Kajira of Gor

by Norman, John;

  I almost cried out with relief.

  "And putting aside such former names and worlds," said Miles, "as whom do you know her here?"

  Susan began to tremble.

  "You know the penalties for a slave who lies," said Miles. "Think carefully and well, my small, nose-ringed beauty."

  "She is she who was to me as Mistress," said Susan, sobbing, "she whom I served, Sheila, Tatrix of Corcyrus."

  There was a cry of elation from the crowd.

  "Forgive me, Mistress!" cried Susan. She then, at a sign from Miles, led by the thong, in the grip of a soldier, hurrying, almost running, that she did not place the least stress on the device in her nose, was being conducted rapidly from the room. I supposed she would be placed with other women, perhaps wearing similar devices. They can be tied about slave rings, fastened to other such thongs, and so on. Just before the soldier had grasped the thong I had seen her wildly look at Miles of Argentum. Doubtless she remembered him well from the audience, so long ago. Too, I thought it quite likely that he remembered her. In that audience he had looked upon her as though she might not be likely to quickly slip his mind. Too, he had had her summoned to the dais by her palace name. She had tried to read in his countenance, in that brief, wild instant, before she was removed from the dais, her fate, but she had been unable to do so. He was not, perhaps by intention, even looking at her. She did not know then if, when the collar of Ligurious was removed from her, she would be sent to his headquarters or not. There, of course, if she were found sufficiently pleasing, after perhaps a closer examination and trial, another collar might be put on her. She would, in any case, wear one collar or another, somewhere. She was a slave.

  "Call the captain from Ar," said Miles of Argentum.

  A tall, lean figure entered the hall, and approached now down the long aisle. Then he stood on the dais, almost with Miles of Argentum.

  "No," I whispered. "No."

  "Drusus Rencius, Captain of Ar, on detached service to the forces of Argentum," said Miles of Argentum. "I believe you two have met."

  I shook my head, disbelievingly. I had been told he was a renegade from Ar. Twice, I knew, suddenly realizing it now, he could have stolen me from Corcyrus, delivering me to Argentum, once when we were on the walls near the tarn perches and once, later, when, my whereabouts unknown to Ligurious and others, I had been in the house of Kliomenes, braceleted, half naked and helpless. But he had not abducted me, nor attempted to do so. It seemed rather he had, for whatever reason or reasons, preferred, as he had once remarked on the walls of Corcyrus, to let the game take its course.

  "Do you know this woman, Captain?" asked Miles, general of Argentum.

  Drusus Rencius handed his helmet to a soldier and climbed then to the height of the throne.

  He put out his hands and lifted me to my feet before the throne. He then held me by the upper arms and looked down, deeply, into my eyes.

  I shuddered. This was not a matter in which he wished to risk any mistake.

  "Yes," he said.

  "How do you know her?" asked Miles of Argentum.

  "I was, for several weeks," he said, "her personal bodyguard."

  "You know her then quite well?" asked Miles.

  "Yes," said Drusus Rencius.

  "Can you identify her?" asked Miles.

  "Yes," said Drusus Rencius.

  "Who is she?" asked Miles of Argentum.

  "She is Sheila, Tatrix of Corcyrus," said Drusus Rencius.

  There was a sudden cry of pleasure and victory from the crowd.

  Drusus Rencius released me, and turned about, and, descending from the dais and making his way through the crowd, left.

  I watched him leave.

  "Strip her," said Miles of Argentum, "and put her in golden chains, and put her in the golden cage."

  I felt the hands of soldiers at my clothing. It was torn from me, before the very throne. Then, when I was absolutely naked, a golden collar, to which a chain was attached, with wrist rings and ankle rings, was brought. It was a chaining system of that sort called a sirik. My chin was thrust up and I felt the golden collar locked on my throat. Almost at the same time my wrists, held closely together before me, were locked helplessly in the wrist rings. In another instant my ankles, held, were helpless in the ankle rings. A chain then ran from my collar to the chain on my wrist rings and from thence, the same chain, to the chain on my ankle rings. My ankle-ring chain was about twelve inches in length, and my wrist-ring chain was about six inches in length. The central chain, where it dangled down from the wrist rings, lay on the floor before the throne, before it looped up to where it was closed about a central link of the ankle-ring chain. This permits the prisoner, usually a slave, to lift her arms. She is thus in a position to feed herself or better exhibit her beauty to masters in a wider variety of postures and attitudes than would otherwise be the case. The point of the sirik is not merely to confine a woman, but to confine her beautifully.

  Two guards then held me, one by each arm, before the throne. I was naked. I was chained. I wore the sirik.

  They lifted me up, then, at a sign from Miles of Argentum. I was absolutely helpless. My feet must have been some six or seven inches from the floor before the throne. Even by pointing my toes I could not touch the carpeting. I was held there, being exhibited to the crowd, chained in the sirik.

  "Behold the Tatrix of Corcyrus," called Miles of Argentum, indicating me with a sweeping gesture, "helpless, and in chains!"

  There was a wild cheer from the crowd, almost a shriek, as though for blood.

  "Will you come back for me?" I had asked Ligurious.

  "Have no fear, Lady Sheila," he had said. "You will be come for."

  "Soon?" I had asked.

  "Yes," he had said. Then he had bade me farewell, and left.

  I looked down on the crowd, into the wild eyes, the upraised fists. I saw, too, the soldiers. I moved helplessly in the chains, held before the crowd. Ligurious and the woman, and the others, had doubtless, by now, on tarns, made good their escape. The uniforms the men had worn were not unlike that in which I had just seen Drusus Rencius, and not unlike those of certain others about the dais, soldiers. They were, I took it, habiliments of Ar. The woman in the slave collar and on the leash, covered by the sheet, her bare feet and ankles visible beneath it, would presumably be assumed to be merely a naked captive.

  I struggled in the chains. The words of Ligurious, that I would be come for, now took on a new and frightful meaning for me.

  I looked down into the crowd.

  Now it seemed, truly, I had been come for.

  "Make way! Clear the way!" called Miles of Argentum. Soldiers began to clear the aisle of men and women, that we might have a clear exit from the great hall. I was lowered to my feet.

  "What are you going to do with me?" I asked Miles of Argentum.

  "We are going to take you into the courtyard," he said, "and put you in the golden cage. You may recall that I told you once that you belonged in a cage, a golden cage."

  Tears sprang into my eyes. I did not want to be put into a cage. I was not a slave, or another type of animal. Too, I did not understand the meaning of a golden cage.

  At a sign from Miles of Argentum a soldier picked me up, lightly, in his arms. He held me as easily as though I might have been a child. Then, in his arms, I was carried rapidly down the steps of the dais and down the aisle, between the halves of the parted crowd.

  In a matter of but moments I was blinking against the sunlight in the courtyard. Too, I felt the heat and the sun on my bared skin. I was put on my feet near a tall, narrow, cylindrical cage with a conical top. The height of this cage was about seven feet; its rounded floor was perhaps a yard in diameter. In the top of the cage, at the top of the cone, on the outside, there was a heavy ring.

  I was thrust into the cage and the door was locked shut behind me. It had two locks, one about a third up from the floor and the other about a third down from the top.

  "In this cage, La
dy Sheila," said Miles of Argentum, "you will be paraded through the streets of Corcyrus, exhibited in our triumph. Doubtless you will enjoy receiving the love and devotion of your people. You will, thereafter, be transported in this same cage to Argentum. I might mention to you that the bars of this cage, like the chains you wear, are not of pure gold, but of a sturdy golden alloy. Similarly, portions of the cage, like the floor and the interior of the top, and the gilded cone ring, are of iron. You will find that the holding power of these various devices is more than adequate, by several factors, to hold ten strong men. Incidentally, allow me to commend you on how well you look in chains. You wear them beautifully enough to be a slave."

  I clutched the golden bars, in order not to fall.

  "Your body, also," he said, "is beautiful enough to be that of a slave."

  I moaned. I could see men approaching, with rope. Too, behind them, drawn by two tharlarion, came a flat-topped wagon. At the back of this wagon was an arrangement of beams, with a projecting, supported, perpendicularly mounted beam that extended forward, some fifteen feet in the air, toward the front of the wagon. At the forward portion of this projecting beam there was a ring, not unlike the one on the top of the cage.

  Miles of Argentum surveyed me, and the chains, and the cage.

  "Yes," he said, "these arrangements all seem suitable and efficient. I think we may count on your arriving in Argentum in good order."

  A rope was being passed through the ring at the top of my cage. The flat-topped wagon was being drawn near. I gathered that the cage would be suspended from the ring on the projecting beam on the wagon, that it would hang suspended over the surface of the wagon, some feet from the flat bed of the wagon. From within the cage, it suspended thusly, I would not even be able to touch anything outside of the cage.

  I was totally in their power.

  I was unutterably helpless.

  "What are you taking me to Argentum for?" I asked.

  "For impalement," he said.

  14

  The Camp of Miles of Argentum;

  Two Men

  "No," I whimpered. "No!" I awakened, my legs drawn up, cramped, in the tiny cage. I lay on my side. I heard the chains move on the small, circular floor of the cage. I twisted to my back, my knees raised. I could feel the chain from the collar lying on my body. My manacled hands were at my belly. The chain joining them I could feel, too, on my belly. I could feel the extension of the central chain, below the manacles, too, on my body, and then it passed between my legs, lying on the iron floor, then making its rendezvous with my shackled ankles. I had been dreaming that I was again being carried in the cage through the streets of Corcyrus. Because of the width of the wagon bed and the height of the cage, some five feet or so above the surface of the wagon bed, I had been reasonably well protected from the blows of whips, the jabbings of sticks. Soldiers, too, patrolled the perimeters of the moving wagon. More than one man, pressing between the soldiers and clambering onto the wagon, sometimes unarmed, sometimes with a whip or stick, sometimes even with a knife, was seized and thrown back into the crowd by soldiers. The crowds cheered Miles of Argentum and his men. And, as my wagon passed them, they seemed to go mad with hatred and pleasure, crying out and jeering me, and shrieking with triumph to see me so helplessly a captive. The people of Corcyrus, it was clear, had welcomed the men of Argentum, and their allies from Ar, as liberators. The colors of Argentum and of Ar, on ribbons and strips of cloth, dangled from windows and festooned, even being stretched between windows and rooftops overhead, the triumphal way. Such colors, too, were prominent in the crowd, on garments and being waved, fluttering, by citizens and sometimes even by children, perched on the shoulders of adults. I had stood in the cage, frightened, bewildered and confused. I had not been able to even begin to understand the hatred of the people. I had stood in the cage that I might be better seen. If I did not do so, Miles of Argentum had informed me, simply, I would be beaten like a slave.

  I had now awakened in the cage, frightened. I had dreamed I was being again carried through the streets of Corcyrus. I had recoiled, fearfully, from the sting of a fruit rind hurled at me. Often in that miserable journey, suspended in the cage, carried between jeering crowds, I had been pelted with small stones, garbage and dung.

  I whimpered, chained in my tiny prison. At least I was alone now, and it was quiet. The cage creaked a little, moving in the wind. I crawled to my knees and, with my fingers, parted the opaque cloth which had been wrapped about the cage for the night, before it had been raised to its present position. I looked out through the tiny crack. I could see fires of the camp, and several tents. I heard music from the distance, from somewhere among the tents, where perhaps girls danced to please masters. We were one day out of Corcyrus, on the march to Argentum. I looked down to the ground. It was some forty feet below. The cage was slung now not from the ring on the wagon beam but from a rope which had been thrown over a high stout branch of a large tree. The cage had then been hoisted to this height and the rope secured.

  "Villainess of Corcyrus! Tyranness of Corcyrus!" the people had cried.

  I lay back down then in my chains, on the small iron floor of the cage, my knees pulled up high, and looked upward at the hollow, conelike ceiling of the cage. It seemed I had no more tears to cry.

  I did not want to die.

  I heard the music in the distance.

  I wished that I were a slave, that I might have a chance for life, that I might have an opportunity to convince a master somehow, in any way possible, that I might be worth sparing.

  But I was a free woman and would be subjected only to the cold and inhuman mercies of the law.

  I was being transported to Argentum for impalement.

  I could not cry any more.

  Then, suddenly, I felt the cage drop an inch, and then another inch.

  I scrambled to my knees, looking out, as I could. But, because of the opaque covering of the cage, its fastenings and the difficulty of moving it, I could see very little.

  Then the cage was still. Then, after a time, it dropped another inch, and then another. I knelt in the cage, holding my chains, to keep them from making noise.

  Slowly the cage was lowered. Then it rested on the ground.

  My heart was beating wildly. I now seemed very much alive. The stealth, and the gradualness, which seemed to characterize what was going on, did not suggest the activities of authorized representatives of Miles of Argentum. It did not even occur to me to scream. From whom would I summon help, and to what purpose? If these nocturnal visitors wished to steal me, perhaps to make me a slave or sell me, I would go only too willingly into whatever bondage they chose to inflict upon me. I would enter it joyfully. I would revel in it. I would, in my gratitude, see to it that I proved to be to them a slave beyond their wildest dreams. Then suddenly I was terrified. What if these visitors were not opportunists or slavers. What if they were men of Corcyrus who wished to return me to the city, there to subject me to secret and horrifying tortures which might shame the agonies of an impaling spear on the walls of Argentum?

  I did not know whether to cry out or not.

  The cover on the cage was unlaced, and thrust back, around the cage. Two men were there. They were dressed entirely in black. They wore masks. One of them held an unshuttered dark lantern and the other opened a leather wrapper containing keys and tools on the ground. He, then, with a variety of keys and picks, and small tools, swiftly, expertly, trying one thing and then another, addressed himself to the upper lock. He was skillful, and apparently a smith in such matters, perhaps a skilled specialist within his caste. In fifteen Ehn both locks had yielded. The cage door was opened and I was pulled out. I was put on my back and the man, swiftly, with numerous small keys, and some of the other tools, addressed himself to my collar lock. I felt the collar pulled away. Then, in a few Ehn, I had been freed, too, of the manacles, and then the shackles. I was turned to my stomach. My right wrist was tied to my left ankle. I struggled about, turning my head.
I saw the golden sirik put back in the cage; it was not the sort of thing, I gathered, which these fellows would care to have found in their possession; I then saw the cage closed and the cover readjusted about it; then, together, the two men, with the rope, drew it slowly upward; in a few moments it hung quietly where it had before, when it had been occupied. If its lowering and raising had not been noticed, I did not think that now anyone would be likely to find anything amiss until morning, when it would be lowered and found empty. The cord which had fastened my wrist to my ankle was then removed and I was drawn to my feet. I was startled that I was put in no bonds. A cloak was handed to me. I drew it swiftly about my body and over my head, grasping it closed with my fists beneath my chin. Over my head as it was, and it being a short cloak, too, it fell midway, as I held it about me, on my calves. I was grateful not only for the disguise it afforded me, but, too, because it gave me some way to conceal my nakedness. I felt a hand at my back and I was conducted from the area of the tree and the suspended cage. As we removed ourselves from that area we passed the slumped figures of two guards, an overturned flagon near them.

  "Hold!" called a drunken voice, as we passed between tents.

  We stopped. My left upper arm, now that we had left the area of the tree and cage, under the cloak, was in the custody of the man on my left. He had taken it in charge almost immediately upon leaving the cage area. He did not wish to accept the risk, it seemed, that I might attempt to escape, perhaps impulsively attempting to dart away into the darkness. There was little danger of that now. His grip was like iron. I still held the cloak together, and about my face, with my right hand. I attempted to pull the cloak forward more, and averted my face, that my features might not be seen.

  "Masks, eh?" said the newcomer. "So she is a free woman, is she? But perhaps not for long!"

  He laughed drunkenly, and staggered about, in front of us. He tried to reach for the cloak I held clutched about my face. I turned my face away, clutching the cloak about it.