KNEELING BACK ON HER HEELS IN MY QUARTERS, in the traditional fashion of Gorean women, Elizabeth laughed merrily and slapped her knees, so pleased was she.

I, too, was pleased.

"How smoothly it has all gone!" she laughed.  "And poor Vella, who must keep the quarters of the Assassin!  Poor, poor Vella!"

"Do not laugh so loudly," I cautioned her, smiling, while moving about the room.

I had closed the door, which was of wood and heavy, and barred it with the double beam.  When not barred it might be opened from the outside, if the latch string were thrust through the latch hole.  Otherwise one would have to cut through the wood.  I reminded myself to remember and put the latch string through when I left the room.  The disadvantage of such a door, naturally, is that when no one is in the room and the latch string is out, anyone might enter, and either search the room or wait within.  Valuables, in such a room, are kept in a heavy, iron-banded chest which is bolted to the wall and kept locked.  Most doors giving entry into a compartment, or set of compartments, on Gor do, however, have locks, generally hand-crafted, highly ornate locks, usually set in the center of the door and controlling a long bolt.

Most of these locks, interestingly, though hand-crafted, are of the pin-tumbler variety, in which the locking is secured by a set of heavy pins extending into the lock plug; when the key is inserted the pins, of various lengths, are lifted to the surface of the lock plug, freeing it, so that when the key turns the plug may rotate, thereby moving the bolt.  There are a number of other forms of lock also found upon occasion, a common variety being the disk lock in which moving disks, rather than pins are used.

The small, heavy lock on a girl's slave collar, incidentally, may be of several varieties, but almost all are cylinder locks, either of the pin or disk variety.  In a girl's collar lock there would be either six pins or six disks, one each, it is said, for each letter in the Gorean word for female slave, Kajira; the male slave, or Kajirus, seldom has a locked collar; normally a band of iron is simply hammered about his neck; often he works in chains, usually with other male slaves; in some cities, including Ar, an unchained male slave is almost never seen; there are, incidentally, far fewer male slaves than female slaves; a captured female is almost invariably collared; a captured male is almost invariably put to the sword; further, the object of slave raids, carefully scouted, organized and conducted expeditions, is almost always the acquisition of females; commonly one cylinder is struck, its bridges sealed off, its compartments broken into and ransacked for gold and beauty; the men of the compartment are slain and the women stripped; those women who do not please the slavers are slain; those that do have the goods of the compartment tied about their necks and are herded to the roof, with whip and slave goad, either to be bound across tarn saddles or thrust bound into wicker slave baskets, covered and tied shut, carried beneath the great birds in flight; sometimes, after only a quarter of an Ahn, before adequate reinforcements can be summoned, the slavers depart with their booty, leaving behind a flaming cylinder; slavers can strike any city but they are particularly a scourge to those cities which have not trained the tarn, but depend on the ponderous tharlarion.