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enslavement. Many men, despite the theories pertaining to such matters, and accepting the risks involved, enjoy taking them. Some slavers specialize in the capture of free women. Indeed, it is thought by some, perhaps largely because of the additional risks involved, and the interest in seeing what one has caught, that there is a special spice and flavor about taking them. Similarly it is said to be pleasant, if one has the time and patience, first to their horror and then to their joy, training them to the collar.
    "'You cannot put me out into the street!" had cried the free woman.
    "I can," he informed her soberly.
    "I am a free woman of Vonda," she said, "a member of the Confederation."
    "I am an innkeeper," said he. "My politics are those of the ledger and silver."
    I had sipped the sul porridge while listening to this conversation.
    There are various reasons why Gorean men, upon occasion, resort to masks. Oneander had worn a mask, as had others in the loot camp, because of his fear of the anger of the men of Ar, concerning his trading venture with Lara, and, doubtless, because of his shame at his failure in that venture. Several men in the main room of the inn wore masks now presumably to conceal their identity for various reams. Times were troubled. It might not well serve their purposes to be recognized, as perhaps men of wealth or position, now in difficult straits. Some might have been seized or held for ransom. Others, perhaps, shamed by the fall of Vonda, or the necessity for their flight from the city, did not wish to be recognized in Lara. Masks, too, are sometimes worn by men fn disgrace, or who wish to travel incognito. I recalled the Lady Florence. Doubtless the young men of Vonda, and the estates about Vonda, who would attend her secret auction might wear masks. She might not know who had purchased her until she knelt his slave, before him, at the foot of his couch. I wore a mask because I had not wished to be recognized in Lara. In Lara there were many refugees from Vonda and its vicinity. Some might have watched me in the stable bouts. I did not think my tasks would be either expedited or facilitated by being recognized as a former fighting slave. Now, however, for an independent reason, I was pleased to have worn the mask. Sometimes, incidentally, free young men wear masks and capture a free woman, taking away her clothing and forcing her to perform as a slave for them. She is then commonly released. Afterwards, of course, in meeting young men she does not know for which of them, if any of them, she was forced to perform as a slave. Such a woman commonly begins to take risks inappropriate for a free woman. She is, sooner or later, caught and enslaved. She is then, as she has wished, sold, and will truly wear the collar. Perhaps one of the young men will buy her, and keep her as his own.
    "I am a free woman!" the woman at the counter cried.
    "That condition," said the innkeeper, "could prove temporary."
    "I have nowhere to go," she said. "I am safe here. River pirates may still be within the city. It is not safe for me to be put out."
    "You owe me a silver tarsk," said he, "for your last night's lodging. Too, if you would stay here this night, you must pay me another tarsk."
    "I do not have them," she wept.
    "Then you must be ejected," said he.
    “Take my baggage," she said, "my trunks!"
    "I do not want them," he said.
    It was my plan to arrange transportation downriver in the morning. My business lay not in Lara but further west on the river. Many refugees, incidentally, had not remained in Lara. It was too close, for them, to the war zone. It lay well within the striking distance of a tarn cavalry, such as that which had been employed so devastatingly on the fields and hula south of Vonda. Small ships, coming and going, made their trips between Lam and the nearer downriver towns, such as White Water and Tancred's Landing.
    "You cannot put me out into the street!" she cried.
    Strobius, the innkeeper, then,