"Have the bask been tended?" asked Kamchak.

"Yes," said Elizabeth firmly.

Kamchak looked at Aphris. "Have the bask been tended?"

he asked.

She looked up suddenly, her eyes bright with tears. She cast an angry look at Elizabeth. "Yes," she said, "they have been tended."

"Good," said Kamchak, "good." Then he pointed at the meat. "It is overdone," he said.

"You were hours late," said Elizabeth.

"Hours," repeated Aphris.

"It is overdone," said Kamchak.

"I shall roast fresh meat," said Elizabeth, getting up, and she did so. Aphris only sniffed.

When the meat was ready Kamchak ate his fill, and drank down, too, a flagon of bosk milk; I did the same, though the milk, at least for me, did not sit too well with the Paga of the afternoon.

Kamchak, as he often did, was sitting on what resembled a gray rock, rather squarish, except that the corners tended to be a bit rounded. When I had first seen this thing, heaped with other odds and ends in one corner of the wagon, some of the odds and ends being tankards of jewels and small, heavy chests filled with golden tarn disks, I had thought it merely a rock. Once, when rummaging through his things, Karnchak had kicked it across the rug for me to look at. I was surprised at the way it bounced on the rug and, when I picked it up, I was interested to see how light it was. It was clearly not a rock. It was rather leathery and had a "rained surface. I was a bit reminded of some of the loose, tumbled rocks I had once glimpsed in certain abandoned portions of the place of Priest-Kings, far beneath the Sardar. Among such rocks it would not have been noticed. "What do you make of it?" Kamchak asked.

"Interesting," I observed.

"Yes," said he, "I thought so." He held out his hands and I tossed the object back. "I have had it for some time," he said. "It was given to me by two travelers."

"Oh," I said.

When Kamchak had finished his freshly roasted meat and his flagon of bask milk, he shook his head and rubbed his nose.

He looked at Miss Cardwell. "Tenchika and Dina are gone," said he. "You may sleep once more in the wagon."

Elizabeth cast a grateful look at him. I gathered that the ground under the wagon was hard.

"Thank you," she said.

"I thought he was your master," remarked Aphris.

"Master," added Elizabeth, with a withering look at Aphris, who smiled.

I now began to understand why there were often problems in a wagon with more than one girl. Still, Tenchika and Dina had not quarreled very much. Perhaps this was because Tenchika's heart was elsewhere, in the wagon of Albrecht of the Ka.s.sars.

"Who, may I ask," asked Aphris, "were Tenchika and Dina?"

"Slaves, Turian wenches," said Kamchak.

"They were sold," Elizabeth informed Aphris.

"Oh," said Aphris. Then she looked at Kamchak. "I do not suppose I shall be fortunate enough to be sold?"

"She would probably bring a high price," pointed out Elizabeth, hopefully.

"Higher than a barbarian surely," remarked Aphris.

"Do not fret, Little Aphris," said Kamchak, "when I am finished with you I shall if it pleases me put you on the block in the public slave wagon."

"I shall look forward to the day," she said.

"On the other hand," said Kamchak, "I may feed you to the kaiila."

At this the Turian maiden trembled slightly, and looked down.

"I doubt that you are good for much," Kamchak said, "but kaiila feed."

Aphris looked up angrily.

Elizabeth laughed and clapped her hands.

"You," said Kamchak, glaring at Elizabeth, "you stupid little barbarian you cannot even dance!"

Elizabeth looked down, confused, rather shamed. It was true, what Kamchak had said.

The voice of Aphris was timid and quiet. "I can't either,"

she said.

"What!" howled Kamchak.

"No," cried Aphris, "I never learned!"

"Kaiila feed!" cried Kamchak.

"I'm sorry," said Aphris, now a bit irritated, "I just never planned on becoming a slave."

"You should have learned anyway," cried the disappointed Kamchak.

"Nonsense," said Aphris.

"It will cost money," grumbled Kamchak, "but you will learn, I will have you taught."

Aphris sniffed and looked away.

Elizabeth was looking at me. Then she turned to Kamchak. To my astonishment, she asked, "Could I, too, be taught?"

"Why?" he asked.

She looked down, blushing.

"She is only a barbarian," said Aphris, "All knees and elbows she could never learn."

"Hah!" laughed Kamchak. "The Little Barbarian does not wish to become second girl in the wagon!" He gave Eliza- beth's head a rough, affectionate shake. "You will fight for your place! Excellent!"

"She can be first girl if she wishes," sniffed Aphris. "I shall escape at the first opportunity and return to Turia."

"Beware of the herd sleep," said Kamchak.

Aphris turned white.

"If you attempt to leave the wagons at night they will sense you out and rip my pretty little slave girl in pieces."

"It is true," I warned Aphris of Turia.

"Nonetheless," said Aphris, "I will escape."

"But not tonight!" guffawed Kamchak.

"No," said Aphris acidly, "not tonight." Then she looked about herself, disdainfully at the interior of the wagon. Her gaze rested for a moment on the kaiila saddle which had been part of the spoils which Kamchak had acquired for Tenchika. In the saddle, in their sheaths, were seven quivas.

Aphris turned again to face Kamchak. "This slave," she said, indicating Elizabeth, "would not give me anything to eat."

"Kamchak must eat first, Slave," responded Elizabeth.

"Well," said Aphris, "he has eaten."

Kamchak then took a bit of meat that was left over from the fresh-roasted meat that Miss Cardwell had prepared. He held it out in his hand. "Eat," he said to Aphris, "but do not touch it with your hands."

Aphris looked at him in fury,- but then smiled. "Certainly,"

she said and the proud Aphris of Turia, kneeling, bent for- ward, to eat the meat held in the hand of her master.

Kamchak's laugh was cut short when she sank her fine white teeth into his hand with a savage bite.

"Aiii!" he howled, jumping up and sticking his bleeding hand into his mouth, sucking the blood from the wound.

Elizabeth had leaped up and so had I.

Aphris had sprung to her feet and ran to the side of the wagon where there lay the kaiila saddle with its seven sheathed quivas. She jerked one of the quivas from its saddle sheath and stood with the blade facing us. She was bent over with rage.

Kamchak sat down again, still sucking his hand. I also sat down, and so, too, did Elizabeth Cardwell.

We left Aphris standing there, clutching the knife, breath- ing deeply.

"Sleep!" cried the girl. "I have a knife!"

Kamchak paid her no attention now but was looking at his hand. He seemed satisfied that the wound was not serious, and picked up the piece of meat which he had dropped, which he tossed to Elizabeth, who, in silence, ate it. He then ~1.

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142.

pointed at the remains of the overdone roast, indicating that she might eat it.

"I have a knife!" cried Aphris in fury.

Karochak was now picking his teeth with a fingernail.

"Bring wine," he said to Elizabeth, who, her mouth filled with meat; went and fetched a small skin of wine and a cup, which she filled for him. When Kamchak had drunk the cup of wine he looked again at Aphris. "For what you have done," he said, "it is common to call for one of the Clan of Torturers."

"I will kill myself first," cried Aphris, posing the quiva over her heart.

Kamchak shrugged.

The girl did not slay herself. "NO," she cried, "I will slay you."

"Much better," said Kamchak, nodding. "Much better."

"I have a knife!" cried out Aphris.

"Obviously," said Kamchak. He then got up and walked rather heavily over to one wall of the wagon and took a slave whip from the wall.

He faced Aphris of Turia.

"Sleep!" she wept. She threw back her hand with the knife to rush forward and thrust it into the heart of Karnchak but the coil of the whip lashed forth and I saw its stinging tip wrap four times about the wrist and forearm of the Turian girl who cried out in sudden pain and Kamchak had stepped to the side and with a motion of his hand had thrown her off balance and then by the whip dragged her rudely over the rug to his feet. There he stepped on her wrist and removed the knife from her open hand. He thrust it in his belt.

"Slay me!" wept the girl. "I will not be your slave!"

But Kamchak had hauled her to her feet and then flung her back to where she had stood before. Dazed, holding her right arm, on which could be seen four encircling blazes of scarlet, she regarded him. Kamchak then removed the quiva from his belt and hurled it across the room until it struck in one of the poles of the frame supporting the wagon hides, two inches in the wood, beside the throat of the girl.

"Take the quiva," said Kamchak.

The girl shook with fear.

"Take it," ordered Kamchak.

She did so.

"Now," he said, "replace it."

Trembling, she did so.

"Now approach me and eat," said Kamchak. Aphris of Turia did so, defeated, kneeling before him and turning her head delicately to take the meat from his hand. "Tomor- row," said Kamchak, "you will be permitted after I have eaten to feed yourself."

Suddenly Elizabeth Cardwell said, perhaps unwisely. "You are cruel"

Kamchak looked at her in surprise. "I am kind," he said.

"How is that?" I asked.