I lowered my head. "Yes," I said. "I beg to be a slave."

There was a great laugh from those gathered about, and, too, in those peals of merriment I heard the laugh of he who wore the headband of the pearls of the Vosk sorp, and most bitter to me of all, the laugh of contempt of the girl who stood beside me, her thigh at my cheek.

"Slave," said Ho-Hak.

"Yes," said I, "a€”Master." The word came bitterly to me. But a Gorean slave addresses all free men as Master, all free women as Mistress, though, of course, normally but one would own him.

There was further laughter.

"Perhaps now," said Ho-Hak, "we shall throw you to the tharlarion." I put down my head.

There was more laughter.

To me, at that moment, it seemed I cared not whether they chose to throw me to the tharlarion or not. It seemed to me that I had lost what might be more precious than my life itself. How could I face myself, or anyone? I had chosen ignominious bondage to the freedom of honorable death.

I was sick. I was shamed. It was true that they might now throw me to tharlarion. According to Gorean custom a slave is an animal, and may be disposed of as an animal, in whatever way the master might wish, whenever he might please. But I was sick, and I was shamed, and I could not now, somehow, care. I had chosen ignominious bondage to the freedom of honorable death.

"Is there anyone who wants this slave?" I heard Ho-Hak asking.

"Give him to me, Ho-Hak," I heard. It was the clear, ringing voice of the girl who stood beside me.

There was a great laughter, and rich in that humiliating thunder was the snort of the fellow who wore the headband, that formed of the pearls of the Vosk sorp. Strangely I felt small and nothing beside the girl, only chattel. How straight she stood, each inch of her body alive and splendid in her vigor and freedom. And how worthless and miserable was the beast, the slave, that knelt, naked and bound, at her feet.

"He is yours," I heard Ho-Hak say.

I burned with shame.

"Bring the past of rence!" cried the girl. "Unbind his ankles. Take these ropes from his neck."

A woman left the group to bring some rence paste, and two men removed the marsh vine from my neck and ankles. My wrists were still bound behind my back. In a moment the woman had returned with a double handful of wet rence paste. When fried, on flat stones it makes a kind of cake, sprinkled with rence seeds. "Open you mouth, Slave," said the girl.

I did so and, to the amusement of those watching, she forced the wet past into my mouth.

"Eat it," she said. "Swallow it."

Painfully, almost retching, I did so.

"You have been fed my your Mistress," she said.

"I have been fed by my Mistress," I said.

"What is your name, Slave?" asked she.

"Tarl," said I.

She struck me savagely across the mouth, flinging my head to one side. "A slave has no name," she said.

"I have no name," I said.

She walked about me. "Your back is broad," she said. "You are strong, but stupid." She laughed. "I shall call you Bosk," she said.

The Bosk is a large, horned, shambling ruminant of the Gorean plains. It is herded below the Gorean equator by the Wagon Peoples, but there are Bosk herds on ranches in the north as well, and peasants often keep some of the animals. "I am Bosk," I said.

There was laughter.

"My Bosk!" she laughed.

"I should have thought," said he with the headband, formed of the pearls of the Vosk sorp, "that you might have preferred a man for a slave, one who is proud and does not fear death."

The girl thrust her hands into my hair and threw back my head. Then she spat in my face. "Coward and slave!" she hissed.

I dropped my head. It was true what she had said. I had feared death. I had chosen slavery. I could not be a true man. I had lost myself.

"You are worthy only to be the slave of a woman," said Ho-Hak.

"Do you know what I am going to do with you?" asked the girl.

"No," I said.

She laughed. "In two days," she said, "at festival, I will put you at stake as a prize for girls."

There was laughter at this, and shouts of pleasure.

My shoulders and head fell forward and, bound, I shook with shame.

The girl turned. "Follow me, Slave," said she, imperiously.

I struggled to my feet and, to the jeers of the rence growers, and blows, stumbled after the girl, she who owned me, my mistress.

In the stem of the girl's rence craft, she poling the craft from the stern, I knelt, cutting rence. It was late in the year to cut rence but some quantities of the rence are cut during the fall and winter and stored on covered rence rafts until spring. These stores of rence are not used for adding in the making of rence paper, but in the weaving of mats, for adding to the surface of the island, and for the pith, used as a food.

"Cut there," said the girl, moving the rush craft into a thicket of rence. One holds the stem of the plant in the left hand and, with the right, with a small, curved, two-inch knife makes a diagonal upward stroke.

We were towing a small rence raft and there was already much rence upon it. We had been cutting since before dawn. It was now late in the afternoon. I cut again, dropping the tufted, flowered head of the rence stem in the water, and then I tossed the stem onto the raft of rence, with the piles of others. I could sense the rence craft move as teh girl shifted her weight in it, balancing it and maintaining it in position.

I cut more.

She had not seen fit to give her slave clothing.

About my neck she had coiled and tied a length of marsh vine.

I knew her to be barefoot behind me, in the brief-skirted tunic of yellowish-brown rence cloth, cut away at the shoulders to give her freedom of movement. She wore a golden armlet. Her hair was bound back with the bit of purple rep-cloth. She had, as the girls do in rence craft, tied her skirt high about her thighs, for ease in moving and poling. I was terribly conscious of her. Her rather thick ankles seemed to me to be strong and lovely, and her legs sturdy and fine. Her hips were sweet, her belly a rhythm made for the touch of a man, and her breasts, full and beautiful, magnificent, tormenting me, strained against the brittle rence cloth of her tunic with an insolence of softness, as though, insistent, they would make clear their contempt for any subterfuge of concealment.

"Slave," had cried the girl once, "do you dare to look upon your mistress!" I had turned away.

I was hungry. In the morning, before dawn, she had placed in my mouth a handful of rence paste. At noon, in the marshes, with the sun burning at meridian, she had taken another handful of rence paste from a wallet worn at her waist and thrust it in my mouth, again not permitting me the dignity of feeding myself. Though it was now late in the afternood and I was hungry I would not ask to be fed again from the wallet at her side.

I cut another rence stem, cut away the tufted, flowered head, and threw the stem onto the raft.

"Over there," she said, moving the rence craft to a new location.

She had made little attempt to conceal her beauty from me. Indeed, she used it to torment and shame me, using it, like blows and abuse, to increase my miseries.

This morning, before dawn, she had affixed my collar.

I had spent the night in the open, a foot or two from her tiny hut on the rence island, my wrists tied to my ankles, my neck tethered to an oar pole thrust deep through the rence of the island.

Before dawn her foot awakened me.

"Awake, Slave," she had said.

Then, as casually as one might untether an animal, fearing nothing, she unbound me.

"Follow me, Slave," she had said.