"No!" protested the other woman, she who lay in the dirt, absolutely naked, helplessly bound, hand and foot, next to my own captive.
"Did you speak, my dear?" asked Boots Tarsk-Bit.
"Yes!" she said. "Free me!"
"Why should I do that?" asked Boots.
"I am a free woman!" she cried.
"Chino, bring a torch closer," said Boots.
Chino came from the area of boxes and packs, with one of the torches.
"As you are perfect gentlemen, you will free me," she said. "I can count on that as a free woman."
I smiled. Goreans tend to be less gentlemen, than owners and masters of females. IN the order of nature they tend to acquire and dominate them, making them uncompromisingly their own.
"Who are you?" asked Boots.
"I am the Lady Telitsia of Asperiche," she said.
"Ho, ho, ho!" cried Boots, gleefully, triumphantly, rubbing his hand together.
"I do not understand," said the woman.
"Hold the torch closer," said Boots to Chino.
"Oh!" cried the woman, as I turned her roughly to her right side in the dirt, this exposing her left thigh.
"Aha!" cried Boots, triumphantly.
"I have never been collared!" she cried. "I have never worn a collar!"
"That can be remedied," Boots informed her.
"I am not a slave!" she cried.
Her thigh, however, belied her protestation. It bore, clearly, indisputably, unmistakably, a brand, the common Kajira brand. It was as clear on her body as on that of any other slave. The brigands, it seemed, had, or had had her, reduced to slavery.
"It is only a mark!" she cried.
"I think it is a little bit more than that," said Boots. "It is a slave brand."
"It means nothing!" she cried.
"It means a great deal, as I am sure, sooner or later, you will agree," said Boots.
"No!" she cried.
"You are a slave," said Boots.
"Free me!" she begged. "I beg you to free me!"
"You will be the first item on my loot list, Lady Telitsia, as I may choose to call you for a time," said Boots.
"Surely you jest! Surely you will free me!" she said.
"Do I seem a fool to you?" asked Boots.
"No!" she said, hastily.
"Only fools free female slaves," said Boots. "Surely you are familiar with the saying."
"I am of high caste, and am rich!" she said.
"Once perhaps," said Boots, "but neither is true any longer. With your branding you became only an animal, a property. With the iron's first touch you ceased to be a legal person. You are now casteless. You now own nothing. Rather it is n now you yourself, slave, who are subject to being owned, as much as any other object or property."
"No, no!" she cried, squirming in the thongs that bound her. She was attractive, doing so. She could not free herself, of course. She was absolutely helpless. She had been bound by Gorean men.
"I think we can find some chains for you in the girl wagon," said Boots. "Perhaps, on occasion, I will have you come to my own wagon."
"No, no, no!" she wept, struggling.
Boots looked down upon her, beaming.
"Surely you have no intention of keeping me!" she cried.
"Your body, as I now see," said Boots, "now that you are naked, now that the pesky, interfering, obscuring robes of the scribe have been totally removed from it, not inconceivably might be of interest to a male."
She regarded him with horror. Too, he had surely understood the case. I had little doubt but what she would bring a fine price in a slave market. Indeed, those slaved curves of hers, even routinely put up for salve on a block, would be almost certain to elicit active and serious bidding.
"Too," said Boots, "I think you are highly intelligent, and, if I am not mistaken, you have also, at the fair, earlier, given to some subtle indications of possessing a great deal of talent."
"I do not understand," she stammered.
"Gather around, everybody," called Boots.
Petrucchio, Andronicus, and Lecchio joined Boots, myself and Chino near the bound woman.
"On your knees, my dear," said Boots to the bound woman.
She, moaning, struggled to her knees.
"Gentlemen," said Boots, "may I present Lady Telitsia, as, for the time, as it pleases me, I shall refer to her."
"Greetings," said Lecchio.
"Greetings," she whispered.
"Perhaps you remember her from the fair," said Boots.
"Yes," said Chino. "We remember her-well."
The slave shuddered.
"Behold her," said Boots, cheerfully. He took her by the hair and pulled her head back. Yes, I thought, she would bring a high price.
"Pretty," said Chino.
"Pretty," agreed Lecchio.
"That we have acquired her," said Boots, "we may account a stroke of great good fortune."
"How is that?" asked Lecchio.
"She comes to us, does she not," asked Boots, "at a peculiarly opportune time, at an instant when we are struggling in desperate straits, at a time when we find ourselves in agonizing and desperate need."
"She does?" asked Lecchio, a golden necklace draped about his neck, taken from he loot of the brigands.
"Yes!" said Boots.
"Ah, yes!" mused Chino.
"I have consented to Lady Telitsia's joining our company," announced Boots.
"No!" she cried, her head back, wincing, her hair in Boots's grasp.
"Yes!" reaffirmed Boots. "Too, she comes to us just in time to solve one of our most pressing problems."
"Yes, indeed," agreed Andronicus.
"I do not understand," said Lecchio.
"Is the matter not clear?" asked Boots.
"No," said Lecchio.
"Behold, Gentlemen," said Boots, pulling her head back a bit more and indicating her, displaying her, expansively with the palm of his left hand, "we have found our Brigella!"
"No!" cried the girl.
The fellows applauded Boots, admiringly, striking their left shoulders in Gorean applause.
"No!" she cried. "Never!"
"She is even prettier than the last," said Lecchio.
"I think she will do very nicely," said Chino.
"An excellent choice," said Andronicus.
"I refuse!" she cried. "The very thought of it! The outrage! The indignity! How dare you even think of such a thing! I am of high caste! I am of the scribes! Wait until I bring this matter to the attention of magistrates!"
"As I may remind you, my dear," said Boots, patiently, "you are no longer of high caste nor of the scribes. Similarly, as I am sure you will recognize, at least upon reflection, you now have no standing before the law. You are now of no more interest to magistrates, in their official capacities, as opposed to their private capacities, than would be an urt or a sleen."
She regarded him, frightened.
"Your days of making a nuisance of yourself are now over," said Boots. "Indeed, I speculate that those very same magistrates whom you have so often inconvenienced would be quite pleased to learn that you are now, at last, no longer capable of pestering them with your inane, time-consuming nonsense. I doubt that they would wish to see you again, unless perhaps it would be to return you naked and bound to your master, with the blows of a whip on your body, or perhaps, say, to have you serve them in a tavern, helpless in the modality that would then be yours, that of the total female slave."
"Please!" she begged.
"Hitherto you have sought to use men for your purposes," said Boots. "That is now changed. It is now you who will be used for their purposes, fully. In the past you have made many demands on men. Henceforth it will be your hope rather that they will find you pleasing, in all respects."
"I am a free woman!" she cried.
"You will soon learn differently," said Boots.
"I am free!" she wept.
"That is not true," said Boots, "as you will soon come to understand."