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.
There was a cheer from the crowd, which, though largely composed of Tuchuks, relished a splendid performance. Weeping Elizabeth jerked and pulled at the thongs re- straining her, helpless.
The judge inspected the bonds. `The wench is secured," he said.
Elizabeth moaned.
"Rejoice, Little Barbarian," said Albrecht, "tonight in Pleasure Silk you will dance the Chain Dance for Kassar Warriors."
The girl turned her head to one side, shuddering in the thongs. A cry of misery escaped her.
"Be silent," said Kamchak.
Elizabeth was silent and, fighting her tears; lay quietly waiting to be freed.
I cut the thongs from her wrists and ankles.
"I tried," she said, looking up at me, tears in her eyes. "I tried."
"Some girls," I told her, "have run from the bole more than a hundred times. Some are trained to do so."
"Do you concede?" Conrad asked Kamchak.
"No," said Kamchak. "My second rider must ride."
"He is not even of the Wagon Peoples," said Conrad. "Nonetheless," said Kamchak, "he will ride."
"He will not beat twenty-five," said Conrad.
Kamchak shrugged. I knew myself that twenty-five was a remarkable time. Albrecht was a fine rider and skilled in this sport and, of course, this time, his quary had been only an untrained barbarian slave, indeed, a girl who had never before run from the bole.
"To the circle," said Albrecht, to the other Kassar girl. She was a beauty.
She stepped to the circle quickly, throwing her head back, breathing deeply.
She was an intelligent looking girl.
Black-haired.
Her ankles, I noted, were a bit sturdier than are thought desirable in a slave girl. They had withstood the shock of her body weight many times I gathered, in quick turnings, in leaps.
I wished that I had seen her run before, because most girls will have a running pattern, even in their dodging which, if you have seen it, several times, you can sense. Nothing simple, but something that, somehow, you can anticipate, if only to a degree. It is probably the result of gathering, from their running, how they think; then one tries to think with them and thus meet them with the bole. She was now breathing deeply, regularly. Prior to her entering the circle I had seen her moving about in the background, running a bit, loosening her legs, speeding the circulation of her blood.
It was my guess that this was not the first time she had run from the bole.
"If you win for us," Albrecht said to her, grinning down from the saddle of the kaiila, "this night you will be given a silver bracelet and five yards of scarlet silk."
"I will win for you, Master," she said.
I thought that a bit arrogant for a slave.
Albrecht looked at me. "This wench," he said, "has never been snared in less than thirty-two beats."
I noted a flicker pass through the eyes of Kamchak, but he seemed otherwise impassive.
"She is an excellent runner," I said.
The girl laughed.
Then, to my surprise, she looked at me boldly, though wearing the Turian collar; though she wore the nose ring; though she were only a branded slave clad Kajir.
"I wager," she said, "that I will reach the lance." This irritated me. Moreover, I was not insensitive to the fact that though she were slave and I a free man, she had not addressed me, as the custom is, by the title of Master. I had no objection to the omission itself, but I did object to the affront therein implied. For some reason this wench seemed to me rather arrogant, rather contemptuous.
"I wager that you do not," I said.
"Your terms!" she challenged.
"What are yours?" I asked.
She laughed. "If I win," she said, "you give me your bole, which I will present to my master."
"Agreed," I said. "And if I should win?"
"You will not," she said.
"But if so?"
"Then," said she, "I will give you a golden ring and a silver cup."
"How is it that a slave has such riches?" I asked. She tossed her head in the air, not deigning to respond. "I have given her several such things," said Albrecht. I now gathered that the girl facing me was not a typical slave, and that there must be a very good reason why she should have such things.
"I do not want your golden ring and silver cup," I said. "What then could you want?" asked she.
"Should I win," I said, "I will claim as my prize the kiss of an insolent wench."
"Tuchuk sleep!" she cried, eyes flashing.
Conrad and Albrecht laughed. Albrecht said to the girl, "It is permitted."
"Very well, he-tharlarion," said the girl, "your bola against a kiss." Her shoulders were trembling with rage. "I will show you how a Kassar girl can run! ) "You think well of yourself," I remarked. "You are not a Kassar girl you are only a Turian slave of Kassars." Her fists clenched.