“Tenrik,” said the man in the chair.
“Captain,” said the jailer.
“Bind her, hand and foot,” he said.
My hands were pulled behind me and my wrists crossed. In a moment, with a dispatch and effectiveness that could only have been the result of long experience in such things, the knots had been jerked tight. Then my ankles were crossed, and, with a separate bit of cord, lashed together.
“Carry her to the wall,” said a man in the chair.
The jailer then lifted me up and carried me in his arms to the wall, on which he stood, I in his arms. The wind blew fiercely there. I whimpered piteously, terrified.
“Look down, slave girl,” called the man in the chair.
“Please, no, Master!” I cried.
“Must a command be repeated?” he inquired.
“No, Master!” I wept.
I turned my head and, moaning, looked down. The rocks were hundreds of feet below.
“It is enough,” he said.
I closed my eyes, and put my head back, tightly, against the chest of the jailer, trembling.
“You realize you could be easily hurled to the rocks below?” inquired the man in the chair.
“Yes, Master!” I said, not even opening my eyes.
“Sleen come there at night, looking for bodies,” said the man in the chair.
“Yes, Master,” I said, keeping my eyes shut.
I was then carried down from the wall and deposited, again, before the dais. I lay on my side. How welcome was the stone flagging of the terrace floor!
I looked up, fearfully, at the man in the chair.
“You understand something now of what it might be to be a slave in this place?” asked the man in the chair.
“Yes, Master!” I said.
“You will try to be a good slave, will you not?” he inquired.
“Yes, Master!” I cried. “Yes, Master!”
I lay there, on my side, bound. They then attended to other business. I was sure that they were through with me now, at least for all practical purposes. Why then was I not carried away, or conducted somewhere?
Somehow, now, I was no longer so certain that my disposition, apparently already determined, would be as lofty and certain as I had hitherto conjectured.
I did not even want to go near the wall again, not even to the parapet. The board I had trod earlier was wide and, objectively, it was easy to tread, even hooded as I was. Certainly the folks of this world seem to have little fear of such narrow places. They are accustomed to them. They think little more of treading them than I might have of treading a sidewalk on my old world. Much depends on what is familiar to one, what one grows used to. Many of the “high bridges” in a city such as this would be regarded as quite alarming, at least initially, by most of those of Earth, as they might range from a foot to four or five feet wide, and arch over frightful drips, sometimes to a maze of bridges below, but these people, who have grown up with them, seldom give them a thought. The point of the high bridges seems to be twofold, first, they are lovely in their traceries against the sky and between the cylinderlike buildings, and such things are important to these people, who seem to have an unusually developed aesthetic sense and, second, they have military value, inasmuch as they are easy to defend. Each of these cylinders, in its way, can constitute a stronghold, a fortress or keep. To me, of course, traversing these bridges, particularly in the beginning, constituted a nightmare of terror. I would sometimes crawl on them, scarcely able to move. I would sometimes go to great lengths to avoid them, even though I must then hasten, gasping, running, on my errands, the message tube tied about my neck, my hands braceleted behind me, that I might not have been thought to have dallied. I am still uneasy on such bridges. My fears sometimes occasion amusement among the masters. But my fears, I have been told, are not unprecedented, and, indeed, are not unusual among girls of my sort, girls from my world. Brought here as slaves. But fortunately insouciance and thoughtlessness on the high bridges, common to those of this world, are not required of us. It is other things which are required of us.
I lay there on the flagging, on my side, helpless, bound hand and foot, for some time, while business was conducted. I could see the tiny tunic to one side, where it had been dropped. I made no effort to call attention to myself. It would be done with me as others pleased. I was slave. I did, at one point, see one of the men looking down at me. I pointed my toes a little, even with my ankles bound, and sucked in my waist, that the line of my legs, and the nature of my figure might be accentuated. I do not think that this was particularly because I realized that the means at my disposal to improve my life and condition here were largely limited to my beauty, heat, and service, but, rather, simply, because, under the eyes of a man, such a man as one of these, I could not help myself but behave as a slave, and perform as a slave, and present myself as the slave I was. He laughed, and I blushed, and, shamed, looked away.
Shortly thereafter the fellow who had conducted Dorna away, she preceding him with alacrity, returned to the terrace. With him was a grimy fellow in a leather apron with a tiny kit of tools.
Seeing he who had conducted Dorna away I thought immediately of her. Tonight, I recalled, she was to serve as the slave she was. Perhaps even now she was preparing herself, or perhaps, as she was high slave, she was being prepared by lesser slaves, for her “test.”
I was certain she would strive humbly and zealously to pass that test. I gathered it would not go well with her if she failed.
Somewhere else, I gathered, at another time, she had been a free woman and, it seems, an important personage. They had even spoken of a mask of silver, or gold, or such. Here, of course, her face was naked, and she was only another slave.
The man with the fellow who had returned to the terrace was, as I would later learn to recognize at a glance by his garb, a member of the leather workers. In many of the Gorean cities there is a caste structure which is significant not only socially but politically. The leather workers are a “low caste.” The high castes are normally accounted five in number — the Warriors, the Builders, the Physicians, the Scribes, and the Initiates. The Initiates are sometimes thought of as the highest of the five high castes, and the Warriors commonly produce the administrators and ubars for a city. It is not easy in a world such as this to deprive those who are skilled with weapons their share of authority. If it is not given to them, they will take it. There are some ambiguities in the caste structure. For example, some rank the Merchants as a high caste, and some do not; and some rank the Slavers with the Merchants, and some see them as a separate caste, and so on. It is usually a very serious thing to lose caste in this society. To be sure, not everyone has caste. Priest-Kings, for example, whoever they may be, have no caste. They are said to be “above caste.” Similarly, outlaws and slaves have no caste. Outlaws are thought to have relinquished caste, and, in a sense, thus, to be “out of caste,” and slaves, of course, as animals, are “below caste,” or, perhaps better, “aside from caste” or “apart from caste.” To be sure, I think there are others who also lack caste, really. Some may not have been raised “in caste,” some may decline or flee their castes before the initiations, and so on. Similarly, there are entire groups of people, as I understand it, barbarians, savages, and such, whose social arrangements are not based on caste. Very little on this world, and, I suppose, on others, is simple.
“Dorna is now a pierced-ear girl?” asked he in the chair of the fellow who had returned to the terrace.
“Yes, Captain,” said the fellow.
The man in the chair smiled. There was laughter from the men about. Some smote their left shoulders in approval. I had gathered earlier that the piercing of the ears was regarded on this world as somehow rather significant. That surmise was now confirmed.