| “Well then,” said Elizabeth, “what are you ashamed of?” Then Elizabeth strode to her and, to the girl’s horror, on one of the public high bridges, face-stripped her. The girl screamed but no one came to her aid, and Elizabeth spun her about, peeling off layers of Robes of Concealment until, in a heavy pile of silk, brocade, satin and starched muslin the girl stood in a sleeveless, rather brief orange tunic, attractive, of a sort sometimes worn by free women in the privacy of their own quarters.
The girl stood there, wringing her hands and wailing. The slave girl had backed off, looking as though she might topple off the bridge in sheer terror. Elizabeth regarded the free woman. “Well,” she said, “you are rather beautiful, aren’t you?” The free woman stopped wailing. “Do you think so?” she asked. “Twenty gold pieces, I’d say,” appraised Elizabeth. “I’d give twenty-three,” said one of the men watching, the same fellow whom Elizabeth had slapped. In fury the free woman turned about and slapped him again, it not being his day in Ko-ro-ba. “What do you think?” asked Elizabeth of the cringing slave girl. “Oh, I would not know,” she said, “I am only a poor girl of Tyros.” “That is your misfortune,” said Elizabeth. “What is your name?” “Rena,” said she, “if it pleases Mistress.” “It will do,” said Elizabeth. “Now what do you think?” “Rena?” asked the girl. “Yes,” snapped Elizabeth. “Perhaps you are a dull-witted slave?” The girl smiled. “I would say twenty-five gold pieces,” she said. Elizabeth, with the others, inspected the free girl. “Yes,” said Elizabeth, “Rena, I think you’re right.” Then she looked at the free girl. “What is your name, Wench?” she demanded. The girl blushed. “Relia,” she said. Then she looked at the slave girl. “Do you really think I would bring so high a price Rena?” “Yes, Mistress,” said the girl. “Yes, Relia,” corrected Elizabeth. The girl looked frightened for a moment. “Yes Relia,” she said. Relia laughed with pleasure. “I don’t suppose an exalted free woman like yourself,” said Elizabeth, “drinks Ka-la-na?” “Of course I do,” said Relia. “Well,” said Elizabeth, turning to me, who had been standing there, as flabbergasted as any on the bridge, “we shall have some.” She looked at me. “You there,” she said, “a coin for Ka-la-na.” Dumbfounded I reached in my pouch and handed her a coin, a silver Tarsk. Elizabeth then took Relia by one arm and Rena by the other. “We are off,” she announced, “to buy a bottle of wine.” “Wait,” I said, “I’ll come along.” “No, you will not,” she said, with one foot kicking Relia’s discarded Robes of Concealment from the bridge. “You,” she announced, “are not welcome.” Then, arm in arm, the three girls started off down the bridge. “What are you going to talk about?” I asked, plaintively. “Men,” said Elizabeth, and went her way, the two girls, much pleased, laughing beside her. I do not know whether or not Elizabeth’s continued presence in Ko-ro-ba would have initiated a revolution among the city’s free women or not. Surely there had been scandalized mention of her in circles even as august as that of the High Council of the City. My own father, Administrator of the City, seemed unnerved by her. Assassin of Gor Book 5 Page 73 – 76 Free women, here and there, were delicately putting tidbits beneath their veils. Some even lifted their veils somewhat to drink of the flavored ices. Some low-caste free women drank through their veils and there were yellow and purple stains on the rep-cloth. Assassin of Gor Book 5 Page 141 “The slave Phais,” I said, “and the girls of the Street of Pots, were of your party.” “Yes,” said Hup, “and most useful. Slave girls, as is not the case with free women, may go almost anywhere in the city, gathering information, carrying messages. Assassin of Gor Book 5 Page 389 Virginia was clad in garments cut from the beautiful, many colored robes of concealment of the free woman. But, proud of her beauty and glorious in her joy, she had boldly shortened the garments almost to the length of slave livery, and a light, diaphanous orange veil loosely held her hair and lay about her throat. She wore the robes of concealment in such a way as not to conceal but enhance her great loveliness. She had discovered herself and her beauty on this harsh world, and was as proud of her body as the most brazen of slave girls, and would not permit its being shut away from the wind and the sunlight. The garments suggested the slave girl and yet insisted, almost demurely, on the reserve, the pride and dignity of the free woman. The combination was devastating, tormentingly attractive, an achievement so tantalizing and astoundingly exciting that I would not be surprised if it were adopted throughout Ar by the city’s free women, rebellious, proud of their bodies, at last determined to throw off centuries of restriction, of confinement and sequestration, at last determined to stand forth as individuals, female individuals, sensuous as slave girls but yet rich in their own persons, intelligent, bold, beautiful, free. I mused to myself that slave raids on Ar might grow more frequent. Assassin of Gor Book 5 Page 408 Page3 |