“We sell what we catch,” said Sheera. “Sometimes chain luck is with Verna,
sometimes it is not.” She looked at me. “What am I bid for the two slaves?” she
asked.
I lifted my eyes to regard the two miserable wretches bound in the frames.
They had been much beaten, and long and heavily worked. The fierce women had
doubtless raped them many times.
They were not my purpose in coming to the exchange point, but I did not wish to
leave them at the mercy of the panther girls. I would bid for them.
Sheera was regarding Rim closely. She grinned. She jabbed at him with her knife.
“You,” she said, “have worn the chains of panther girls!”
“It is not impossible,” conceded Rim.
Sheera, and the girls, laughed.
“You are an interesting fellow,” said Sheera, to Rim. “It is fortunate for you,
that you are at the exchange point. Else we might be tempted to put our chains
on you.” She laughed. ”I think I might enjoy trying you,” she said.
“Are you any good?” asked one of the girls, of Rim.
“Men,” said Sheera, “make delightful slaves.”
“Panther girls,” said Rim, “do not make bad slaves either.”
Sheera’s eyes flashed. She jabbed the knife into the sand, to the hilt. “Panther
girls,” she hissed, “ do not make slaves!”
It did not seem opportune to mention to Sheera that, aboard the Tesephone, nude,
chained in the first hold, in gags and slave hoods, were two panther girls. I
had kept them below decks, secured, and in gags and slave hoods, that they not
be seen, nor heard to cry out, at the exchange point. I did not wish their
presence, nor an indication of their presence, to complicate our dealings at the
point. After I had interrogated them thoroughly, I would sell them in Lydius.
“You mentioned,” said I to Sheera, “that you are an enemy of Verna?”
“I am her enemy,” said Sheera.
“We are anxious to make her acquaintance,” said I, “Do you know perhaps where
she might be found?”
Sheera’s eyes narrowed. “Anywhere,” she said.
“I have heard,” I said, “that Verna and her band sometimes roam north of Laura.”
The momentary flash in the eyes of Sheera had told me what I wanted to know.
“Perhaps,” she said, shrugging.
The information about Verna’s band I had had from a girl who had been recently
slave in my house, a wench named Elinor. She now belonged to Rask of Treve.
The inadvertent response in Sheera’s eyes had confirmed this belief.
It was, of course, one thing to know this general manner of thing, and another
to find Verna’s band’s camp, or their dancing circle. Each band of panther girls
customarily had a semi-permanent camp, particularly in the winter, but, too,
each band, customarily, had its own dancing circle. Panther girls, when their
suppressed womanhood becomes sometimes too painful, repair to such places, there
to dance the frenzy of their needs. But, too, it is in such places, that the
enslavement of males is often consummated.
Rim had been captured by Verna and her band, but he had been chained, raped and
enslaved, not far from the very exchange point where he was sold, this very
point. He knew less than I of the normal habits of Verna and her band. We both
knew, of course, that she, with her girls, ranged widely.
“Verna’s camp,” I said to Sheera, matter-of-factly, “is not only north of Laura,
but to its west.”
She seemed startled. Again I read her eyes. What I had said had been mistaken.
Verna’s camp, then, lay to the north and east of Laura.
“So you wish to bid on the slaves or not?” asked Sheera.
I smiled.
“Yes,” I said.
I now had as much information as I had expected to obtain at the exchange point.
It was perhaps not wise to press for more. Sheera, a leader, a highly
intelligent woman, doubtless understood that she might have betrayed
information. Her knife was cutting at the sand. She was not looking at me. She
was only too obviously irritated, now intensely suspicious. More specific
information I expected to obtain from the captured panther girls on board the
ship. Panther girls generally know the usual territories of various bands. They
might even know, approximately, the locations of the various camps, and dancing
circles. I was not likely to obtain that information from free women. I expected
however, under interrogation, to be able to obtain it from the helpless girls,
at my mercy, on the Tesephone. Afterwards I would sell them. I had learned
enough at the exchange point to confirm my original information, to add to it
somewhat, and to be able, in the light of it, to evaluate the responses of my
captives on board the ship. I smiled to myself. They would talk. Afterwards,
when I had learned what I wished to know, I would sell them in Lydius.
“A steel knife for each,” I proposed to Sheera, “and twenty arrow points, of
steel, for each.”
“Forty arrow points for each, and the knives,” said Sheera, cutting at the sand.
I could see she did not much want to conduct these negotiations. Her heart was
not in the bargaining. She was angry.
“Very well,” I said.
“And a stone of candies,” she said, looking up, suddenly.
“Very well,” I said.
“For each!” she demanded.
“Very well,” I said.
She slapped her knees and laughed. The girls seemed delighted.
There was little sugar in the forest, save naturally in certain berries, and
simple hard candies, such as a child might buy in shops in Ar, of Ko-ro-ba,
were, among the panther girls in the remote forests, prized.
It was not unknown that among the bands in the forests, a male might be sold for
as little as a handful of such candies. When dealing with men, however, the
girls usually demanded, and received, goods of greater value to them, usually
knives, arrow points, small spear points; sometimes armlets, and bracelets and
necklaces, and mirrors; sometimes slave nets and slave traps, to aid in their
hunting’ sometimes slave chains, and manacles, to secure their catches.
I had the goods brought from the ship, with scales to weigh out the candies.
Sheera, and her girls, watched carefully, not trusting men, and counted the
arrow points twice.
Satisfied, Sheera stood up. “Take the slaves,” she said.
The nude male wretches were, by men from the Tesephone, cut down.
They fell to the sand, and could not stand. I had them placed in slave chains.
“Carry them to the ship,” said I to my men.
The girls, as the slaves were carried toward the water, swarmed around them,
spitting on them, and striking them, jeering and mocking them.
“This one”, said one of the girls, “will look well chained at the bench of a
galley.”
“This one,” said Sheera, poking the other in the shoulder with her knife, “is
not bad.” She laughed. “Sell him to a rich woman.”
He turned his head away from her, his eyes closed, a male slave.
Male slaves, on Gor, are not particularly valuable, and do not command high
prices. Most labor is performed by free men. Most commonly, male slaves are<
br />
utilized on the cargo galleys, and in the mines, and on the great farms. They
also serve, frequently, as porters at the wharves. Still, perhaps they are
fortunate to have their lives, even at such a price. Males captured in war, or
in the seizure of cylinders or villages, or in the pillaging of caravans, are
commonly slain. The female is the prize commodity in the Gorean slave market. A
high price for a male is a silver tarsk, but even a plain wench, of low caste,
provided she moves well to the touch of the auctioneer’s coiled whip, will bring
as much, or more. An exception to the low prices for males generally is that
paid for a certified woman’s slave, a handsome male, silken clad, who has been
trained to tend a woman’s compartments. Some of such bring a price comparable to
that brought by a girl, of average loveliness. Prices, of course, tend to
fluctuate with given markets and seasons. Of there are few such on the market at
a given time, their prices will tend to be proportionately higher. Such men tend
to be sold in women’s auctions, closed to free men, with the exception, of
course, of the auctioneer and such personnel.
“To Lydius,” I told Thurnock.
“Out oars!” he called.
The oars slid outboard.
With a creak of ropes and pullies, seamen were hauling the long, sloping yard up
the mast, its sail still secured in the brail ropes.
I saw Sheera, standing knee deep in the water, near the beach. She had now
thrust her sleen knife into its belt sheath. She was a strongly bodied girl. The
sun made the chains and claws at her throat gleam.
“Return again,” she called. “Perhaps we will have more men to sell you!”
I lifted my hand to her, acknowledging her cry.
She laughed, and turned about, and waded up to the sand.
The two male slaves I had purchased lay on their sides on the deck, their feet
and legs pulled up, their wrists together, in their chains.
“To Lydius!” he repeated.
“Half beat,” said I to Thurnock.
“Oars ready!” he called. “Half beat! Stroke!”
As one, the oars dipped cleanly into the water, and drew against gleaming
Thassa, and the Tesephone, lightly, began to turn in the water, her prow seeking
the south, and Lydius.
I turned to a seaman. “Take the two male slaves below, to the first hold,” I
said. “Keep them chained, but dress their wounds, and feed them. Let them rest.”
“Yes, Captain,” said he.
I looked to the shore. Already Sheera, and her girls, had disappeared from the
beach, slipping as invisibly, as naturally, as she-panthers into the darkness of
the forests.
The frames to which the male slaves had been tied were now empty. They stood
high on the beach, where they might be easily seen from the sea.
“Bring up from the first hold the two panther girls,” said I to a seaman.
“Remove their slave hoods, and gags. Chain them as they were before, to the
deck.”
“Yes, Captain,” said the seaman. “Shall I feed them?”
“No,” I said.
Seamen now climbed to the high yard, loosening the brail ropes, to drop the
sail.
It was the tarn sail.
Gorean galleys commonly carry several sails, usually falling into three main
types, fair-weather, “tarn” and storm. Within each type, depending on the ship,
there may be varieties. The Tesephone carried four sails, one said of the first
type; two of the second, and one of the third. Her sails were, first, the
fair-weather sail, which is quite large, and is used in gentle winds; secondly,
the tarn sail, which is the common sail most often found on the yard of a tarn
ship, and taking its name from the ship; third, a sail of the same type as the
tarn sail, and, in a sense, a smaller “tarn” sail, the “tharlarion” sail; this
smaller “tarn” sail, or “tharlarion” sail, as it is commonly called, to
distinguish it from the larger sail of the same type, is more manageable than
the standard, larger tarn sail; it is used most often in swift, brutal, shifting
winds, providing a useful sail between the standard tarn sail and the storm
sail; fourthly, of course, the Tesephone carried her storm sail; if, upon
occasion, a ship could not run before a heavy sea, it would be broken in the
crashing of the waves. Gorean galleys, in particular the ram-ships, are built
for speed and war. They are long, narrow, shallow-drafted, carvel-built craft.
They are not made to lift and fall, to crash among fifty-foot waves, caught in
the fists of the sea’s violence. In such a sea literally, in spite of their
beams and chains, they can break in tow, snapping like the spines of tabuk in
the jaws of frenzied larls. In changing a sail, the yard is lowered, and then
raised again. In the usual Gorean galley, lateen rigged, there is no practical
way to take in, or shorten, sail, as with many types of square-rigged craft. In
consequence, the different sails. The brail ropes serve little more, in the
lateen-rigged galley, with its triangular sail on the long, sloping yard, has
marvelous maneuvering capabilities, and can sail incredibly close to the wind.
Its efficiency in tacking more than compensates for the convenience of a single,
multipurposed sail. And, too, perhaps it should be mentioned, the lateen rigging
is very beautiful.
The two girls were brought up from the first hold. Their faces were red, and
broken out. Their hair was soaked with perspiration. It is not pleasant to wear
a Gorean slave hood. They gasped for air. A seaman, a hand in the hair of each,
holding them bent over, pulled them past me.
The brail ropes loosened, the tarn sail dropped, opening into the wind.
It was very beautiful.
In the stern quarter, behind the open kitchen, the girls were chained by the
neck to the deck, to iron rings set in the heavy sanded wood. Each was given a
yard of chain.
I smelled roast bosk cooking and fried vulo. It would be delicious. I thought no
more of the girls.
I must attend to matters of the ship.
I held the leg of fried vulo toward one of the girls.
I sat before them, on a stool, between them and the open kitchen. They knelt.
There were still chained by the neck to the iron rings. But now, too, I had had
their hands tied behind then, with binding fiber.
Some men stood about, Rim and Thurnock among them. There was still a good wind,
tight and sweet in the tarn sail. The three Gorean moons gleamed in the black,
starlit sky. The two girls were beautiful in the shifting yellow light of the
ship’s lantern, illuminating them.
I had not had then fed all day.
Indeed, I had not had them fed since their acquisition, the morning of the
preceding day, though I had seen that they had had enough water. Further, I
expected that Arn, and his men, had not been overly generous in feeding their
fair enemies. Both girls must be half starved.
One of the girls, she toward whom I held the leg of fried vulo, reached her head
toward me, opening her delicate, white teeth to bite at it.
I drew it away.
She straightened herself again, proudly. I rather admired them.
<
br /> “I would know,” I said to them, “the whereabouts of the camp of an outlaw girl,
and its dancing circle.”
“We know nothing,” said one of the girls.
“The name of the outlaw girl,” I said, “is Verna.”
I saw recognition leap into their eyes, briefly, before they could conceal their
response.
“We know nothing,” said the second girl.
“You know, or know well enough,” I said, “the location or approximate location,
of her camp and dancing circle.”
“We know nothing,” said the first girl again.
“You will tell me,” I informed them.
“We are panther girls,” said the first girl.” “We will tell you nothing.”
I held the leg of fried vulo again toward the first girl. For a time, she
ignored it, her head to one side. Then, looking at me with hatred, unable to
restrain herself, she bent forward again. Her teeth, closed on the meat and she
cried out in her throat, a gasp, a tiny cry, glad, inarticulate, uncontrollable,
and began to bite at the leg, swiftly, tearing at it, her head to one side, the
blond hair falling over my wrist. With my eyes I indicated that Rim should,
similarly, feed the other.
He did so.
In moments the girls had torn the meat from the bones, and Rim and I threw the
bones into the sea.
They were sill half starving, of course. They had had but a taste of meat.
I could see the anxiety in their eyes, lest they not be fed more.
“Feed us!” cried the first girl. “We will tell you what you wish to know.”
“Agreed,” said I to them, regarding them, waiting for them to speak.
The two girls exchanged glances, “Feed us first,” said the first girl. “We will
then speak.”
“Speak first,” said I, “and then, should it please us, we may give you food.”
The two girls exchanged glances again.
The first, then, put her head down. She choked, as though attempting to stifle a
sob. She looked at me, agonized. She was quite a good actress.
“Very well,” she said, haltingly, as though her will, only that of a girl, had
been broken.
She was superb.
“The camp of Verna,” she said, “and her dancing circle, lies one hundred pasangs
north of Lydius, and twenty pasangs inland from the shore of Thassa.”
She then put her head down, with a choking sob. “Please feed me,” she wept.
“You have lied,” I told her.
Norman, John - Gor 08 - Hunters of Gor.txt Page 4
