Swordsmen of Gor by John Norman Page B

moment go. Then he accepted the cup, and drank.
    “Thank you,” he said.
    “You do not thank her,” I informed him. “It is a great honor and privilege for a slave to be permitted to serve her master. Too, it is what she is for.”
    “True,” said Pertinax.
    “That was not so hard, was it, girl?” I asked Constantina.
    “No,” she said.
    “No, what?” I asked.
    “No,” she said, “— Master .”
    “You may now draw back,” I said, “but you will remain in the vicinity, kneeling. You may be required later.”
    “‘Required’,” she said, uncertainly.
    “For further serving,” I said.
    “Yes,” she said, “— Master.”
    Pertinax seemed unable to take his eyes from her. I wondered what their relationship might be.
    “May I serve Master paga?” inquired Cecily.
    “Yes,” I said, and she served me paga, and well. I trusted Constantina was attentive.
    How incredibly beautiful was the former Miss Virginia Cecily Jean Pym!
    Then she withdrew, a bit, to kneel in the background, where, unobtrusively, she would be at hand, should she be needed, or wanted, or desired. The slave does not withdraw from the master’s presence without permission.
    I finished the paga and set down the goblet.
    “I thank you for your hospitality,” I said to Pertinax.
    “It is nothing,” he said. “I hope you will stay the night.”
    “The others, I gather,” I said, “have not yet arrived.”
    “What others?” he said.
    “I do not know,” I said.
    “I do not understand,” he said.
    “Perhaps we should talk,” I said to Pertinax.
    “Remain as you are,” I said to Constantina, for it seemed she stirred, and would have risen to her feet.
    She was not accustomed, it seemed, to obeying men. I found this odd, as she had a collar on her neck.
    “By all means,” said Pertinax, uncertainly. “But talk of what?”
    At that moment, far over the roof, high, outside the hut, far overhead, there was a thunderous noise. It was like a sudden, passing surf, a storm in the sky. It lasted no more than a part of an Ehn.
    “Master?” said Cecily, startled.
    Constantina seemed frightened.
    Perhaps she had at one time seen tarns.
    I did not leave my place.
    “Migratory tarns,” said Pertinax.
    “The tarn is not a migratory bird,” I said.
    “Forest tarns,” he said.
    “Tarns are of the mountains and the plains,” I said. “They do not frequent the forests. They cannot hunt in them, for the closeness of the trees.”
    “Perhaps it was thunder,” he said.
    “You may be unfamiliar with the sound,” I said, “but I am not. That was the passage of several tarns, perhaps a tarn cavalry.”
    “No,” he said, “not a cavalry.”
    “Not one disciplined, at any rate,” I said.
    In a tarn cavalry the wing beats are synchronized, much as in the pace of marching men. Normally this is facilitated, unless surprise is intended, by the beating of a tarn drum, which sets the cadence. One of the glorious sights of Gor is the wheeling, the maneuvering and flight, of such cavalries in the sky, a lovely sight, in its way not unlike that of a fleet of lateen-rigged galleys abroad on gleaming Thassa, the sea.
    “A very large band of mercenary brigands?” I suggested.
    “They are not mounted,” said Pertinax.
    “I do not understand,” I said.
    “Do not speak,” snapped Constantina. “Be quiet, you fool!”
    Pertinax subsided, and looked down.
    I rose to my feet and went to my things, gathering in some few articles, and then returned to face Constantina, where she knelt. I took her by the hair and, as she cried out, twisted her about and threw her to her back, and knelt across her body. She squirmed, helpless, pinioned. She looked up at me, wildly, protestingly, frightened, as I thrust the wadding into her mouth, and then, turning her to her belly, secured it in place behind the back of her neck. I then, with binding fiber, as she lay on her belly, lashed her wrists together behind her back, tightly, and so served her