I glanced casually back to look upon her, kneeling beside, the slender, silvered, long-spouted vessel of black wine, resting over its tiny brazier, she only one of a pair, a matched set, of slaves. Her eyes were angry, over her veil. Her bare midriff, long, between the high, hooked vest of red silk and the low-slung, sashed chalwar, about her hips, some inches below her navel, was quite attractive. To see her was to want her; and to want her was to wish to own her.

Alyena now to a swirl of music spun before us, swept helpless with it, bangles clashing, to its climax.

Then she stopped, marvelously, motionlessly, as the music was silent, her head back, her arms high, her body covered with sweat, and then, to the last swirl of the barbaric melody, fell to the floor at the feet of Ibn Saran. I noted the light hair on her forearms. She gasped for breath.

Ibn Saran, magnanimously, gestured that she might rise, and she did so, standing before him, head high, breathing deeply.

Ibn Saran looked at me. He smiled thinly. “An interesting slave,” he said.

“Would you care to bid upon her?” I asked.

Ibn Saran gestured to Suleiman. He acknowledged the courtesy. “I would not bid against a guest in my house,” he said.

“And I,” said Ibn Saran, “would not feel it gracious to bid against the host in whose house I find such welcome.”

“In my Pleasure Gardens,” smiled Suleiman, “I have twenty such women.”

“Ah,” said Ibn Saran, bowing.

“Seventy weights of dates for the stones,” said Suleiman to me. The price was fair, and good. In his way, he was being magnanimous with me. He had bargained earlier, and had, in this, satisfied himself as a trader of the desert. It was now as Suleiman, Ubar and Pasha of Nine Wells, that he set his price. I had little doubt it was firm. He had cut through much haggling. Had he been truly interested in bargaining and dates I suspected I would not have been permitted to deal with him at all, but one of his commissary officers.

“You have shown me hospitality.” I said, “and I would be honored if Suleiman Pasha would accept these unworthy stones for sixty weights.”

Had it not been for Ibn Saran, I suspected I would not have been admitted even to the presence of the Pasha of Nine Wells.

He bowed. He called a scribe to him. “Give this merchant in gems.” said he, “my note, stamped for eighty weights of dates.”

I bowed. “Suleiman Pasha is most generous.” I said.

I heard a noise from afar, some shouting. I did not think either Ibn Saran or Suleiman heard it.

Alyena stood on the scarlet tiles, head back, sweating, breathing heavily, nude save for her ornaments and collar, the bangles about her ankles and wrists, the armlets, the several chains and pendants looped about her neck. She brushed back her hair with her right hand.

I now heard some more shouting. I heard, too, incongruous in the palace of the Pasha of Nine Wells, from afar, the squealing of a kaiila.

“What is going on?” asked Suleiman. He stood, robes swirling.

Alyena looked about.

At that instant, buffeting guards aside, sending them sprawling, to our amazement, in the carved, turret-shaped portal of the great room, claws scratching on the tiles, appeared a war kaiila, in full trappings, mounted by a veiled warrior in swirling burnoose. Guards rushed forward. His scimitar leapt from its sheath and they fell back, bleeding, reeling to the tiles.

He thrust his scimitar hack in his sheath. He threw back his head and laughed, and then tore down the veil, that we might look on his face. He grinned at us.

“It is the bandit, Hassan!” cried a guard.

I drew my scimitar and stood between him and Suleiman.

The kaiila pranced. The man uncoiled a long desert whip from his saddle.

“I come for a slave,” he said.

The long blade of the whip lashed forth. Alyena, her head back, cried out with pain. Four coils of the whip, biting into her, lashing, snapped tight about her waist. He yanked her, stumbling, the prisoner of his whip, to the side of his kaiila. By the hair he yanked her across his saddle.

He lifted his hand to us. “Farewell!” he cried. “And my thanks!” He then spun the kaiila and, as guards swarmed after him, to our astonishment, leapt the kaiila, catlike, between pillers, through one of the great arched windows of the palace room. He struck a roof below, and then another roof, and then was to the ground, racing away, men turning to look after him.

I, and others, turned back from the window. On the cushions lay Suleiman, Pasha of Nine Wells. I ran to him. I saw Hamid, who was the lieutenant of Shakar, captain of the Aretai, slip swiftly behind hangings, a dagger, bloodied, held within his cloak.

I turned Suleiman. His eyes were open. “Who struck me?” he said. There was blood deep in the silk of the cushions.

Ibn Saran drew forth his scimitar. He did not seem languid now. His eyes blazed.

He seemed a silken panther, lithe, tensed for the spring. He pointed the scimitar at me. “He!” he cried. “I saw it! He did it!”

I leaped to my feet.

“Kavar spy!” cried Ibn Saran. “Assassin!”

I spun about, facing steel on all sides.

“Cut him down!” cried Ibn Saran, raising his scimitar.

6 A Slave Girl Testifies

The bodies of the two girls, stripped, lay on the narrow rectangles, networks, of knotted ropes, on the racks. The ropes, slung, were pressed down with their weight. Their hands were at their sides, but ropes were attached to them, and fixed on the axle of the windlass, above their heads. Both wore collars. Their ankles were roped to the foot of the device.

I knelt on the circle of accusation. My wrists were manacled behind my back. On my neck, hammered, was a heavy ring of iron, with two welded rings, one on each side, to which chains were attached, these chains in the hands of guards. I was stripped. My ankles were chained.

“Cut him down!” had cried Ibn Sarah, raising his scimitar.

“No!” had said Shakar, captain of the Aretai, staying his arm. “That would be too easy.”

Smiling, Ibn Saran had sheathed his weapon.

Ropes had been put upon me.

I struggled in the chains. I was helpless.

“Let the testimony of slaves be taken,” said the judge.

The red-haired girl on the rack cried out in misery. The testimony of slaves, in a Gorean court, is commonly taken under torture.

Two brawny male slaves, stripped to the waist, spun the two handles on the racks.

The red-haired girl, she who had been one of the matched set of slaves, who had had in her charge the tray of spoons and sugars, wept. Her wrists, and those of the other girl, as the long wooden handles turned, were pulled up and over her head. The red-haired girl writhed on the cords. “Master!” she wept.

Ibn Saran, in silken kaftan, and kaffiyeh and agal, strode to the rack.

“Do not be frightened, pretty Zaya,” he said. “Remember to tell the truth, and only the truth.”

“I will, Master!” she wept. “I will.”

At a sign from the judge the handle moved once, dropping the wooden pawl into the ratchet notch. Her body was now tight on the rack; her toes were pointed; her hands were high over her head, the rough rope slipped up her wrists, prohibited from moving further by its knots and the wide part of her hands.

“Listen carefully, little Zaya,” said Ibn Saran. “And think carefully.”

The girl nodded.

“Did you see who it was who struck noble Suleiman Pasha?”

“Yes.” she cried. “It was he! He! It was he, as you, my Master, have informed the court.” The girl turned her head to the side, to regard me. “He!” she cried.

Ibn Saran smiled.

“Hamid it was!” I cried, struggling to my feet. “It was Hamid, lieutenant to Shakar!”

Hamid, standing to one side, did not deign to look upon me. There were angry murmurs from the men assembled in the court.