Ram then pulled Tina to the feet by her hair and forced her head down on the anvil.

The metal worker looked at him.

"Put it on her neck," he said.

I watched while the heavy collar, shortened now to fit a woman, was curved expertly about her neck by blows of the hammer, and then, decisively, struck shut.

"Lift your head, Slave Girl," said Ram.

She did so, tears in her eyes. The chain on the collar dangled between her breasts.

I signaled the metal worker to free Constance of the chain on her neck. I tossed both girls a light, white rep-cloth slave tunic which I had purchased in the city.

Gratefully, half sobbing, they drew them on. I smiled. Did they not know, to a man's eye, they were almost more naked in such a garment than without it? Garments are an additional way, incidentally, in which to control slave girls. Knowing that the master may not permit her even such a rag if he chooses tends to make her more eager to please him, that she not be sent into the streets without it.

"I will march her barefoot, clad so, through the streets of Lydius," said Ram.

"Excellent," I said. It would be a rich joke. Who would recognize in her the former lofty lady of Lydius, the rich Lady Tina, who had often trod these streets aloof and hidden, probably escorted, in her several veils and multitudinous robes of concealment? Looking upon her, and look they would, they would see only a bond girl, only a lovely, half-naked slave at the heels of her master.

"I will have her serve me paga, publicly, in her own city," said Ram.

"Let us go to the tavern of Sarpedon," I said. "It is a fine tavern." I had been there before, some years earlier. I remembered a girl who had once been wench there, named Tana. It was I who had informed Sarpedon, her master, of her skill in dancing. She had been danced that very night for the patrons, but I had had business, and had not dallied to see her perform.

In less than a quarter of an Ahn we had come to the tavern of Sarpedon.

It was, however, in an angry mood. On the wharves leading to the tavern, in many places, I had seen bales of hide. It was hide of the northern tabuk.

"I must leave Lydius tonight," I said. 'There is much here I do not understand. It must be investigated."

"I shall accompany you," said Ram.

"I am a tarnsman," I said. "It is better that you remain."

"The reins of a tarn are not unfamiliar to me," said Ram.

"You are a tarnsman?" I asked.

"I have done many things," he said. "In Hunjer I worked with tarn keepers."

"Do you know the spear, the bow, the sword?" I asked.

"I am not a warrior," he shrugged.

"Remain behind," I said.

"Do masters desire aught?" asked the proprietor, a paunchy man, in leather apron.

Ram and I sat behind one of the small tables. Our girls knelt by us.

"Where is Sarpedon?" I asked.

"He visits in Ar," said the man. "I am Sarpelius, who is managing the tavern in his absence." He regarded the girls. "Lovely," he said. "Would masters care to sell them? I can always use such wenches in the alcoves."

"No," I said.

The girls seemed then less tense.

"There are many bales of hide on the wharves," I said.

"From Kassau, and the north," he said.

"Did the herd of Tancred this year emerge from the forests?" I asked.

"Yes," said the man. "I have heard so."

"But," said I, "it has not yet crossed Ax Glacier?"

"I would not know of that," he said.

"On the wharves," I said, "there are thousands of hides."

"From the northern herds," he said.

"Are there traders come south from the north?" asked Ram.

"Few," said the man.

"Is it common," I asked, "for the hides to be so plentiful in Lydius in the spring?" Normally hide hunters prefer the fall tabuk, for the coats are heavier.

"I do not know," said the man. "I am new in Lydius." He looked at us, smiling. "May I serve, Masters?" he asked.

"We will be served by our own girls," said Ram. "We will send them shortly to the vat."

"As masters wish," beamed Sarpelius, and turned about and left us.

"Never have there been hides in this quantity in Lydius," said Ram to me, "either in the spring or fall."

"They are perhaps from the herd of Tancred," I said.

"There are other herds," he said.

"That is true," I said. But I was puzzled. If the herd of Tancred had indeed emerged from the forests why had it not yet crossed Ax Glacier? Surely hunters, even in great numbers, could not stay the avalanche of such a herd, which consisted of doubtless two to three hundred thousand animals. It was one of the largest migratory herds of tabuk on the planet. Unfortunately for the red hunters, it was also the only one which crossed Ax Glacier to summer in the polar basin. To turn such a herd from its migratory destination would be less easy than to turn the course of a flood. Yet, if reports could be believed, the ice of Ax Glacier had not yet, this year, rung to the hooves of the herd.

I was now more pleased than ever that I had had Samos send a ship with supplies north.

But I was suddenly afraid that the ship might not have gotten through. Ram had said that the north was closed.

"Worry upon the morrow," suggested Ram. "Tonight let us divert ourselves with the pleasures of slave girls and paga."

I put a golden tarn on the table. "Remain," I said. "But I fear I must go. There is much here which is seriously amiss. I fear the worst."

"I do not understand," he said.

"Farewell, my friend," said I. "Tonight I take tarn for the north."

"I will accompany you," he said.

"I cannot share this business," I said. "My flight will be fraught with peril, my work is dangerous." I thought of Zarendargar, Half-Ear, waiting for me at the world's end. Now, more than ever was I certain that the works of the Kurii flourished concealed among the snows of the northern wastes. The pattern was forming. The north was closed. The red hunters were to die by starvation. The frozen north. in its wind-swept desolation, was to keep its secrets in silence from men. "No, my friend," I said. "You cannot accompany me." I turned and strode to the door.

At the door I encountered Sarpelius. "Master asked many questions," he observed.

"Stand aside," I said.

He did so, and I brushed past him. Constance fled after me, in the brief tunic of white rep-cloth. Outside the tavern I turned and looked at her. She had slim, lovely legs, and sweet breasts. She was very beautiful in my collar. I knew where, on the wharves, there was a slave market. I had once bought a dark-haired, captured panther girl named Sheera there. I had broken her swiftly to my collar. She had been excellent in a man's arms. Months later I had freed her. What a fool I had been. It was not a mistake I would make again with a woman. Keep them slaves; They belong in collars.

"Master?" asked Constance.

"It will not be hard to sell you," I said. "You are quite beautiful."

"No!" she begged. "Do not sell me, Master!"

I turned my back upon her. I thought I would probably obtain a silver tarsk for her. She was new to the collar, but she had incredible potentialities. Any slaver could determine that.

With a few more havings I thought she would be helpless, and paga hot.

I strode toward the market. I must leave soon. The girl stumbled after me, weeping. "Please, Master!" she wept. I did not tell her to heel. It was not necessary. She was slave.

I thought she would bring me a tarsk.

Suddenly I heard her cry out, startled. I spun about. "Do not unsheath your blade. Fellow," said a man.

I was covered with four crossbows, the quarrels set. Fingers were tense at the triggers.

I raised my hands.

Two woven canvas straps, some two inches in width, had been looped about the girl's throat and drawn close about it. She was bent backward. Her fingers pulled futilely at the straps. She could scarcely breathe. The man behind her, the straps looped about his fists, tightened them slightly and instantly, terrified, eyes wild, she stopped all attempts to resist.

"In there, between the buildings," said the man, the leader of the others.

Angrily I moved between the buildings and stood in the half darkness of the alley, my hands raised. The girl, rudely, the straps on her throat, was dragged into the darkness with us.

"The bolts," said the man, indicating the missiles at rest in the guides of the weapons, "are tipped with kanda. The slightest scratch from them will finish you."

"I see you are not of the assassins," I said. It is a matter of pride for members of that caste to avoid the use of poisoned steel. Too, their codes forbid it.

"You are a stranger in Lydius," said the man.

"I scarcely think you are magistrates investigating my business," said I. "Who are you? What do you want?" I was angry. My thoughts had been too filled with fear and tumult, and fury at the mysteries of the north. I, though a warrior, had been insufficiently alert. I had been careless.

"I do not think he will be missed," said one of the men.

"You are not common robbers," I said.

"Welcome to Lydius," said the leader of the men. He proffered to me a metal cup. He had filled this from a verrskin canteen slung at his left hip, behind the scabbard.

"Why do you not simply loose your quarrels?" I asked.

"Drink," said he.

"Paga," I said. I had smelled the drink.

"Drink," said he.

I shrugged. I threw back my head and drained the cup. I held the metal cup in my right hand. Then it fell from my hand.

One of the men had set aside his crossbow. I saw the wadding of a slave hood thrust deep in Constance's mouth and then, behind her neck, secured in place with two narrow, buckled straps. The hood itself was then drawn over her head and buckled shut under her chin. The fellow removed the straps from her throat.

I leaned back against the wall.

I saw Constance's hands pulled behind her and snapped in slave bracelets.

I sank to one knee, and then I fell on my shoulder to the stones of the alley. I tried to push myself up, but fell again.

"He will be useful at the wall," said a man.

The boots of the men about me blurred, and then were clear, and then blurred again.

"Yes," said another man.

The voice had seemed far away. Things began to go black. I was dimly aware of them removing my belt and pouch, and the strap with scabbard and sword. Then I lost consciousness.

8.

I Find Myself Prisoner In The North "There seems to be no end of them," said a man's voice. "We kill hundreds a day, and yet more come."

"Increase then," said a girl's voice, "the ratios of your slaughtering."

"The men are weary," said the voice.

"Double then the fees," she snapped.

"It will be done," said the voice.