I felt his hand tighten in the veil. Then he jerked it away. I was face-stripped, completely. I closed my eyes, with shame. I reddened. It was as though the last bit of netting, mockery of modesty though it might be, had been ripped away. My face, my feelings, my emotions, now lay bare to them. My face, though I wore robes of concealment, was as naked as that of a slave girl.
"I wonder if you are free, my beauty," said the captain.
My mouth, now that he had torn away the veil, was fully exposed to his. Nothing now separated his mouth, his tongue, his teeth, from mine. From his point of view I then, though I might be free, might as well have been a slave girl.
I looked at him.
"Release her wrist thong," said he to the soldier who held the thong. He dropped the thong, and it dangled, loosely, from my wrist.
"A wrist thong scarcely comports with the dignity of a free woman," said the captain to me.
He walked about me, as a man walks about a woman. I had the feeling he saw me naked beneath the robes.
"Are you free, my beauty?" he asked. He drew his sword. I shuddered. "Are you free?" he asked. He put the sword at my left ankle, and, curiously, lifted the robes of concealment a bit. "I hope for your sake," said he, "that you are free. If you are not, I will not be much pleased."
I felt the blade on my leg, lifting up the robes further. "Step from your slippers," he said.
I did so, trembling.
I felt the steel on my leg, lifting the robes yet higher. They were above my knee now.
The three slave girls in the tent, gowned, watched with apprehension.
The robes were lifted higher, some inches above my knee.
"If you are free," said the captain, "you are rather pretty to be free."
"Captain," said a voice from outside the tent, "the men are ready."
"I shall join you momentarily," he said.
"Yes, Captain," said the man.
The captain then again turned his attention toward me. He was angry. He spoke softly, but menacingly. "You have made a fool of all of us," he said. "Thus, I hope that you are free." The blade moved a bit higher on the leg. I trembled. "Yet," said he, "the leg is not bad. It is a leg which is pretty enough to be the leg of a slave girl. I wonder if it is the leg of a slave girl." He lifted the robes to my hip. I felt the steel against my hip.
The men in the tent cried out with anger. The slave girls gasped and shrank back.
"It is as I thought," said the captain. He stepped back, but he did not sheath his sword.
"I will give you twenty Ihn," said he, "to remove the clothing of a free woman and to fall naked on your belly before me."
Weeping I tore away the robes, frenziedly, and, stripped, threw myself on my belly naked before him, he a Gorean male, he a master, I a slave girl.
"Standard binding position," he said. I was prone. When a girl is prone, the standard binding position is to cross the wrists behind the back and to cross the ankles. I took this position instantaneously.
That I did this did not cause him any pleasure. No one in the room thought anything of it. I was simply a prone slave girl who had been commanded to standard binding position. No one in the room, including myself; would have expected me to do other than comply. Lack of compliance by a slave girl to a command in the Gorean world is unthinkable. She obeys.
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.