My master was first to my side. He was not much pleased. I immediately fell silent.
Another man came, bearing a torch, lit from the stirred ashes of the fire. Some other men arose but then, seeing it was only a slave girl, returned to their furs and tenting. Eta hurried over to me, but a curt word from my master hurried her back to her rest with dispatch.
"I'm caught, Master," I whimpered. Only too obviously had I been trying to escape.
In the torchlight he pulled my head back, by the hair, to clear it of the thorns. He did not want me blinded. I managed, suffering long scratches, to extricate my right arm. He looked at me. I was afraid he was going to leave me as I was. I could not pull my right leg back because of its position in the brush. I had no leverage, as I stood, to lift my leg out. "Please help me, Master," I begged. I had no wish to remain caught in the thorn brush until morning. It was embarrassing, and I was helpless, and it was painful. "Please, Master," I begged, "help me."
He lifted me up, in his arms, in this action freeing my leg, though it was cut and scratched. In the instant I relished being in his arms, held by him. My weight was nothing to him. I loved the feel of his strong hands on my body, holding me up, lightly, from the earth, which I, thus carried, could not touch unless he permitted it. I, naked, boldly put my head against the shoulder of his tunic. Then he had placed me on my feet.
I did not meet his eyes. I felt small before him. It had been obvious I had been trying to escape. I did not know, at that time, what might be the penalty for a girl who attempts escape and is so unfortunate as, as is nearly always the case, to be recaptured. Slave girls almost never escape. The major reason for this is the steel collar, which, obdurately encircling her neck, read, promptly identifies her master and his city. Almost no one, of course, would think of removing a collar from a girl, unless it would be to replace it with one of his own. This is because she is a slave. Girls may also be hunted down by trained sleen, tireless hunters. If a girl should elude one master, she will, customarily, soon fall to another. A successful escape, infrequent event that it is, seldom amounts, from the girl's point of view, to more than an exchange of collar and chains. Almost any man on Gor will hasten to put his collar on a loose, beautiful female. Where is she to run? What is she to do? All in all, escape is not a reality for female slaves. They are slaves. They will remain slaves. Too, they are branded, which further makes escape, for almost all practical purposes, an impossibility for them. Interestingly, ear piercing, too, can make it difficult for an escaped girl to elude detection. Ear piercing, interestingly, from an Earth point of view, is regarded by most Gorean women, slave and free, as more degrading than the brand. Slave girls native to Gor dread it terribly, perhaps because it is so visible, the piercing of their flesh being so flagrantly erotic; what man would even think of freeing them if they had pierced ears? They beg their masters not to pierce their ears. Their pleas, those of slave girls, are commonly ignored. Their ears are pierced. Afterwards, it might be mentioned, they are usually pleased with the piercing of their ears, and grow quite proud of this erotic dimension added to their beauty; not displeased are they either with the lovely adornments which their master may now order them to fix upon their body; free women, it is no secret, in many respects, envy their enslaved sisters, their beauty, their joy, their attractiveness to men; this may explain why free women are often quite cruel to slave girls; most imbonded girls fear greatly that they might be purchased by one of the dreaded free women. I have wondered sometimes if free women on Gor might not be happier if their culture permitted them to be somewhat more like the slave girls they so heartily despise. It seems a small enough thing that a free woman might be culturally permitted to have her ears pierced and, thus, be permitted earrings. Would it make so much difference? But the bonds of culture are strong. On Earth a free woman would not think of having herself branded, though it might improve her beauty; similarly, on Gor, a free woman would not consider having her ears pierced. Among slave girls, however, ear piercing, inflicted upon them by the will of their masters, is becoming widespread on Gor; one might say it is gaining considerable popularity among masters, which accounts, of course, for its growing frequency in the female slave population of the planet; it is a custom which derives, I am told, from the city of Turia, which lies in Gor's southern hemisphere, an important manufacturing and trading center.
A girl with pierced ears is, of course; either a slave or a former slave. If she is a former slave, her papers of manumission had best be in perfect order. More than one freed woman, because of pierced ears, has found herself again on the block, again reduced by strong men to the helpless state of bondage. Such a woman is usually, by intent, sold away from her city, delivered for a pittance to a foreign buyer.
My ears were not pierced, so I needed not fear that the piercing of my ears would betray me to the casual glance of a Gorean male as a slave girl. I was, however, branded. Gorean free women, no more than the free women of Earth, do not wear brands. Only slave girls, on Earth or Gor, are branded. On Earth, where slavery is practiced, commonly only troublesome girls are branded. On Gor, on the other hand, all slave girls are branded.
I did not think I could well escape with my brand. It marked me too well as a slave.
I did not speak to my master. He was, I supposed, considering my punishment, for having attempted to escape.
I did not know at that time what was commonly done to a girl who has attempted to escape, and has been recaptured. It is just as well. Much depends on the master but, commonly, the first time she is recaptured, she is treated with great lenience, as being only a foolish girl. Commonly, she is only tied and lashed. Should she attempt escape a second time, and be recaptured, she is commonly hamstrung, the tendons behind the knees being severed. Almost no girls attempt escape a second time.
I did not know at the time but even the thought of escape was a foolish one.
Many girls, even should they be so fortunate as to reach the walls of their own city, may not be admitted through its gates. Their slavery, even though no fault of their own, has deprived them of all their rights and cancelled their citizenship.
"Flee or be chained, Slave," is often said to them. They turn and run weeping from the gates.
Some girls attempt to flee to the greenwood forests of the north. In such forests, in certain territories, there roam bands of free women, the lithe, ferocious Panther Girls of Gor, but these despise and hate women not of their own fierce ilk; in particular do they revile and hold in contempt girls, beauties, who have been slaves to men; should such a girl, fleeing, enter the cool vastness of their green domain, she is commonly hunted down like a tabuk doe and cruelly captured; the forests are not for such as she; she is tethered and bound, and often lashed, then driven by switches helplessly to the shores of Thassa or the banks of the Laurius, and then sold back to men, usually for weapons or candy.
My master, with a spear and a loop of rope, under the torchlight, the torch held by one of his men, opened a passage in the thorn bush. It was some eighteen inches wide.
He pointed to the passage.
The way to flight was open.
I need only run.
I looked at my master in the moonlight. My knees felt that they might give way. I began to tremble.
The way to flight was open.
I looked with dread down the narrow corridor forced between the walls of fierce thorn brush, into the darkness beyond.
I needed only run.
The naked slave girl shook with terror before her master.