Twice we stopped at palisaded villages, those of simple bosk herders. I liked these stops, for there we would have fresh bosk milk, still hot, and would have a roof over our heads for a night, be it only of grass. These villagers would always spread fresh straw in the hut in which we would be chained for the night. It smelled clean and dry. I loved to lie on it, after the canvas spread over the hard boards of the wagons.
Ute and Inge, and Ute in particular, were patient, indefatigable teachers. They taught me Gorean for hours a day and, of course, I heard nothing but this language. I soon found myself saying things in Gorean without thinking about it. I was taught the language as a child is taught, who has no language at his disposal. Accordingly I learned the language directly and immediately, fluidly, not as an architecture of grammatical cases and a series of vocabulary lists in which foreign terms stood matched with English terms. Ute and Inge, not knowing English, could not have presented me with an abstract structure of transformations and linguistic equations if they had wished. Knowing no English themselves, they had no choice but to teach me a living language, in life, as practical and concrete as a tool, as expressive and beautiful as flowers and clouds. It was not long before I caught myself, upon occasion, thinking in Gorean. And, only some ten days after my lessons had begun, I had my first dream in which intelligible Gorean was spoken to me and I responded, spontaneously, without thinking, in the same tongue. Interestingly, it was a dream in which I had managed to steal a candy and blame Lana, and she was beaten for it. I enjoyed the dream, but then it seemed Targo was coming for me, with the straps swinging in his hand. I awakened in a cold sweat, but safely chained in the wagon, on the canvas. It was raining outside, and I could hear the rain beat on the squarish roof of red rain canvas stretched over our heads. I could hear the breathing of the other girls in the wagon. I snuggled down again on the folded canvas beneath my body and, with a rustle of chain, listening to the rain, soon feel asleep again. In the beginning my grammer was not particularly good, but Inge helped me improve it. After a time, I could even detect certain regional differences in the dialects of the girls and the guards. My vocabulary would gradually become far more extensive, but I was pleased with myself. In only a few days, under the intensive tutelage of Ute and Inge, I had, to my delight and surprise, learned to speak passable Gorean. There was a special reason, of course, why I was so eager to learn the language. I wished to make contact with men who could return me to Earth. I was certain that I could, with my resources on Earth, purchase swift passage back to my home planet. Once I noted, speaking to Inge, that Ute, regularly, made certain grammatical errors.
"Yes," said Inge, matter-of-factly," she is of the leather workers." I then felt superior to Ute. I myself would not make those mistakes. I was Elinor Brinton.
"I will speak high-caste Gorean," I told Inge.
"But you are a barbarian," said Inge.
Briefly I hated her.
I told myself that Inge, with all her pretensions, she of the scribes, would still be a chained slave girl, at the beck and call of a master, when I, Elinor Brinton, was safe on Earth, once again, in my smug penthouse. And Ute, too! Foolish, stupid little Ute, who could not even speak her own language correctly! What could that meaningless little thing, pretty as she was, ever be but a man's toy? She was a natural slave girl! She belonged in chains. And Inge, too, for she was arrogant! They would remain on Gor, mastered girls, while I, Elinor Brinton, rich and clever, secure and safe, laughed in my penthouse a world away! How amusing that would be!
"Why does El-in-or laugh?" asked Ute, looking up.
"Elinor," I corrected her.
"Elinor," smiled Ute.
"It is nothing," I said.
We heard one of the guards shouting outside. We also heard, in the distance, some bosk bells.
"A retinue!" shouted one of the guards.
"There is a free woman with the retinue!" shouted another.
I heard Targo crying out. "Slaves out!"
I was thrilled. I had never seen a Gorean free woman. A guard hastily unlocked one end of the ankle bar and lifted it. One by one, we slid along the bar and to the back edge of the wagon, where the gate had been dropped. My ankles, and those of the other girls, were still joined, of course, by about a foot of chain and two ankle rings. As we left the wagon, each of us, one by one, we were thonged in a line, by binding fiber, in throat coffle. Then, craning for a look, we lined up beside the wagon. The girls from the other wagon, ahead of us, Lana among them, were already on the grass, looking.
We could see a large, flat wagon, drawn by four huge, beautifully groomed black bosk.
On the wagon, under a fringed, silken canopy, on a curule chair, there sat a woman.
The wagon was flanked by perhaps forty warriors, with spears, twenty to a side. We could hear the bosk bells, on the harness of the bosk, quite clearly now. The retinue would pass close by. Targo had gone out, his blue and yellow robe swirling, part way to meet it.
"Kneel," said one of the guards.
We did so, as in the display chain.
A Gorean slave girl in the presence of a free man or woman always kneels, unless excused from doing so. I had even learned to kneel when addressed by the guards and, of course, always, when approached by Targo, my master. A Gorean slave, incidentally, always addresses free men as "Master," and all free women as "Mistress."
I watched the flat wagon rolling closer.
The woman sat regally on the curule chair, wrapped in resplendent, many-colored silks. Her raiment might have cost more than any three or four of us together were worth. She was, moreover, veiled.
"Do you dare look upon a free woman? asked a guard.
I not only dared, but I was eager to do so. But, nudged by his foot, as the wagon approached, I lowered my head to the grass, as did the other girls. The wagon, and the retinue, stopped only a few feet opposite us.
I did not dare to raise my head.
I suddenly then understood that I was not as she. For the first time in my life I suddenly understood, kneeling in the grass in a Gorean field, the thundering, devastating realities of social institutions. I suddenly understood, as I had not before, how on Earth my position and my wealth had created an aura about me, that made lesser people respect me and move aside when I wished to pass, that made them deferential to me, eager to please me, fearful should they fail to do so. How naturally I had carried myself differently then they, better, more arrogantly. I was better! I was their superior! But now I was taken from my world.
"Lift you head, Child," said a woman's voice.
I did so.
She was no older than I, I am sure, but she addressed me as a child. The guard's foot nudged me again. "Buy me, Mistress," I stammered.
"A barbarian," smiled the woman. "How amusing."
"I picked her up in the fields," said Targo. He was anxious that my presence on his chain not be taken as evidence of his poor judgment. He wished to assure the woman that he had had me for nothing, that he would not have purchased such an inferior girl for his chain.
I looked into her eyes. How steadily she regarded me, over her veil, her eyes amused. How beautiful she seemed. How splendid and fine! I could no longer meet her eyes.
"You may lower your head, Girl," she said, not unkindly.
Gratefully I put my head again, swiftly, to the grass.
I was furious with how I acted, how I felt, but I could not help myself. She was so magnificent. I was nothing. The other girls, too, had their heads to the grass, kneeling before the free woman. They, like I, were only slaves, stripped, their ankles chained, their throats in leather coffle, branded girls, nothing before one who was free.
I wept. I was a slave girl.
There was a rustle of bosk bells and a creak of wheels. Targo moved back, bowing deeply, and the wagon slowly moved past us. The feet of the flanking guards passed within a yard or two of us.