Aphris spun to face him, her right fist clenched, her left hand muffling her veil about her face, her eyes flashing. The circle of steel gleamed on the silk at her throat. "I meant only, little Aphris," said Kamchak, "that you wear your collar well."

The girl cried out in helpless rage and turned, stumbling and clutching at the banister on the stairs. Then she ran up the stairs, weeping, veil disarranged, both hands jerking at the collar. With a cry she disappeared.

"Have no fear, Saphrar of Turia," Kamras was saying, "I shall slay the Tuchuk sleen and I shall do so slowly." It was early in the morning, several days after Saphrar's banquet, that Kamchak and myself, among some hundreds of others of the Four Wagon Peoples, came the Plains of a Thousand Stakes, some pasangs distant from lofty Turia. Judges and craftsmen from Ar, hundreds of pasangs away, across the Cartius, were already at the stakes, inspecting than and preparing the ground between them. These men, as in every year, I learned, had been guaranteed safe passage across the southern plains for this event. The journey, even so, was not without its dangers, but they had been well recompensed, from the treasure chests of both Turia and the Wagon Peoples. Some of the judges, now wealthy, had offici- ated several times at the games. The fee for even one of their accompanying craftsmen was sufficient to support a man for a year in luxurious Ar.

We moved slowly, walking the kaiila, in four long lines, the Tuchuks, the Kassars, the Kataii, the Paravaci, some two hundred or so warriors of each. Kamchak rode near the head of the Tuchuk line. The standard bearer, holding aloft on a lance a representation of the four bask horns, carved from wood, rode near us. At the head of our line, on a huge kaiila, rode Kutaituchik, his eyes closed, his head nodding, his body swaying with the stately movement of the animal, a half- chewed string of kanda dangling from his mouth.

Beside him, but as Ubars, rode three other men, whom I took to be chief among the Kassars, the Kataii, the Paravaci I could see, surprisingly near the forefront of their respective lines, the other three men I had first seen on coming to the Wagon Peoples, Conrad of the Kasars, Hakimba of the Kataii and Tolnus of the Paravaci. These, like Kamchak, rode rather near their respective standard bearers. The stan- dard of the Kassars is that of a scarlet, three-weighted bole, which hangs from a lance; the symbolic representation of a bole, three circles joined at the center by lines, is used to mark their bask and slaves; both Tenchika and Dina wore that brand; Kamchak had not decided to rebrand them, as is done with bask; he thought, rightly, it would lower their value; also, I think he was pleased to have salves in his wagon who wore the brand of Kissers, for such night lie taken as evidence of the superiority of Tuchuks to Kassars, that they had bested them and taken their slaves; similarly Kamchak was pleased to have in his herd bask, and he had several, whose first brand was that of the three-weighted bole; the standard of the Kataii is a yellow bow, bound across a black lance; their brand is also that of a bow, facing to the left; the Paravaci standard is a large banner of jewels beaded on golden wires, forming the head and horns of a bosk its value is incalculable; the Paravaci brand is a symbol- ic representation of a bask head, a semicircle resting on an inverted isoceles triangle.

Elizabeth Cardwell, barefoot, in the larl's pelt, walked beside Kamchak's stirrup. Neither Tenchika nor Dina would be with us. Yesterday afternoon, for an incredible forty pieces of gold, four quivas and the saddle of a kaiila, Kachak had sold Tenchika back to Albrecht. It was one of the highest prices ever paid among the wagons for a slave and I judged that Albrecht had sorely missed his little Tenchika; the high price he was forced to pay for the girl was made even more intolerable by Kamchak's amusement at his ex- pense, roaring with laughter and slapping his knee because only too obviously Albrecht had allowed himself to care for the girl, and she only slave! Albrecht, while binding her wrists and putting his thong on her neck, had angrily cuffed her two or three times, calling her worthless and good for nothing; she was laughing and leaping beside his kaiila, weeping with joy; I last saw her running beside his stirrup, trying to press her head against his fur boot. Dina, though she was slave, I had placed on the saddle before me, her legs over the left forequarters of the animal; and had ridden with her from the wagons, until in the distance I could see the gleaming, white walls of Maria. When I had come to this place I set her on the grass She looked up at me, puzzled.

"Why have you brought me here?" she had asked.

I pointed into the distance. "It is Turia," I said, "your city."

She looked up at me. "Is it your wish," she asked, "that I run for the city?"

She referred to a cruel sport of the young men of the wagons who sometimes take Turian slave girls to the sight of Turia's walls and then, loosening bole and thong, bid them run for the city.

"No," I told her, "I have brought you here to free you." The girl trembled.

She dropped her head. "I am yours so much yours," she said, looking at the grass. "Do not be cruel."

"No," I said, "I have brought you here to free you." She looked up at me. She shook her head.

"It is my wish," I said.

"But why?" she asked.

"It is my wish," I said.

"Have I not pleased you?" she asked.

"You have pleased me very much," I told her.

"Why do you not sell me?" she asked.

"It is not my wish," I said.

"But you would sell a bosk or kaiila," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Why not Dina?" she asked.

"It is not my wish," I said.

"I am valuable," said the girl. She simply stated a fact. "More valuable than you know," I told her.

"I do not understand," she said.

I reached into the pouch at my belt and gave her a piece of gold. "Take this," I said, "and go to Turia find your people and be free."

Suddenly she began to shake with sobs and fell to her knees at the paws of the kaiila, the gold piece in her left hand. "If this is a Tuchuk joke," she wept, "kill me swiftly." I sprang from the saddle of the kaiila and kneeling beside her held her in my arms, pressing her head against my shoulder. "No," I said, "Dina of Turia. I do not jest. You are free.

She looked at me tears in her eyes. "Turian girls are never freed," she said. "Never."

I shook her and kissed her. "You, Dina of Turia," I said, "are free." Then I shook her again. "Do you want me to ride to the walls and throw you over?" I demanded.

She laughed through her tears. "No," she said, "no." I lifted her to her feet and she suddenly kissed me. "Tarl Cabot!" she cried. "Tarl Cabot!"

It seemed like lightning to us both that she had cried my name as might have a free woman. And indeed it was a free woman who cried those words, Dina, a free woman of Turia. "Oh, Tarl Cabot," she wept.

Then she regarded me gently. "But keep Dina a moment longer yours," she said.

"You are free," I said.

"But I would serve you," she said.

I smiled. "There is no place," I said.

"Ah, Tarl Cabot," she chided, "there is all the Plains of Turia."

"The Land of the Wagon Peoples, you mean."

She laughed. "No," she said, "the Plains of Turia." "Insolent wench," I observed.

But she was kissing me and by my arms was being lowered to the grasses of the spring prairie.

When I had lifted her to her feet I noted, in the distance, a bit of dust moving from one of the gates of the city towards us, probably two or three warriors mounted on high thar- larion.

The girl had not yet seen them. She seemed to me very happy and this, naturally, made me happy as well. Then suddenly her eyes clouded and her face was transformed with distress. Her hands moved to her face, covering her mouth. "Oh!" she said.