She was not as the other women of the Wagon Peoples I had seen, the dour, thin women with braided hair, bending over the cooking pots.

She wore a brief leather skirt, slit on the right side to allow her the saddle of the kaiila; her leather blouse was sleeveless; attached to her shoulders was a crimson cape; and her wild black hair was bound back by a band of scarlet cloth. Like the other women of the Wagons she wore no veil and, like them, fixed in her nose was the tiny, fine ring that proclaimed her people.

Her skin was a light brown and her eyes a charged, spark- ling black.

"What fool is this?" she demanded of Kamchak.

'No fool," said Kamchak, "but Tarl Cabot, a warrior, one who has held in his hands with me gra.s.s and earth."

"He is a stranger," she said. "He should be slain!"

Kamchak grinned up at her. "He has held with me gra.s.s and earth," he said.

The girl gave a snort of contempt and kicked her small, spurred heels into the Banks of the kaiila and bounded away.

Kamchak laughed. "She is Hereena, a wench of the First Wagon," he said.

"Tell me of her," I said.

"What is there to tell?" asked Kamchak.

'What does it mean to be of the First Wagon?" I asked.

Kamchak laughed. "You know little of the Wagon Peo- ples," he said.

"That is true," I admitted.

"To be of the First Wagon," said Kamchak, "is to be of the household of Kutaituchik."

I repeated the name slowly, trying to sound it out. It i8 p.r.o.nounced in four syllables, divided thus: Ku-tai-tu-chik.

"He then is the Ubar of the Tuchuks?" I said.

'His wagon," smiled Kamchak, "is the First Wagon and it is Kutaituchik who sits upon the gray robe."

"The gray robe?" I asked.

"That robe," said Kamchak, 'which is the throne of the Ubars of the Tuchuks."

It was thus I first learned the name of the man whom I understood to be Ubar of this fierce people.

"You will sometime be taken into the presence of Kutai- tuchik," said Kamchak. "I myself," he said, 'must often go to the wagon of the Ubar."

I gathered from this remark that Kamchak was a man of no little importance among the Tuchuks.

"There arc a hundred wagons in the personal household of Kutaituchik," said Kamchak. 'No be of any of these wagons is to be of the First Wagon."

"I see," I said. 'And the girl she on the kaiila is perhaps the daughter of Kutaituchik, Ubar of the Tuchuks?"

"No," said Kamchak. "She is unrelated to him, as are most in the First Wagon."

"She seemed much different than the other Tuchuk wom- en," I said.

Kamchak laughed, the colored scars wrinkling on his broad face. "Of course," said Kamchak, "she has been raised to be fit prize in the games of Love and War."

"I do not understand," I said.

Did you not see the Plains of a Thousand Stakes?" asked Kamchak.

"No," I said. ''I did not."

I was about to press Kamchak on this matter when we heard a sudden shout and the squealing of kaiila from among the wagons. I heard then the shouts of men and the cues of women and children. Kamchak lifted his head intently, listen- ng, Then we heard the pounding of a small drain and No blasts on the horn of a bask.

Kamchak read the message of the drum and horn.

"A prisoner has been brought to the camp," he said.

Kamchak strode among the wagons, toward the sound, and I followed him closely. Many others, too, rushed to the sound, and we were jostled by armed warriors, scarred and fierce; by boys with unscarred faces, carrying the pointed sticks used often for goading the wagon bask; by leather-clad women hurrying from the cooking pots; by wild, half-clothed children; even by enslaved Kajir-clad beauties of Turia; even the girl was there who wore but bells and collar, struggling under her burden, long dried strips of bask meat, as wide as beams, she too hurrying to see what might be the meaning of the drum and horn, of the shouting Tuchuks.

We suddenly emerged into the center of what seemed to be a wide, gra.s.sy street among the wagons, a wide lane, open and level, an avenue in that city of Harigga, or Bask Wagons.

The street was lined by throngs of Tuchuks and slaves.

Among them, too, were soothsayers and haruspexes, and singers and musicians, and, here and there, small peddlers and merchants, of various cities, for such are occasionally permitted by the Tuchuks, who crave their wares, to ap- proach the wagons. Each of these, I was later to learn, wore on his forearm a tiny brand, in the form of spreading bask horns, which guaranteed his pa.s.sage, at certain seasons, across the plains of the Wagon Peoples. The difficulty, of course is in first obtaining the brand. If, in the case of a singer, the song is rejected, or in the case of a merchant, his merchandise is rejected, he is slain out of hand. This accept- ance brand, of course, carries with it a certain stain of ignominy, suggesting that those who approach the wagons do as slaves.

Now I could see down the wide, gra.s.sy lane, loping towards us, two kaiila and riders. A lance was fastened between them, fixed to the stirrups of their saddles. The lance cleared the ground, given the height of the kaiila, by about five feet. Between the two animate, stumbling desperately, her throat bound by leather thongs to the lance behind her neck, ran a girl, her wrists tied behind her back.

I was astonished, for this girl was dressed not as a Gorean, not as a girl of any of the cities of the Counter-Earth, not as a peasant of the Sa-Tarna Belds or the vineyards where the Ta grapes are raised, not even as a girl of the fierce Wagon Peoples.

Kamchak stepped to the center of the gra.s.sy lane, lifting his hand, and the two riders, with their prize, reined in their mounts.

I was dumbfounded.

The girl stood gasping for breath, her body shaking and quivering, her knees slightly bent. She would have fallen except for the lance that kept her in place. She pulled weakly at the thongs that bound her wrists. Her eyes seemed glazed.

She scarcely could look about her. Her clothing was stained with dust and her hair hung loose and tangled. Her body was covered with a sparkling sheen of sweat. Her shoes had been removed and had been fastened about her neck. Her feet were bleeding. The shreds of yellow nylon stockings hung about her angles. Her brief dress was torn by being dragged through brush.

Kamchak, too, seemed surprised at the sight of the girl, for never had he seen one 80 peculiarly attired. He a.s.sumed, of course, from the brevity of her skirt, that she was slave. He was perhaps puzzled by the absence of a metal collar about her throat. There was, however, literally sewn about her neck, a thick, high leather collar.

Kamchak went to her and took her head in his hands. She lifted her head and seeing the wild, fearsome scarred face that stared into hers, she suddenly screamed hysterically, and tried to jerk and tear herself away, but the lance held her in place. She kept shaking her head and whimpering. It was clear she could not believe her eyes, that she understood nothing, that she did not comprehend her surroundings, that she thought herself mad.

I noted that she had dark hair and dark eyes, brown.

The thought crossed my mind that this might lower her price somewhat.

She wore a simple yellow shift, with narrow orange stripes, of what must once have been crisp oxford cloth. It had long sleeves, with cuffs, and a b.u.t.ton down collar, not unlike a man's shirt.

It was now, of course, torn and soiled.

Yet she was not an unpleasing wench to look on, slim, well-ankled, lithe. On the Gorean block she would bring a good price.

She gave a little cry as Kamchak jerked the shoes from about her neck. I He threw them to me.

They were orange, of finely tooled leather, with a buckle.

They had heels, a bit more than an inch high. There was also lettering in the shoe, but the script and words would have been unfamiliar to Goreans. It was English.

The girl was trying to speak. "My name is Elizabeth Cardwell," she said. "I'm an American citizen. My home is in New York City."

Kamchak looked in puzzlement at the riders, and they at him. In Gorean, one of the riders said, "She is a barbarian.

She cannot speak Gorean."

My role, as I conceived it, was to remain silent.

"You are all mad!" screamed the girl, pulling at the straps that bound her, struggling in the bonds. "Mad!"

The Tuchuks and the others looked at one another, puz- zled.

I did not speak.

I was thunderstruck that a girl, apparently of Earth, who spoke English, should be brought to the Tuchuks at this time at the time that I was among them, hoping to discover and return to Priest-Kings what I supposed to be a golden spheroid, the egg, the last hope of their race. Had the girl been brought to this world by Priest-Kings? Was she the recent victim of one of the Voyages of Acquisition? But I understood them to have been curtailed in the recent subter- ranean War of Priest-Kings. Had they been resumed? Surely this girl had not been long on Gor, perhaps no more than hours. But if the Voyages of Acquisition had been resumed, why had they been resumed? Or was it actually the case that she had been brought to Gor by Priest-Kings? Were there perhaps others somehow others? Was this woman sent to the Tuchuks at this time perhaps released to wander on the plains inevitably to be picked up by outriders for a pur- pose and if so, to what end for whose purpose or pur- poses? Or was there somehow some fantastic accident or coincidence involved in the event of her arrival? Somehow I knew the latter was not likely to be the case.

Suddenly the girl threw back her head and cried out hysterically. "I'm mad! I have gone mad! I have gone mad!"

I could stand it no longer. She was too piteous. Against my better judgment I spoke to her. "No," I said, "you are sane.'

The girl's eyes looked at me, she scarcely believing the words she had heard.

The Tuchuks and others, as one man, faced me.

I fumed to Kamchak. Speaking in Gorean, I said to him, "I can understand her."

One of the riders pointed to me, crying out to the crowd, excitedly. "He speaks her tongue"

A ripple of pleasure coursed through the throng.

It then occurred to me that it might have been for just this purpose that she had been sent to the Tuchuks, to single out the one man from among all the thousands with the wagons who could understand her and speak with her, thus identify- ing and marking him.

"Excellent," said Kamchak, grinning at me.

"Please," cried the girl to me. "Help met"

Kamchak said to me. "Tell her to be silent."

I did so, and the girl looked at me, dumbfounded, but remained silent.

I discovered that I was now an interpreter.

Kamchak was now, curiously, fingering her yellow gar- ment. Then, swiftly, he tore it from her.

She cried out.

"Be silent," I said to her.

I knew what must now pa.s.s, and it was what would have pa.s.sed in any city or on any road or trail or path in Gor. She was a captive female, and must, naturally, submit to her a.s.sessment as prize; she must also be, incidentally, examined for weapons; a dagger or poisoned needle is often concealed in the clothing of free women.

There were interested murmurs from the crowd when, to the Gorean's thinking, the unusual garments underlying her yellow shift were revealed.

"Please," she wept, turning to me.

"Be silent," I cautioned her.

Kamchak then removed her remaining garments, even the shreds of nylon stockings that had hung about her ankles.

There was a murmur of approval from the crowd; even some of the enslaved Turian beauties, in spite of themselves, cried out in admiration.

Elizabeth Cardwell, I decided, would indeed bring a high price.

She stood held in place by the lance, her throat bound to it with the wood behind her neck, her wrists thonged behind her back. Other than her bonds she now wore only the thick leather collar which had been sewn about her neck.

Kamchak picked up the clothing which lay near her on the gra.s.s. He also took the shoes. He wadded it all up together in a soiled bundle. He threw it to a nearby woman. "Burn it,"

said Kamchak.

The bound girl watched helplessly as the woman carried her clothing, all that she had of her old world, to a cooking fire some yards away, near the edge of the wagons.

the crowd had opened a pa.s.sage for the woman and the girl saw the clothing cast on the open fire.

"No, no!" she screamed. "No!"

Then she tried once more to free herself.

"Tell her," said Kamchak, "that she must learn Gorean quickly that she will be slain if she does not."

I translated this for the girl.

She shook her head wildly. "Tell them my name is Eliza- beth Cardwell," she said. "I don't know where I am or how I got here I want to get back to America, I'm an Ameri- can citizen, my home is in New York City take me back there, I will pay you anything!"

"Tell her," repeated Kamchak, "that she must learn Gore- an quickly and that if she does not she will be slain."

I translated this once more for the girl.

"I will pay you anything," she pleaded. "Anything!"

"You have nothing," I informed her, and she blushed.

"Further," I said, "we do not have the means of returning you to your home."