From the pommel of one saddle, seemingly not that of a guard, but perhaps of a civilian or merchant’s agent accompanying the caravan, there looped downward a light, graceful chain to the throat of a naked, blond slave. She walked proudly. How beautiful she is, thought Ellen. Their eyes met. The blonde tossed her head, and gave her no more notice. This angered Ellen and she ran forward and then alongside the slave. “Do not toss your head at me!” said Ellen. “I have a tunic! You are only a naked slave! You are naked! Naked! Only a naked slave, publicly marched on a chain, exposed on a common road!”
The slave cast a furious glance at her but the fellow about whose pommel was looped the chain put back his head and laughed loudly, and gave the chain a little, admonitory shake. “Eyes front, Marga,” he commanded her.
“Yes, Master,” she said, frightened, and turned her head forward, and held it deliberately, fixedly, in that attitude, and kept her eyes, too, squarely ahead, not so much as glancing to the side.
Ellen was muchly pleased by this. She laughed delightedly, but muchly to herself. She is afraid, she thought. She is afraid of her master! She is well mastered! Let them all be well mastered!
Eyeing the guards then, one of whom, as though to frighten her, turned his kaiila toward her, Ellen retreated to the trees at the edge of the road. Selius Arconious was now there, having come forward at her call, from the wagon.
“The road! The Viktel Aria, surely, Master!” said Ellen.
“Yes,” he said.
The kaiila and wagons continued to pass.
“Were you discomfiting that slave?” he asked.
“Yes, Master!” laughed Ellen. “She dared to toss her head at me, so I ran to her and called her attention to my tunic, that I was clothed, be it only so minimally, so revealingly, and to the fact that she was only a naked slave, only that, and one publicly marched on a chain, one blatantly exposed on a common road.”
“She was quite lovely,” said Selius Arconious.
“I suppose that that was not difficult to see, Master,” said Ellen, “as she was chained and naked.”
“Quite lovely,” he said.
“Perhaps a little tall, Master?” said Ellen.
“Not necessarily,” he said.
“Oh,” said Ellen. Ellen would have conjectured that the blonde was some two inches taller than herself.
“It was thoughtful of her master to so display her,” said Selius Arconious.
“Master?” asked Ellen.
“Yes,” he said. “It is in the nature of a generous, welcome gift to fellow itinerants, to accompanying wayfarers, a way to lighten the burdens, sometimes the unrelieved boredom, of long marches. The sight of such as she, you see, provides a pleasure, a luscious glimpse, a pleasant interlude, for weary travelers upon a long road, at the least an incentive to increase one’s pace, to hurry one’s steps to the nearest paga tavern.”
“Paga tavern, Master?”
“Yes,” said he, “where the use of such as she goes with the price of a drink.”
“I see, Master,” said Ellen.
“Yes,” he said.
“Perhaps, Master,” said Ellen. “But well did I humble her!”
“Doubtless,” said Selius Arconious.
“Oh, look, Master!” said Ellen, pointing, having then first noticed towers in the distance.
“That is Venna,” said he. “Ar is but two day’s journey south from Venna. Indeed, those of Ar often have villas in the vicinity of Venna, and enjoy the races there.”
“Will we enter upon the road when the caravan passes, Master?” asked Ellen.
“Perhaps tomorrow morning, early,” said Selius Arconious. “The heat of the afternoon is now upon us. Portus Canio and Fel Doron are even now unhitching the tharlarion and preparing a camp.”
“I will stay here a moment, and watch,” said Ellen.
Selius Arconious turned about, and made his way back through the trees.
Ellen supposed that she should have asked permission to stay near the road, but then she dismissed the thought. Surely this little bit of assertiveness on her part, if that is what it was, was unimportant. Too, she was not too pleased with Selius Arconious, for he had, as in the grasslands, muchly ignored her, and had not put her to the usages of a slave, those usages which were appropriate for her, and which she, collared, craved. Indeed, some of her earlier feelings of ambiguity pertaining to Selius Arconious had begun to reassert themselves. I should hate him I suppose, she thought, as I am a woman of Earth, and he put a collar on me, a collar, but I do not. I love him and love him dearly. And I want to love him in the deepest way possible, as a slave. But I fear he is a weakling. Indeed, sometimes, as she lay in her place at his thigh in the night, begging his attentions, and failing to obtain them, she had, occasionally, petulantly, pettily, as in the morning before the attack of the beasts, challenged him to prove that he was her master, or to give or sell her to another, to one who would be a master to her slave, to one who was a man. In her frustration she had lashed out at him, in her petty way. To be sure, she did not wish to belong to another, though she was sure that another would not be as understanding, as patient, as kind, as boring, as neglectful, as trivial with her as Selius Arconious, but would see to it, firmly, severely, whip in hand if need be, that the finest and fullest of her slave service would be unhesitantly and perfectly, even fearfully, rendered.
She waited by the road while the caravan passed. One of the wagons was a slave wagon, with bars. Most of the women in it crouched down, below the low siding, a foot above the wagon bed, hiding, that they not be seen. Ellen supposed they might be free women, captured, or new slaves. In such a wagon they would doubtless be stripped, as women usually are in such a conveyance. Certainly she could see bared shoulders. They are perhaps shy, thought Ellen, or embarrassed to be seen as they doubtless now were, denied even the mockery of a tight thong and slave strip, presumably slave naked. One woman, however, was standing, and clothed, or partially so, in the remnants, or residual rags, of what might have been the final undergarments worn beneath the cumbersome Robes of Concealment. She clutched the bars, with two hands, looking out, in misery, in terror. Did she think to find succor, or rescue, or to elicit pity, from behind those narrow, closely set bars? Did she not know she was in a slave wagon? Did she not know she was on Gor? Did she not know that there were men here? Ellen thought that perhaps she had been troublesome, and that that was why she had been permitted, for the time, to retain some covering, that its removal then, at the hands of captors or masters, might be all the more momentous and shattering to her. It looked as though she had good legs, and her left shoulder, too, was exposed. Doubtless she will soon be in a collar, thought Ellen. In a few Ehn the last wagon had passed, and the following guards, carrying lances, mounted on kaiila, as well. Some tinier carts, some drawn by hand, followed the main column, though doubtless not associated with it, rather merely hoping in its shelter to shield themselves from brigandage.
Ellen supposed she had been away a rather long time, but she did not give this matter much thought. She smiled to herself. By now the camp would be largely made, and much of the work would be done. Excellent, she thought.
She cast one last look at the distant towers of Venna, and thought again of the former Lady Melanie of Brundisium, she sold at the festival camp, now doubtless a lovely, suitably embonded, obedient chattel behind those far walls.
I wish her well, she thought. And I hope she has a master who knows how to master her! Then she turned and made her way back through the trees, to where the men would have made the camp.