I feared that Tuka would not run well, thus losing us the match, that she would deliberately allow herself to be easily snared.
But then I realized that this was not true. If Kamchak and her master were not convinced that she had run as well as she might, it wool not go easily with her. She would have contributor to the victory of a Kassar over a Tuchuk. That night, one of the hooded members of the Clan of Torturers would have come to her wagon and fetched her away, never to be seen again. She would run well, hating Elizabeth or not. She would be running for her life.
Kamchak wheeled his kaiila and joined us. He pointed his lance to Elizabeth Cardwell. "Remove your furs," he said.
Elizabeth did so and stood before us in the pelt of the larl, with the other girls.
Although it was late in the afternoon the sun was still bright. The air was chilly. There was a bit of wind moving the grass.
A black lance was fixed in the prairie about four hundred yards away. A rider beside it, on a kaiila, marked its place. It was not expected, of course, that any of the girls would reach the lance. If one did, of course, the rider would decree her safe. In the run the important thing was time, the dispatch and the skill with which the thing was accomplished. Tuchuk girls, Elizabeth and Tuka, would run for the Kassars; the two Kassar girls would run for Kamchak and myself; naturally each slave does her best for her master, attempting to evade his competitor.
The time in these matters is reckoned by the heartbeat of a standing kaiila. Already one had been brought. Near the animal, on the turf, a long bask whip was laid in a circle, having a diameter of somewhere between eight and ten feet. The girl begins her run from the circle. The object of the rider is to effect her capture, secure her and return her, in as little time as possible, to the circle of the whip. Already a grizzled Tuchuk had his hand, palm flat, on the silken side of the standing kaiila.
Kamchak gestured and Tuka, barefoot, frightened, stepped into the circle.
Conrad freed his bole from the saddle strap. He held in his teeth a boskhide thong, about a yard in length. The saddle of the kaiila, like the tarn saddle, is made in such a way as to accommodate, bound across it, a female captive, rings being fixed on both sides through which binding fiber or thong may be passed. On the other hand, I knew, in this sport no time would be taken for such matters; in a few heartbeats of the kaiila the girl's wrists and ankles would be lashed together and she would be, without ceremony, slung over the pommel of the saddle, it the stake, her body the ring.
"Run," said Conrad quietly.
Tuka sped from the circle. The crowd began to cry out, to cheer, urging her on. Conrad, the thong in his teeth, the bole quiet at his side, watched her. She would receive a start of fifteen beats of the great heart of the kaiila, after which she would be about half way to the lance.
The judge, aloud, was counting.
At the count of ten Conrad began to slowly spin the bole. It would not reach its maximum rate of revolution until he was in full gallop, almost on the quarry.
At the count of fifteen, making no sound, not wanting to warn the girl, Conrad spurred the kaiila in pursuit, bole swinging.
The crowd strained to see.
The judge had begun to count again, starting with one, the second counting, which would determine the rider's time. The girl was fast and that meant time for us, if only perhaps a beat. She must have been counting to herself because only an instant or so after Conrad had spurred after her she looked over her shoulder, seeing him approaching. She must then have counted about three beats to herself, and then she began to break her running pattern, moving to one side and the other, making it difficult to approach her swiftly.
"She runs well," said Kamchak.
Indeed she did, but in an instant I saw the leather flash of the bole, with its vicious, beautiful almost ten-foot sweep, streak toward the girl's ankles, and I saw her fall. It was scarcely ten beats and Conrad had bound the struggling, scratching Tuka, slung her about the pommel, raced back, kaiila squealing, and threw the girl, wrists tied to her ankles, to the turf inside the circle of the boskhide whip. "Thirty," said the judge.
Conrad grinned.
Tuka, as best she could, squirmed in the bonds, fighting them. Could she free a hand or foot, or even loosen the thong, Conrad would be disqualified.
After a moment or two, the judge said, "Stop," and Tuka obediently lay quiet. The judge inspected the thongs. "The wench is secured," he announced.
In terror Tuka looked up at Kamchak, mounted on his kaiila.
"You ran well," he told her.
She closed her eyes, almost fainting with relief.
She would live.
A Tuchuk warrior slashed apart the thongs with his quiva and Tuka, only too pleased to be free of the circle, leaped up and ran quickly to the side of her master. In a few moments, panting, covered with sweat, she had pulled on her furs. The next girl, a lithe Kassar girl, stepped into the circle and Kamchak unstrapped his bole. It seemed to me she ran excellently but Kamchak, with his superb skill, snared her _ 72 easily. To my dismay, as he returned racing toward the circle of the boskhide whip the girl, a fine wench, managed to sink her teeth into the neck of the kaiila causing it to rear squealing and hissing, then striking at her. By the time Kamchak had cuffed the girl from the animal's neck and struck the kaiila's snapping jaws from her twice-bitten leg and returned to the circle, he had used thirty-five beats. He had lost.
When the girl was released, her leg bleeding, she was beaming with pleasure.
"Well done," said Albrecht, her master, adding with a grin, "For a Turian slave."
The girl looked down, smiling.
She was a brave girl. I admired her. It was easy to see that she was bound to Albrecht the Kassar by more than a length of slave chain.
At a gesture from Kamchak Elizabeth Cardwell stepped into the circle of the whip.
She was now frightened. She, and I as well, had supposed that Kamchak would be victorious over Conrad. Had he been so, even were I defeated by Albrecht, as I thought likely, the points would have been even. Now, if I lost as well, she would be a Kassar wench.
Albrecht was grinning, swinging the bole lightly, not in a circle but in a gentle pendulum motion, beside the stirrup of the kaiila.
He looked at her. "Run," he said.
Elizabeth Cardwell, barefoot, in the larl's pelt, streaked for the black lance in the distance.
She had perhaps observed the running of Tuka and the Kassar girl, trying to watch and learn, but she was of course utterly inexperienced in this cruel sport of the men of the wagons. She had not, for example, timed her counting, for long hours, under the tutelage of a master, al against the heartbeat of a kaiila, he keeping the beat but not informing her what it was, until she had called the beat. Some girls of the Wagon Peoples in fact, incredible though it seems, are trained exhaustively in the art of evading the bole, and such a girl is worth a great deal to a master, who uses her in wagering. One of the best among the wagons I had heard was a Kassar slave, a swift Turian wench whose name was Dina. She had run in actual competition more than two hundred times; almost always she managed to interfere with and postpone her return to the circle; and forty times, an incredible feat, she had managed to reach the lance itself. At the count of fifteen, with incredible speed, Albrecht, bole now whirling, spurred silently after the fleeing Elizabeth Cardwell. She had misjudged the heartbeat or had not under- stood the swiftness of the kaiila, never having before ob- served it from the unenviable point of view of a quarry, because when she turned to see if her hunter had left the vicinity of the circle, he was upon her and as she cried out the bole struck her in an instant binding her legs and throwing her to the turf. It was hardly more than five or six beats, it seemed, before Elizabeth, her wrists lashed cruelly to her ankles, was thrown to the grass at the judge's feet. "Twenty-five!" announced the judge.