"Now you will serve us, Slaves," announced the black-haired girl.

We were freed, save that two ropes apiece were kept on our throats, and a rope on each ankle, each rope in the care of one of the girls.

We were given some small cups of tin, containing some diluted Ka-la-na that the girls had probably stolen.

"After we have been served wine," announced the girl, "we will use these slaves for our pleasure."

Before we were permitted to serve the wine, garlands of talenders were swiftly woven about our necks.

Then each of us gave some of the girls wine, asking each "Wine, Mistress?" to which each of the girls, with a laugh, would cry out, "Yes, I will have wine!"

"You will serve me the wine, Slave!" said the long-legged, black-haired girl. She was marvelous in the brief slave livery.

"Yes, Mistress," I said, as humbly as I could manage.

I reached out to hand her the small, tin cup.

"On your knees," she said, "and serve me as a Pleasure Slave!"

The girls gasped in the room. The two men cried out in anger.

"I think not," I said.

I felt the two ropes on my throat tighten. Suddenly the two girls on the ankle ropes jerked on their ropes and I fell heavily forward, spilling the wine to the stones.

"Clumsy slave," jeered the long-legged girl.

The other girls laughed.

"Give him more wine," ordered the long-legged girl.

Another small tin cup was placed in my hands. I no longer much cared for their foolery. The long-legged girl, doubtless a miserable slave most of the year, seemed intent on humiliating me, taking revenge probably on her master, for whom I now stood as proxy.

"Serve me wine," she ordered harshly.

"Kajuralia," I said, humbly.

She laughed, and so did the other girls as well. My eye strayed to a room off the storeroom, in which I could see some boxes, much dust.

Then the room was very still.

I put down my head, kneeling, and extended the small tin cup to the girl.

The other girls in the room seemed to be holding their breath.

With a laugh the long-legged girl reached for the tin cup, at which point I seized her wrists and sprang to my feet, swinging her off balance and, not releasing her, whirled her about, tangling her in the ropes, preventing them from being drawn tight. Then while the girls shrieked and the long-legged girl cried out in rage I swept her into my arms and leaped into the small room, where I dropped her to the stones and spun about, throwing the door shut and bolting it. I heard the angry cries of the girls and their fists on the door for a moment, but then I heard them suddenly begin shrieking, and crying our, as though slavers might have fallen upon them. I glanced about the room. There was one window high in one wall, narrow, barred. There was no escape for the girl locked within with me. I removed the ropes from my body, coiled them neatly, and dropped them inside the door. I put my ear to the door, listening. After about five Ehn I heard only a number of sobs, frustrated noises of girls in bonds.

I opened the door and, not to my surprise, discovered that the Warrior and Tarn Keeper, preventing the girls from escaping, and having freed themselves in the moment of surprise and tumult in which I had seized the long-legged girl, had, probably one by one, while the other girls had looked on miserably, cuffed away if they tried to interfere, bound the girls of the Street of Pots. A long rope, or set of ropes knotted together, fastened them by the throat, as in a slaver's chain. The long-legged girl was pushed into the larger room to observe her helpless cohorts.

The black-haired girl sobbed.

There were tears in the eyes of several of the girls.

"Kajuralia!" said the Warrior, cheerfully, getting to his feet, after checking the knots that bound the wrists of the last girl on the ropes.

"Kajuralia!" I responded to him, waving my hand. I took the black-haired, long-legged girl by the arm and dragged her to the line of bound girls. "Behold the girls of the Street of Pots," I said.

She said nothing, but tried to turn away. I permitted her to go to the center of the room, where she stood, facing me, tears in her eyes, near the rep-cloth blankets spread over straw.

Then she looked down, defeated. "I will serve you wine," said she, "Master."

"No," I said.

She looked at me, puzzled. Then she nodded her head, and, reached to the disrobing loop on her left shoulder.

"No," I said gently.

She looked at me, startled.

"I," I said, "will serve you wine."

She looked at me in disbelief while I filled one of the small tin cups with diluted Ka-la-na and handed it to her.

Her hand shook as she took the cup. She lifted it to her lips, but looked at me.

"Drink," I said.

She drank.

I then took the cup from her and threw it to the side of the room, and took her into my arms, that lovely, long-legged, black-haired beast, provocative in the brevity of her slave livery, and kissed her, and well, and at length.

Then she was lying on the rep-cloth blankets, spread over the straw, beneath me, kissing me helplessly.

"Do not let me escape," she begged.

"You will not escape," I told her, reaching to the loop on her left shoulder.

I heard one of the girls bound in the line whisper to the Warrior, and another to the Tarn Keeper, "Do not let me escape, Master."

They removed these girls from the line, later returning them to it.

The Warrior, the Tarn Keeper and I remained the greater part of the day with the girls of the Street of Pots. When I had finished with the long-legged girl I had bound her hand and foot and put her to one side. When we were preparing to leave, she begged again to be used, and was.

This time when I finished with her I did not bind her but stood her before me, my hands on her arms above the elbows. I would not truss her, that she might free her fellows.

The Warrior, followed by the Tarn Keeper, was moving down the line of bound girls, lifting their heads, taking their final wages for the sport, saying "Kajuralia," to each and moving to the next.

Once more I kissed the black-haired, long-legged girl, and she me.

"Kajuralia," I said to her gently, and turned, and with the Warrior and the Tarn Keeper, arm in arm, with garlands of talenders, which had been several times replaced, woven about our necks, left the Street of Pots.

"Kajuralia!" called the girls to us.

"Kajuralia!" we responded.

"Kajuralia!" I heard the long-legged girl call after me. "Kajuralia, Warrior!"

"Kajuralia!" I responded, well satisfied with the day's sport.

The Kajuralia, or the Holiday of Slaves, or Festival of Slaves, occurs in the most of the northern, civilized cities of known Gor once a year. The only exception to this that I know of is Port Kar, in the delta of the Vosk. The date of the Kajuralia, however differs. Many cities celebrate it on the Twelfth Passage Hand; the day before the beginning of the Waiting Hand; in Ar, however, and certain cities, it is celebrated on the last day of the fifth month, which is the day preceding the Love Feast.

It had been a strange and eventful summer, fantastic in many ways. Week by week Ar became ever more wild, ever more lawless. Gangs of men, often armed, roamed the streets and bridges, apparently undisturbed by Warriors, their depredations not curbed; and, startlingly, when captured and sent to central Cylinder, or to the Cylinder of Justice pretexts would be found for the release, customarily on legal technicalities or alleged lack of evidence against them. But, as this lawlessness grew, and it become such that men would not walk the bridges without arms, the frenzy over the races and the games grew more rabid; it became more rare on the streets and bridges to pass a person who would not, either for himself or for someone he knew, wear a fraction patch, even on those rare days in which the Stadium of Tarns stood empty. People seemed to care little for anything save the races and the games. Their neighbor's compartment might be despoiled by ruffians but, if they themselves were unharmed, they would think little of it and hasten to their chosen entertainment, fearing only that they might be late.