Elizabeth Cardwell, barefoot, in the larl's pelt, walked beside Kamchak's stirrup. Neither Tenchika nor Dina would be with us. Yesterday afternoon, for an incredible forty pieces of gold, four quivas and the saddle of a kaiila, Kachak had sold Tenchika back to Albrecht. It was one of the highest prices ever paid among the wagons for a slave and I judged that Albrecht had sorely missed his little Tenchika; the high price he was forced to pay for the girl was made even more intolerable by Kamchak's amusement at his ex- pense, roaring with laughter and slapping his knee because only too obviously Albrecht had allowed himself to care for the girl, and she only slave! Albrecht, while binding her wrists and putting his thong on her neck, had angrily cuffed her two or three times, calling her worthless and good for nothing; she was laughing and leaping beside his kaiila, weeping with joy; I last saw her running beside his stirrup, trying to press her head against his fur boot. Dina, though she was slave, I had placed on the saddle before me, her legs over the left forequarters of the animal; and had ridden with her from the wagons, until in the distance I could see the gleaming, white walls of Maria. When I had come to this place I set her on the grass She looked up at me, puzzled.
"Why have you brought me here?" she had asked.
I pointed into the distance. "It is Turia," I said, "your city."
She looked up at me. "Is it your wish," she asked, "that I run for the city?"
She referred to a cruel sport of the young men of the wagons who sometimes take Turian slave girls to the sight of Turia's walls and then, loosening bole and thong, bid them run for the city.
"No," I told her, "I have brought you here to free you." The girl trembled.
She dropped her head. "I am yours so much yours," she said, looking at the grass. "Do not be cruel."
"No," I said, "I have brought you here to free you." She looked up at me. She shook her head.
"It is my wish," I said.
"But why?" she asked.
"It is my wish," I said.
"Have I not pleased you?" she asked.
"You have pleased me very much," I told her.
"Why do you not sell me?" she asked.
"It is not my wish," I said.
"But you would sell a bosk or kaiila," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"Why not Dina?" she asked.
"It is not my wish," I said.
"I am valuable," said the girl. She simply stated a fact. "More valuable than you know," I told her.
"I do not understand," she said.
I reached into the pouch at my belt and gave her a piece of gold. "Take this," I said, "and go to Turia find your people and be free."
Suddenly she began to shake with sobs and fell to her knees at the paws of the kaiila, the gold piece in her left hand. "If this is a Tuchuk joke," she wept, "kill me swiftly." I sprang from the saddle of the kaiila and kneeling beside her held her in my arms, pressing her head against my shoulder. "No," I said, "Dina of Turia. I do not jest. You are free.
She looked at me tears in her eyes. "Turian girls are never freed," she said. "Never."
I shook her and kissed her. "You, Dina of Turia," I said, "are free." Then I shook her again. "Do you want me to ride to the walls and throw you over?" I demanded.
She laughed through her tears. "No," she said, "no." I lifted her to her feet and she suddenly kissed me. "Tarl Cabot!" she cried. "Tarl Cabot!"
It seemed like lightning to us both that she had cried my name as might have a free woman. And indeed it was a free woman who cried those words, Dina, a free woman of Turia. "Oh, Tarl Cabot," she wept.
Then she regarded me gently. "But keep Dina a moment longer yours," she said.
"You are free," I said.
"But I would serve you," she said.
I smiled. "There is no place," I said.
"Ah, Tarl Cabot," she chided, "there is all the Plains of Turia."
"The Land of the Wagon Peoples, you mean."
She laughed. "No," she said, "the Plains of Turia." "Insolent wench," I observed.
But she was kissing me and by my arms was being lowered to the grasses of the spring prairie.
When I had lifted her to her feet I noted, in the distance, a bit of dust moving from one of the gates of the city towards us, probably two or three warriors mounted on high thar- larion.
The girl had not yet seen them. She seemed to me very happy and this, naturally, made me happy as well. Then suddenly her eyes clouded and her face was transformed with distress. Her hands moved to her face, covering her mouth. "Oh!" she said.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"I cannot go to Turia!" she cried.
"Why not?" I asked.
"I have no veil!" she cried.
I cried out in exasperation, kissed her, turned her about by the shoulders and with a slap, hardly befitting a free woman, started her on the way to Turia.
The dust was now nearing.
I leaped into the saddle and waved to the girl, who had run a few yards and then turned. She waved to me. She was crying.
An arrow swept over my head.
I laughed and wheeled the kaiila and raced from the place, leaving the riders of the ponderous tharlarion far behind.
They circled back to find a girl, free though still clad Kajir, clutching in one hand a piece of gold, waving after a departed enemy, laughing and crying.
When I had returned to the wagon Kamchak's first words to me had been, "I hope you got a good price for her." I smiled.
"Are you satisfied?" he asked.
I recalled the Plains of Turia. "Yes," I said, "I am well satisfied."
Elizabeth Cardwell, who had been fixing the fire in the wagon, had been startled when I had returned without Dina, but had not dared to ask what had been done with her. Now her eyes were on me, wide with disbelief. "You sold her?" she said, uncomprehendingly. "Sold?"
"You said she had fat ankles," I reminded her.
Elizabeth regarded me with horror. "She was a person" said Elizabeth, "a human person"
"No!" said Kamchak, giving her head a shake. "An ani- mal! A slaver" Then he added, giving her head another shake, "Like yourself!"
Elizabeth looked at him with dismay.
"I think" said Kamchak, "I will sell you."
Elizabeth's face suddenly seemed terrified. She threw a wild, pleading look at me.
Kamchak's words had disturbed me as well.
I think it was then, perhaps the first time since her first coming to the Wagon Peoples, that she fully understood her plight for Kamchak had, on the whole, been kind to her he had not put the Tuchuk ring in her nose, nor had he clothed her Kajir, nor put the brand of the bask horns on her thigh, nor even enclosed her lovely throat with the Turian collar. Now, again, Elizabeth, visibly shaken, ill, realized that she might, should it please Kamchak's whims, be sold or exchanged with the same ease as a saddle or a hunting sleen. She had seen Tenchika sold. Now she assumed that the disappearance of Dina from the wagon was to be similarly explained. She looked at me disbelievingly, shaking her head. Por my part I did not think it would be a good idea to tell her that I had freed Dina. What good would that information do her? It might make her own bondage seem more cruel, or perhaps fill her with foolish hopes that Kamchak, her master, might someday bestow on her the same beautiful gift of freedom. I smiled at the thought. Kamchak, Free a slaver And, I told myself, even if I myself owned Elizabeth, and not Kamchak, I could not free her for what would it be to free her? If she approached Turia she would fall slave to the first patrol that leashed and hooded her; if she tried to stay among the wagons, some young warrior, sensing she was undefended and not of the Peoples, would have his chain on her before nightfall. hand I myself did not intend to stay among the wagons. I had now learned, if the information of He that the golden sphere, doubtless the egg of Priest-Kings, lay in the wagon of Kutaituchik. I must attempt to obtain it and return it to the Sardar. This, I knew, might well cost me my life. No, it was best that Elizabeth Cardwell believe I had callously sold the lovely Dina of Turia. It was best that she understand herself for what she was, a barbarian slave girl in the wagon of Kamchak of the Tuchuks.