I looked across the sand to Chanda's cage. She had finished wrapping the cloth about her cut calf.
I hoped the wound was not deep. No one seemed to be concerned about her. I gathered that her leg would not be scarred, and that her value would not be lowered. If her leg did scar, with the result that her block value was diminished, it must be recalled that Clitus Vitellius, my former master, had had her for nothing.
Sleen are used for a multitude of purposes on Gor, but most commonly they are used for herding, tracking, guarding and patrolling. The verr and the bosk are the most common animals herded; tabuk and slave girls are the most common animals tracked; the uses to which the sleen is put in guarding and patrolling are innumerable; it is used to secure borders, to prowl walls and protect camps; it may run loose in the streets after curfews; it may lurk in the halls of a great house after dark; it may deter thieves from entering locked shops; it may stand sentry upon wharves and in warehouses; there are many such uses to which the sinuous beasts may be put; an interesting use which might be mentioned is prisoner control; a tiny circle is drawn and the prisoner must kneel, or assume some prescribed position, within it; then, should the prisoner attempt to rise to his feet, leave the circle, or break the position in the slightest, the beasts tears him to pieces. Aside from these common uses, sleen are put to other uses, too. In Thentis, for example, sleen are used to smell out contraband, in the form of the unauthorized egress of the beans for black wine from the Thentian territories. They are sometimes, too, used by assassins, though the caste of assassins itself, by their caste codes, precludes their usage; the member of the caste of assassins must make his own kill; it is in their codes. Some sleen are used as bodyguards; others are trained to kill in the arena; others perform in exhibitions and carnivals. There are many uses to which such animals are put. The herding, tracking and control of beautiful slave girls is but one use.
The gate to my cage was unlocked, and flung upward. The sleen outside had been fed and taken, by the men assisting Thurnus, on short ropes, to their cages. The men of Clitus Vitellius had left the sand pit, and the area about it, accompanied by his girls, including Chanda, who, too, had been released. The small crowd which had observed had now dissipated, with the exception of Melina, companion of Thurnus, and two or three peasant boys, who watched me. Sandal Thong, one of the girls of Thurnus, who had assisted in the training pit, had left, too, now, to attend to other duties, including the watering of the sleen. She wore a short slave tunic, white, of the wool of the Hurt, and a rope collar. She was a large, long-armed, freckled girl, of peasant stock. Clitus Vitellius, in the tunic of the warrior, remained in the training pit, to accompany Thurnus back to his hut.
Thurnus tapped on the bars of the cage with a sleen whip. "Come out, little slave," he said.
On my hands and knees I emerged from the cage, head down, crawling out onto the hot sand. It was the first time I had ever been caged. Without thinking I began to rise to my feet. The butt of the sleen whip struck me heavily, driven downward, between the shoulder blades, felling me. I lay in the hot sand, startled. I hurt. I could feel the warm sand, granular, between my fingers, on my thighs. "Master?" I asked, frightened. How had I displeased him?
"Were you given permission to rise, Slave?" he asked.
"No, Master," I said, frightened. "Forgive me." It is common on Gor for a girl emerging from a small cage, on her belly, or her hands and knees, depending on the size opening, at the feet of her master to remain, pending her master's instructions, on her belly or hands and knees. I did not know it at the time. I had never been caged before.
I, lying in the sand, was conscious of their feet about me. I did not want to be beaten.
"She is a pretty little thing, is she not?" asked Thurnus. I supposed I did look beautiful, a slave girl, lying at their feet in the warm sand.
"I am pleased that you like her," said Clitus Vitellius.
"I am grateful for the gift," said Thurnus.
"It is nothing," said Clitus Vitellius. "She is only a lovely trifle."
"On your hands and knees, Girl," said Thurnus.
I rose to my hands and knees. I felt a length of sleen rope tied on my neck. The other end of the rope was looped several times and the loops loosely knotted about a bar of the sleen cage. The resulting tether was about a foot long.
"Look up at me, Girl," said Thurnus.
I looked up at him.
"You attempted to escape," he said.
"I had no chance to escape, Master," I said. "A sleen was set upon me."
"It is true," said he, "that you had no chance for escape. But you, ignorant girl, did not know that."
I was silent, frightened.
"Did you try to escape?" he asked.
I had tried to escape. "Yes, Master," I whispered.
"Sit with your back against the cage, legs drawn up," he said. I did so, my neck roped to one of the bars. He crouched down, near me.
He drew out a sleen knife.
He felt the back of my legs, with his left hand.
"Pretty legs," he said.
"Thank you, Master," I said.
"Do you know what these muscles are?" he asked, touching the twin cords behind my right knee.
"Tendons, Master," I said.
"Do you know what they are for?" he asked.
"They control the movement of my leg," I said. "Without them I could not walk."
I felt the blade touch the left tendon behind my right knee. If Thurnus were to draw the blade toward him, the tendon would be severed.
He replaced the sleen knife in its sheath.
Then he struck me twice, once striking my head to the right, and, then, with the back of his hand, lashing it to the left.
"That," said Thurnus, "is for having tried to escape."
"Yes, Master," I said.
He then took my legs, drawn up, in his hands, pressing with his thumbs against the inner tendons behind both the left and right knee.
I shrank back, miserable, my head to one side, against the bars.
"Remember, small, luscious, beauty," he said.
I looked at him with horror. "Yes, Master," I said. The memory of the sleen knife was vivid in my mind.
He removed his hands from my legs and I almost collapsed in the sand.
"On your hands and knees, Girl," said Thurnus.
I went to my bands and knees, and he unknotted the loops of sleen rope from the bar of the cage, and threw it loose beside me, in the sand, whence it rose to the bond on my neck.
"Look up at me, Girl," he said.
I looked up at him, the rope on my neck.