Witness of Gor

by John Norman

"What are you?" asked the first man.

  "A slave, Master!" said Aynur.

  "And what else?" he asked.

  "Nothing else, Master," she said. "Only that, Master!"

  "Are you determined now to be a good slave?" inquired the first man.

  "Yes, Master! Yes, Master!" wept Aynur.

  "Perhaps we should then cut her throat before we cast her into the carnarium," said the first man.

  "No, Master! Have mercy, Master!"

  "What are you good for?" asked the second man.

  "All the things that a slave is good for!" she wept.

  "You are cold," said the second man.

  "No," she said, "I have a thousand heats and a thousand flames!"

  "Do you think you could please a man?" asked the first man.

  "Desperately and fervently," she said, "in all the ways that a woman can please a man! I beg only the opportunity to show you!"

  "Let us leave her fate in the hands of the other slave," suggested the second man.

  "No, no, no!" cried Aynur, turning white. "No, Master! Please, no, Master!"

  "But she was first girl over the other slave," said the first man.

  "So much the better," said the second man.

  "You were, as I understand it," said the first man to Aynur, who seemed now unable to rise even to her knees, "a poor first girl, one not only unpopular in the garden, but even one richly hated therein, one who ruled it strictly and cruelly, personally, arbitrarily, using your modicum of power as an opportunity to satisfy your vanity, bestowing favors on your sycophants, indulging in petty vendettas, stealing from, and abusing, those whom you disliked. Too, you tried to seek power from guards, and even, through them, to contact, and influence, others, others, even, outside the house. Your pettinesses, and administered punishments, often founded on nothing more than your whims and tastes, were notorious in the house."

  Aynur moaned.

  "And, in an abuse of your power, you tricked this other slave, and illicitly, treacherously delivered her, for putative gain, into our hands, in this act betraying both your office and your master."

  Aynur's wrists seemed small, behind her back, pinioned there by the bracelets.

  How helpless we are, bound!

  "So it seems fitting then," said the first man, "that your fate be now put in the hands of she whom you tricked, she whom you betrayed into our grasp."

  "Do not entrust my fate to her, Masters!" wept Aynur. "She hates me. Please, no, Masters! I am, when all is said and done, only a slave, and I am naked, and braceleted, at your feet. Have mercy on a slave, Masters!"

  "What is to be done with her?" asked the first man of me.

  I was startled by what had occurred. I knew that Aynur despised me. I knew that she hated me. I knew that she had willingly delivered me into the hands of these men, neither knowing nor caring what they sought of me. I knew she wanted me out of the house. I was sure she welcomed this opportunity to rid herself of me. She would not have cared, I was sure, if they had simply, once outside the house, cut my throat, or, for some reason, cast me into some pit, one of the great carnaria outside the city. She did not wish me well. She was my enemy.

  "Shall we weight her ankles and hurl her into a carnarium?" asked the second man. "Shall we throw her to leech plants? Shall we stake her out to be eaten alive by insects?"

  I was silent, disconcerted.

  Suddenly Aynur, on her belly, oriented herself toward me. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes, lying before me on the stones, a prostrate, naked, braceleted slave. I might have been a queen, kneeling over her, concealed even in the heavy, dark cloak.

  But there were rings of metal on both our necks.

  "We can expose her in the mountains," said the second man. "We can leave her bound, at the mouth of a larl's cave."

  "My life is in your hands," wept Aynur. "Please, sweet, beloved Gail, my favorite, beloved sister in bondage, be kind, be merciful!"

  Aynur did not now have her talmit, that symbol of authority. She did not now have her switch.

  "I am sorry I was cruel to you!" said Aynur. "I am sorry! I am sorry!"

  No longer was she first girl. She was now naught but another slave. And a rather pretty one. There was no special reason, I now saw, why she should have been first girl, any more than several of the others.

  "Please, beloved Gail," she wept.

  "She is beautiful, Masters," I said, suddenly. "You do not wish to hurt her."

  He who was first among the captors looked at me, startled. The newcomer, too, who had paid little attention to these matters, turned, now, to regard me.

  "She is your enemy," said the second man. "How shall we kill her?"

  "She is only a slave," I whispered. "She wants to love and serve."

  "Yes, yes," whimpered Aynur, her head turned to her left, her cheek on the stones.

  "Do you not understand?" asked the second man. "We are granting you a rare privilege. We are permitting you to dictate the manner of an enemy's death. You may never again receive such an opportunity. Relish your revenge! Let it be sweet!"

  I put my head down. I wanted none of this.

  "Beg!" said the second man to Aynur. She cried out, kicked. "My life is in your hands," wept Aynur to me. "Permit me to be spared! I beg my life!"

  "How do you address her?" inquired the second man of Aynur. She wept, again, again kicked.

  "Mistress! Mistress!" she said. "I beg my life, Mistress!" I was in consternation.

  I was now as Mistress to the proud Aynur!

  "If I am to die, please let it be done quickly, mercifully, Mistress," said Aynur.

  "Speak!" the second man ordered me.

  "I am a slave, Master," I said. "It is neither mine to prescribe, nor dictate, the manner of another's death. It is rather mine to obey, to serve."

  Aynur lay helplessly before me. All that had seemed cruel and hard about her before was now gone. She was now no more than the slave she was. The cruelties, the artificialities, had been broken away from her. She was now utterly vulnerable, and soft, and tender, and beautiful. Now she was no more than a helpless slave girl.

  "What is to be done with her?" inquired the second man.

  I looked down at Aynur, and she looked up at me, piteously. No longer was she the Aynur of old.

  "We are both slaves, Masters," I said. "That is all we are. That is our destiny and nature. We beg to love and serve. That is what we wish, to be pleasing, and to be loved. Please be kind to us. Please show us mercy. We beg it."

  "What of her?" said the second man. He indicated Aynur, roughly, brutally, prodding her with his bootlike sandal.

  "If you do not want her," I said, "do not hurt her. If you do not wish to keep her for yourselves, do not kill her. Sell her. Surely she will bring you a good price in a market."

  I sensed the men looking at me.

  "I am sure that she will do her best to be a good slave," I said.

  "Is it true?" asked the second man, of Aynur.

  "Yes, my masters," whispered Aynur.

  "For the time, then, at least, we will spare her," said the first man.

  Aynur shuddered. I feared that she might faint.

  I was acutely aware of my own helplessness, and bondage, how my ankles were crossed, one lying over the other, the two looped with cord and bound together, how my wrists were crossed, and bound. I pulled a little and, in an instant, had come to the last of the slack, an inch or so, in the cord which fastened my wrists to my ankles. I was conscious of the cloak, so precariously about my shoulders, and my nudity beneath it. It was total power the men held over Aynur and myself. This was not merely a matter of their much greater size and strength, enabling them to handle us as though we might be children, enabling them to do with us as they wished, nor was it a matter merely of the implacability of our bonds, denying us even the most meaningless opportunity to try to defend ourselves or to flee; it had rather to do with the marks on our thighs, the collars on our necks, that we were slaves. It was that
which, more than anything else, more than their incomparably greater physical strength, more than the sternness of bonds, made us wholly, helplessly, theirs.

  The second man bent to Aynur's ankles and bound them together.

  "Thank you, Mistress," breathed Aynur.

  I winced, seeing how tightly her ankles were bound together.

  The man then knelt across her body and thrust the slave bracelets higher on her wrists. He then, with cord, tied her wrists together. He jerked the cords tight. He then removed the bracelets from her, putting them in his pouch. He then drew her to her knees and gagged her.

  I dared not cast a glance at my master. He was standing to one side.

  I feared to be overly bold. I did not wish to be lashed.

  The slave box, by the first man, with his foot, was thrust before me and to my right, rather toward the foot of the stairs. It scraped on the stone flooring. It was not far, then, from where my master was. It was to his left. He paid it no attention.

  The second man then lifted Aynur up in his arms. I saw her eyes, over the gag. He carried her to the slave box. He sat her in the box. He put one hand in her hair and the other on her ankles. I again saw her eyes. In them there was terror. Neither of us knew, truly, what her fate was to be. It was my hope that they would spare her, if only for the whip and collar of another, one who would see, even casually, to her perfect mastering. He put her down in the box, on her back, her knees up. He shut the lid of the box, and locked it. Through the perforations in the box, in the form of the kef, I could see her face.

  In what perfect custody we are kept!

  The newcomer, my master, and the two captors then exchanged further words, sotto voce.

  I saw then the slave box lifted by the two men. It had stout, leather handles at each end. It was carried up the stairs, and then, the first man opening the trap, thrusting it up, through the opening. The trap was then closed. I heard the steps of the men, heavy with the weight they were bearing, cross the floor above, and then, in a moment, as they set themselves to a new flight of stairs, diminish.

  I was then left alone, in the subbasement, with my new master.

  45

  I thought that I would attempt to charm or placate my master. I would dare to lift my eyes, timidly, to his. I would smile, a timid smile, hoping to please him.

  I lifted my head.

  "Slut!" cried he in rage.

  I understood nothing of his fury. It made no sense to me. Why should he be angry with me? Why should he be cruel to me? I thrust my head down, instantly, terrified.

  I had only smiled at him.

  How had I done wrong? How was it that this should have so offended him, have so enraged him?

  "You worthless slave and slut," he whispered. In his voice there, was almost unbelievable hatred.

  No longer dared I hope that he might be kind. I hoped rather now only that I would be permitted to live.

  "You smile at me," he snarled, "not even knowing who I am!"

  I kept my head down. I trembled.

  "Lift your head!" he snapped. I obeyed.

  "Back, back, further!" he said.

  My neck then hurt. I saw, above me, the wretched, peeling ceiling of that dank place.

  He approached me and handled the collar.

  "Fitting," he said, contemptuously.

  It was a ring collar, hammered about my neck, suitable for the lowest, the most miserable, the most worthless of slaves.

  "So," said he, contemptuously, angrily, "you begged use?"

  Of course I had begged use! Was I to be blamed for what I was, for what I had become, that which I had earlier been only secretly, only in my dreams? And were not the masters, too, to blame? Had they not released the slave? Did he now think I could simply return her to her dungeon, where she had languished, neglected and denied, after I had met her, and, in her, my true self? Once one has found oneself can one forget oneself? It is a bit late for such things then. It is one thing never to acknowledge oneself; it is one thing to pretend and hide; it is one thing to avoid meeting oneself; but it is quite another to forget oneself once one has met oneself; one cannot, so to speak, then unmeet oneself; one may hide from the truth; one may attempt to avoid it; one may even arrange one's life in such a way as to minimize the possibilities of learning it, at least explicitly, face to face, in its full glory; but once one has seen it, one cannot simply unsee it; one cannot unlearn it; it can no longer be repudiated; incantations can restore neither virginity nor ignorance. And, too, I loved my sex, my truth. I would cling to it forever. No one could force it out of me. I was not discontent to be a woman.

  With his left hand he grasped the cloak at my throat, holding me by it. With his right hand, he struck me thrice, first with the palm of his hand, then with the back of the hand, then, again, with the palm of his hand, lashing my head back and forth.

  I looked up at him, my face stinging. I tasted blood in my mouth.

  "Yes," said he, angrily, "you would crawl to any man as a slave."

  He then, in fury, tore open the cloak and exposed me, before him.

  He regarded me.

  "Yes, yes," said he. "You are a slave, a slave! That is what you are, a slave! It is no wonder that you worthless little things bring a good price on a market block!"

  He then thrust me to the floor.

  I lay there, afraid to move.

  I heard him rummaging about the room. Then I heard the snap of a slave whip. I moaned. I tensed. He came and stood near me.

  "Please be kind to me, my master," I said.

  "Barbarian slut," he said, "Earth-girl slave, Earth-girl thrall!"

  He knew then that I was not native to this world. He had understood this, perhaps, from my accent.

  Yet I was not sure of this.

  Could he have known this independently?

  As he had spoken to me I had been at first startled. Then I had grown troubled.

  Now that I had been several months on this world I was much more aware of the subtleties of diverse accents within the language of the masters, that language which I must learn, that I might the better obey, that I might the better understand what was required of me. This accent was not that of the local guards, those I had encountered in the house, nor that of the captors, nor that of those of Treve. Indeed, it reminded me in ways of my own early accent in this language, not with respect to my native tongue, which still influenced how I spoke the language, of course, but with respect to that which I had originally absorbed in learning the language, now so long ago. My speech had, however, over the months, been heavily influenced by my time in Treve, and, in the past weeks, doubtless, by that of this city itself.

  The whip snapped again, a strict, sharp, loud sound, like the report of a firearm, a sound that seemed to ring explosively from wall to wall.

  I was terrified.

  I did not want to feel it on me.

  But the blow did not fall on me.

  "You crawl to the feet of any man," he snarled. "Crawl then, slut, to my feet, as well."

  "I am bound, hand and foot!" I wept.

  "Crawl!" he commanded.

  I could move only a bit at a time, laboriously, painfully, over the stones, toward him.

  "You are slow!" he said.

  The whip snapped again.

  "Forgive me, Master!" I said.

  At last I lay at his feet, on my side. I turned my head, that my lips might touch his sandals. But he stepped away from me, angrily.

  "You are not yet at my feet, are you?" he asked.

  "Forgive me, Master!" I said.

  Again I tried, inch by inch, to reach him. But this time he seized my ankles and turned me to my stomach. My ankles were then up, behind me, fastened to my wrists. I saw the coils of the whip lying beside my head, to the left. I heard a knife slip from a sheath, a soft sound. I lay very still. The masters may do as they please. I did not wish to move unexpectedly, suddenly, and risk being cut, by accident. My ankles were held still, my left ankle in the grip of his l
eft hand. A blade of apparently incredible sharpness moved through the bonds, quickly, deftly, on my ankles. They seemed to spring away. I then lay on my belly, facing away from him, my legs freed. The blade was returned to its sheath. I saw his hand pick up, again, the whip.

  He stood up, he turned about, he moved back.

  He was silent.

  I was not unmindful, I assure you, of the command which had been imposed upon me, and had not been rescinded. Too, men such as these, who relate to women in the modality of the master, are not patient.

  I was then on my knees before him.

  "You crawl quickly to the feet of a man," he sneered.

  I had crawled to him on my knees. My hands were still bound behind my back. I knelt before him, and put my head down, to his feet.

  "Yes, Master," I said.

  "You may beg use," he said.

  "I beg use," I said.

  I was very much aware that my ankles were freed.

  "Why do you beg use?" he asked.

  "I fear to be whipped," I said.

  "And if you were not afraid of being whipped?" he asked.

  "I would still beg use," I said.

  "Without even knowing who I am?" he asked.

  "Yes, Master," I said.

  "Slut and slave!" said he, in fury.

  "Yes, Master," I said.

  "You are worthless," he said. "You are unutterably contemptible!"

  "Yes, Master," I said.

  "I always knew it," he said.

  "Master?" I said.

  "From the first!" he said, angrily.

  "Master?"

  "Earth-slut!" he said.

  "Yes, Master!" I said.

  I was startled. Had I not heard this voice before? "Look up!" he commanded.

  His eyes, within the mask, were fierce.

  The whip, coiled, was thrust roughly before me. Instantly I licked and kissed it.

  How long it had been since I had knelt before him! How long it had been since I had kissed that whip!

  "I love you, I love you, my master!" I cried.

  "You know me, do you not?" he said.

  "Yes, Master!" I cried. I dared not lie to my master. I knew him now as well as if his features had been bared from the beginning. To be sure, I had never known his name, or his city. I had known little more of him than, in my heart, he was my master. It was he to whose whip my lips had been first pressed on this world!