"What is that?" asked lanky Petrucchio.
"Where will he stay?" asked Boots. "I have no intention of sharing my wagon with someone who can handle a knife like that."
"He can use my wagon," said Petrucchio. "I myself, if he be amenable, will lodge with my friend, Andronicus, with whom I have lengthy discussions on the craft of the actor."
"On the art of the actor," said Andronicus.
"Craft," said Petrucchio.
"Art," said Andronicus.
"Is it all right?" asked Petrucchio.
"Of course, and welcome," said Andronicus. "It will give me an opportunity to train you in the one hundred and seventy-three movements of the head."
"I thought it was one hundred and seventy-one," said Petrucchio.
"In a text by Alamanius, I have discovered two new movements," said Andronicus, "each with its several variations."
"Fascinating," said Petrucchio.
"It is settled then," said Boots.
"Yes," said Petrucchio.
"Yes," said Andronicus.
"Thank you," I said to Petrucchio and Andronicus.
"It is nothing," they assured me.
"Do you wish to share my w2agon?" I asked my captive.
"No!" she said.
"You may lock her in the girl wagon, chained in her place, with Rowena and Bina," said Boots, generously.
"No," I said. "Do not bother. I will simply chain her by the neck under my own wagon."
"Very well," said Boots.
She regarded me angrily, and squirmed in her bonds.
"Gather up those boxes and packs, and that which might seem to be of any value here," said Boots to his fellows. "In particular do not neglect a small coffer, bound with iron, studded with silver, closed with a golden-plated lock, reputed to be in the first pack. These things we shall transport back to our own camp. Victory has been ours. The loot, thus, in its various items, of which I shall keep a careful list, in its various natures, quantities and qualities, is also ours."
"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.