They had earned for themselves the chains and brands of slave girls. Thurnock and Clitus regarded me.

"Bring the girls at second and third prow," I told them.

A grin broke across the face of Thurnock. "They are beauties," he said, shaking that great shaggy head of yellow hair, sheared at the base of his neck. "Beauties!"

He and Clitus went to fetch the slaves.

I myself turned and walked slowly down the gangway between the rowers' benches, and then climbed the stairs to the foredec of the barge.

The girl, her back bound over the curved prow, facing forward, heard me, but could not see me. My head, as I stood on the foredeck, was about a foot below her fastened ankles. Her wrists, facing me, had been bound cruelly behind the prow.

"Who is it?" she asked.

I said nothing.

"Please," she begged. "Who is it?"

"Be silent," said I, "Slave."

A small cry of anguish escaped her.

With a movement of the Gorean blade I cut the fiber at her ankles.

Then, standing on the rail of the foredeck, my left had on the prow, I cut first the fiber binding her at the throat, and then that binding her at the waist. Then, resheathing my sword, I eased her, wrists bound, down the prow, until her feet at last stood on the rail, on which, beside her, I stood.

I turned her about.

She saw me, the black, swollen mouth, the eyes, and screamed helplessly. "Yes," I said, "it is I."

Then, cruelly, I took her head in my hands and pressed my lips upon hers. Never had I seen a woman so overcome with utter terror.

I laughed at her misery.

Then, contempuously, I removed my blade from the sheath. I put the point under her chin, lifting her head. Once, when I had been bound at the pole, she had pushed up my head, that she might better assess the features of a slave. "You are a beauty, aren't you?" I commented.

Her eyes looked at me with terror.

I dropped the point to her throat, and she turned away her head, shutting her eyes. For a moment I let her feel the point in hte delicacy of her throat, then I dropped the blade and slashed the binding fiber that fastened her wrists together about the prow.

She fell to the foredeck, on her hands and knees.

She struggled to her feet, half crouching, half mad with fear, and the pain of being bound at the prow.

With the point of my blade I pointed to the deck.

She shook her head, and turned, and ran to the rail, and held it, looking over. A huge tharlarion, seeing the image on the water, half rose from the marsh, jaws clashingin, and then dropped back into the water. Two or three more tharlarion then churned there beneath her.

She threw back her head and screamed.

She turned to face me, shaking her head.

The tip of my blade still pointed inexorably to a place on the deck. "Please!" she wept.

The blade did not move.

She came and stood before me, and then dropped ot her knees, resting back on her heels. She lowered her head and extended her arms, wrists crossed, the submission of the Gorean female. I did not immediately bind her, but walked about her, examining her as prize. I had not hitherto understood her as so beautiful, and desirable. At last, after I had well stisfied myself as to her quality, I took a bit of binding fiber that had fastened her ankles at the prow, and lashed her wrists together.

She raised her head and looked up at me, her eyes searching mine, pleading. I spat down in her face, and she lowered her head, shoulders shaking, sobbing. I turned away and descended the foredeck, and returned between the slaves to the steps below the tiller deck.

The girl followed me, unbidded.

Once I turned, and saw that she wiped, with the back of her right wrist, my spittal from her face. She lowered her bound hands and stood on the planking, head down.

I took again my chair, that of the oar-master, in this domain.

The large, blond, gray-eyed girl and the shorter girl, dark-haired, who had carried the net, knelt before the chair on the rowing deck.

My girl then knelt to one side, head down.

I surveyed the two girls, the blond one and the shorter one, and looked to Thurnock and Clitus.

"Do you like them?" I asked.

"Beauties!" said Thurnock. "Beauties!"

The girls trembled.

"Yes," said Clitus, "though they are rence girls, they would bring a high price."

"Please!" said the blond girl.

I looked at Thurnock and Clitus. "They are yours." I said.

"Ha!" cried Turnock. And then he seized up a length of binding fiber. "Submit!" she boomed at the large, blond girl and, terrified, almost leaping, she lowered her head, thrusting forward her hands, wrists crossed. In an instant, with peasant knots, Thurnock had lashed them together. Clitus bent easily to pick up a length of binding fiber. He looked at the shorter girl, who looked up at him with hate. "Submit," he said to her, quietly. Sullenly, she did so. Then, startled, she looked up at him, her wrists bound, having felt the strength of his hands. I smiled to myself. I had seen that look in the eyes of girls before. Clitus, I expected, would have little difficulty with his short rence girl. "What will masters do with us?" asked the lithe girl, lifting her head. "You will be taken as slave girls to Port Kar," I said.

"No, no!" cried the lithe girl.

The blond girl screamed, and the shorter girl, dark-haired, began to sob, putting her head to the deck.

"Is the raft fully ready?" I asked.

"It is," boomed Thurnock. "It is."

"We have tied it with the rence craft," said Clitus, "abeam of the starboard bow of this barge."

I picked up the long coil of binding fiber from which I had, earlier, cut three lengths, to bind Telima. I tied one eand about the throat of the lithe girl. "What is your name?" I asked.

"Midice," said she, "if it pleases master."

"It does not displease me," I said. "I am content to call you by that name." I found it a rather beautiful name. It was pronounced in three syllables, the first accented.

Thurnock then took the same long length of binding fiber, one end of which I had fastened about Midice's neck, and, without cutting it, looped and knotted it about the neck of the large, blond, gray-eyed girl, handling the coil then to Clitus, who indicated that the short rence girl should take her place in the coffle.

"What is your name?" boomed Thurnock to the large girl, who flinched. "Thura," she said, "-if it pleases Master."

"Thura!" he cried, slapping his thigh. "I am Thurnock!"

The girl did not seem much pleased by this coincidence.

"I am of the peasants," Thurnock told her.

She looked at him, rather in horror. "Only of the peasants?" she whispered. "The Peasants," cried out Thurnock, his voice thundering over the marsh, "are the ox on which the Home Stone rests!"

"But I am of the Rencers!" she wailed.

The Rencers are often thought to be a haigher caste that the Peasants. "No," boomed Thurnock. "You are only Slave!"

The large girl wailed with misery, pulling at her bound wrists.

Clitus had already fastened the short rence girl in the coffle, the binding fiber looped and knotted about her neck, the remainder of the coil fallen to the deck behind her.

"What is your name?" he asked the girl.

She looked up at him, shyly. "Ula," she said, "-if it pleases master." She lowered her head.

I turned to the woman and the child I had freed earlier, and had made to stand to one side.

Telima, haltered, bound hand and foot at the bottom of the stairs to the tiller deck, addresed herself to me. "As I recall," she said, "you are going to take us all to Port Kar, to be sold as slaves."

"Be silent," I told her.

"If not," she said, "I expect you will have the barges sunk in the marsh, that we may all be fed to tharlarion."

I looked upon her in irritation.