amateur competition. Ear notching and mutilation, common punishment on Gor for
thieves, were not found in Port Kar. The caste was too powerful. On the other
hand, it was regarded as permissible to slay a male thief or take a female thief
slave if the culprit could be apprehended and a caste member, was to be remanded
to the police of the arsenal. If found guilty in the court of the arsenal, the
male thief would be sentenced, for a week to a year, to hard labor in the
arsenal or on the wharves; the female thief would be sentenced to service, for a
week to a year, in a straw-strewn cell in one of Port Kar’s penal brothels. They
are chained by the left ankle to a ring in the stone. Their food is that of a
galley slave, peas, black bread and onions. If they serve well, however, their
customers often bring them a bit of meat or fruit. Few thieves of Port Kar have
not served time, depending on their sex, either in the arsenal or on the
wharves, or in the brothels.
I doubted, however, that Tina would be often caught.
“Remove her collar,” I told Thurnock.
Tina’s collar was removed. She was radiant. “Will I see you, Turus, in Port
Kar?” she asked.
“Yes, little wench,” said he, taking her in his arms.
“I would not have minded much,” said she, “if he had given me to you, as your
slave!”
“You have well earned your freedom, wench,” said Turus.
“Oh!’ she cried.
He had reached into her garment and removed his amethyst-studded bracelet, from
where she had slipped it.
She looked at him, offended.
Then she laughed. “Your purse!” she cried. She flung it to him, and sped down
the beach laughing, toward the longboat, that would take us back to the
Tesephone.
He pursued her for a moment, bend down to pick up a rock and sailed it after
her. It stung her, smartly, below the small of the back, on the left side. She
turned about, tears in her eyes.
“I shall see you in Port Kar!’ he cried.
“Yes,” she said, “you beast! You will! You will!”
He took a step toward her, and she stumbled away, and fell against the longboat,
and then, climbed into it, laughing, watching him. “I’m free!” she called. “Tina
is free!”
He ran suddenly toward her, and she tried to scramble away, climbing over the
thwarts, but he caught her by the scruff of the tunic and pulled her under the
water. He dragged her, holding her by the hair under water until he came to the
beach. Then, she gasping, soaked, he wet from the chest down, he threw her to
the sand. I saw them fall to kissing and touching. No longer did the little
thief reach for his purse or his wristlet. Her garment beneath her in the wet
sand, she reached now for his lips, his head and body, touching him and crying
out.
There was laughter from my men, and those of Marlenus. I expected that Tina and
handsome, young Turus would see much of one another in Port Kar, jewel of
gleaming Thassa. I saw her small body leaping helplessly to his touch.
“I love you,” she cried.
“I love you,” said he. “I love you, sweet wench!”
“This woman,” said Marlenus of Ar. “I want.” He indicated Mira, on her knees,
wrists bound behind her body, kneeling in the sand.
“Please, Master,’ she said to me. “Do not give me to him!”
“She betrayed me,” said Marlenus of Ar, “I will have her, too.” Hura lay,
unmoving, her eyes dry, her body still twisted in the sand.
“Very well,” I said to Marlenus. “I give her to you.”
Marlenus took her by the hair and threw her, too, to the sand beside Hura.
Both of the women lay at his feet. Both would march nude, chained to the stirrup
of his tharlarion, in his triumph in Ar. Both would later, in silks and bells,
barefoot, in bangles and slave rouge, serve him in his pleasure gardens. Dancing
for him, pouring him wine, serving his pleasure, perhaps together, both would
much please him. Hura and Mira were lovely souvenirs of the northern forests,
fitting mementos for the great Ubar; they were tokens of his victories,
reminders of his success’ their captive bodies would be found by him doubtless,
when he looked upon them, rich in meaning as well as in pleasure. I could
imagine him, drinking, pointing to one, telling his companions the story of the
northern forests. “Now dance, Beauties!” he would cry, and they would, slaves,
leap to their feet to please his companions. I wondered if, in the telling of
that story, there would be mention of one called Bosk of Port Kar.
I did not think so. My part did not sufficiently honor the great Ubar, Marlenus
of Ar.
He was always victorious.
I could not move the fingers of my left hand. The wind, sweeping across the
beach, was cold.
“These men,” said Marlenus, indicating Sarus, and his ten men, chained, “are to
be returned to Ar, for public impalement.”
“No,’ said i.
There was utter silence.
“They are my prisoners,” I said. “It was I who took them, I and my men.”
“I want them,” said Marlenus of Ar.
“No,” I said.
“Let them be impaled on the walls of Ar,” said Marlenus. “Let that be the answer
of Ar to Chenbar of Tyros!”
“The answer,” said I, “is not Ar’s to give. It is mine.”
He looked at me for a long time. “Very well,” he said. “The answer is yours.”
I looked at Sarus. He looked at me, chained, haggard, puzzled.
“Free them,” I said.
“No!’ cried Marlenus.
Sarus and his men were stunned.
“Return to them their weapons,” I said. “And give them medicine and food. The
journey they have before them is dangerous and long. Help them prepare
stretchers for their wounded.”
“No!” cried Marlenus.
I turned to Sarus. “Follow the coast south,” I said. “Be wary of exchange
points.”
“I shall,” he said.
“No!’ cried Marlenus.
There was silence.
We stood, the two groups of men on the beach. Sheera was beside me. Hura’s
women, bound, shrank back. Hura and Mira, secured, lay frightened on the sand.
My men, even those who had had Verna’s women in their arms, came forward. The
women, hair loose, the slave silk wet and covered by sand, earrings in their
ears, followed them, standing behind them.
Marlenus looked about, from face to face.
Our eyes met.
“Free them,” said Marlenus.
The chains were removed from Sarus and his men. Two stretchers were improvised.
They were given supplies, and medicine.
“Give back to Sarus his own sword,” said I.
It was done.
Their weapons, too, were returned to the other men.
Sarus stood before me.
“You have lost, Sarus,” said I.
He looked at me. “We have both lost,” said he.
“Go,” I said.
He turned and left, followed by his men, two of them carried by others, lying on
the stretchers. We observed them departing, southward, down the long, curved
stony beach.
They did not l
ook back.
“Take down the stockade,” said Marlenus to his men.
They did so, leaving logs strewn on the beach. They then returned to his side.
“We will depart,” said Marlenus.
Then the Ubar turned and regarded me. He was not pleased.
Our eyes met.
“Do not seek to come to the city of Ar,” said he.
I was silent. I had no wish to speak to him.
“Do not come to Ar,” said he.
Then he, with his men, and slaves, Hura and Mira now added to his coffle,
departed. They entered the forests. He would return to his camp north of Laura,
where his tarns waited. He would thence return to Ar, Hura doubtless bound nude
across his saddle.
I watched them leave.
His head, nor the heads of his men, did not wear the degradation stripe. He
would bring with him as slave Hura and Mira, panther girl leaders, who had
sought to accomplish dishonor upon him. several of their women, too, nude and
chained, would grave his triumph as lovely slaves. The men of Tyros, who had
sought his capture were mostly dead or to be sold as slaves. Even their ship was
prize, the possession of which he had not disputed with one called Bosk of Port
Kar, who had aided him. he had come to the forest to capture Verna and free the
woman Talena. He had succeeded in the first objective but had magnanimously,
after first forcing her to serve him as a helpless, obedient slave girl, after
sexually conquering her, freed her. It was a gesture, was it not, worthy of a
Ubar? As for the second objective, the freeing of the woman Talena, that was no
longer important to him, no longer a worthy aim of a Ubar’s act. She had begged
to be purchased, thus showing that the collar she wore truly belonged on her
throat. To beg to be purchased acknowledges that one may be purchased, that one
is property, that one is slave. He had repudiated her. He had disowned her, as
his daughter. If it were convenient for him now to free her, merely as an
ex-citizen of Ar, he might do so, but he was not concerned in the matter. He had
not even asked Verna her location. And Verna, Gorean to the core, had not
dishonored him by imparting such information. Had she done so her act would have
constituted a demeaning insinuation that he, a free man, a Ubar even, might have
an interest in the fate of a slave. Verna respected Marlenus, doubtless more
than any other man on Gor. She would not do him insult. She would, however, I
had little doubt, send the two women who guarded Talena, to his camp north of
Laura, with their prisoner to see if he, as a free man merely, might be
interested in the purchase of a slave. He might then, without show of concern,
without solitude, do what he wished.
She would have, thus, protected the honor of the Ubar.
Marlenus and his men disappeared into the forest.
I looked at the uprooted, strewn logs of the palisade, scattered on the stones
by Marlenus’ men. “Thurnock,” I said, “gather these logs, those from the
stockade, and with them build a beacon.”
He looked at me. His eyes were sad. “There will be none to see it,” he said,
“but I will build it. I will build a beacon the light of which will be seen
fifty pasangs at sea.”
I did not know why I would build such a beacon. There would be few to see it on
Gor. And none, ever, would see it on the planet Earth. And if some should see
it, who should understand it? I myself did not know why I built it or what its
flames might mean.
I turned to Sheera.
“You did well in the stockade,” I said. “You are free.”
I had already, the night preceding, on the Tesephone, freed Vinca, the
red-haired girl, and the two paga slaves, the dark-haired one, and the blond
one, who had assisted her.
They would be given gold, and conducted in honor and safety to their cities.
“Very well,” she said. There were tears in her eyes. She had known I would free
her.
“A cripple,” I said, “had no need of a beautiful slave.”
She kissed my arm. “I care for you,” she said, “sweet Bosk of Port Kar.”
“Is it your wish to remain with me?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No,” she smiled.
I nodded.
“No, sweet Bosk,” she said. “It is not because you are crippled.”
I looked at her, puzzled.
“Men,” she laughed, “understand so little.” She put down her head. “Men are
fools,” she said, “and women are greater fools for they love them.”
“Remain with me then,” I said.
“It was not my name you cried out,” she said, tears in her eyes, “when you lay
in fever in the cabin of the Tesephone.”
I looked out to sea.
“I wish you well, sweet Bosk of Port Kar,’ said she.
“I wish you well, Sheera,” said I. I felt her kiss my hand, and then she went to
Thurnock, that he might remove her collar, that she, like Verna, might disappear
into the forest. Marlenus had said that the wind on the beach was cold, and had
stung his eyes. Too, it stung my eyes.
“Rim,” said I.
“Captain,” said he.
“You are captain of the Rhoda,” I said. “Weigh anchor with the tide.”
“I will, Captain,” said he.
“You know what you are to do?” I asked.
“Yes,” said he. “I will sell those in the hold, the men of Tyros who crewed the
Rhoda and Tesephone, in Port Kar.”
“Is there nothing else?” I asked.
He grinned. “Yes,” said he. “We shall, first, journey up the Laurius to Laura.
We will have business with one named Hesius of Laura, who sent paga slaves and
drugged wine to our camp. I shall burn the tavern. His women will find
themselves in our chains. We shall bring them to Port Kar and dispose of them
there in the slave markets.”
“Good,” I said.
“And Hesius himself?” he asked.
“His strong box,” I said, “must be seized. Distribute its contents to the poor
of Laura.”
“And Hesius himself?” asked Rim.
“Strip him and leave him poor and penniless in Laura.” I said. “he will serve
our purposed well in telling and retelling, for a coin, the story of the
vengeance of those of Port Kar.”
“Our ships should be safe thereafter in Laura,” said Rim.
“I expect so,” I said.
“I must attend to arrangements,” said Rim.
“Be about your duties” said I, “Captain.”
Rim, followed by Cara, turned about and went to a longboat.
Verna’s women, one by one, were now taking leave of those of my men, whom they
had served.
They, some weeping, some turning about, tears in their eyes, lifting their
hands, bade crewmen farewell.
The men stood on the sand and watched them depart. Some lifted their hands to
them.
Then suddenly one girl turned from the forest and fled to a crewman, kneeling
before him, back on her heels, head down, arms extended, wrists crossed as
though for binding. He gestured that she should rise and get into a longboat.
She did so, his slave.
To my amazement, one after another of the girls than ran down the beach. Each,
before he
who had touched her, knelt before him, making herself his and his
alone.
She, too, was ordered to a longboat, abruptly, as one commands a slave.
In the forest Verna would wait for her women, until she understood they were not
coming.
I then understood her wisdom as I had not before. She had known the touch of a
man, and such a man as Marlenus. She had feared his touch, and, even in parting,
would not permit him to so much as place his hand on hers. In Verna, as in
others, two natures warred, that to surrender and that to be free. These matters
are complex, and much remains speculative. Goreans, in their simplistic fashion,
often contend, categorically, that man is naturally free and woman s naturally
slave. But even for them the issues are more complex than these simple
formulations would suggest. For Example, there is no higher person, nor one more
respected, than the Gorean free woman. Even a slaver who has captured a free
woman often treats her with great solicitude until she is branded. Then his
behavior toward her is immediately and utterly transformed. She is then merely
an animal, and treated as such. Goreans do believe, however, that every woman
has a natural master or set of masters, with respect to whom she could not help
but be a complete and passionate slave girl. These men occur in her dreams and
fantasies. She lives in terror that she might meet one in real life. Further, of
course, if a girl should be enslaved, her slavery is supported by the entire
Gorean culture. There are hundreds of thousands of women who are also slaves. In
such a situation, with no escape, a girl has no choice but to make the best of
her bondage. Further, in the Gorean view, female slavery is a societal
institution which enables the females, as most Earth societies would not, to
exhibit, in a reinforcing environment, her biological nature. It provides a rich
soil in which the flower of her beauty and nature, and its submission to a man,
may thrive.
The Goreans, do not believe, incidentally, that the human being is a simple
function of the independent variables of his environment. They have never
endorsed the “hollow body” theory of human beings, in which a human being is
regarded as being essentially a product of externalities. They recognize the
human being has a genetic endowment which may not be, scientifically, canceled
out in favor of the predilection of theories developed by men incompetent in
Norman, John - Gor 08 - Hunters of Gor.txt Page 40
