It was a large wagon, drawn by eight black bask. There were two Tuchuk guards outside. Beside it, fixed in the earth, on a pole, there was a standard of four bask horns. The pole had been painted red, which is the color of commanders. Inside the wagon, under the door, I could see light. "I wish you well," said Harold.
"I wish you well," I said.
The two Tuchuk guards saluted us, striking their lances three times on their shields.
We acknowledged the salute, lifting our right hands, palm inward. "You certainly have a fast kaiila," remarked Harold. "The race," I said, "is all in the rider."
"As it was," said Harold, "I scarcely beat you."
"I thought I beat you," I said.
"Oh?" asked Harold.
"Yes," I said. "How do you know I didn't beat you?" "Well," said Harold, "I don't know but that would cer tainly seem unlikely, would it not?"
"Yes," I sail, "I suppose so."
"Actually," said Harold, "I am uncertain who won." "So am I,"I admitted. "Perhaps it was a tie," I suggested. "Perhaps," he said, "incredible though that might seem." He looked at me. "Would you care to guess seeds in a tospit?" he inquired. "Odd or even?"
"No," I said.
"Very well," said he, grinning, and lifted his right hand in Gorean salute. "Until morning."
I returned the salute. "Until morning," I said.
I watched Harold ride towards his wagon, whistling a Tuchuk tune. I supposed the little wench Hereena would be waiting for him, probably collared and chained to the slave ring. Tomorrow I knew the assault would begin on the House of Saphrar and the tower of Ha-Keel. Tomorrow one or both of us, I supposed, might be dead.
I noted that the bask seemed well cared for, and that their coats were groomed, and the horns and hoofs polished. Wearily I gave the kaiila to one of the guards and mounted the steps of the wagon.
I entered the wagon and stopped, startled.
Within, a girl, across the wagon, beyond the tiny fire bowl — in the center of its floor, standing on the thick rug, near a hanging tharlarion oil lamp, turned suddenly to face me, clutching about herself as well as she could a richly wrought yellow cloth, a silken yellow sheet. The red band of the Koora bound back her hair. I could see a chain running across the rug from the slave ring to her right ankle. "You!" she cried.
She held her hand before her face.
I did not speak, but stood dumbfounded, finding myself facing Elizabeth Cardwell.
"You're alive!" she said. And then she trembled. "You must flee!" she cried.
"Why?" I asked.
"He will discover you!" she wept. "Go!"
Still she would not remove her hand from before her face. "Who is he?" I asked, startled.
"My master!" she cried. "Please got"
"Who is he?" I inquired.
"He who owns this wagon" she wept. "I have not yet seen him! , Suddenly I felt like shaking, but did not move, nor betray emotion. Harold had said that Elizabeth Cardwell had been given by Kamchak to a warrior. He had not said which warrior. Now I knew "Has your master visited you often?" I asked.
"As yet, never," said she, "but he is in the city and may this very night come to the wagon!"
"I do not fear him," I said.
She turned away, the chain moving with her. She pulled the yellow sheet more closely about her. She dropped her hand from before her face and stood facing the back of the wagon.
"Whose name is on your collar?" I asked.
"They showed me," she said, "but I do not know I cannot read"
What she said, of course, was true. She could speak Gorean but she could not read it. For that matter many Tuchuks could not, and the engraving on the collars of their slaves was often no more than a sign which was known to be theirs. Even those who could read, or pretended to be able to, would affix their sign on the collar as well as their name, so that others who could not read could know to whom the slave belonged. Kamchak's sign was the four bask horns and two quivas. I walked about the fire bowl to approach the girl."Don't look at me," she cried, bending down, holding her face from the light, then covering it with her hands. I reached over and turned the collar somewhat. It was attached to a chain. I gathered the girl was in Sirik, the chain on the floor attached to the slave ring running to the twin ankle rings. She would not face me but stood covering her face, looking away. The engraving on the Turian collar consisted of the sign of the four bask horns and the sign of the city of Ko-ro-ba, which I took it, Kamchak had used for my sign. There was also an inscription in Gorean on the collar, a simple one. I am Tart Cabot's girl. I restraightened the collar and walked away, going to the other side of the wagon, leaning my hands against it, wanting to think. I could hear the chain move as she turned to face me. "What does it say?" she begged.
I said nothing.
"Whose wagon is this?" she pleaded.
I turned to face her and she put one hand before her face, the other holding the yellow sheet about her. I could see now that her wrists were encircled with slave bracelets, linked to the collar chain, which then continued to the ankle rings. A second chain, that which I had first seen, fastened the Sirik itself to the slave ring. Over the hand that shielded the lower part of her face I could see her eyes, and they seemed filled with fear. "Whose wagon is it?" she pleaded.
"It is my wagon," I said.
She looked at me, thunderstruck. "No," she said, "it is the wagon of a commander he who could command a Thou- sand."
"I am such," I said. "I am a commander."
She shook her head.
"The collar?" she asked.
"It says," I said, "that you are the girl of Tarl Cabot." "Your girl?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Your slave?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
She did not speak but stood looking at me, in the yellow sheet, with one hand covering her face.
"I own you," I said.
Tears shone in her eyes and she sank to her knees, trem- bling, unable to stand, weeping.
I knelt beside her. "It is over now, Elizabeth," I said. "It is finished. You will no longer be hurt. You are no longer a slave. You are free, Elizabeth."
I gently took her braceleted wrists in my hands and re- moved them from her face.
She tried to twist her head away. "Please don't look at me, Tarl," she said.
In her nose, as I had suspected, there glinted the tiny, fine golden ring of the Tuchuk woman.
"Don't look at me, please," she said.
I held her lovely head with its soft dark hair in my hands, gazing on her face, her forehead, her dark, soft eyes, with tears, the marvelous, trembling mouth, and set in her fine nose, delicate and lovely, the tiny golden ring.
"It is actually very beautiful," I said.
She sobbed and pressed her head to my shoulder. "They bound me on a wheel," she said.
With my right hand I pressed her head more closely against me, holding it.
"I am branded," she said. "I am branded."
"It is finished now," I said. "You are free, Elizabeth." She lifted her face, stained with tears, to mine.
"I love you, Tarl Cabot," she said.
"No," I said softly, "you do not."
She leaned against me yet again. "But you do not want me," she said. "You never wanted me."
I said nothing.
"And now," she said, bitterly, "Kamchak has given me to you. He is cruel, cruel, cruel.".
"I think Kamchak thought well of you," I said, "that he would give you to his friend."
She withdrew from me a bit, puzzled. "Can that be?" she asked. "He whipped me, he-touched me," she shuddered, "with the leather." She looked down, not wanting to look Into my eyes.
"You were beaten," I said, "because you ran abbey. Nor- mally a girl who does what you did is maimed or thrown to Been or kaiila, and that he touched you with the whip, the Slaver's Caress, that was only to show me, and perhaps you, that you were female."`, She looked down. "He shamed me," she said. "I cannot help it that I moved as I did I cannot help that I am a woman."