"He did not let them kill me," I said.

"Why not?" she asked.

"I do not know," I said.

"I do," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"It is his intention to kill you himself," she said.

"Surely you are mistaken," I whispered.

"Did he accept water from you?" she asked.

"No," I said. "He poured it out, on the ground."

"Did you not see that he would not even look upon you as you danced?" she asked. "Did you not note that he, of all of them, did not put you to use?" "Why?" I asked.

"He did not wish to risk being softened, or mollified."

I looked at her, frightened.

"That is why he did not want others to kill you," she said, "because it is his intention to do so himself."

I nearly collapsed in the sand.

"But his is in chains," she said. "I do not think you really have anything to fear. Just do not fall into his hands."

I nodded, shuddering.

"I do not really understand what you have done to him," she said, "how you have changed him so. He is very different from Brundisium."

"Yes," I said, "if what you say is true."

"I loved him in Brundisium," she said, "but I did not know how much I moved him until we were separated."

"We are slaves," I said. "We can be bought and sold, and taken, and done with, as masters please. Our disposition need not be in accord with our own wills. Our desires, our feelings, matter not."

"Then I found he was on the black chain," she said. "How pained I was to discover his fate! Yes, too, how my heart leapt to know him near! He was so close, and yet so far! I love him so. Yet I can do little but bring him water. I cannot so much as kiss his feet without the permission of a guard. If I were to put myself within his grasp, he might be whipped, or slain. Too, I now find him to my sorrow other than he was. He is now a bitter man, one so driven with the desire for vengeance, his thirst for the blood of the girl who betrayed him, that he has little time to consider another, one who would gladly die for him." I regarded her.

"Yes," she said. "He is my love master."

"Does he know that?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"When the guard is not looking," I said, "you must tell him. Throw yourself on your belly before him, where we belong before such men. Lick and kiss his feet, with tears in your eyes. Confess that you have acknowledged him in your heart as your love master. He can do little more than kick you from his feet." Tears sprang to her eyes.

"Do so," I urged.

"No," she whispered. "He is now in chains. He cannot now own me. He is not now free. It is not as though he could take me in his arms, if he were so inclined, and claim me by his rape. He is a prisoner of the black chain. He might even think it a trick of the guards. Perhaps in rage he would break my neck with his foot. Perhaps he would understand the whole matter as no more than some deliberate insult or mockery."

"I would do so, if I were you," I said.

"You are not Gorean," she said.

"I would risk all, for a love master," I said.

"You are crying," she said.

"No," I said. "No."

"You have a love master!" she said.

"No," I said. "No! No!" I had recalled Teibar, who long ago, had brought me into bondage. I had never forgotten him.

"How piteous we are, so helpless, only slaves!" wept Tupita.

"Would you be other than you are?" I asked.

She looked at me, startled. "No," she said. "And you?"

"No," I said.

"It is getting dark," said Tupita, smiling through her tears. "We do not wish to miss our gruel."

But I stood quietly on the ridge, looking down into the trough. I was barefoot. There were shackles on my ankles. They were joined by chain, the chain half submerged in the sand. There were manacles on my wrists, hammered shut about them. These, too, were joined with chain. I wore a parted work tunic. I carried a metal cup on a string about my neck, and the water bag, on its strap, over my shoulder. It was half full. I could feel the water move in it, shifting, and shaping itself to my back. I looked up into the sky, and saw the three Gorean moons.

"You are a very beautiful, and desirable, slave, Tuka," said Tupita. I did not respond.

"Perhaps if you had been less beautiful, and desirable," she said, "you would not have been brought to this world."

"Perhaps," I said.

"Do you wish then," she said, "that you had been less beautiful, or desirable?" "No," I said.

"It is getting late," she said. "Let us return to the tank, and then to the pens."

"Yes," I said.

"Perhaps you should close your tunic," she said.

"No," I said. "Let the men see."

"You are a slave," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Are all the women of your world slaves?" she asked.

"I do not know," I said.

She parted her own tunic.

"I see that you, too, are a slave," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"But you are Gorean," I said.

"I am a woman," she said.

"We are both women," I said.

"And slaves," said Tupita.

"Yes," I said, "we are both women, and slaves."

25 In the Tent of the Overseer

It was near sunset now, some five days later after I had served in the trough, between the sandy hills. That very night my chains had been removed, and I had been scrubbed clean. My hair had been washed twice, and combed with care. I had been perfumed. I had then been wrapped in a red sheet and carried to the tent of the overseer.

I heard guards calling the watch.

All was well, it seemed, in the camp of the black chain of Ionicus. Ionicus himself had left the area of the camp the same afternoon in which I had served in the trough, returning, it was said, to Cos.

It was very beautiful this time of the evening. I stood in the entrance to the overseer" s tent, alone, looking out, to the southwest. I wore only my collar, that of Ionicus, and, about my waist, a knotted thong, in which was thrust a narrow rectangle of red silk. I, like Tela, it seemed, who had once been the beautiful, spoiled, rich woman, Liera Didiramache of Lydius, in the north, on the Laurius, who had been first in the coffle, when I was fifth, had been found pleasing by Aulus, overseer of the black chain of Ionicus.

The sun" s light, like a soft, diaphanous, golden mantle, spread over the hills and countryside. I could not see the pens from where I stood, neither those of the women, nor those of the men. Had I gone about the tent I could have seen the walls of Venna. I looked out to the southwest, over the camp area. I could see from this rise, on which was located the overseer" s tent, the low hills among which I had served chained masters. I still bore the marks of their bruisings. I did not thing they had wanted to hurt me, but they had not had a woman in a long time. in their haste, and their strength, and considering I had been a lure girl, they had not chosen to be gentle. It did not displease me to be forced to recognize, and incontrovertibly, and with my whole body, that I was in a man" s arms, those of a true man, and was a slave. Sometimes, I confess, I even wanted the whip, not for its pain, which I feared, but for its proof of my domination, that I was owned, and wholly, and was going to be mastered. But, sometimes, too, I wanted gentleness, and, in a slave" s helplessness, begged for it. But even when Gorean men use you with gentleness, and great gentleness, I am pleased to report that they do so with authority. There is never any doubt, even then, as to the fact that you are in their arms, and who is in command. I could see, too, though it was harder now, the posts in the distance, between which the wire was strung. The wire was slave wire, with its closely interwoven latticework of sharp, swaying strands, and, numerous and closely set, at intervals of less than a hort, its barbs and knifelike prongs. I shuddered. A slave could be cut to pieces on such wire.