"Do they ever try to escape?" I asked.
"No," said one lad.
"Not more than once," laughed another.
"That is true," said the first lad. "No such beast ever tries to escape from the Isanna more than once."
"Some who try to escape are killed by sleen on the prairie," said one of the lads. "The others are trailed and brought back to the camp where they are tied down by our women and, over three days, taught that escape is not permitted."
"What is the penalty for a second attempt at escape?" I asked.
"Hamstringing," said one of the lads, "and then being left behind when the camp moves."
"I see," I said. "May I speak to one of them?"
"Surely," said the first lad.
I approached the women.
"You," I said, indicating a dark-haired woman, "step forward."
She came forward immediately, and knelt before me.
"You may speak briefly to me," I said. "After that, you are returned, once more, to the linguistic conditions of the herd, that condition in which, without permission of a master or masters, or one acting in such a capacity, you may not use human speech. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Is there any escape for you?" I asked.
"No, Master," she said, frightened, and then put down her head, trembling. I saw, too, several of the other women shrink back.
"Are you certain?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said, frightened.
"What of these other women," I asked, "do they, too, know that?"
"Yes, Master," said the woman. "We all know it! We all know that escape is impossible for us!"
"You may withdraw," I said.
Quickly the woman scrambled back, into the herd.
Several of the other women in the herd, I had noticed, had been following these conversations, my conversations with the boys and then, later, my conversation with the woman. In their eyes I had seen terror. Well did they understand, I saw, the hopelessness of even the thought of escape. Even if they should elude their red pursuers, which seemed almost unthinkable, there would be waiting for them only the prairie, and the sleen. These women, like most white women in the Barrens, and they well knew it, to their terror, lived at the mercy of, and on the sufferance of, red masters.
"In a moon or two it will be time to think the herds," said one of the lads.
"We will trade some off and sell some others," said another lad.
"It seems that any of these would be worth keeping," I said, admiringly.
"It is a sleek herd," said one of the boys. "Doubtless serveral will be clothed and taken into private lodges for the winter moons."
"They are useful for digging under the snow for kailiauk chips," said a lad. Kailiauk chips were a common fuel on the plains.
"They are good, too," said the first lad, "for squirming in the robes."
"Yes," said another.
"If you like," said the first lad, "we will cut a girl out of the herd for you."
"He is the slave of Canka," said another lad. "Give him a good one."
"Would you like the dark-haired one you spoke to?" asked a lad. "It will take only a moment ot put a rope on her neck."
"No," I said. "Thank you." To be sure the dark-haired woman was a lovely specimen, a fine example of the lovely two-legged beasts in the herd. She was sweetly breasted, narrow-waisted and widely hipped. She had a delicioius love cradle. I had little doubt but what she might be worth two hides.
"There is a good one," said one of the boys, pointing out an auburn-haired beauty. "One lash of the quirt and she juices superbly."
"Actually," I said, "I am looking for a particular beast. May I examine the herd, to see if it is here."
"Of course," said the first lad.
I had thought that I had seen the particular animal I sought, shapely and blond, trying to hide itself in the herd.
It would take but a moment to make the necessary determination. I thrust the quirt I carried and the hide in which it had been wrapped, in my belt.
I entered among the women. "Give way," I said. "Kneel." The herd knelt.
I threaded my way among the kneeling slave beasts of the Isanna. Then I stopped beside one. She knelt low, her head down to the grass. I stood beside her and she began to tremble. I then took her by the hair and, crouching beside her, threw her, twisting her, to her side in the grass. My hand inher hair I then turned her face forcibly towards me, and held it thusly, so that I might see her featuers, fully. Yes, it was she whom I sought. I then put her again to her knees, pushing her head down to the grass.
"Place your wrists behind you, crossed," I said. She did so and, in a moment, with one end of the light, narrow rope. I carried, removed from my shoulder, I bound them together. I then took the rope up from her wrists and, pushing up her collar, looped it five times about her throat, and then took the free end of the rope under the rope leading up from her bound wrists, and then brought it forward. In this fashion a convenient, unknotted tether is formed. This type of tether is suitable for short leadings. The free end of the tether is slipped under the bond leading up from the wrists to prevent the girl from slipping it by the simple expedient of lowering and dipping her head a few times. She would still, of course, even in such a case, remain bound by the wrists.
The usual tether, it might be mentioned, is tied snugly but not tightly. There should be room to place two fingers between the throat and the inside of the tether. Any pressure felt by the prisoner must be felt on the back of the neck. A good Gorean tether constitues no impediment whatsoever to a girl's breathing. An exception is the choke collar which does interfere with a girl's breathing, but only if she is in the least bit recalcitrant. In the cities it is more common to use collars and leashes than tethers, or knotted tethers. The common leash has a snap clip, sometimes a locking one. This snap clip has a variety of uses. It can snap about a link or ring in its own leash, the leash then functioning as a self-contained collar-and-leash device, or about such things, say, as a collar, collar ring or neck bond, perhaps of rope or chain.
"On your feet," I said. The girl stood. I then led her forth from the herd, a sleek, curvaceous animal on her tether, my choice. She hurried behind me, that the slack in the tether not be taken up, as it was a wound, and unknotted tether, that it not tighten on her throat.
"She is pretty, but she is not the best choice," said the first lad.
"Oh?" I said.
"She is a block of ice," he said.
"I saw her twice, in the village," I said, "once in the entry of your band into the camp, and then, again, a day or so later. She seemed of interest."
"We send them into the villages, upon occasion, some of the," said the first lad, "to work, if there is a call for them, or to deliver roots and berries which they have gathered to the women. Too, of course, they are useful in twisting grass for tinder and gathereing wood and kailiauk chips for fuel. These things, then, too, they must deliver to the villages."
"Surely some are sent in occasionally for wench sport," I said.
"Sometimes we deliver a string of five or six into the camp for that purpose," said the first lad.
"Does this wench," I asked, indicating the girl on my tether, "often occupy a place in such a string?"
"No," laughed one of the lads.
"She is a block of ice," said the first lad.
"Choose another," invited one of the lads.
"How long may I keep her?" I asked.
"Until sundown," said the first lad. "She must then be put with the others."
I glanced at the slender ankles of my charge. I thought they would look well in close-fitting leather hobbles, twist hobbles, knkotted on the outside of the left ankle, which she, her hands bound behind her back, would be unable to remove. Such hobbles are also used, of course, for the two frong legs of kaiila.