When the Lady Sabina had finished her work and returned to her tent, followed by the two gowned slave girls, the leader of the camp, or captain, angrily, returned, too, to his tent, and the men, who had gathered around, returned to their duties, their rest or recreations.
The girl was left tied at the wheel, whipped.
My master looked upward, at the moons. From through the trees, on the other side of the camp, came what I took to be the sound of a bird, the hook-billed, night-crying fleer, which preys on nocturnal forest urts. The cry was repeated three times.
"Quiet is the night," called one of the camp guards, and this call was echoed by the others.
Again, three times, I heard the cry of the fleer.
My master slipped behind me. He held me, with his left hand. I felt, from the side, his knife slip beneath the veils at my face and throat. Then the knife's edge, I feeling it, thin, obdurate, pressed at my jugular.
"What is the duty of a slave girl?" he asked.
"Absolute obedience, Master," I whispered, frightened. "Absolute obedience." I scarcely dared to whisper, for fear of moving my throat beneath the knife.
I felt the knife leave my throat. I felt the black cloak in which I had been wrapped, concealing the largely white, rich, shimmering raiment in which I had been robed, slipped away.
"Run," said my master, indicating a path through the trees, past the far end of the camp. "And do not let yourself be captured."
He thrust me from him and I, miserable, confused, began to run.
I had gone no more than a dozen steps when I heard one of the guards at the camp cry out, "Halt! Stand! Name! City! Stand!" I did not stop, but pressed on.
"Who is it?" cried a man. "A free woman!" I heard. "Is it the Lady Sabina?" I heard cry. "Stop her!" I heard. "After her!"
I ran, madly.
The men, as I now think of it, must have been as confused as I was. I knew only that I feared them, and had been commanded to run. Too, my master had told me to avoid capture. Ignorant, wild, terrified, I ran.
I stumbled and fell, and scrambled to my feet, and ran again. I heard men crying out, and then, more frighteningly, I heard several leaving the camp, splashing across the stream, crashing through brush behind me. I was now among the trees, out of sight of the camp, but I was being pursued, by how many men I did not know.
They were Gorean men.
I fled in terror.
"Lady Sabina!" I heard. "Stop! Stop!"
As I ran I realized that the probabilities of there being a free woman, robed, in the vicinity of the camp, who was not the Lady Sabina, were extremely low. Perhaps she had fled from the camp? Perhaps, for some reason, she wished to flee the match with Thandar of Ti, whom I understood she had never seen. There must have been men in the camp who, almost immediately, would have verified that the Lady Sabina was still within the camp, but many, having only moments to act, would be unable to make that verification. If the running woman was the Lady Sabina she must be caught for her loss would mean the failure of the alliances pending between the Salerian Confederation and Fortress of Saphronicus. Too, she must be caught swiftly, for the forests at night were dangerous. Sleen might take her or, perhaps, prowling outlaws. Too, in the camp were no hunting sleen. Accordingly, the sooner she could be retaken the better. It was night, and, even in the morning, her trail would be less fresh, less obvious. And, if the woman were not the Lady Sabina she should, anyway, be brought in. Surely a free woman in the midst of the night forest constitutes a mystery which must be solved. Who is she? From whom is she running? Is she alone?
I had no time to think. I was only running.
Too, I believe the men of the camp had little time to ponder their courses of action.
It was natural that many of them should have leapt to my pursuit.
I fled through the thickets. I heard men crashing through the brush behind me. I did not know how many followed. I suspect that of the seventy or eighty men in the camp twenty or more had immediately plunged after me, perhaps even more. Surely, too, attention was drawn to that end of the camp near which I had been first seen. It was there that men would have peered into the darkness, there that they would have been marshaled into more organized defensive groups or more organized search parties.
"Stop!" I heard. "Stand! Stand!"
I ran, stumbling, striking branches and brush away from me. My robes were torn.
The crashing in the brush behind me grew louder.
No more swiftly could I run. It was not merely that I was encumbered by the robes. I knew that I could not, in any case, outrun the men. They were stronger and swifter than I. I was only a girl. Nature, whatever might be her reasons, had not fitted me to outrun males. I was frightened suddenly that it had not been her intention that women escape men. Then I realized how foolish this was, to so personalize nature, to ascribe to the cruel, blind processes of the world deliberate intentions. Rather it had been the selections of nature which had determined this. Women who had escaped men would have been lost to the gene pool. Caught women would have been led back to the caves, to suffer the indignities of impregnation by their captors, being forced to reproduce their kind. Similar considerations may have a bearing on the smaller size and strength of women. Yet matters are far more complicated than these considerations suggest. For, in the intricacies, and interplay of both natural and sexual selection, not merely a swiftness, a size and strength would have been selected for in women but an entire set of genetic dispositions; it seems inconsistent to suppose that evolution would select only for the outside of an animal and not for its inside as well, that only matters such as external configuration would have a bearing on its survival or desirability and not its dispositions to respond in certain ways. Surely the same evolution which has selected for the fangs of the lion and the speed of the gazelle has selected as well for the disposition to hunt and the disposition to flight, that has selected for the strength of the male and the weakness of the female has selected as well for the disposition to conquer and the disposition to surrender. We are, to a large extent, one supposes, the products of environments, but it is well to remember that the maximum, shaping environments in which our nature was stabilized and forged are ancient ones; the sense in which environment determines endowment is the sense in which it determines which endowments are to be perpetuated.
With misery I suddenly realized my genetic heritage was that of a type which could be caught by men.
The hands of a man seized me.
"Hold, Lady," said he.
I gasped, and shook, held in his arms.
"Why have you fled, Lady Sabina?" asked he. "It is dangerous." Then he called out, "I have her."
I tried to escape, but I was held fast.
In a moment several more men were about me. He who had held me then released me. I stood, captured, in their midst. I did not speak. I averted my head.
"Is it the Lady Sabina?" asked a voice.
"Face me," said a voice.
I did not face him, but kept my head averted. I felt hands put on my shoulders.
Firmly I was turned to face the speaker. "Lift your head," he said. "To the moonlight."
I kept my head down, but he, with his hand, lifted my head up, that the moonlight might fall upon my veiled face.
I saw that it was the captain, or camp's leader. Suddenly I realized he should not have pursued me. He should have remained in the camp.
He studied what he could see of my eyes in the uncertain moonlight, shattered, through the branches of the forest. He backed away, and studied the robes I wore. Then he said, "Who are you?"
I did not speak. If I had spoken he would instantly have detected my accent, my faltering Gorean, and would have marked me as a barbarian girl.
"You are not the Lady Sabina," he said. "Who are you?"
I kept silent.
"Do you flee an unwanted companionship?" he asked. "Was your retinue ambushed? Do you flee outlaws?"