Rim grinned.
There was, outside, the shouting of men in the street. We looked to one another. Thurnock threw down a silver tarsk on the table.
I, too, was curious. So, too, was Rim. He regarded Tendite.
She moved to dart away. Quickly, he took her by the hair and pulled her quickly, bent over, to a low, sloping side of the room. “Key” he called to the proprietor, pointing toward the side of the room. The proprietor hurried over, in his apron, and handed Rim a key. It was number six. Rim, taking the key in his mouth, put the girl down rudely on her knees, her back to the low wall, took her hands back and over her head and snapped them into slave bracelets, dangling on a chain, passing through a heavy ring set in the wall. He then took the key, which could open the bracelets, and dropped it in his pouch. She looked up at him, in fury. It is a way of reserving, for a time, a girl for yourself. “I shall return shortly,” he said.
She knelt there, in the darkness of the side of the room, in her yellow silk, her hands locked above and behind her head.
“Do not run away,” Rim cautioned her.
He then turned to join us and, together, we left the tavern, to see what the commotion might be outside. Many others, too, had left the tavern.
The girl had left the dancing sand. Even the musicians poured out of the tavern. We walked along the front of the street, until we came to a side street, leading down to the wharves. It was not more than a hundred yards from the tavern. Men, and women and children, were lining the side street, and others were pouring in from the street before the tavern.
We heard the beating of a drum and the playing of flutes.
“What is going on?” I asked a fellow, of the metal workers.
“It is a judicial enslavement,” he said.
With Rim and Thurnock, moving in the crowd, I craned for a look.
I saw first the girl, stumbling. She was already stripped. Her hands were tied behind her back. Something, pushing her from behind, had been fastened on her neck. Behind her came a flat-topped wagon, of some four feet in height. It was moved by eight tunicked, collared slave girls, two to each wheel, pushing at the wheels. It was guided by a man walking behind it, by means of a lever extending back, under the wagon, from the front axle. Flanking the wagon, on both sides, were musicians, with their drums and flutes. Behind the wagon, in the white robes, trimmed with gold and purple, of merchant magistrates, came five men. I recognized them as judges.
A pole extended from the front of the wagon, some eight or nine feet. There was, at its termination, a semicircular leather cushion, with a short chain. The girl’s neck had been forced back against the cushion, and then the chain had been fastened, securing her, standing, in place. As the wagon moved forward, she was, thus, forced to walk before it. The pole, projecting out from the wagon, isolated her, keeping her from other human beings.
The music became louder.
I suddenly recognized the girl. It was she who had cut my purse earlier in the day, the sensuous little wench, whose ear had been notched. I gather that she had not had such good fortune later in the day. I well knew what the punishment was for a Gorean female, following her second conviction for theft. On the flat-topped wagon, fastened to one side on a metal plate, already white with heat, was a brazier, from which protruded the handles of two irons. Also mounted on the wagon was a branding rack, of the sort popular in Tyros. It was, I conjectured, another instance of the cultural minglings which characterized the port of Lydius.
The wagon stopped on the broad street, before the wharves, where the crown could gather about.
A judge climbed, on wooden stairs at the back of the wagon, to its surface. The other judges stood below him, on the street.
The girl pulled at the leather binding fiber fastening her wrists behind her back. She moved her neck and head in the confinement of the chain and leather, at the end of the pole.
“Will the Lady Tina of Lydius deign to face me?” asked the judge, using the courteous tones and terminology with which Gorean free women, often inordinately honored, are addressed.
I looked quickly at Rim ND Thurnock. “Tina!” I said.
They grinned. “It must be she,” said Rim, “who drugged Arn, and took his gold.” Thurnock grinned.
I, too, smiled. It must indeed be she. Arn, I supposed, would have much relished being here.
I suspected that little Tina would cut few purses in the future.
“Will the Lady Tina of Lydius please deign to face me?” asked the judge, with the same courtesy as before.
The girl turned in the chain and leather to face her judge, standing removed from her and above her, in his white robes, trimmed with two borders, one of gold, the other of purple.
“You have been tried, and convicted, of the crime of theft,” intoned the judge. “She stole two gold pieces from me!” cried a man standing in the crowd. “And I had witnesses!” “It took an Ahn to catch her,” said another man, laughing.
The judge paid no attention to these speakings.
“You have been tried and convicted of the crime of theft,” said the judge, “for the second time.” The girl’s eyes were terrified.
“It is now my duty, Lady Tina,” said the judge, “to pass sentence on you.” She looked up at him.
“Do you understand?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, “my judge.”
“Are you prepared now, Lady Tina of Lydius,” said the judge, “to hear your sentence?” “Yes,” she said, regarding him, “my judge.” “I herewith sentence you, Lady Tina of Lydius,” said the judge, “to slavery.” There was a shout of pleasure from the crowd. The girl’s head was down. She had been sentenced.
“Bring her to the rack,” said the judge.
The man who had guided the wagon from the rear, and had now locked the brake on the front wheel, went to the bound girl. He unfastened the chain that bound her against the curved leather at the end of the pole, and, holding her by the arm, her wrists still tied behind her, led her to the rear of the wagon, and up the steps. She then stood beside her judge, barefoot on the flat-topped, wooden wagon. Her head was down.
“Lady Tina,” requested the judge, “go to the rack.”
Wordlessly, the girl went and stood by the rack, her back to the curved stone. The man who had brought her to the wagon now knelt before her, locking metal clasps on her ankles.
He then went behind her, and unbound her wrists. “Place your hands over your head,” he said. She did so. “Bend your elbows,” he said. She did so. “Lie back,” he then said, supporting her. She did so, and was stretched over the curved iron. He then took her wrists and pulled her arms almost straight. He then locked her wrists in metal clasps, similar to those, though smaller, which confined her ankles. Her head was down. He then bent to metal pieces, heavy, curved and hinged, which were attached to the sides of the rack, and a bit forward. Each piece consisted of two curved, flattish bands, joining at the top. He lifted them, and dropped them into place. Then, with two keys, hanging on tiny chains at the sides, he tightened the bands. They were vises. She might now be branded on either the left or right thigh. There was ample room, I noted, between the bands on either side, to press the iron. She was held perfectly. Her tanned thigh could not protest so much as by the slightest tremor. She would be marked cleanly.
The man, placing heavy gloves on his hands, withdrew from the brazier a slave iron. Its tip was a figure some inch and a half high, the first letter in cursive script, in the Gorean alphabet, of the expression Kajira.
It is a beautiful letter.
The judge looked down upon the Lady Tina of Lydius. She, fastened over the rack, stripped, looked up at him, in his robes, those with two borders, one of gold, the other of purple. Her eyes were wild.
“Brand the Lady Tina of Lydius,” he said. “Brand her slave. Then he turned, and departed from the platform.