"Yes," cried Boots, "it is my active imagination, conjecturing what exposed beauty must lie perfectly concealed behind the impervious barrier of that heartless veil."
"And I am a free woman," said the girl to the crowd, "not even a slave." There was laughter. All that she wore now, in actuality, not in the context of the play, of course, in which she was, by convention, understood to be utterly naked, was her collar, concealed by a light scarf, and a circular adhesive patch on her left thigh, concealing her brand.
"Ah!" cried Boots.
"I had best not permit him more than the briefest of peeps," she said, to the audience, "lest he perhaps in rapture go out of his sense altogether."
Boots pounded his thighs.
"Imagine what it might be if he could truly see me," she said.
"Let me, dear lady," said Boots, "hold the veil. Though it be as light as noting itself, yet, by now, your arms, if only from their position, must grow weary."
"Thank you, kind sir," she said. "Do you have it now?"
"Of course," said Boots, as though astonished at her question.
"Of course," she said, lightly. "I just did not wish you to drop it."
"There is little danger of that," he said. "I mean, of course, I will exercise considerable caution in its handling."
He now held the cloth up between them.
"Have you given some thought to the matter of whether or not you will permit me the peep of which we spoke so intriguingly earlier?" he asked.
"Keep holding the veil up high," she said. "Perhaps I will consider giving some thought to the matter."
Suddenly, with a cry of apprehension, looking down the road, Boots snapped away the cloth and whipped it behind his back, seeming to stuff it in his belt, behind his back. "Oh!" she cried in horror, cringing and half crouching down, trying to cover herself as well as she could, in maidenly distress. "What have you done, sir? Explain yourself, instantly!"
"I fear brigand approach," he said, looking wildly down the road. "Do not look! They must not see the wondrous veil! Surely they would take it from me!"
"But I am naked!" she cried.
"Pretend to be a slave!" he advised.
"I," she gasped, in horror, "pretend to be a slave?"
"Yes!" he cried.
"But I know nothing," said the Brigella, in great innocence, to the audience, "of being a slave."
There was laughter.
"What you know nothing of," said the free woman to her, "is of being a free woman, meaningless slut."
The Brigella at one time or another had doubtless been a free woman. Accordingly she would presumably know a great deal about being a free woman. On the other hand she did not dare respond to the free woman, for she was now a slave.
"Would you rather be apprehended by the brigands?" inquired Boots of the Brigella. "They might be pleased to get their capture cords on a free woman."
"No!" she cried.
"Kneel down," he said, "quickly, with your head to the dirt!"
"Oh, oh!" she moaned, but complied.
"That way," he said, "they make you for a mere slave, perhaps not worth the time it might take to put you in a noose and the time it might take to transport you to a salves point, and me for a poor merchant, perhaps not worth robbing. Here they come. They are fierce looking fellows."
"Oh," she moaned, trembling, "oh, oh."
"Do not look up," he warned her.
"No," she said.
"No, what, Slave?" he said, sternly.
"No, Master!" she cried.
There was laughter. He now had her kneeling naked at his feet, addressing him as «Master». In the Gorean culture, of course, this sort of thing is very significant. Indeed, in some cities such things as kneeling before a man or addressing him as «Master» effects legal imbondment on the female, being interpreted as a gesture of submission.
There was now great laughter for, strolling across the stage, swinging censers, mumbling in what was doubtless supposed to resemble archaic Gorean, in the guise of Initiates, came Tarsk-Bit's Lecchio and Chino. In a moment they had passed.
"Those were not brigands," cried the girl, angrily, looking up. "They were Initiates!"
"I am sorry," said Boots, apologetically. "I mistook them for brigands."
She leaped to her feet, covering herself with her hands, as well as she could. "You may now give me the veil, sir," she said, angrily.
"But you have not yet given me my peep," protested Boots.
"Oh!" she cried angrily.
"Consider how you are standing," said Boots, "half turned away from me, half crouched down, and holding your legs as you are, and with your hands and arms placed as they are, such things seem scarcely fair to me. Surely you must understand that such things constitute obstacles uncongenial, at the least, to the achievement of a peep of the quality in question."
"Oh! Oh!" she cried.
"It is a simple matter of bargaining in good faith," said Boots.
"Sleen!" she cried.
"Perhaps we could get a ruling on the matter from a praetor," suggested Boots.
"Sleen! Sleen!" she cried.
"I see that I must be on my way," said Boots.
"No!" she cried. "I must have that wondrous veil!"
"Not without my peep," said Boots.
"Very well, sir," she said. "How will you have your peep? What must I do?"
"Lie down upon your back," he said, "and lift your right knee, placing your hands at your sides, six inches from y our thighs, the palms of your hands facing upwards." He regarded her. "No," he said, "that is not quite it. Roll over, if you would. Better. Now lift your upper body from the dirt, supporting it on the palms of your hands, and look back over your shoulder. Not bad. But I am not sure that is exactly is. Kneel now, and straighten your body, putting your head back, clasping your hands behind the back of your head. Perhaps that is almost it."
"I hope so!" she cried.
"But not quite," he said.
"Oh!" she cried in frustration.
"Sometimes one must labor, and experiment, to find the proper peep," he informed her.
"Apparently," she said.
Boots, the, it seemed always just minimally short of success, continued dauntlessly to search for a suitable peep. In doing this, of course, the female was well, and lengthily, displayed for the audience.
She was incredibly beautiful. The men cried out with pleasure, some of them slapping their thighs.
"Disgusting!" cried the free woman.
I myself considered bidding on the Brigella. She was incredibly, marvelously beautiful.
"Disgusting!" cried the free woman.
"It is you who are disgusting," said one of the men to the free woman.
"I?" she cried.
"Yes, you," he said.
The free woman did not respond to him. She stiffened in her robes, her small hands clenched in her blue gloves. How antibiological, petty, and self-serving were her value judgments.
"Look," cried Boots to the Brigella, in his guise of a merchant. "Someone is coming!"
"You will not fool me twice, you scoundrel, you cad!" she replied from her knees.
"I think it is a woman," said Boots.
"What?" she cried, turning about, half rising, and then collapsed back in confusion, in misery, to her knees. She looked up at Boots, wildly. "It is Lady Tipa, my rival, from the village," she said. "She cannot be allowed to see me like this. What, oh, what, shall I do? Where can I hide?"
"Quickly," cried Boots, "here, beneath my robes!"
Swiftly, on her knees, wildly, knowing not what else to do, the girl had scrambled to Boots. IN a moment she was concealed beneath his robes, on her knees, only her calves and feet thrust out from beneath their hem.
"I see, sir," said the newcomer, who was understood to be the free woman, the Lady Tipa, but was presumably Boots's Bina, usually the companion and confidant of the Brigella, "that you well know how to pout a slave through her paces."