He was flanked by two guards, standing slightly behind him, helmeted, Gorean steel at their sides. The man’s head had, some weeks ago, been shaven, a two-and-one-half-inch stripe, running from the forehead to the back of his neck. Now, for the strip that had been shaved, his hair was black, and shaggy. He was powerful. He had not yet been branded. But he was slave. The collar proclaimed him such.

The girl knelt at the side of the board. She was clad in a brief bit of diaphanous scarlet silk, slave silk. Her beauty was well betrayed. Her collar, a lock collar, was yellow, enameled. She was dark eyed, dark haired.

“May I serve, Masters?” she asked, “Paga,” said Samos, absently, looking at the board.

“Yes,” I said.

With a flash of slave bells, she withdrew. As she left, I noted that she passed by the kneeling male slave, flanked by his guards. She passed him as a slave girl, her head in the air, insolently, taunting him with her body.

I saw rage flash in his eyes. I heard his chains move. The guards took no not of him. He was well secured. The girl laughed, and continued on, to fetch paga for free men.

“Guard your tarnsman,” said Samos.

Instead I swept my Ubar to Ubar’s Tarnsman One.

I looked into Samos’ eyes.

He turned his attention again to the board.

He had a large, squarish head, short-cropped white hair. His face was dark from the sun, and wind-burned, and seaburned. There were small, golden rings in his ears. He was a pirate, a slaver, a master swordsman, a captain of Port Kar. He studied the board.

He did not take the Ubar’s Tarnsman with his spearman. He looked up at me, and defended his Home Stone by bringing his Scribe to Ubar One, whence it could control his Ubar’s Tarnsman Three, controlling as well the killing diagonal. “Talena, daughter of Marlenus of Ar, I learn, had been taken as slave to the northern forests,” I said.