The captain spoke swiftly with two of the men in the room. Then he spoke, too, to one of the slave girls, who, addressed, knelt before him. She left the tent.
I could hear the men outside. There was some rattle of weaponry.
The girl who, earlier, had been beaten and tied at the wagon wheel, was brought into the tent. She looked at me and went and lay, miserable, in a corner of the tent. The other girl, too, re-entered the tent.
The captain made ready to depart from the tent, to take command of his men.
I lay there, unbound, but in binding position. I had not moved. I did not wish to be slain.
The captain looked down at me, and then, as though in response to an afterthought, said to one of his men, "Tie her."
The captain's helmet was brought to him. I felt my wrists and ankles being tied. My wrists were tied with the loop of thong which had bound my right wrist previously, when I had been brought to the tent.
The captain turned me over with his foot. Then he knelt on one knee beside me. I felt the point of his sword in my belly. "I will see you later," said he, "pretty little Kajira." I felt the point of the sword push in. I winced. "Speak," said he. "Yes, Master," I wept.
"A barbarian," said one of the men.
"Yes," said the captain, getting up.
"But a pretty one," said one of the men.
The captain regarded me, bound at his feet. "Yes," he said. Then he donned the helmet, turned, and left the tent.
The other slave girls in the tent, save she who had been beaten, who lay miserably in a corner of the tent, looked angrily at me. One rubbed the bruise on her shoulder. "Kajira," she hissed. I turned to my side, in the dirt. I wept. I lay a captured slave girl, in the tent of enemies.
Gone then was the romance of slavery. I moaned with misery. I had been used to create a diversion, had been employed as a mere pawn. I had been exposed to danger, as though I might have been a mere slave. Did my master not love me? Did he not care for me? Did he not reciprocate the feelings which I had for him? I wept, an insignificant slave.
I heard the men leaving the camp. Then the camp was empty, save for the wounded, and the slave girls, of which I was one.
"Dina," said the girl with the bruise to me. She had called me that because of my brand, the Dina, or Slave Flower. Girls who wear the brand are sometimes spoken of as Dinas. As she had said "Dina," it had been a term of abuse. The Dina brand is one of the more frequently found of the specialized brands on Gor. Dinas, such as I was, were relatively common girls.
The camp was now quiet.
The bruised girl came over to me. "Dina!" she said, and kicked me. Then she returned to the other girls.
"Our poor mistress," cried the girl who had kicked me. "Pity her!"
I heard the sounds of the night outside the tent, the insects, the cries of fleers.
Surreptitiously, for I did not wish to be struck or again kicked, I tried to move my wrists and ankles. It was useless. Thongs had been used, not rope; the knots, simple and efficient, had been made by a warrior. With a minimum of means I was held with absolute perfection. A Gorean warrior had bound me.
I heard again, from outside, the cries of the hook-billed fleer.
I reared up.
The slave girls cried out, then were silent. Swords lay at their throats.
My master was in the tent, following his men through the rent silken wall.
One of the men carried a looped coffle chain, with wrist rings.
"Master!" I cried out with elation. I struggled to sit up. He crouched beside me and, with his unsheathed blade, slashed apart the leather which bound me. I flung myself to his feet, pressing my lips to his sandals. "Master!" I wept with joy. He had come back! He had not left me. But he pulled away from my hands and lips at his sandals, and issued orders to his men. The four slave maids crouched terrified, under swords, in the center of the tent, including she who had been beaten. Some men left the tent.
"Kneel to be coffled," said one of the men. The girls knelt, closely, one behind the other. There were six wrist rings on the chain he carried. He placed the girl who had been whipped by the Lady Sabina first in the coffle line. "Left wrist coffle," he said. They lifted their left wrists, frightened. Interestingly, the man snapping the wrist rings on the girls' left wrists did not put the first girl in the first ring, but the second. When the four maids were coffled there was, thus, an empty wrist ring both at the head and the rear of the line. "Stand, Slaves," said the man. "Lower chain." The girls stood. Then, ordered, they lowered their wrists. They were then in line, standing, coffled.
Outside I heard bosk being hitched to wagons. Other bosk I heard being freed and driven into the woods.
I wondered if the camp would be fired. I supposed not, for the glow of the burning silk and canvas in the night sky might too soon apprise the camp's soldiers of what had occurred. An obvious trail had been left for the soldiers to begin to follow; then the men of my master had circled about to return to the camp. The trail would become difficult to detect, then perhaps disappear. The men of the camp had not had trained sleen. While the pursuing soldiers followed a false scent, my master's men returned to their camp, from which, later, in a new direction, they might make their departure. My master prepared to leave the tent. I wanted to run beside him, but he would not permit it. He pushed me back. I must remain within. He left the tent.
The man who had coffled the girls now stood back, looking at them. "May I speak?" begged the first in the line, she who had been earlier whipped. "Yes," he said. "I hate my mistress," she said. "I am ready to love you, Master!" "Do you not enjoy being owned by a woman?" he asked. "I want to love a man," she wept. "Shameless slave," cried the last girl in the line, she who had lamented the fate of her mistress, and who had called me "Dina," and kicked me. "I am a woman and a slave!" cried the first. "I want a man! I need a man!"
"Do not fear, Slave," grinned the man who had locked her in her wrist ring, "you will not be neglected when wench service is wished."
"Thank you, Master," she said, and stood very straight, very proudly.
"Brazen slave," scolded the last girl in the line.
"Comb the hair of the spoiled brat of a merchant, if you wish," said the first. "I will dance naked before a man."
"Slave!" cried the last girl in the line, horrified.
"Yes, slave!" said the first, angrily, proudly.
I heard a wagon being driven from the camp. In it, I suspected, lay the dowry riches of the Lady Sabina of Fortress of Saphronicus. The location of the lady herself I did not know, but I had little doubt she was in a safe place, probably blindfolded, gagged and chained to a tree somewhere. I wondered if she had been permitted to retain her clothing.
"Do you have pretty legs?" asked the man of the second girl in the line.
"Yes, Master," she said, smiling.
"You are aware," he queried, "of the penalties for lying to a free man?"
"Examine them, Master," she said, smiling, boldly. "It will not be necessary to beat me."
The last girl in the line cried out with indignation.
The man, with his knife, cut away much of the long, flowing white gown the girl wore, considerably shortening it, until it was provocatively high, ragged and exciting, on her thighs.
"It will not be necessary to beat you," he acknowledged.
"Thank you, Master," she said.
The last girl in the line snorted angrily, tossing her head in the air.
"Do you have pretty legs?" asked the man of the second gowned girl in the coffle.
"I do not know, Master," she whispered. "I am only a girl's maid."
"Let us see," said the man, and, as he had with the first, transformed the flowing classic, sleeveless garment into a sweet scrap of lovely slave livery.