It would be time enough in Tor, for her to have a name. She would receive it from her master. It would be whatever he wished. It is useful for a slave to have a name. It makes it easier to summon and command her.

I looked at the girl tethered to my saddle. Of all the slave girls about, save one in a white kurdah, near the bead of the march, she was the only one who was clothed. Her neck was encircled by a band of steel, the slave collar. It was no longer that of Ibn Saran; it wore the name of Hakim of Tor. That was who the girl belonged to. Tight leather bound her wrists; her tether led to my saddle, The garment she wore was incredibly brief, a rag, it was of brown rep-cloth, stained with grease and dirt; I had found it in the kitchens of Ibn Saran; it had been used in the cleaning of pans; I had ripped it at the neck: I had torn it, lengthily, on the left side, to reveal the marvelous curve from her left breast to her left hip; let men look upon her beauty; it would be as public as I cared to make it, for she was my slave.

After she had falsely testified against me at Nine Wells, she had smiled, slyly, in triumph, pleased with her work, pleased that I would be sent to the brine pits of Klima; I had escaped from Nine Wells, but, recaptured, was enchained, destined for Klima; I well recalled her elation, her contempt, her scorn, as she had looked down upon me, helpless in the chain; she had flung me a token, something by which to remember her, a bit of slave silk, redolent with slave perfume; she had flung me a kiss, laughing, before being ordered back to her barred alcove by the slave master who at that time was supervising her.

I would not forget pretty Vella. Now I owned her. She had begged me to forgive her, as though a word from me would make all things right. When she had been flung to the feet of Hakim of Tor, she had looked up, in terror, then joy, seeing then who was Hakim of Tor, the master to whom I had consigned her, myself.

“Do not rise, Slave Girl,” I told her.

“Am I forgiven, Tarl?” she bad begged. “Am I forgiven?”

“Fetch the whip,” I told her.

I saw T`Zshal, who was riding past, leading his thousand lances. He reined in, and his men behind him.

“We are returning, to Klima,” he said.

“But you have kaiila,” I said.

“We are slaves of the salt, slaves of the desert,” he said. “We return to Klima.”

“The Salt Ubar is gone,” I said.

“We will negotiate with local pashas and regulate the desert, and discuss the prices of the varieties of salt,” said T`Zshal.

“The price of salt will soon rise,” I suggested.

“It is not impossible,” said T`Zshal.

I wondered if it were wise to have armed the men of Klima and put them in the saddles of kaiila. They were not typical men. There was none there who had not survived the march to Klima.

“Should you ever need aid,” said T`Zshal, “send word to Klima. The slaves of the salt will ride.”

“My thanks,” I said. They would be fierce allies. They were desperate and mighty men. Each there had made the march to Klima.

“Things now,” I said, “I conjecture, will change at Klima.” I recalled that Hassan had warned me against taking a bit of silk, perfumed, into Klima. I had hidden it in the crusts. “Men would kill you for it,” he said.

T`Zshal looked about himself. Slave girls, in coffle, shrank back.

“We will need taverns, cafes, at Klima,” he said. “The men have been too long without recreation.”

“With control of much salt,” I said, “you may have much what you wish.”

“We shall confederate the salt districts,” said T`Zshal.

“You are indeed ambitious,” I said. T’Zshal, I saw, was a leader.

Haroun, sitting in court, in what had been the audience room of the kasbah of Ibn Saran, had invited T’Zshal, and his lances, to join his service. T`Zshal and the others had refused. “We will return to Klima, said he, “Master.” T’Zshal, I knew, would serve under no man. “I would rather be first at Klima than second in Tor,” he had said. He was a slave, true, but of no man, only of the salt, and the desert.

“I wish you well,” said T`Zshal.

“I wish you well,” I said.

His kaiila, with a scattering of sand, sped from me. He was followed by a thousand riders.

I rode, slowly, toward the head of the columns, across the desert between the two kasbahs.

Some two hundred yards from the head of the, column, I passed the small Abdul, who had been a water carrier in Tor, and an agent of Ibn Saran. It was not impossible, through his work with Ibn Saran, that he knew matters of importance pertaining to the wars of Priest-Kings and Kurii. Two chains ran to his metal collar, on opposite sides, leading, respectively, to the stirrup of a mounted rider on each side of him. His hands were manacled to a loop of chain about his waist. He did not raise his head. He feared to look me in the face. “Let him be sent to Tor,” I had suggested. “I will have agents of Samos, of Port Kar, sent to that city.” It will be done,” had said Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars. The agents of Samos have interesting techniques of interrogation. I had no doubt that they would learn all that small Abdul had to tell them. After that, no longer of use to the agents of Priest-Kings, he could be sold south, into the Tahari.

Some hundred yards from the bead of the column, I passed a large white kurdah, on a large, black kaiila. I did not brush aside the curtain. It did not contain a girl I owned. It contained a slave girl, an exquisitely feminine girl, blond-haired and blue-eyed; she was richly veiled and bejeweled; it was said she was the preferred slave of the great Haroun himself, high Pasha of the Kavars; it was said her name was Alyena; she was of high station; she wore silks, and veils, and jewels; but the collar on her throat was of steel.

In what had been the kasbah of Ibn Saran she had been thrown naked to the foot of the dais on which, cross-legged, sat the great Haroun himself. She had not dared to raise her head. “I will keep this slave,” he had said. She had been dragged away, weeping. “I am the slave of Hassan,” she had wept. “I love only him!” That night, sent to his quarters; she had knelt before her veiled master.

“Do you love another, Girl?” he had asked, sternly.

“Yes,” she said, “Master. Forgive me. Slay me, if you must.”

“And who is he?” asked her veiled master.

“Hassan,” she wept. “Hassan, the bandit.”

“A most splendid fellow,” said her master.

The girl looked up, startled. His veil was about his shoulders.

“Hassan!” she wept. “Hassan!” She threw herself to his feet, covering them with kisses as a slave girl.

When she looked up, he commanded her to the couch. She ran eagerly to it, tearing the slave silks with which she had been adorned from her body, and knelt upon it, small, her head down, awaiting her master. He joined her, discarding his robes. Then he seized her by the hair and pulled her head up and flung her on her back to the depth of the luscious silk, and then, with the cruel exploitativeness of the Tahari master, he claimed her as his own.

Toward morning he reminded her that she must be whipped three times. First, she had called out his name at Red Rock, among the flames, during the raid of Tarna’s men; secondly, she had fled from his riders, to return to Red Rock, to seek him out, when she had been captured; third, she had, that very evening, upon discovering who might be her master, cried out his name, “Hassan! Hassan!”

“Whip me, Master,” she said, lying in his arms. “I love you.

“Am I forgiven, Tarl?” Vella had begged. “Am I forgiven?”

“Fetch the whip,” I had told her.

She looked at me, dumbfounded. Women of Earth are always forgiven. They are never punished, no matter what they do. They, of course, are not slave girls.

They lack the legalities, and the collar.

“You cannot be serious,” she said.