Mariners of Gor by John Norman Page A

occurred to me that I had not requested permission to speak. Perhaps, I thought, they are permissive with slaves here. But I glanced at the stripped, bound women beyond the firelight and that did not then seem to me likely. ‘May I inquire,’ I asked, ‘what Home Stone Masters revere?’ This could, of course, make a great deal of difference in what might then ensue. They looked at one another, and more than one laughed. Although this made me somewhat uneasy, it also reassured me that I was not amongst those who favored either Ar or the island Ubarates. If they were of Ar I might fear being returned to the city with the likelihood of impalement. If they were of the island Ubarates, they would have come, over the time of the occupation and the looting of the city, to think of the women of Ar as suitable only for slaves. ‘It seems,’ I said, ‘that you are independent of fee, and thus open to prospects of considerable gain.’ ‘Certainly,’ said he whom I took to be their leader, he whose knife had been at my throat. ‘We may speak freely then,’ I said, ‘but first, as I have been in the wild for two days, and am weak from hunger, and am exhausted and thirsty, I need food, and drink, bolstering ka-la-na, and rest.’ ‘Of course,’ said the leader, kindly. He nodded to one of his men. He went to the rope of women and put she on the rope nearest to the stake to my right in rope shackles. She would barely be able to stand and move. He then loosened the neck rope from the stake to my right and freed her of its collar-like restraint, after which he refastened it to the stake. He then unbound her hands. She rubbed her wrists, regarding me. The fellow then pointed to me, and said, ‘Feed and water her.’ I did not care for this way of putting it, as it sounded as though I might be an animal. But I was thirsting and starving. ‘Why should I, who was a free woman, wait on a common slave?’ demanded the woman. Her hair was then held and she was cuffed brutally, four times. She then, weeping, scarcely able to move for the closely tied rope shackles, hobbled about, to find me food and drink. I took the provender and drink, including ka-la-na, which I doubt she was permitted, from her with the hauteur and disdain of a free woman for the garbages that are slaves. Afterwards I fainted, or fell asleep.
    “I awakened several hours later, toward noon, as though I might be in my own compartments, waiting for my girls to open the draperies and bring me steaming black wine and fresh, honeyed pastries, but then, suddenly, flooding back to me were the horrors of the past two days, the roof of the Central Cylinder, my humiliating disguise, the escape, the fields, the sleen, the strike of the leech plant, the knife at my throat, and I opened my eyes on the small camp into which I had stumbled last night, weary, footsore, hungry, thirsting, and miserable. I touched my neck, and felt the collar there, the slave collar. Then I feared the tunic, ample as it might be, might in my sleep have crept up my thighs, and I reached to draw it down, but, even as I thought of this, I became aware of a weight on my left ankle. I sat up, suddenly. I jerked the tunic down, that I might benefit from whatever concession to modesty might be afforded by a slave’s garment. Too, I drew my legs back, closely together. There was a rattle of chain. I considered my left ankle. It was clasped by a heavy band of black iron, to the ring of which a chain was attached. This chain ran behind me, where it was padlocked about a tree. I was chained! I, a free woman of Ar, was chained, as might have been a female slave!
    “‘What is the meaning of this!’ I cried, lifting the chain, shaking it.”
    The left ankle is the common chaining ankle for a woman.
    “The leader of the camp approached me. ‘Do not be concerned, gentle lady,’ said he. ‘We did not wish you to be stolen.’ ‘Stolen?’ I asked. ‘Certainly,’ he said, ‘many women have been gagged in