Thurnus tapped on the bars of the cage with a sleen whip. "Come out, little slave," he said.

On my hands and knees I emerged from the cage, head down, crawling out onto the hot sand. It was the first time I had ever been caged. Without thinking I began to rise to my feet. The butt of the sleen whip struck me heavily, driven downward, between the shoulder blades, felling me. I lay in the hot sand, startled. I hurt. I could feel the warm sand, granular, between my fingers, on my thighs. "Master?" I asked, frightened. How had I displeased him?

"Were you given permission to rise, Slave?" he asked.

"No, Master," I said, frightened. "Forgive me." It is common on Gor for a girl emerging from a small cage, on her belly, or her hands and knees, depending on the size opening, at the feet of her master to remain, pending her master's instructions, on her belly or hands and knees. I did not know it at the time. I had never been caged before.

I, lying in the sand, was conscious of their feet about me. I did not want to be beaten.

"She is a pretty little thing, is she not?" asked Thurnus. I supposed I did look beautiful, a slave girl, lying at their feet in the warm sand.

"I am pleased that you like her," said Clitus Vitellius.

"I am grateful for the gift," said Thurnus.

"It is nothing," said Clitus Vitellius. "She is only a lovely trifle."

"On your hands and knees, Girl," said Thurnus.

I rose to my hands and knees. I felt a length of sleen rope tied on my neck. The other end of the rope was looped several times and the loops loosely knotted about a bar of the sleen cage. The resulting tether was about a foot long.

"Look up at me, Girl," said Thurnus.

I looked up at him.

"You attempted to escape," he said.

"I had no chance to escape, Master," I said. "A sleen was set upon me."

"It is true," said he, "that you had no chance for escape. But you, ignorant girl, did not know that."

I was silent, frightened.

"Did you try to escape?" he asked.

I had tried to escape. "Yes, Master," I whispered.

"Sit with your back against the cage, legs drawn up," he said. I did so, my neck roped to one of the bars. He crouched down, near me.

He drew out a sleen knife.

He felt the back of my legs, with his left hand.

"Pretty legs," he said.

"Thank you, Master," I said.

"Do you know what these muscles are?" he asked, touching the twin cords behind my right knee.

"Tendons, Master," I said.

"Do you know what they are for?" he asked.

"They control the movement of my leg," I said. "Without them I could not walk."

I felt the blade touch the left tendon behind my right knee. If Thurnus were to draw the blade toward him, the tendon would be severed.

He replaced the sleen knife in its sheath.

Then he struck me twice, once striking my head to the right, and, then, with the back of his hand, lashing it to the left.

"That," said Thurnus, "is for having tried to escape."

"Yes, Master," I said.

He then took my legs, drawn up, in his hands, pressing with his thumbs against the inner tendons behind both the left and right knee.

I shrank back, miserable, my head to one side, against the bars.

"Remember, small, luscious, beauty," he said.

I looked at him with horror. "Yes, Master," I said. The memory of the sleen knife was vivid in my mind.

He removed his hands from my legs and I almost collapsed in the sand.

"On your hands and knees, Girl," said Thurnus.

I went to my bands and knees, and he unknotted the loops of sleen rope from the bar of the cage, and threw it loose beside me, in the sand, whence it rose to the bond on my neck.

"Look up at me, Girl," he said.

I looked up at him, the rope on my neck.

"Go to the hut," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

They then turned away from me, Thurnus and Clitus Vitellius. "I must leave before noon," Clitus Vitellius was saying. "There are four sleen in which I am interested."

"Let us discuss the matter," Thurnus was saying.

They left the training pit. On my hands and knees, miserable, in the hot sand, the rope on my neck, I looked about the training pit, at the rack of whips and ropes, the sleen tethers, the cages, the wooden barrier about the training area, and then, on my hands and knees, made my way through the sand and out of the training area toward the hut of Thurnus, the rope dragging behind me.

I had begun to understand what it would be to be the girl of a peasant.

In the street of the village, I stopped. Feet stood before me. I looked up, miserable, in the dust, the rope hanging from my neck. It was two peasant boys.

"What slave is this?" asked one. He was Bran Loort, leader of the peasant boys, a rugged youth verging into his manhood. He had in him, said some, the makings of a caste leader.

"It is the clever, beautiful slave who eluded us last night in our sport," said his fellow.

"So it is," acknowledged Bran Loort.

"It is said," said the one, "she has been given to Thurnus."

"Then," said Bran Loort, "she will be in the village."

"It seems so," said the other.

"Please, Masters," I said, "do not detain me."

"Let us not detain her," said Bran Loort. They stepped aside, as though I might have been a free woman. Dragging the rope on my neck, on my hands and knees, through the dust of the hot, sunny street, I crawled past them.

How far from me then seemed Judy Thorton, the lovely co-ed.

I thought of the college boys whom I had despised or tolerated, with whom I had been so haughty. How they would have laughed to have seen me now, on a world where there were true men.

In the vicinity of Thurnus's hut, at the side of one of the wagons taken in the raid on the camp of the Lady Sabina, being loaded with supplies and gear, was Clitus Vitellius.

I seized at his knees, weeping. "Keep me. Keep me, Master," I begged.

He looked down at me. It was shortly before noon.

I looked up at him, tears in my eyes. "I love you, Master," I wept.

"She does not want to be a peasant's girl," laughed one of the men.

"I love you, Master," I said.

Clitus Vitelllius rook the rope from the ground, which hung from my throat. He held the rope.

"She does not want to be left in Tabuk's. Ford," said one of the men.

"Who can blame her?" asked another.

I looked up at Clitus Vitellius, my hands about his knees, tears in my eyes. He held the rope which was on my neck. "I am your conquered slave," I wept. "Please take me with you."

He put his foot on the rope, pressing it to the ground. Then, beneath his foot, he drew the rope to him. My head was dragged from his knees to the dust at his feet.

I lay before him, helpless.

"You are a slave girl in the village of Tabuk 's Ford," he said. Then he threw the rope to the ground and turned away from me.

I scratched in the dust and wept, beside the wheel of the wagon.