Gor - Nomads For Gor Part 39

When I had done so, I faced her and said, "To a free woman, one who has been strong, one who has been brave, to Elizabeth Cardwell, to a woman who is both beautiful and free."

We touched the bowls and drank.

"Thank you, Tart Cabot," she said.

I drained my bowl. I "We shall, of course," Elizabeth was saying, "have to make some different arrangements about the wagon." She was ?

glancing about, her lips pursed. "We shall have to divide it somehow. I do not know if it would be proper to share a wagon with a man who is not my master."

I was puzzled. "I am sure," I muttered, "we can figure out something." I refilled my wine bowl. Elizabeth did not wish more. I noted she had scarcely sipped what she had been given. I tossed down a swallow of Ka-la-na, thinking perhaps that it was a night for Paga after all.

"A wall of some sort," she was saying.

"Drink your wine," I said, pus.h.i.+ng the bowl in her hands toward her.

She took a sip, absently. "It is not really bad wine," she said.

"It is superb!" I said.

"A wall of heavy planks would be best, I think," she mused.

"You could always wear Robes of Concealment," I ven- tured, "and carry about your person an unsheathed quiva."

"That is true," she said.

Her eyes were looking at me over the rim of her bowl as she drank. "It is said," she remarked, her eyes mischievous, "that any man who frees a slave girl is a fool."

"It is probably true," I said.

"You are nice, Tarl Cabot," she said.

She seemed to me very beautiful. Again I considered raping her, but now that she was free, no longer a simple slave, I supposed that it would be improper. I did, however, measure the distance between us, an experiment in specula- tion, and decided I could reach her in one bound and in one motion, with luck, land her on the rug.

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

"Nothing that I care to inform you of," I said.

"Oh," she said, looking down into her bowl of wine, smiling.

"Drink more wine," I prompted.

"Really"" she said.

"It's quite good," I said. "Superb."

"You are trying to get me drunk," she said.

"The thought did cross my mind," I admitted.

She laughed. "After I am drunk," she asked, "what are you Being to do with me?"

"I think I will stuff you in the dung sack," I said.

"Unimaginative," she remarked.

"What do you suggest?" I asked.

"I am in your wagon," she sniffed. "I am alone, quite defenseless, completely at your mercy."

"Please," I said.

"If you wished," she pointed out, "I could in an instant be returned to slave steel simply be reenslaved and would then again be yours to do with precisely as you pleased."

"That does not sound to me like a bad idea," I said.

"Can it be," she asked, "that the commander of a Tuchuk Thousand does not know what to do with a girl such as I?"

I reached toward her, to take her into my arms, but I found the bowl of wine in my way, deftly so.

"Please, Mr. Cabot," she said.

I stepped back, angry.

"By the Priest-Kings," I cried, "you are one woman who looking for trouble"

Elizabeth laughed over the wine. Her eyes sparkled. "I am free," she said.

"I am well aware of that," I snapped.

She laughed.

"You spoke of arrangements," I said. "There are some.

Free or not, you are the woman in my wagon. I expect to have food, I expect the wagon to be clean, the axles to be greased, the bosk to be groomed."

"Do not fear," she said, "when I prepare my meals I will make enough for two."

"I am pleased to hear it," I muttered.

"Moreover," she said, "I myself would not wish to stay in a wagon that was not clean, nor one whose axles were not greased nor whose bask were not properly groomed."

"No," I said, "I suppose not."

"But it does seem to me," she said, "that you might share in such ch.o.r.es."

"I am the commander of a Thousand," I said.

"What difference does that make?" she asked.

"It makes a great deal of difference!" I shouted.

"You needn't shout," she said.

My eye glanced at the slave chains under the slave ring.

"Of course," said Elizabeth, "we could regard it as a division of labor of sorts."

'Good," I said.

"On the other hand," she mused, "you might rent a slave: for such work."

"All right," I said, looking at her. "I will rent a slave."

"But you can't trust slaves," said Elizabeth.

With a cry of rage I nearly spilled my wine.

"You nearly spilled your wine," said Elizabeth.

The inst.i.tution of freedom for women, I decided, as many Goreans believed, was a mistake.

Elizabeth winked at me, conspiratorially. "I will take care of the wagon," she said.

"Good," I said. "Good!"

I sat down beside the fire bowl, and stared at the floor.

Elizabeth knelt down a few feet from me, and took another sip of the wine.

"I heard," said the girl, seriously, "from a slave whose name was Hereena that tomorrow there will be great fighting."

I looked up. "Yes," I said. "I think it is true."

"If there is to be fighting tomorrow," she asked, "will you take part in it?"

"Yes," I said, "I suppose so."

"Why did you come to the wagon tonight?" she asked.

"For wine," I said, "as I told you."

- She looked down.

Neither of us said anything for a time. Then she spoke. "I am happy," she said, "that this is your wagon."

I looked at her and smiled, then looked down again, lost in thought.

I wondered what would become of Miss Cardwell. She was, I forcibly reminded myself, not a Gorean girl, but one of Barth. She was not natively Turian nor Tuchuk. She could not even read the language. To almost anyone who would come upon her she might seem but a beautiful barbarian, fit presumably by birth and blood only for the collar of a master. She would be vulnerable. She, without a defender, would be helpless. Indeed, even the Gorean woman, outside her city, without a defender, should she escape the dangers of the wild, is not likely long to elude the iron, the chain and collar. Even peasants pick up such women, using them in the fields, until they can be sold to the first pa.s.sing slaver. Miss Cardwell would need a protector, a defender. And yet on the very morrow it seemed I might die on the walls of Saphrar's compound What then would be her fate? Moreover, I re minded myself of my work, and that a warrior cannot well enc.u.mber himself with a woman, particularly not a free woman. His companion, as it is said, is peril and steel. I was sad. It would have been better, I told myself, if Kamchak had not given me the girl.

My reflections were interrupted by the girl's voice. "I'm surprised," she said, "that Kamchak did not sell me."

"Perhaps he should have," I said.

She smiled. "Perhaps," she admitted. She took another sip of wine. "Tarl Cabot," she said "Yes," I said.

"Why did Kamchak not sell me?"

"I do not know," I said.

"Why did he give me to you?" she asked.

"I am not truly sure," I said.

I wondered indeed that Kamchak had given the girl to me. ; There were many things that seemed to me puzzling, and I thought of Gor, and of Kamchak, and the ways of the Tuchuks, so different from those native to Miss Cardwell and myself.

I wondered why it was that Kamchak had put the ring on this girl, had had her branded and collared and clad Kajir was it truly because she had angered him, running from the wagon that one time or for another reason and why had he subjected her, cruelly perhaps, in my presence to the Slaver's Caress? I had thought he cared for the girl. And then he had given her to me, when there might have been other commanders. He had said he was fond of her. And I knew him to be my friend. Why had he done this, truly? For me? l Or for her, as well? If so, why? For what reason?

Elizabeth had now finished her wine. She had arisen and rinsed out the bowl and replaced it. She was now kneeling at ~ the back of the wagon and had untied the Koora and shaken l her hair loose. She was looking at herself in the mirror, holding her head this way and that. I was amused. She was seeing how the nose ring might be displayed to most advan sage. Then she began to comb her long dark hair, kneeling very straight as would a Gorean girl. Kamchak had never permitted her to cut her hair. Now that she was free I supposed she would soon shorten it. I would regret that. I have always found long hair beautiful on a woman.

I watched her combing her hair. Then she had put the comb aside and had retied the Koora, binding back her hair.

Now she was again studying her image in the bronze mirror, moving her head slightly.

Suddenly I thought I understood Kamchak! He had indeed been fond of the girl!

"Elizabeth," I said.

"Yes," she said, putting the mirror down.

"I think I know why Kamchak gave you to me aside from the fact that I suppose he thought I could use a prettier wench about the wagon."

She smiled.

"I am glad he did," she said.

"Oh?" I asked.

She smiled. She looked into the mirror. "Of course," she said, "who else would have been fool enough to free me?"

"Of course," I admitted.

I said nothing for a time.

The girl put down the mirror. "Why do you think he did?.

she asked, facing me, curious.

"On Gor," I said, "the myths have it that only the woman who has been an utter slave can be truly free."