I loosened my blade in my scabbard and returned to the vicinity of the tarncot. The tarn was ready.
It was within the cot, tearing at a piece of meat, a haunch of tarsk, hung from a rope. The rope was some two inches thick. The suspension of the meat reminded me of the way peasant women sometimes cook roasts, tying them in a cord and dangling them before the fire, then spinning the meat from time to time. In this way, given the twisting and untwisting of the cord, the meat will cook rather evenly, for the most part untended, and without spit turning. The rope then, drawn tightly as it was, so tautly, so fiercely, toward the tarn, suddenly, a foot or so above the meat, snapped. The tarn then had the meat and the lower portion of the rope on the ground, the meat grasped in his talons, tearing it away from the bone.
I spun suddenly about, the sword half drawn.
The girl stopped, extremely frightened.
She put her hand before her mouth, the back of her hand toward her face. She stepped back, faltering, frightened.
She was slim, and extremely dark-haired, and very white-skinned. Her hair was drawn back behind her head and tied there with a yellow cord. Her breasts were bared. A black cord was knotted about her waist. Tucked over this cord in front was a long strip, some seven inches wide, of heavy, opaque, yellow cloth. It then passed under her body and was pulled up, snugly, and thrust over the cord in the back. The front and back ends of this cloth hung evenly, and fell about midway between her knees and ankles. the effect was much like that of the curla and charka, a portion of the garmenture, or livery, in which the wagon peoples of the south place most of their female slaves, save that the curla, the cord, was black and not red, and the chatka, the strip, was of cloth and yellow, not of black leather. She had nothing corresponding, of course, to the kalmak, or southern slave's brief, open vest of black leather, and the cord binding her hair was quite different from the koora, the red band of cloth commonly used to confine the hair of the southern slave. In all then, since she wore cloth and not leather, and less than the southern slave, her appearance, if anything, was even more slavelike than hers.
"Why are you not kneeling, I asked her, "and with your knees spread?" she was, after all, in the presence of a free man. Too, clad as she was, I assumed she must be a pleasure slave. Such kneel before men in the open-kneed position. She sank to her knees on the stone, and hastily spread them. The cloth looked well, fallen between her thighs, on the damp stone.
I looked upon her.
She was now in a position of subservience and respect, suitable for a woman before a man. I replaced the blade in the sheath.
She looked up at me, frightened.
I regarded her.
She had a beautiful face, exquisitely and sensitively feminine.
She lowered her eyes before my gaze.
She was slimly beautiful.
I regarded her garbing. It did afford her a nether closure, but it was, at least, a precarious one. In compensation it well bared her thighs.
"Are you frightened?" I asked.
"Yes," she whispered.
It seemed to me, interestingly enough, if I did not misread the matter, that she was extremely sensitive to, and timid concerning, the revealing nature of her garbing. I had the feeling, based on certain expressions and tiny movements, that she more than once resisted the impulse to huddle before me, her head down, covering herself with her hands. But she remained much as she was. Indeed, she even straightened herself, and lifted her body before me, timidly, as if for my consideration.
"What is wrong?" I asked.
It seemed she wanted to speak, but lacked the courage to do so.
"What is that in your hand?" I asked. She had something clutched in her right hand.
She opened her hand, holding it out a little, that I might see what she held. There, in the palm of her right hand, was a small sack, bulging, seemingly weighty for its size, from the look of it, a sack of coins. It was leather. It had strings.
"Move your hand," I said.
She did so.
"I see now why you were so frightened," I said. "You have stolen a sack of coins."
"No, no!" she said.
"Many masters," I said, "do not permit a slave to so much as touch money. To be sure, they might let her carry coins in an errand capsule, or an errand sack, tied about her neck, instructions to a vendor perhaps also contained within it, her hands braceleted behind her."
She looked up, frightened.
"And few masters, indeed, I assure you," I said, "even if so lenient as to let her venture to a market with a coin or two in her mouth, on a specific errand, would permit her to scamper about with a trove such as that which now seems to be in your keeping."
"You do not understand, she said.
"Kneel more straightly," I said.
She complied. I viewed her. I wondered what her master had paid for her. Probably a goodly price. She was worth such.
"How did you expect to escape the palisade?" I asked.
She looked at me, agonized.
"Were you approaching me, intentionally? I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"It was your intention, I gather," I said, "to attempt to bribe me, that I might abet your escape."
Tears sprang into her eyes.
"But do you think I would do other then to carry you into my own chains?" She trembled. She clutched the tiny sack.
"You have been caught," I said. "You are a caught slave. I will now turn you over to an attendant, for binding and holding, pending what punishments your master might see fit to visit upon you."
"You do not understand," she whispered.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"The coins are mine," she said.
"Surely you are an inn girl," I said, "though your collar is now off. "I do not have a collar, she said.
"That is surely an incredible oversight on the part of your master," I said. "I do not have a master, she whispered.
I looked at her, puzzled, such a woman.
"Am I truly pretty enough to be an inn girl? she said.
"Of course," I said, "and a superb one."
She looked up at me, elatedly, gratefully.
"Who is your master?" I asked.
"I do not have a master," she repeated.
"Do you seek to compound your crime with deceit," I said. "I am not a slave," she whispered. "I am a free woman. Oh!" I had seized her, half lifted her, and turned her from side to side, examining her slim, attractive thighs for the tiny brand which would confirm the matter. The most common brand sites, that on the left thigh, the favorite, and that on the right thigh, lacked slave marks. This determination, given the nature of her garmenture, could be instantly made. I then put her on her feet. "Oh! she said. She was not branded on the lower left abdomen. That is perhaps the third most favored brand site. I then checked several other brand sites, such as the insides of the forearms, the left side of the neck, behind and below the left ear, the backs of her legs, and her buttocks. I even examined the insteps of her left and right feet. Her body was not branded.
"I am a free woman," she said, so rudely handled.
"It seems you have not yet been branded," I said.
"I am not a slave," she said. "I am a free woman."
This did not seem to me possible, of course, clad as she was, in this place. "Do you not recognize me?" she asked.
"On your knees," I said.
Swiftly, she knelt.
"Don't you recognize me?" she asked.
I looked at her, puzzled. To be sure, something about her seemed familiar. "Crouch before me," she said.
I did so.
She put her hands before her face, the strings of the sack looped twice now about her left wrist. As she held her hands before her, rather to the bridge of the nose, they concealed the lower portions of her face, much as would a veil. "Ah!" I said. It was not so much at first, however, that I recalled her upper facial features, as hey would have appeared over the veil, if only because it had been very dark in the upper level when I had sought my space last night, as I recalled immediately, vividly, the appearance and positioning of her small hands. The small palms of them, with their delicate, extremely sensitive, exposed openness, faced outwards. It was in this way that I first realized who she was. During the night she had perhaps realized what she had done. Perhaps, then, she had sobbed with shame. Yet now, in the morning, presumably by now fully aware of what she was doing, she dared to again so hold her hands before a man. Even last night, once she must have realized how her hands were positioned, I recalled she had not quickly, shamed, turned them about, presenting their backs to me. One expects a Gorean woman, attempting to conceal her features from a man, to place her hands, cuplike, over her nose and mouth. As I have indicated, the lips and mouth of a female are commonly regarded as extremely sensuous features to a Gorean, hence the concern of many free women, particularly of high caste, in the high cities, to conceal them. A simple way to uncup the woman's hands is to take the small finger of her left hand in your right hand and pull that hand to the side, and then take the small finger of the right hand in your left hand, and pull that, too, to the side. This opens the barrier and reveals the mouth and lips of the woman to you. In this case, however, as she held her hands, with the palms facing me, I simply took her wrists and, gently, drew them apart. This exposed her lips and mouth to me. Her lips were slightly parted. She was breathing quickly.