"May I speak, Masters?" I asked.
"Yes," said Samos.
"Belisarius," said I, "said that others would not understand the message, even if they might read it, that it would be meaningless to them."
Samos looked to Bosk. "Captain," said he, "begin work."
"I shall, Captain," smiled Bosk. He turned to the slave girl, Luma. "Copy down," said he, "on your paper the order of the beads, in widely spaced rows. Give me then your marking stick and your paper."
"Yes, Master," she said.
In moments her quick hands had accomplished this business and she surrendered to Bosk of Port Kar both the paper and the marking stick.
"We shall begin," said Bosk, "by supposing that the sequence of blue and red corresponds to Eta. The next most common sequence is orange and red. We shall, tentatively, suppose that corresponds to Tau."
I leaned back on my heels, and watched. No one spoke. Samos and Clitus Vitellius were intent. Bosk worked swiftly, but, upon occasion, he seemed angry. More than once, for certain letters, he altered his initial hypothesis of correspondence, substituting another, and sometimes yet another and another.
At last he laid down the marking stick, and, ruefully, viewed the paper before him.
"I have the message," he said, soberly.
Samos turned to the two slave girls who knelt to one side. "Begone, Slaves," he said. Swiftly, in their silk, they fled from the room, commanded by a man.
Bosk looked to Luma. "Yes, Master," she whispered. She, too, rose to her feet and, in her brief, blue tunic, hurried from the room. Under the command of masters, slave girls do not dally.
"Would you wish me to withdraw?" inquired Clitus Vitellius.
Samos looked at Bosk of Port Kar. Then Samos said, "Remain, if you would, Clitus Vitellius, Captain of Ar."
Clitus Vitellius nodded.
I knelt as before, a naked, captive slave.
Bosk looked angrily at the words on the paper before him. "It makes no sense," said he.
"What is the message?" asked Samos.
He called Bosk of Port Kar read from the paper before him: "Half-Ear Arrives," he said. Then he added, "It is meaningless."
"No," whispered Samos, his face white. "It is not meaningless."
"What is the meaning?" asked Bosk of Port Kar.
"When did you give this message, Slave Girl?" demanded Samos of me.
"In the last passage hand, Master," I said.
"I took her from two men near the country of the Salerian Confederation," said Clitus Vitellius, "in the early spring."
Since that time I had been the slave of Clitus Vitellius, of Thumus of Tabuk's Ford, of the Keep of Stones of Turmus, and of the Belled Collar. I had been owned, too, by Elicia Nevins and had labored, too, in the Chatka and Curla.
"It is too late," said Samos, miserably.
"In what way?" asked Bosk of Port Kar.
"Doubtless Half-Ear, even now, is upon the surface of Gor," said Samos, grimly.
"Who is Half-Ear?" asked Bosk of Port Kar.
"We do not know his true Kur name," said Samos. "He is only known upon Gor as Half-Ear."
"Who is he?" asked Bosk of Port Kar.
"He is a great war general of the Kurii," said Samos.
"Is his arrival on Gor significant?" asked Bosk of Port Kar.
"He has doubtless come to Gor to take charge of the operations of Kurii upon this world."
I did not understand this talk of Kur and Kurii. They were, I gathered, the enemy.
"That he should come to Gor at this time is significant?" asked Bosk.
"I fear terribly so," said Samos. He seemed shaken. This surprised me, for he seemed generally so stern and strong. It must be a dire intelligence indeed conveyed by the simple message, to disturb to such an extent so mighty a man.
"What does it mean?" pressed Bosk of Port Kar.
"It means, I fear," said Samos, "the invasion is imminent."
"Invasion?" asked Clitus Vitellius.
"There are enemies," said Samos.
"Of Ar?" asked Clitus Vitellius, angrily.
"Of Ar, and of Port Kar, and of Cos and Tarna, and of a world," said Samos.
"Half-Ear," said Bosk of Port Kar, musingly. "I should like to meet him."
"I, too!" cried Clitus Vitellius.
"I know something of him," said Samos of Port Kar. "I do not think I would care to make his acquaintance."
"We must locate him!" said Bosk of Port Kar.
"We have no clue," said Samos. "No clue." Samos looked down at the necklace, which lay again now upon the table before him. "We know only," said he, dismally, "that somewhere upon Gor Half-Ear is among us."
I could hear the oil crackling in the bowl of the tiny lamp on its stand near us.
Samos looked at me, absently. Then he said to the guards behind me, "Take her to the pens and chain her heavily."
26
I Return To Ar; What Was Done To Elicia Nevins, My Mistress
"Your bath is ready, Mistress," I said, kneeling, head down, in brief white slave tunic, before the Lady Elicia of Ar, of Six Towers.
She seated herself on her great couch, and extended her feet, one alter the other, to me. I, kneeling, removed her sandals, kissing each and laying it aside. She stood up and I, rising and standing behind her, lifted away her robe. I kissed it, and put it upon the couch.
She smiled, approvingly. "Perhaps I shall yet make a serving slave of you, Judy," she said.
"It is my hope that I will be pleasing to my mistress," I said. She gestured and I brought the towel, kissing it, which I then wrapped about her head, that her hair not be dampened.
She then went to the edge of the sunken bath, and slipped her toe within the water, and then stepped down into the bath and reclined, leaning back. "Excellent, Judy," she said.
"Thank you, Lady Elicia, my Mistress," I said. I had well judged the temperature of the water, mixing the water from the cistern with other water, heated in the tempering vessel on its iron tripod. The temperature was acceptable. I would not be whipped.
I served her as she wished, with absolute perfection. I glanced at the beaded, feminine slave whip, hanging by its loop upon the wall. I had no wish to feel it.
I looked at the mistress luxuriating in her warm bath, beautiful in the multicolored foams of beauty.
I was Judy, her house and serving slave. I kept her compartments, dusting and cleaning. I cooked and washed. I did all trivial, unpleasant and servile work for her. It was a great convenience to her to own me. Often she would send me shopping, my hands braceleted behind my back, a leather capsule, a cylinder, tied about my neck, containing her order and coins. The merchant would then fill her order, tie the merchandise about my neck, put the change in the leather capsule, close it and, sometimes with a friendly slap, dismissing me, reminding me that I was pretty, regardless of being a woman's slave, send me back to my mistress. At other times my mistress would shop and I would follow her, deferentially, to carry her purchases, eyes cast down, lest I should be caught so much as looking upon a man. A handsome male slave had once smiled at me and I, inadvertently, had reddened and basked in his pleasure. I had been turned about and marched home, to be put under the whip. The Lady Elicia, as I soon discovered, and had earlier suspected, despised and hated men. Yet, too, she found them, somehow, intensely fascinating and intriguing. Often she asked me questions which a slave girl might respond to intimately and easily if asked by another slave girl, but which were difficult to respond to if asked by a free woman. She would ask questions about the tethering and chaining of slaves, and their feelings, and what men made them do and how they were expected to speak and behave. She wanted to know intimate details of such things as what it was like to be a peasant's girl and what men exacted of girls in a paga tavern. I tried to answer her honestly. She would profess rage and indignation. "Yes, Mistress," I would murmur, putting my head down. "How pleased you must be, Judy," she sometimes said, "to have been rescued from all that, to be a woman's slave." "Oh, yes, Mistress," I would say. How could I tell her the joys of a slave girl, obeying the uncompromising, dominant male and writhing in his arms?