"No," said he. "I am a trader. I trade north of Ax Glacier for the furs of sleen, the pelts of leem and larts."
"A lonely work," I said.
"I have no Home Stone," he shrugged.
I pitied him.
"How is it," I asked, "that you fell slave?"
"The hide bandits," he said.
"I do not understand," I said.
"They have closed the country north of Ax Glacier," he said.
"How can this be?" I asked.
"Tarnsmen, on patrol," said he. "I was seized and, though free, sold south as a slave."
"Why should these men wish to close off the north?" I asked.
"I do not know," he said.
"Tarns cannot live at that latitude," I said.
"In the summer they can," said he. "Indeed, thousands of birds migrate each spring to the nesting cliffs of the polar basin."
"Not tarns," I said.
"No," said he. "Not tarns." Tarns were not migratory birds.
"Surely men can slip through these patrols," I said.
"Doubtless some do," he said.
"You were not so fortunate," I said.
"I did not even know they came as enemies," he laughed. "I welcomed them. Then I was shackled." He chewed on a piece of meat, then swallowed it. "I was sold at Lydius," he said. He looked up, again chewing, at the free woman. "I was bought there by this high lady," he said. He swallowed down the meat.
"What are you going to do with me?" she asked.
"I can think of many things," he said, regarding her.
"It would be simple to untie her ankles," I said.
"Do not touch me!" she said. "I am free."
"Perhaps you are a slave," he said.
"No," she said. "No! I am free!"
"We shall see," he said.
"I do not understand," she said.
He turned away from her, wiping his hands on his thighs. He went over to the edge of the pond, and, kneeling down beside the water, drank. When he got up he looked at the tracks there. When he returned, he smiled. "My thanks," said he.
I nodded.
I scanned the skies for the tarn. Game must indeed be scarce, I thought.
Constance put more wood on the fire. She glanced at the Lady Tina.
"Do not look at me, Slave!" hissed the Lady Tina.
"Forgive me, Mistress," said Constance. She looked away, frightened. She did not wish to be beaten.
"Sir," said the free woman, addressing her captor, Ram, once of Teletus.
"Yes," he said.
"My modesty is offended," she said. "I find it disagreeable to be unclothed before a slut of a slave who is not even my personal maid."
"In the morning," said he, "you will be partially clothed." She looked at him, puzzled.
"May I command your girl," he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Constance," said he.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Look well and carefully upon our prisoner," he said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
The free woman turned her head away, in fury.
"Do you think," he asked, "that she might make a pretty slave."
"I am not a man, Master," said Constance, "but I should think she might make even a beautiful slave."
"Please!" protested the free woman.
"Look upon her when and as you wish," said Ram.
"Yes, Master," smiled Constance. I saw her make a tiny face at the Lady Tina.
"Oh!" cried the Lady Tina, in fury, squirming in the leather.
"What do you think?" asked Ram of me.
"She squirms well," I said. "I think she is excellent meat for marking."
"I hate you all!" said the Lady Tina. "And I will never be a slave! You cannot make me a slave! Never, never will I be a slave. No man can make me a slave!"
"I shall not even try," said Ram.
She looked at him, startled.
"I shall not make you my slave," he said. "unless you beg to be my slave."
She threw back her head and laughed. "I would die first," she said.
"It is late now," I said. "I think we should sleep."
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Tarl," said I. "Let that suffice."
"Accepted," he said, smiling. He would not pry further into my affairs. Doubtless he assumed I was bandit, fugitive or assassin.
I took Constance by the arm, and threw her to his feet. It was a simple act of Gorean courtesy.
Constance looked at me, wildly.
"Please him," I said.
"Yes, Master," she whispered.
"Yes, slut," called the free woman. "Please him! Please him well, you stinking little slave!"
"My thanks, my friend," said the fellow once from Teletus. He took Constance by the arm to one side and threw her on the grass beneath him.
In a few Ehn she crept to my side in the furs, shuddering. He was asleep.
I looked over at the free woman. She was struggling in the narrow leather which confined her. But she would be unable to free herself. She had watched in fury, and, I think, ill-concealed envy at the rapine which had been worked upon Constance.
I, in the light of the subsiding fire, watched the Lady Tina fight weeping with her bonds.
He had said that in the morning he would partially clothe her. I had not understood this.
I observed her struggling. I thought she would look well in a slave collar. Then I went to sleep.
"Hear it?" I asked.
It was early morning. Ram sat upright in the grass. I stood near the tam, which had returned in the night, its beak smeared with blood and the hairs from the small yellow tabuk, of the sort which frequent Ka-la-na thickets. I cleaned its beak and talons with dried grass. I had already saddled the beast.
Constance lay to one side, curled in the furs. The free woman, the Lady Tina of Lydius, too, slept, lying on her side, exhausted from her struggles of the night. The sky was overcast, and gray.
"Yes," he said. "Sleen."
We could hear their squealing in the distance. There must have been four or five of the beasts.
"Master?" asked Constance, rubbing her eyes.
"It is sleen, in the distance," I said. "Get out of the furs, lazy girl."
She was frightened.
"We have time," I said.
"What weight can the tarn carry?" asked Ram.
"It is strong," I said. "It can carry, if need be, a rider and freighted tarn basket."
"Might I then request passage?" he smiled.
"It is yours," I said.
I rolled the furs in which Constance had lain, and put them across the back of the saddle, fastening the two straps which held them.
We could hear the sleen cries quite clearly now. I do not think they were more than a pasang away.
"This ring," I said to Ram, pointing to a ring at the left of the saddle, "will be yours."
"Excellent," he said.
"Come here, Constance," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said, running to me.
"Awaken, Lady Tina," I heard Ram say. He was bending near her.
"Cross your wrists before your body," I said to Constance. She did so and I lashed them together. I then carried her to the right side of the saddle and placed her left foot in a ring there, which I had wrapped with fur. Her tied wrists I looped over the pommel.
I, standing in the stirrup, looked over the fields. There were five sleen. They were about a half of a pasang away, excited, squealing, their snouts hurrying at the turf.
"I have an extra tunic here," I said to Ram, throwing it to him.
"What are you doing?" demanded the Lady Tina.
He had taken the rags he had worn about his hips and was, with what had been her dagger, punching holes in them. Through these holes he threaded a strip of her belt. He knotted the rags about her hips. Because of the lovely flare of her hips, the smallness of her waist, the sweet, exciting swelling of her breasts, she would be unable, her hands tied behind her, to pull or scrape the garment from her.
"Is your modesty less offended now?" he asked. He slipped on the tunic which I had thrown him.