Vagabonds of Gor (34 page)

"I am a free woman!" she cried.

"So, too," said I, "once were most slaves."

She struggled.

"Do you fear no longer being pampered," I asked, "but having to obey and serve, immediately, unquestioningly?"

Again she struggled.

"Surely you understand that you are exciting when you move like that," I said.

She made a noise of frustration.

"Slave girls are sometimes ordered to writhe in their bonds and attempt to free themselves," I said. "But they know, of course, that they cannot do so."

She tried to remain absolutely still. Her exertions, however, had caused her to breathe heavily, and her gasping, the lifting and lowering of her breasts was also lovely.

"And when they finish their writhing, their futile attempts to free themselves," I said, "they have reconfirmed perfectly their original comprehension of their total helplessness."

She looked at me, in fury.

"As you have now," I said.

"Free me," she said.

"I shall return you to your village," I said. "There may be a reward for your return."

"I do not want to go back," she said.

"No matter," I said. "Where is it?"

"If I am taken back to be forcibly mated," she said, "my companion may keep me in shackles."

"I think your ankles would look well in shackles," I said.

"Do I know you?" she asked, suddenly, frightened.

"More likely you would be beaten with rence stalks," I said.

"I do not know where the village is," she said.

"We can inquire at several of the local villages," I said.

"No!" she said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Brigands did not put me here," she said.

"True," I said, "if brigands had taken you, they would have bound you hand and foot and taken you to the edge of the delta, there to sell you off as a slave."

She looked down at me.

"You have been caught in a lie," I said.

She pulled back, against the post.

"It is fortunate that you are not a slave," I said.

"I am not a rence girl," she said.

"I am not surprised," I said, "as few of them, I suspect, speak in the accents of Ar."

"I cannot place your accent," she said.

I was silent. My Gorean doubtless bore traces of various regional dialects. Too, although this was really not so clear to me, I suppose I spoke Gorean with an English accent. More than one slave, women brought here from Earth to serve Gorean masters, had intimated that to me. I did not beat them.

"What are your sympathies?" she asked.

"What are yours?" I asked.

"I do not think you are a rencer," she said.

"That is true," I said. "I am not a rencer."

"But you said you were not of Ar," she said, suddenly, eagerly.

"True," I said.

"And your accent is not of Ar!"

"No," I said.

"Then free me!" she said, elatedly.

"Why?" I asked.

"We are allies!" she said.

"How is that?" I asked.

"I am a spy for Cos!" she exclaimed.

"How came you here?" I asked.

"A rencer village was burned," she said, "burned to the water. Later, rencers, in force, attacked a column of Ar, that on the right flank of her advance into the delta. Afterwards, in a small, related action, my barge was ambushed. My guards fled into the marsh, abandoning me. I was seized, and, though I was a free woman, stripped and bound! The barge was burned. I was taken to a rencer village, and kept prisoner, naked, in a closed, stifling hut. For a time, days, it seemed terrible flies were everywhere. I was protected in the hut. After they had gone I was still kept in the hut, though now bound hand and foot. Then yesterday morning I was brought here."

I found these things easy to believe, given her present situation. Also the very pole I was using for the raft had been gilded, though the gilding, when I retrieved it from the marsh, had been muchly burned away.

"Why have they put me here?" she asked, "Do they not know the danger from tharlarion?"

"You have been put here for tharlarion," I said. "Surely you must have suspected that."

"But why?" she asked.

"A village was burned," I said.

"I told them of my Cosian sympathies," she said.

"You probably told them many things," I said.

"Of course," she said.

"In the accents of Ar," I said.

"Of course," she said.

"And threatened them?"

"Of course," she said.

"And lied muchly to them?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "but as it turned out, it didn't matter, for the rencers do not even speak Gorean."

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"They never spoke to me," she said.

"They speak Gorean perfectly," I said, "though, to be sure, with accents much more like those of the western Vosk basin, than those of the courts, the baths and colonnades of Ar."

She turned white.

"But at least," I said, "they have honored you as a free woman, putting you here for the tharlarion."

"Why would they not have kept me--even if--even if--"

"As a slave?" I asked, helping her.

"Yes!" she said.

"There are probably various reasons," I said.

"But what?" she asked.

"The burning of the village, vengeance, their hatred for those of Ar," I suggested.

"But I am a woman!" she protested.

"Perhaps," I said. "You would seem at least to have a female's body."

"I am a woman!" she said. "Wholly a woman!"

"How can that be," I asked, "as you are not yet a slave?"

She moved angrily in the leather.

It interested me that she would now, in her present plight, naturally, unthinkingly, and unquestioningly fall back upon, acknowledge, and call attention to, the uniqueness and specialness of her sex, its difference from that of men, and its entitlement to its particular considerations.

"Why would they put me here?" she asked. "Why would they not spare me-if only to make me a slave?"

"I wondered about that," I said.

"Well?" she asked.

"From what you have told me, I now think the answer is clear," I said.

"What?" she said.

"I suspect it has to do with their assessment of your character," I said.

"I do not understand," she said.

"I suspect they did not regard you as being worthy of being a slave," I said.

"What!" she cried.

"Yes," I said, "I suspect they did not think you were worthy of being a slave."

"But a free woman is a thousand times more valuable than a slave!" she said.

"Many," said I, "regard a slave as a thousand times more valuable than a free woman."

She cried out, angrily.

It interested me that she had put a specific value on a free woman.

"But then," I said, "many also believe that the free woman and the slave are the same, except for a legal technicality."

"Surely you do not mean that slaves are actually free women," she said.

"No," I said. "I do not mean that."

"Sleen! Sleen!" she said.

"Free women are only slaves, not yet collared," I said.

"Sleen!" she wept.

"I must be on my way," I said.

"No, no!" she said. "You must take me with you! I know your sympathies are with Cos! So, too, are mine! I may be of Ar, but I am an agent of Cos. Thus we are allies!"

"You admit that you are a Cosian spy?" I said.

"Yes," she said, hesitantly.

"Truly?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Speak loudly and clearly," I said. "I am a Cosian spy," she said.

"More clearly, more loudly," I said. "I am a Cosian spy," she said. "Excellent," I said.

"Release me now," she said.

"But my sympathies are not with Cos," I said. "But you are not of Ar!" she said.

"My sympathies are with neither Ar nor Cos," I said. "What is your Home Stone?" she asked, suddenly, fearfully. "That of Port Kar," I said.

She moaned. It is said that the chains of a slave girl are heaviest in Port Kar.

I made as though to leave.

"Wait!" she cried.

I turned, again, to face her.

"Free me!" she said. "I will give you riches!"

"The only riches you have to bestow," I said, "and they are not inconsiderable, are now in the keeping of rencer thongs."

"I will give them to you!" she said.

"They are mine for the taking," I pointed out to her.

"Then take them," she urged.

"I must be on my way," I said.

"You cannot leave me here for tharlarion!" she wept.

"Rencers have seen fit to put you here," I said. "Who am I, a fellow of Port Kar, a stranger in the delta, to dispute their choice?"

"They are barbarians!" she said. "Perhaps less so than I," I said. "Free me," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"I will make it worth your while," she said.

"In what way?" I asked. "As a female," she said.

"Speak more clearly," I said.

"As a female, with my favors!"

"Interesting," I said.

" 'Interesting'?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, "you bargain with your beauty."

"Of course," she said.

"But then it seems you have little more to bargain with."

She blushed, again, even to her toes.