"Why, thank you, noble lady," said Boots.
"I did not get a good look at her as I approached," said the Bina. "Is she pretty?"
"Some might think her passable," said Boots, "but compared to yourself her beauty is doubtless no more than that of a she-urt compared to that of the preferred slave of a Ubar."
The Brigella churned with rage beneath Boots's robes. She dared not emerge, of course.
"What is wrong with your slave?" asked the Bina.
"She burns with desire," said Boots.
"How weak slaves are," said the Bina.
"Yes," said Boots.
"I am looking for a girl from m y village," said the Bina. "I was told, by two fellows, peddle4s, I think, whom I take to be of the merchants, that she may have come this way."
"Could you describe her?" asked Boots.
"Her name is Phoebe," said the Bina, "and were she not veiled it would be easier to describe her to you, as she is frightfully homely."
The girl under Boots's robes shook with fury.
"Still," said the newcomer, "you might have been able, nonetheless, to recognize her. She is too short, too wide in the hips and has thick ankles."
At this there was more churning beneath Boots's robes.
"Surely there is something wrong with your slave," said the Bina.
"No, no," Boots assured her.
"What is she doing under there?" asked the Bina.
"She begged me piteously to be permitted to give me the kiss of a slave that I, in my weakness, at last yielded to her entreaties."
There was much furious stirring then beneath the robes.
"How kind you are, sir," said the Bina.
"Thank you," said Boots.
There was a muffled cry, as of rage and protest, from beneath the robes.
"Did she say something?" asked the Bina.
"Only that she begs to be permitted to begin," said Boots.
The robes shook with fury.
"Surely there is something wrong with her," said the Bina.
"It is only that she is suffering whit need," said Boots.
"Though she is naught be a meaningless slave," said the Bina, "she is yet, like myself, a female. Please be kind to her, sir. Let her please you."
"How understanding you are," marveled Boots. "You may begin," he said to the concealed girl.
The robes shook violently, negatively.
"What is wrong?" asked the Bina.
"She is shy," said Boots.
"The slave need not be shy on my account," said the Bina. "Let her begin."
"Begin," said Boots.
The robes again shook violently.
"Begin," he said.
Again there seemed a great commotion beneath his robes.
Boots then, with the flat of his hand, with some force, cuffed the girl concealed under his robes. Instantly she knelt quietly. "Lazy girl, naughty girl," chided Boots. The tops of her toes, as she knelt, beat up and down in helpless frustration. "I see that I shall have to draw you forth and beat you," she said.
"Look!" cried the Bina. "She begins!"
"Oh, she does, doesn't she?" said Boots. "Oh, yes!"
"What a slave she is!" cried the Bina. "How exciting! How exciting!"
"To be sure," agreed Boots. "Ah! Yes! Ohhh! To be sure! Eee! Yes! Quite! Oh! Yes! Oh! Oh! To be sure! Eee! Yes! Oh! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Ohhh, yes, yes, yes." Boots then wiped his brow with his sleeve.
"Has she gone?" called out the Brigella, after a time, her voice muffled from beneath his robes.
"Yes," said Boots.
The Brigella, as the Lady Phoebe, extricated herself, on her knees, from the robes of Boots Tarsk-Bit. She turned about, still on her knees. "Tipa!" she cried in horror.
"I thought you had gone," said Boots.
"Phoebe!" cried the Lady Tipa.
"Tipa," moaned Phoebe, in misery.
"Phoebe!" cried the Lady Tipa, in delight.
"Tipa!" pleaded Phoebe.
"Phoebe on her knees, as naked as a slave, on a public road, crawling out of a man's robes!" laughed the Bina, pointing derisively at her. "How shameful, how outrageous, how marvelous, how delicious, how glorious!"
"Please, Tipa," pleaded Phoebe.
"You are the sort of girl who should have been whipped and collared at puberty!" said the Bina.
The free woman in the audience stiffened at these words. These words seemed to have some special meaning for her. She shook her head and clenched her small fists in the blue gloves.
"You have always been a slave," said the Bina.
"I am a free woman," wailed the Brigella.
"Slave, slave, slave!" laughed the Bina. "This story will bear a rich retelling in the village," she said hurrying away.
"I am ruined," wailed the Brigella, rising to her feet, wringing her hands. "I cannot bear now to return to the village and, if I did, they would put a chain on me and sell me."
"Perhaps not," said Boots, soothingly.
"Do you not think so, sir?" she asked.
"It might be a rope," he said.
"Ohhhhh," she wailed. "Where can I go? What can I do?"
"Well," said Boots, "I must be on my way."
"But what shall I do?" she asked.
"Try to avoid being eaten by sleen," said Boots. "It is growing dark."
"Where are my clothes?" she begged.
"I do not see them em about," said Boots. "They must have blown away."
"Take me with you!" she begged.
"Perhaps you would like to kneel and beg my collar?" he asked. "I might then consider whether or not I find you pleasing enough to lock it on your neck."
"Sir," she cried, "I am a free woman!"
"Good luck with the sleen," he said.
"Accept me as a traveling companion," she urged.
"And what would you do, to pay your way on the road?" he asked.
"I could give you a kiss, on the cheek, once a day," she said. "Surely you could not expect more from a free woman."
"Good luck with the sleen." said he.
"Do not go," she begged. "I am willing, even, to enter into the free companionship with you!"
Boots staggered backwards, as though overwhelmed. "I could not dream of accepting a sacrifice of such enormity on your part!" he cried.
"I will. I will!" she cried.
"But I suspect," said Boots, suspiciously, musingly, regarding her, "that there may be that in you which is not really of the free companion."
"Sir?" she asked.
"Perhaps you are, in actuality, more fittingly understood as something else," he mused.
"What can you mean, sir?" she asked.
"Does it not seem strange that you would have fallen madly in love with me at just this moment?"
"Why, no, of course not," she said.
"Perhaps you are merely trying to save yourself from sleen," he mused.
"No, no," she assured him.
"I fear that you are tricking me," he said.
"No!" she said.
"In any event," he said, "you surely cannot expect me to consider you seriously in connection with the free companionship."
"Why not?" she asked, puzzled.
"A naked woman," he asked, skeptically, "encountered beside a public road?"
"Oh!" she cried in misery.
"Do you have a substantial dowry?" he asked. "An extensive wardrobe, wealth, significant family connections, a high place in society?"
"No!" she said. "No! No!"
"And if you return to your village I think you will find little waiting for you there but a rope collar and a trip in a sack to the nearest market."
"Misery!" she wept.
"Besides," he said, "in your heart you are truly a slave."
"No!" she cried.
"Surely you know that?" he asked.
"No!" she cried.
"I do not even think you saw the wondrous veil," he said.