine slave bloods; much had we pressed upon him our kisses, our caresses and attentions; well had we teased him, and taunted and humiliated him in his helplessness; slave girls are excellent in such work, and I thought that I had been the best.
He regarded me.
The soldier in whose arms I lay pulled me down and more closely to him. Eagerly I kissed him. I heard the musicians playing the music of Gor. Another soldier seized me by the ankle. "Wait," said the first, his word muffled against the side of my throat, where his mouth and teeth, below my ear, half kissed, half held me. I felt the hand of the first in my collar, behind my neck, pulling the steel up, tight under my chin, that I not be pulled from him. "Hurry with the slave," said the second, his hand on my ankle. "Only if it pleases me," said the first, not releasing my collar. I laughed. Then I cried out, as the first began to make me yield to him.
* * * *
"A little wine for Dina, Master," I begged.
I snuggled closer to him. I, as other girls, had crawled among the tables. Some men are more generous than others. Fina crept close. "Go away!" I ordered her. Angrily, she crept away, to seek another.
"A little wine for Dina, please, Master," I begged. He held back my head by the hair and thrust the rim of the cup against my mouth. I laughed, feeling the wine in my mouth, and spilling at my throat, running under the collar and, beneath the light silk, over my left breast.
The door to the hall suddenly burst open with a crash. Helmeted, armed men thrust their way into the room.
"The tarn wire has been cut!" cried a man. Then he reeled, bloody, from a blade.
Borchoff, drunk, staggered to his feet between the tables. The Turian soldiers looked wildly about. The music had stopped. Outside the hall we could hear fighting and shouting.
"To arms!" cried Borchoff. "Ring the alarm bell!"
More men swept into the room. Turian soldiers ran to the walls, to seize at their weapons. Slave girls screamed.
Then the room was in the control of the strangers. They were fierce, swift men, efficient, terrible. They wore gray helmets, with crests of the hair of larls and sleen. Their leather told me they were tarnsmen.
"The key to these chains," demanded the prisoner, rising to his feet.
Blades were set at the throat of Borchoff. His men were throwing down their weapons. The surprise had been complete. For the music we had heard nothing.
The wire had been cut, with bladed hooks, swung on long lines below tarns, cut, and torn from its posts. The tarnsmen had approached from the dark quadrant, away from the moons, low, not more than a few feet from the ground, hidden by the shadows of the world, and then had, without warning, little more than a quarter of a pasang from the keep, swept into the air, the first wave striking at the wire, the second, third and fourth waves dropping through the cut, billowing wire to the parapets, roofs and courtyard of the keep. Numbers had fought their way almost instantly to the hall. The plan of the fortress seemed well known to them. They moved with dispatch.
Borchoff, angry, now half sober, threw the key to the prisoner's chains to one of the intruders. Swiftly they were unlocked.
The man stood proudly, rubbing his wrists.
"Are you the leader of these men?" asked Borchoff.
"Yes," said the man.
"You were apprehended making inquiries," said Borchoff, "into the structure of our fortress and the nature of its defenses."
"The inquiries," said the man, "were completed earlier, and the plans devised. It was then necessary only to let myself fall into your hands."
"You intended your capture?" asked Borchoff.
"Yes," said the man. "I was thus brought into the fortress, where I might make further determinations, of such a nature as to expedite the transactions of my men." He then turned to certain of his lieutenants, issuing orders. The lieutenants, in turn, communicated with their men. Men sped to their work.
"You have been observant," said Borchoff.
"I attempted to improve my time," said the man. He grinned at Borchoff. "And your men, as I anticipated, were most helpful, speaking freely before, and to, one whom they thought destined to the chains of a slave."
Borchoff glared at his men.
The leader of the intruders was handed a pouch, which he slung about his shoulders, and a sword.
"I would continue the conversation, Captain," he said, "but you must understand that we must move with dispatch."
"Of course, Captain," said Borchoff. "We lie within the patrol limits of the tarnsmen of Ar."
"The evening's patrol will be delayed," said the man. "It seems there was a distraction, a burning field some pasangs to the south. It must be investigated and reported."
Borchoff's fists clenched.
"Chain him," said the man, indicating the very chains with which he himself, earlier, had been secured.
The chains were snapped on Borchoff.
"Who are you," demanded Borchoff, in fury, his wrists and ankles confined.
"Is it the nineteenth hour?" asked the man.
"Yes," said Borchoff.
"I am Rask," he said, "of the caste of warriors, of the city of Treve."
The slave girls screamed, and I broke, and fled with them. Behind us we could hear orders being given. The fortress would be sacked.
* * * *
I fled wildly down a dark passageway. I could hear a man behind me. Then he turned aside, to pursue another girl. The silk was half torn from me.
I tried to tear off the slave bells on my ankle. A girl sped past me, turning into another hallway. I looked wildly about. I saw a steel door. I slipped through. It was not guarded. Beyond the door was a passageway. I ran panting, slave bells jangling on my ankle, down this passageway. Then, opening a door, I saw a new passageway, one in which there burned a lamp, hanging on a chain. I remembered this second passageway. I had been conducted through it on my first day in Stones of Turmus. It was lined with barred gates. I pulled at the barred gates. Then I backed away from them. It would not be wise to hide within, could I even gain admittance. Behind lay treasures. They would be sure to be looted. I must look for the grosser storage places, those in which bulk goods were kept. These places, I remembered, were farther down the passageway, on the other side of a steel door. I fled down the passageway. I came to the heavy steel door. It was not now guarded. I left it ajar. Gate after gate I tried along the passageway below the steel door, those gates giving access to the storage areas for larger, less valuable merchandise, but all were locked. I jerked at the bars. I could not open them. I wept with frustration. I looked wildly back down the passageway, frightened. If anyone should enter the passageway I would be immediately visible, a fleeing, hunted, beautiful, half-silked, belled slave girl. I jerked again at the bars of a gate. I could not hide! There was no place to hide! I spun about, miserably, my back to the bars, moaning. I could feel them against my back. I looked again down the passageway. No one was yet in it. I touched the collar I wore. I clutched the bit of silk which still clung, loose, about my hips. I moaned. I was too beautiful, I knew, to be treated gently by Gorean men. I feared their ropes and whips. I was a slave! Who knew what they would do to me, if they would catch me! I saw then, below me, down the hallway, the door to the office of Borchoff. I ran to the door, pulled it open and entered. On the wall I saw the whip with which I had been disciplined, after some strokes of which I had begged, tamed, sobbing, to wear a collar. I touched the collar at my throat. I shrank back from the sight of the whip. Even the sight of a whip strikes terror into the heart of a slave girl. She knows what it can do to her. She has felt it. One of the most frightening things to a girl about the whip is the knowledge that the Gorean male, if he is not pleased with her, will use it, and without hesitation. I heard shouting from the passageway leading to the other door of Borchoff's office. I heard the striking of swords. I heard a girl scream. I heard a girl crying out piteously, pounding and scratching hysterically at the other side of the door. I hesitated. Then I heard her, an instant later, screaming, being pulled away from the door. "Bind her and take her to the parapets," I heard. "She is your tag," said a voice. "I shall take the next." I heard the girl cry out, in sudden pain. Then, a few moments later, I heard her being dragged away. I heard other voices. Then I moved back toward the door through which I had entered. The handle of the other door was being tried. Then I heard men kicking at the panels. I saw wood breaking in, splintering, and an arm reaching through, to unlatch the door. I turned and fled away, back the way I had come.
I heard men coming into the room which I had left.
Gasping, my bare feet hurting on the stones, I ran back down the passageway.
I darted through the steel door. I spun, running my hands along the door, to find a way to lock it. I cried out with misery. Its five bolts could not be shut. They were controlled by a vertical bar, which slid in brackets. The bar was padlocked back.
I ran again.
I did not know if the men who had entered Borchoff's office were in pursuit of me or not.
I stopped once again, trying to twist the slave bells, one by one, from the five-linked anklet which I wore, with its twenty bells. If I had had a tool to insert in the rings I might have done so. But I had no tool. The task was beyond the strength of my fingers.
I heard men in the passage.
My heart sank. I was still belled.
Then I thought that if I might reach the room of slave-girl preparation I might obtain the key to the bells. The keys were kept in a shallow wooden box in that room, a box the key to which was generally in Sucha's keeping. If the box were not open I might be able to break it, or its small lock, and thus obtain the keys.
I ran back along the passage.
In a few moments I reached the small iron door, through which I had first been introduced into the quarters for slaves.
It opened from this side.
I knelt down and opened the door, peering through. I saw a girl being dragged by the hair from the room, bent over, stumbling and weeping at the side of a warrior. I saw another girl, Melpomene, thrown on her stomach on the tiles beside the pool, a warrior kneeling across her body, tying her hands behind her back. Then he threw her over his shoulder and carried her lightly from the room. Only one other person did I see in the room, red-haired Fina, stripped, lying at the gate to her slave alcove; her left wrist wore a slave bracelet; the matching bracelet was closed, locked, about one of the bars of the alcove. She looked at me, miserably. I could not help her. She would wait for the return of her captor.
I tore bits of slave silk from my garment and wedged them in the two bolt receptacles, that the door not shut behind me.
I hurried to the room of slave girl preparation. It appeared in disarray, ransacked. I gathered girls had been taken there. The box containing the keys had been broken open, perhaps by men, looking for jewelries. Keys were scattered about.
I heard shouting, screaming.
Frenziedly I tried keys in the first of the locks. Outside the door I saw Sulda flee past. I shrank back.
She was taken on the far side of the pool. "Do not tag me," she screamed. Then I heard her cry out. Moments later I
saw her, wrists tied behind her, her hair down about her face, being thrust along, stumbling, held by the upper arm, at the side of a warrior.
"Hurry her to the parapet," I heard someone call.
I found the key to the slave bells. I unlocked the first tiny lock, and then the next three. The five-linked, joined circlets, opened. I cast the bells aside.
I then crept from the room of slave girl preparation, and, slipping about the side of the pool, went to the small iron door. I did not exit through it. I heard men on the other side, approaching. I turned again and fled, this time running through the barred gate which leads from the quarters of slaves. I then passed through the second gate. I felt the carpet under my feet.
I must find a place to hide!
I ran lightly down the hall.
Suddenly, ahead, from a side passage, I saw two men emerge. They held a girl, Tupa, between them.
I turned again, to flee back down the hall.
But, behind me, now, came two more men, doubtless those I had heard behind the small iron door, who had then entered the quarters for slaves, examined them, and the room for slave girl preparation, and then emerged through the two gates.
I was trapped in the corridor. I shrank back against the wall.
They approached. "It is the Dina," said one of them.
"Let her go," said the other.
Then the four men joined and went back toward the great hall, taking Tupa with them.
I stood back against the wall, breathing heavily, bewildered, terrified. They had not secured me.
I did not understand this. Did they not want me? Was I not suitable for them?
Was I to be left free?
At the far end of the hall, away from the gates leading to the quarters of slaves, I saw a figure, that of a man, tall, handsome, strong, splendid, with the bearing of one who leads Gorean warriors.
It was he called Rask of Treve. I turned and fled away.
* * * *
I crouched in the dark passageway, cornered. I saw the tiny lamp approach, from far down the passageway. I felt the walls of the passageway about me.