One of the men cried out with pleasure.

That had been an excellent leash move, to be sure. Klio displayed herself brilliantly on the leash. Such things seem very natural for a woman. perhaps they are, to some extent, like slave dance, instinctive, the biological template, or genetic dispositions for them, having been selected for thousands of years ago, the most pleasing of captive women, perhaps, those squirming best on their tethers, or in their bonds, tending to be utilized for sexual conquest. Perhaps, however, they are associated, in their way, with something even deeper, something clearly selected for, the biological need of a woman to belong, to be approved of and to love.

"Superb!" said a fellow.

I wondered if Klio, sensing these deep, dark, wonderful, frightening things within her, the rightfulness of the destiny of submission to men for her, and such, had not, perhaps in the privacy of her own chambers, before her mirror, put the leash on herself. Perhaps she had then, there, before the mirror, in the privacy of her own quarters, moved similarly. It is not unusual for women to do this sort of thing, alone, often in bonds and chains, expressing plaintively therein their longing for a master.

"Superb! Superb!"

Klio, I recalled, had chosen a dangerous way of life, one which she must surely have realized, on one level or another, might lead to the collar.

"'Klio'," I said to the men, "might be an excellent name for a slave, do you not think so?"

"Yes!" said more than one.

Klio flushed with pleasure. Somehow it seemed she became even more sinuous, more sensuous, then.

I saw that she was paying a bit too much attention to the tall fellow.

"On your belly," I said to Klio. "There, that fellow," I said, indicating a grizzled sapper to one side, his tools near him, "address yourself to him, about the feet and legs." He grinned.

"No!" said the tall fellow.

I had thought this move on my part might bring him into action.

Klio stopped, and turned, from her knees, to regard him.

"I will buy her!" he said.

"She is not cheap," I said. It seemed to me I might as well get what I could for Klio. I fear I must admit occasionally to a streak of opportunistic greediness. "A silver tarsk!" he cried.

"Done!" I said. I had not really expected anything like that. Klio, redeemed through Ephialtes, had only cost me thirty copper tarsks. Perhaps I should have held out for more, seeing the eagerness of the fellow, but, after all, I was taken by surprise by the splendid offer, and even opportunistic greediness has its limits, particularly when surprised.

"On all fours," I said to Klio.

Immediately she went to all fours.

"A silver tarsk," I said.

It was placed in my palm and I put it in my pouch. I then removed my leash and collar from her neck. I had not even returned the leash and collar to my pouch before I heard a decisive click and a small cry from Klio. She looked up, collared, a slave, at her master.

"She dances the leash dance well, does she not?" I asked.

"I will improve her in it," said he, grimly.

Klio quickly bend her head, unbidden, to his feet, and kissed them.

"Share her," said a fellow.

"Let her dance again," said another, "not in the leash."

"Proffer her to the arms of each of us," said another, "in turn." "She is mine," said the fellow.

"We are your comrade in arms," said another.

"True!" said another.

"Have no fear," said the tall fellow. "I will share the slave, and my good fortune, with you, but do not forget that in the end it is I alone to whom she belongs, that it is mine alone whose slave she is."

The men had crowded about Klio now, and I could hardly see her among them. Even the fellow from the low wooden platform, which gave him a vantage over the top of the trench, had joined them.

I backed away, unnoticed, toward the nearest sapling trench. In a moment I had then turned and was making my way rapidly toward the walls. In places the sapping trench was covered with planking, which might protect workers, or soldiers in their advance. In an Ehn or so I had come to its end, some twenty yards or so from the wall. Boulders lay about there, probably rolled from the height of the wall. Some were lodged at the trench, having crushed in the timber cover. The trench had not been taken around these obstacles. My heart was beating rapidly. I emerged from the trench, and waving a piece of white cloth, which on Gor is a truce cloth, as it is on Earth, climbed, slipping up, up the rather steep incline toward the base of the walls.

"Ho!" I said. "Do not fire! I am a friend. I have come here at great risk! I have a message for Aemilianus from Gnieus Lelius, Regent of Ar! Admit me!" There was silence from the height of the wall.

There were no posterns here, and the great gate was hundreds of yards away. Too, in such a time, it would surely not be open for one man.

I waved the white cloth vigorously.

That such a cloth may be used upon Gor as a truce cloth may have a direct historical connection with the similar device on Earth. Certainly many Gorean institutions and practices would seem to have Earth origins. On the other hand, in relationship to the Earth device may be merely a coincidental one, a white cloth, in effect, a blank flag, seeming to be a reasonably natural device to signify neutrality. Blank standards, too, or, more commonly, standards draped with white cloth, sometimes serve similar purposes. There are other devices, too, pertinent to such matters, particularly in formal contexts, such as the symbolic laying aside of arms, but I was certainly not, in this context, about to lay aside any arms.

"Admit me!" I cried.

Was there no one on the wall?

I looked back, toward the trench. I saw no unusual activity there.

"Ho!" I called, waving the cloth. "Ho!"

There was silence. "Is there no one there?" I called.

For a wild, irrational moment I wondered if the city might have been deserted. But that would not be possible, of course. The garrison and population could not have withdrawn unnoticed. The land side was invested. The countryside swarmed with Cosians, and their mercenaries and allies. The harbor was closed with ships and rafts. What was more likely, of course, was that there were few men on the walls. What defenders there were would presumably be summoned by alarms to threatened points. I feared my position might be noticed at any moment by Cosians, and that I might be trapped against the wall.

"Is there anyone there?" I called. I assumed that at the distance I could not be heard in the Cosian lines.

Suddenly a basket, on a rope, was flung over the wall and lowered.

I hurried to it. In it lay a golden tarn disk.

"You are mad to come in daylight," called a voice from above. "Put your food in the basket, quickly, and be gone! Hope that no one has seen you!"

I stepped back a few yards.

I thrust the white cloth in my belt.

There would be no point in climbing the rope as it could be cut or dropped, or, if I were not welcomed at the height of the wall, I could be cut from it there. "I am Tarl, of Port Kar," I called, "a city enemy to Cos."

"Do you have food?" called a man. I could see his face now, in one of the crenels at the height of the wall, some eighty feet above the embankment at the foot of the wall. It was gaunt, and hard.

"I come from Gnieus Lelius, regent in Ar," I called. "I bear a message for Aemilianus! Admit me!: I saw part of a crossbow at one of the other crenels. There crenels, like many, were wider on the outside then inside, constituting embrasures. This affords a wider range of fire by missile weapons.

"Do you have food?" called a voice.

"No!" I said.

"Go away!" it said. The basket, on its rope, maddeningly, drew upward some yards.