"But before our redemption our heads were shaved by the keeper, for catapult cordage."

"I saw the pelts on a rack, outside the inn," I said. Her hair had been a beautiful auburn. That hair color is popular on Gor. It brings a high price in slave markets.

"A man named Ephialtes, a sutler of Cos, paid our redemption fees."

"It was he, then, who redeemed you?" I asked.

"I do not think so, Master," she said.

"He was acting as an agent then?" I said.

"I think so, Master," she said. "Though apparently one with powers to buy and sell as he pleased."

"On behalf on his principal?" I asked.

"Doubtless, Master," she said.

"You may kneel back," I said.

She straightened up, and then knelt back on her heels, her knees wide, her hands on her thighs. I had not specified this position, one of the most common for a female pleasure slave but she had assumed it unquestioningly, appropriately. It had been a test. She had passed. It would not be necessary to cuff her.

I listened to the sounds of the Vosk River in the background. "Though we were free women, six of us, as you recall, including myself, we were apparently to be marched naked, chained by the neck, in coffle behind a sutler's wagon."

"You objected?" I inquired.

"I and another, Klio, perhaps you remember her, did."

"And what happened?" I asked.

"We were lashed," she said. "It was done by a terrible person, one named Liadne, put over us as first girl, though we were free and she a mere slave!"

I remembered Liadne. She was lovely. I had first met her under her master's wagon, shivering in a tarpaulin, in an icy storm. I had used her but had paid her master for her use, leaving a coin in her mouth. I had had Ephialtes, the sutler, purchase her in the morning. I had thought she would make an excellent first girl, to introduce her free sisters into some understanding of their womanhood.