Vagabonds of Gor (61 page)

"Stop," I said to the fellow with the knife, suddenly.

"What is wrong?" he asked.

"What are you doing?" I said.

"I am going to cut out the teeth of the shark," he said, "for a necklace."

"I would wait," I said.

"It is dead," he said.

"You do not know that," I said.

"I do not understand," he said.

I took one of the spears from a fellow nearby and thrust the butt end into the mouth of the shark. No sooner was the wood within its jaws than they snapped shut. I withdrew the splintered end of the spear. It had been bitten in two.

"I would wait," I said.

"I will," said he. "My thanks, warrior."

"And even then," I said, "it might be well to make certain the mouth remains open, perhaps by stones, or stout wood."

"Yes," he said.

"Let us cut the meat," said a fellow. "We must eat. We must rest."

"Aii," said the fellow with the knife.

"What is wrong?" asked a man.

"The knife is sharp," he said. "I just sharpened it. But still it is hard to force it through this hide."

"Do you need help?" asked a fellow.

"No," he said.

"Where is the fish?" asked Labienus.

We turned toward him. We were surprised that he had spoken. In the last few days he had spoken very little. He had seemed, rather, to be absorbed in his unusual practices.

"Lead me to it," he said. "Put my hands upon it, behind the head."

He was led to the fish, and he knelt beside it, and his hands were placed on it, about a foot behind the head.

His hands groped, feeling the abrasive surface.

We watched him.

He lifted his hands, his fingers like the talons of a tarn, and then, suddenly, struck down into the side of the fish. We saw the fingers, like iron hooks, disappear into the hide of the fish, and then, he stood, rearing up in the sand, lifting that great weight, and shook it, and the fish spun and rolled, and fell again into the sand, the skin, in a swath a foot wide, excoriated. Twice more he performed this feat and twice more great swaths of the excoriated hide were flung to the side.

"Now," said Labienus, "it should be easier to reach the meat."

"Yes, Captain," whispered the fellow with the knife. The rest of us were silent. Titus conducted Labienus back to his place, where he now sat quietly, cross-legged, as a warrior, looking out over the marsh.

"Let us eat," said one of the men.

The fellow with the knife began to cut the meat.

In a few moments there was again small talk in the camp, and food was passed about.

Plenius came and sat near me, cross-legged.

"Tal," said I to him.

"I am curious as to your captive," he said.

"Oh?" I asked.

"So, too, are some of the others," he said.

"Speak," I said.

"May I summon her?" he asked.

"Of course," I said.

He snapped his fingers and Ina, who had not yet fed, hurried to kneel beside us, back a little, so that her presence would not be obtrusive.

I held out a bit of fish to Ina, and she bent forward and, turning her head, took it delicately in her mouth. She had not received permission to use her hands.

"You have trained your little slut, Ina, well," he said. I took another piece of meat and offered it to Plenius, but he refused it.

"She is pretty," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"Pretty enough to be a slave," he said.

"I think so," I said.

"It is easy to imagine her on a slave block," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"She is very pretty, for a rence girl," he said.

"There are many beauties in the rence," I said. Some years ago slavers used to come into the delta to hunt them, almost with impunity. Nowadays, with the great bow in the possession of the rencers, it was more customary to come openly into the rence to buy them, or bargain for them, with their parents, and their village chieftains. Nowadays, too, as I have indicated, there are even branded slave girls in the rence, sometimes purchased at trade points, sometimes stolen.

"Undoubtedly," said Plenius.

"Speak," I said.

"I am not certain about her," said Plenius.

Some of the ether fellows, too, had now gathered about us.

"Does she not put her head to the sand quickly enough for you?" I asked. "Does she not lick and kiss with sufficient alacrity?"

"Only a slave could do better," said Plenius.

"So?" I asked.

"It is not only that she seems unusually beautiful for a rence girl," said Plenius, "but it is many other things, as well. It is how she carries herself, how she acts."

I was silent.

"She does not have the simplicity, the roughness, I would expect from a rence girl," he said.

"Surely that is a point in her favor," I said.

"She seems rather," said Plenius, "a lady of refinement."

"On a slave block, naked, in chains, being auctioned," I said, "there would seem to be little difference between a rence girl and a lady of refinement."

"We have often had her unbound," he said, "and yet she has not slipped away, into the rence."

"I see," I said.

"We do not think she is a rence girl," he said.

"And who do you think she is?" I asked.

"We think she is the Lady Ina, of Ar," he said.

Ina shrank back, trembling.

This reaction on her part was sudden and apparently involuntary, almost reflexive. Surely it was noted by the men. She had, I feared, given herself away. I feared, too, she might bolt. But she had the good sense not to. Pursued by the men she would have been securely in hand and perhaps on her belly, her hands and feet bound, within a few feet.

"It seems she has heard of the Lady Ina," observed Plenius.

"She probably has," I said, "and would fear to be identified with her."

I finished chewing on a piece of fish, and swallowed it. This gave Ina time to compose herself.

"Look at her," I said.

The men regarded Ina, who put down her head.

"Is she not pretty?" I asked.

"Yes," said a man.

"And is she not hot, considering that she is not a slave," I asked, "and for her time in captivity well trained?"

"That she is," said a man.

"And what is the Lady Ina?" I asked.

"She is a haughty, arrogant she-sleen," said a man.

"So, then," I said, "it is surely not likely that this pretty, hot, well-trained little slut is she."

The men looked at one another.

"It does seem improbable, does it not?" I asked.

"Yes," said a man, "unless she had been put under effective male discipline."

"That brings out the female, irrevocably, in any woman," said a man.

Ina began to tremble, uncontrollably.

"You think she is the Lady Ina?" I asked Plenius.

"Yes," he said.

"Yes," said another fellow.

"Let us see if she behaves like the Lady Ina," I said. I then snapped my fingers and pointed to the men. Immediately Ina, humbly, desperately, with a zeal that would have befitted a threatened slave, began to move about, on her knees, and all fours, and on her belly, among the men, kissing and licking, and caressing. I watched her pressing her lips to their feet, her golden hair about their ankles. I watched her kneel beside them and lick their calves and thighs, piteously. I watched her holding them, and touching them, and caressing them, as though she feared she might be struck away, hoping to insert herself delicately into their attention, hoping to be found of interest, hoping to please them. Then she lay among us, on her belly, frightened.

"Does it seem that such," I asked, "could be the Lady Ina?"

She lifted her body a little, in a common female placatory behavior.

The men laughed.

"Perhaps," said Plenius.

"In any event," I said, "she is mine."

Plenius grinned.

"Perhaps you intend to rescue her?" I asked.

"For the impaling spear?" asked Plenius.

I shrugged.

"You drew me from the sand," said Plenius.

"Were it not for you," said the fellow who had cut the meat, who had been interested in garnering the shark's teeth for a necklace, "I might have lost a hand or arm."

"Were it not for you," said another, "we would be lost in the delta somewhere, perhaps dead by now."

"I do not think she is the Lady Ina," said Plenius to the others, "do you?"

"No," said the others.

"Captain?" asked a man.

"No," smiled Labienus. "She is not the Lady Ina."

"You are safe, Ina," I said to the prone captive.

She began to sob with relief, on her belly in the sand. I could see the small places on the dry sand where her tears fell.

"You might permit her to speak," said Plenius.

"Captain?" I asked.

"Certainly," said Labienus.

"Even if, perchance, she might speak in the accents of a lady of Ar?" I asked.

"Certainly," said he.

"That will be delicious," said a man. "Many is the time I have wished to take one of those high ladies of Ar, strip her and subject her to suitable female usages."

"Yes!" said another.

"You may speak, Ina," I said.

"My thanks, captor," she whispered.

"Good," said a man.

"Good," said another.

"And thanks to you all, my captors," she said, lifting her head, looking about.

"Perhaps it would be appropriate," I said, "if a captive now sought, by suitable means, to express her gratitude to her captors."

"Yes, my captor!" she said.

She crawled to the nearest fellow, who took her lustfully in his arms, turning her to her back.