the hide pot and replaced
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with hot stones, the first stones meanwhile, if needed, being reheated.
"I am going to check the kaiila," said Cuwignaka. "I am going to hitch up the travois."
I nodded.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his forearm. He had been crouching near me, in the half darkness, the white dress marking his position, partaking, too, of the pemmican.
I smiled to myself. both kaiila, one given to him by his brother, Canka, and the black kaiila, which had been mine, put at my disposal, with the permission of Canka, my master, by my friend, Grunt, the trader, were picketed but a few feet from the threshold of the lodge. Similarly the two travois, fashioned for the morning, were not more than feet away. Cuwignaka was eager.
I sat on the robes, in the half darkness, eating of the pemmican, in Canka's collar.
Outside I could hear the stirrings of the camp. I thought of various slaves I had owned, when I was free, wenches such as Constance, Arlene and sandra, and Vella and Elicia. They were all hot and looked well in their collars. There was not one there whose lips and tongue, in eager, submissive obedience, a man would not have welcomed on his body. All now knew that on Gor they were naught, and could be naught, but slaves. Too I thought of another woman, olive-skinned, green-eyed, black-haired Talena, once, until disowned, the daugher of Marlenus, the Ubar of Ar. How proud she had been. How she had scorned me when she had thought me helpless! Anger, even in the lodge of Cuwignaka, suffused me. I wondered what she would look like, stripped, in close chains, lying on her side, terrified at my feet. The common Gorean slave whip has five soft, broad strands. It punishes a woman, terribly. On the other hand it does not mark her. It does not, thus, lower her value.
I sat on the robes, eating the crumbled cake of pemmican. I thought of Talena. Once she had been owned by Rask of Treve. Doubtless he had taught her her slavery well. I thought I might teach it to her better. She lived now, free, but sequestered and dishonored, in the city of Ar, in the Central Cylinder itself, perhaps the most fortified, best-defended tower or keep in that huge city. It would be impossible, or almost so, to even think of extracting her from such a place. No, I must put it from my mind. I recalled her vanity, her arrogance and pride. In the Central Cylinder, if nowhere else,
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she was surely safe from the bracelets and nooses of marauding tarnsmen. No one, surely, could get at her there. There she was surely safe. I recalled her scorn, her contempt.
One day, I thought, perhaps, I might try chain-luck in the city of Ar. It is said there are some good-looking women there. I wondered if a place for such a woman might be found in my own holding, say, in my kitchens. Too, of course, I could always give her, as a worthless trinket, one in which I was not persoanlly interested, to one of the lowerst and meanest of the taverners of Port Kar. This thought amused me. But I would have to choose the taverner and tavern well. The taverner must be hars and exacting, petty, avariciious and umcompromising. And his place of business must be one of the worst in the city; it must be in the aea of the lower canals; it must be stinking, dingy, squalid and cheap; and it must be busy, crowded often with boisterous ruffians, some in just from the sea, who are impatient with slaves. There, in such a place, let the proud Talena, once the daughter of a Ubar, wear the collar of her master. Let her there, stripped, or silked, as he might choose, serve and please his customers.
I chewed the last of the pemmican. Too, I thought I would, before giving her to such a taverner, have her ears pierced. This would, in effect, guarntee that she would remain always only a slave on Gor. Gorean men find pierced ears, as do many men of Earth,
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