“‘Here, kajira, here!’ called a mercenary. I fled gratefully to his side. At last I had a man to defend me. I had a champion. I realized then, as I had never before, when I had been sheltered within the arrangements, laws, and customs of a civil order, which I had taken so much for granted, how thin, and possibly transitory, such things were, and what might lie at their elbow, or nigh, on the other side of that lovely curtain, separating comfort and security from the cruelties and hazards of a perilous nature.
“Some think the jungle is faraway, that it is east of Schendi, as distant as the valley of the Ua, but it is not. It is here. It is with us, patient, and waiting. It is as close as the hearts of men.
“‘Stop!’ I heard, and spun about. A fellow, from Ar, I supposed, had called out. He had not been at the perimeter. I doubt that he thought me free. I think, merely, he wanted to pick up a slave. How fearful, I thought, to be a slave, to be an object, a property, a possession, an animal, something which might be bought and sold, or given away, or, as here, something which might be simply gathered in, simply acquired. Put a rope on her neck and she is yours! But I must not be brought back to Ar! As soon as I was stripped, as I would be, as a slave, my lack of a brand would be obvious, and then there would be inquiries, and the proscription lists would be certain to be examined. I must not be returned to Ar!
“‘Begone,’ said the mercenary, stepping between me and the fellow. The fellow looked at the mercenary, in his helmet, with his shield, and a spear whose reddened blade had recently drunk the blood of a foe, and then backed away. In a few moments he had disappeared.”
I said nothing, but I supposed that the mercenary, before approaching the fellow, would have examined the sky behind him. The woman would not have been aware of this, as she would have been facing her pursuer. Occasionally a warrior on foot and a tarnsman collaborate on a kill. The warrior on foot engages the target, and the tarnsman, unseen, glides in, silently, placing a bolt in the adversary’s unprotected back. This act is scorned in the codes, of course, but it is not without precedent in the field. It is common amongst outlaws and rogue tarnsmen.
“‘Should you not have killed him?’ I asked, frightened. ‘I am not a butcher,’ he said.
“‘Continue to protect me,’ I said. ‘Turn about,’ he said, ‘and put your wrists behind you.’ ‘Master?’ I said. ‘You are to be braceleted,’ he said. ‘But then, here, outside the city, in the fields, I would be utterly helpless,’ I said. ‘Such as you, pretty kajira,’ he said, ‘are to be utterly helpless.’ I trembled, to think myself so much in the power of men, as much as a kajira.”
I smiled.
“I turned and fled away from him, and I discovered, some hundred yards away, gasping, turning about, my feet now raw, that he had not pursued me. Were such as I so common that we were not worth our pursuit? I was elated to be free of him, but frightened, as well, for who would now protect me? And, oddly, my vanity was offended. Surely I was the most beautiful woman he had ever beheld, and yet he did not pursue me, throw me to the ground and fasten my wrists behind me! Standing in the gentle, green, wind-moved grass, alone, looking about, I saw, here and there, in the fields, small groups, moving away from the city. I could see her towers in the distance. Some of these groups had small strings of stripped, neck-roped women with them. Here and there I saw a tarnsman in the sky, almost certainly one of Ar. I saw no pursuits from the city. I did not know where to go or what to do, and I was suddenly aware that I was hungry. I felt the hem of my tunic, reassuring me of the jewels sewn there, and the small key ensconced in its tiny sleeve.”
“You were fortunate to escape Ar,” I said.
“I set out in the direction others were moving,” she said. “I could not go back to Ar. I thought I might reach Torcadino, from whence I might purchase wagon passage to Brundisium, Besnit, Harfax, or Market of Semris. I would avoid Ko-ro-ba and Thentis as they did not favor those of Ar. Too, one would not seek Port Kar, as it is a den of thieves and cutthroats, and Tharna was out of the question. There is only one free woman in Tharna, Lara, her Tatrix. All others are held in the most severe of bondages. No free woman may even enter the gates of Tharna without being temporarily licensed and placed in the custody of a male. Those of Tharna wear in their belt the two yellow cords, each eighteen inches in length, suitable for binding females, hand and foot.”