Then I shrank back, to the end of the leash.
We had come, on the other side of the door, a few feet from the door, to a deep, narrow, moatlike depression. This extended in the corridor, from side to side, for the width of the corridor, perhaps for some five to seven yards, until it terminated several feet before the farther door, at the end of the passage. Bridging this moatlike depression, running parallel to the sides of the corridor, there lay a narrow, retractable metal beam or plank, perhaps two inches in width.
I shook my head negatively, wildly, beggingly, piteously.
Even were I not confined as I was, I would not have dared to essay that narrow span, that long, terrifyingly narrow beam. At best, unconfined, under duress, I might have tried to inch across it on my belly, trying to balance upon it, clinging desperately to it.
I began to tremble.
I feared I could not long remain on my feet, so weak and frightened I was.
I looked at the soldier, the jailer.
My eyes must have been wild with fear. I whimpered in terror. My legs buckled under me. I slipped down to the stone. I could not stand. I could not even begin to rise to my feet. I knelt down, and put my head to the stone. I could not speak a word, for the gag which I clenched between my teeth. But my mien, doubtless, was pathetic.
I could not even stand.
The jailer may have expected some such response from me. Perhaps he had brought other kajirae to this place.
In any event he did not remonstrate with me, or order me to my feet, or lash me with the strap of the leash.
Perhaps he had not expected more of me. Would a Gorean girl have been different? I did not think so.
He roared with laughter, which much unsettled me.
This was, it seemed, a joke of Masters?
Of course, I suddenly realized, he had not expected me to negotiate that barrier. Perhaps some women might have managed it, even in constraints as I was, but I was not one of the.
The soldier, I saw, made his way swiftly across the bridge.
This startled me.
The jailer then reached down and, to my misery, I helpless, scooped me up, and threw me over his shoulder. I bit down on the gag, that I might not scream with fear, and loose it in the moatlike depression. He carried me with my head to the rear, as women such as I are often carried. We are helpless in this carry, and cannot see to what we are being carried. I held my breath until we reached the other side. He moved across that narrow bridge swiftly and surely, as had the soldier. I saw, in the bottom of the depression, some forty feet below, numerous upward-pointing knives. Perhaps the bridge was wide enough and sturdy enough for those accustomed to such things, but it seemed terribly narrow to me, with the drop beneath, let alone the knives. Men, I knew, in carnivals, or circuses, traversed even narrower and far less steady surfaces. But I did not think those surfaces were likely to be suspended over knives. I then kept my eyes closed until we reached the other side. The bridge shook, and vibrated, with a ringing noise, as we crossed it.
“Wait here,” said the soldier.
I was then put on my knees to one side. The jailer lifted a chain from the side wall. It was attached to a ring there and was itself terminated with another ring. He clipped the ring on the back of my sack to that ring. I was thus, in the sack, kneeling, fastened to the wall.
We waited.
“Do you like our little bridge?” he asked.
I shook my head, negatively.
“There are far worse things in this place,” he said.
I regarded him, frightened.
“You are going to be a good little kajira, are you not?” he asked.
I nodded my head.
“I wonder why you were purchased,” he said, looking down at me.
I looked up at him. I did not know.
“To be sure,” he said, “you are pretty.”
I put my head down, quickly. One is sometimes wary when one hears one so spoken of, too, by such a man. The buckles of the sack were within his reach, of course. It was I who could not reach them.
“We are in the vicinity of one of the high terraces,” he said.
I thought I detected a freshness of air, and a draft from beneath the door.
“You have not been a kajira long, have you?” he asked.
I shook my head, negatively.
“You are familiar with gag signals, are you not?” he asked.
I whimpered once. When a woman is gagged, one whimper means “Yes,” and two, “No.”
“That is better,” he said.
I hoped he would not cuff me.
“You wish to use them then, do you not?” he said.
I whimpered once. Of course! Of course!
“Good,” he said. “Have you been a kajira long?”
I whimpered twice.
“You have much to learn,” he said.
I whimpered once.
“Within,” he said, “you will find yourself in the presence of an officer. Do you understand?”
I whimpered once. I did not really understand, fully, the import of what he was saying but I gathered enough to understand that he within, or he on the other side of that door, he before whom I might soon expect to appear, was of some importance in this place.
This was, as you might suppose, a piece of very frightening intelligence for me.
“You do wish to live, do you not?” asked the jailer.
I whimpered once, earnestly, fervently. Tears sprang to my eyes.
“Good,” he said.
We continued to wait.
“You do not know why you were purchased, do you?” he asked.
I whimpered twice. I looked at him, pleadingly.
“I do not know either,” he said. “Perhaps it is merely because you are pretty.”
I looked down, frightened.
“You are pretty,” he said.
I whimpered a little, not in response, but rather in fear.
I could hardly move in the sack. By means of it I was tethered to the wall.
He looked down at me.
I was within his power.
But he did not unbuckle the sack. I wondered if I might be in some way special. I had certainly not been regarded as special in the pens, except perhaps insofar as I might have been thought to have been of “special interest” to strong men, or, in their rude humor, “specially delicious” as a “tasta” or “pudding.”
I looked at the door, fearfully.
I wondered what lay beyond it.
Behind that door then, I would guess from some several yards behind it, there sounded a gong.
I looked up, wildly, frightened.
“Steady,” he said “It will be a few Ehn.”
He then unclipped the leash ring from the ring on the straps, under my chin. He then, over the straps, pushed my chin up, and fastened the leash, by means of its own clip and ring, about my neck, a portion of the leash thus serving as its own collar. The loop fitted closely about my neck. Perhaps there was something like a half inch of play in the loop. He jerked the loop open, as far as it would go, to its limit, where it was stopped by the ring and guard. I then had something like an inch of play within the loop. I could not, of course, hope to slip such a tether.
“Note,” he said.
He then gave a slight tug on the leash and I looked up at him in terror. Where as the loop might widen to the point where I might have as much as a full inch between my throat and the leather, no limit, other then my throat itself, was imposed on its closure. As the leash was now arranged, it constituted a choke collar. This was quite different from the earlier arrangement, when the ring had been attached to the sack straps.
“Do you like the choke collar?” he asked.
I whimpered twice.
“They are commonly used for dangerous male slaves,” he said, “sometimes for new girls, sometimes for arrogant free women, that they may immediately cease to be arrogant, sometimes for ignorant girls, sometimes for stupid girls. Sometimes women use them for controlling other women, for they have less strength.”
I looked up at him. Such a collar terrified me.
“Do you think it necessary for one such as you?”
I whimpered twice.
“No,” he said. “I do not think so, either. But I thought it useful that you should feel it, and understand that it can be sued on you here.”
I trembled.
I was not totally unfamiliar with choke collars, for they had occasionally been used in my training, in the pens. I did fear them.