I looked down to the shore, and saw Cara, lovely in the brief woolen slave tunic, her hair bound back with the fillet of white wool. Her feet were muddy. Near a piling, small and delicate in the mud, she had found a talender. She bent to pick it up, and fastened it in her hair, for Rim. She had been ashore to buy some loaves of Sa-Tarna bread. The girl commonly carries the coin, or coins, in her mouth, for slave tunics, like most Gorean garments, have no pockets. Slaves are not permitted wallets, or pouches, as free persons. The baker had tied the sack about her neck, with a baker’s knot, fastened behind the back of her neck. The girl is not supposed to be able to see to undo the knot. Even if she works it about to before her throat, she cannot see it. If she should untie it, it is unlikely she will be able to retie it properly. Naturally the sack may not be opened unless the knot has been undone. The baker’s knot is supposed to minimize the amount of pilfering of pastries, and such, which might otherwise be done by slave girls. Cara straightened up, the talender in her hair. She was quite lovely. I rejoiced for Rim. The talender, fixed in her hair, is a slave girl’s wordless confession, which, commonly, she dares not speak, that she cares for her master. I noted that Rim, after our first day in Lydius, had not much frequented the paga taverns. He had spent more time on board, with lovely Cara, his slave.

Rim, now, however, was wandering about Lydius, before we set forth for Laura. He had wanted to make small purchases, among them a new shaving knife. “Wash your feet, Slave,” said I to Cara, as she began to mount the gangplank. “yes, Master,” she said, darting back down the gangplank. She went below the wharf and, standing on stones, washed her feet in the water. Slave girls on Gor address all free men as Master, all free women as Mistress.

Yesterday I had sent Tina for bread.

The sensuous little slave was not standing near to me.

“How do you like your collar?” I asked her. It read I BELONG TO BOSK.” She looked away.

She, like Cara, wore a brief, sleeveless slave tunic of white wool, her hair, too, bound back with a fillet of white wool. Her tanned body, in the white garment, was exciting. It was a better garment than she had worn when she had been free, though, of course, it was much shorter.

She wore a slave strap, a heavy strap, buckling in the back. In the front, at her belly, was fixed in the strap, a plate and ring. Through the ring passed a chain, of some five inches in length, each end of which terminated in a bracelet. Her hands were confined before her body.

Cara now, cleaned, climbed the gangplank and boarded he Tesephone.

We permitted Cara to run free. Tina, on the other hand, had been kept in the slave strap and bracelets, except when she was working in the kitchen area, cooking, and peeling suls and such. At such times a simple chain, run to her ankle, was sufficient to secure her. If we had permitted Tina to run free, as with Cara, I think she might have attempted escape. She knew the city of Lydius, and might be difficult to apprehend. I did not think she could have made good her escape, but I did not wish to lose time pursing her.

Yes, yesterday, I had sent her, in the slave strap and bracelets, for bread. I wanted to see her, for the first time, walk the wharves of Lydius, as a slave girl.

She had stolen from me.

I tied a note about her neck, reading, Two loaves of Sa-Tarna.

She had been furious.

“Open your mouth,” I told her.

She had done so.

I had placed the coin in her mouth.

“Go, Slave,” I had said to her, “Hurry.”

She had had a sly expression on her face, as she had left the ship. It was clear to me she would try to escape.

I was curious to see what would happen.

She was off the wharf to which the Tesephone was moored, I saw her cast a look over her shoulder, and begin to run between the bales and boxes near the warehouses.

But scarcely had she made five yards when a dock worker, who knew her, seized her by the arm. She struggled, futilely. From the Tesephone I watched. Another dock worker came over to see her. “It is Tina!” I heard laugh. “Tina!” cried others. Soon, she was surrounded by some nine or ten dock workers, who remembered her well. She had perhaps stolen from all of them, or taunted them. I saw one of them, the fellow who had first seized her, read the note tied on its string about her neck.

Then they parted, to let her pass, but in such a way that she must walk in one direction. Then, flanking her, and preventing her from going anywhere but where they wished, they escorted her to the shop of the bakes. Later I saw her returning. The note, on its string, was no longer about her neck. But now, about her neck, tied with the baker’s know, fastened behind the back of her neck, was a sack of two loaves of Sa-Tarna bread. She was escorted by the dock workers to the very foot of the gangplank of the Tesephone.

“Farewell, Slave!” they called.

Proudly, not looking at them, but with tears in her eyes, she climbed the gangplank.

“I have brought the bread,” she told me.

“Take it to the kitchen area,” I told her.

“Yes, Master,” she had said.

I had not seen fit again, however, to send her for bread. She now stood beside me, in the white tunic, in the slave strap, her hands braceleted to her belly. It did not seem necessary, for her instruction, to have her walk again as a slave girl in the streets of her own city. Lydius, I felt, had, however, been owed that sight. She had now had it. The girl was now mine, completely, as any other slave.

Once beyond Lydius I expected there would not be much danger of her running away.

Where was there for her to run?

In the forests there were sleen and panthers, and fierce tarsks.

And there were panther girls, too, who would be swift to pounce on an escaped slave girl.

I recalled how swiftly, how expeditiously, Elizabeth Cardwell had been taken by them, and humiliatingly exhibited, bound to a pole, at the river’s edge, where she had been purchased by Sarpedon, in whose tavern she now, for the pleasure of his customers, served as one of his paga slaves. I smiled. I corrected myself. There was no Elizabeth Cardwell serving in the paga tavern of Sarpedon of Lydius. There was, however, I recalled, a slave named Tana.

I glanced at Tina, standing beside me. She looked away. She did not care to meet my eyes.

She wore my collar. Where could she run?

She wore a brand. Where could she flee?

She could not even run to Lydius, her own city, for it was there, publicly, by judicial sentence, that the degradation of slavery, by the iron, had been burned into her body.

Even if a girl should escape one master, it is almost inevitable that she fall to the chains of another.

If not sooner, then later.

When a girl on Gor is slave, she is slave.

The penalty for attempted flight by a slave girl, for the first offense, is commonly a severe beating. The girl is, so to speak, permitted that mistake, once. If she should attempt to escape again, the master’s patience is usually less willing to be presumed upon. It is not uncommon to hamstring her. This makes her worthless, but is thought to provide an excellent lesson for other girls.

Gorean slave girls, those that are familiar with their collars, know that there is no escape for them.

They know in their hearts that they are truly slave, and will remain so, unless it might please their master to grant them freedom. It is seldom done. There is a Gorean saying that only a fool frees a slave girl.

When a girl on Gor is slave, she is truly slave. She is nothing more. She cannot be more. Most slave girls know this. All, in time, learn it.

Tina, however, was fresh to her collar. And so it was that, in Lydius, while we remained in port, I kept her in slave strap and bracelets. I did not wish to be inconvenienced by the amount of time, a day or so, it might take to have her once more in my chains.