"Is she your leader?" I asked one of the girls kneeling to the side, one of those in a tunic of the wool of the bounding hurt.

"Yes," she said.

"No!" swiftly said another, one also in a tunic of the wool of the bounding hurt. "Our masters are our leaders!"

"Leaders?" I asked.

"Owners!" she swiftly said.

"What are you?" I asked the first kneel girl, sternly.

"Properties!" she said. And she added quickly, seeing my eyes still upon her. "And animals!"

"Yes!" said the girl beside her, she who had spoken second earlier.

"And what are you?" I asked the slave, Filomela.

"A slave," she said, not turning around, standing facing away from me, her hands clasped on her head.

"Turn about," I said.

She obeyed.

"And?" I asked.

She was standing quite close to me, in the posture I had dictated.

"A property, and animal!" she said.

I looked upon her, savoring her. She looked away. I also observed, carefully, her tension, the tonicity of her body.

"Straighten your body," I said.

She did so.

The line of her breasts was lovely under her simple garment.

"You seem uneasy," I said.

She did not respond.

One of the kneeling girls gasped.

It was not difficult to detect her discomfort, her uneasiness, attendant on the proximity of a male. I looked over her, letting this closeness work upon her. Others, too, now had moved in more closely about her.

"You are a slave?" I asked.

"Yes!" she said, tensely.

"Perhaps now you sense in yourself slave feelings?" I said.

She cast a frightened, pathetic, shamed glance at the other girls, those kneeling to one side.

"No!" she said. "No!"

"Spread your legs," I said.

"Please!" she said.

"Keep your hands as they are," I said.

"Ah," I said, "you are a lying slave girl."

She cried out in misery.

I stepped back from her.

"You may stand straight again," I informed her.

Quickly she stood straight. She kept her hands on her head.

"And what of you others?" I asked, looking to the other four. "Perhaps you sense in yourself slave feelings?

They did not meet my eyes but clenched their knees closely together, as though by this means to suppress and control their sensations. They hunched down, they made themselves small. I did not think that there was one there who, in proper hands, would not squirm well, yielding herself up in grateful joy to a master. "You may put your hands down," I informed Filomela, their leader.

"May I go now?" she said.

"You are charged," I said, "with drinking from one of the higher levels of a fountain."

"That fountain there," said a fellow, pointing back.

"Is it true?" I asked her.

She was silent.

"It is true," said a fellow.

"Yes," said another.

Assent to this was added, also, by others.

"Do you deny this?" I asked her.

She was silent.

"She is a slave," said a man.

"Let her testimony be taken under torture," said another.

The testimony of slaves is commonly taken under torture in Gorean law courts. "Let us find a rack," said another.

The girl turned white. Perhaps when she was a free woman she had seen girls on the rack, though, of course, they would have been mere slaves.

"I drank from the high bowl," she said.

"Although you are a slave?" I said.

"Yes," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"I was thirsty," she said.

"Speak truthfully," I said.

"I was thirsty!" she said.

"Thirst may be quenched at the lower bowl as well," I said.

She looked at me, angrily.

"Perhaps you forgot?" I said. "You were, after all, recently a free woman." She did not answer.

I did not seriously consider the possibility, of course, that she might have forgotten the matter. Too, slaves are not permitted to forget such things. It is up to them to remember them. Too, obviously one could claim to have forgotten the most elementary duties, tokens of respect, and such. Accordingly, forgetfulness does not excuse the commission of such acts. A slave seldom forgets them more than once. The whip is an excellent mnemonic device. I did, of course, wish to accord her the recourse of pretending to forgetfulness, if she cared to take advantage of it. It might serve to mitigate the wrath of the men about, at least somewhat. After all, she did not seem to realize that her life was in danger.

She threw a look at the other girls.

"You did not forget then," I said. "And you must have known that free men were about. Your act then was intended as some sort of provocation, or insult, or insolency or challenge?"

"She knew herself observed," said a fellow, "and then with intent, and deliberation, drank from the third level."

"My master would permit it!" she cried.

"That is probably true," laughed a fellow, contemptuously.

"Kneel, errant slave," I said.

She knelt, in terror.

I looked down at her, and pointed the first two fingers of my right hand to the ground, and then opened them. "You do not know the meaning of that sign?" I asked.

"No," she said, trembling.

"Her master is indeed weak," said a fellow.

I supposed her master must be a low-drive male.

"Spread your knees, widely," said another.

Frightened, the girl complied.

"Take her in hand," I said.

A fellow on either side of her then held her, each by a lifted wrist.

I looked at the other girls.

They, too, at my glance, knelt with their knees spread, widely.

"See!" said the one in silk. "My master has silked me!" He has put me in silk, as the slave I am! Do not hurt me! I am only a silked slave! That is all I have been given to wear. He is a man, a man!" The first girl in line, one of the three clad in the wool of the bounding hurt, did not dare to meet my eyes but drew the hem of her tunic up and back, higher on her legs, that more of her beauty might be bared. She, too, did not wish to face the wrath of masters. The other two in the wool of the bounding hurt quickly followed her example. They then all adjusted their tunics further in one way or another, one pulling down a bit on the «V» at her neck, the others pushing up the sleeves of their tunics to reveal more of their gracefully curved upper arms.

"Slaves!" chided the girl before me. She saw herself losing her grip upon them. "And what are you? I inquired.

"A slave!" she said.

I regarded her.

"a€”Master," she added.

"It is a serious thing you are charged with," I said.

She looked at me, angrily.

"You have drunk," I said, "from the wrong level of a fountain."

"What difference does it make," she asked, "what bowl of a fountain I drank from? It is a small thing!"

Anger coursed through the men present.

"It is not a small thing," I said. "Such things are symbols of rank and hierarchy, of difference and distance. They like at the foundation of a natural society, one in accord with the aristocracy of nature, a society in which there are places for both heroes and slaves. They speak of ordered arrangements. All are not the same. All are not leveled, nor must they pretend to be. Such a flat, crushed world, without difference and meaning, lies to the ruled and makes liars of the rulers. It imposes fraud upon one and hypocrisy upon the other. In an unnatural world, the same, as all cannot be the best, there is no alternative, if all are to be the same, then to reduce the best to the level of the worst, at least in pretense. Do you not think the intelligent, the strong, the aggressive, even the evil, will rule, under whatever forms are convenient? The larl, as a larl, must survey verr, or sleen will tend them, pretending to be themselves verr."

She looked up at me.

"You did not truly think it a small thing," I said, "otherwise you would not have done it."