I looked back, toward the main building. I could see only normal signs of activity.
The great sign, on its chains, hanging from the supported, horizontal beam on the huge pole was quiet now. Some wagons were leaving. The world about smelled fresh and clean from the rain. There were puddles here and there on the stone flooring of the inn yard, itself leveled from the living rock of the plateau.
The attendant now came forth from the shed. He had the saddle, the cloth and other gear over his shoulder.
“I trust the tarn gate is open,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Good,” I said.
Obviously I was in a hurry. He was doubtless accustomed to impatient guests. On the other hand, he would presumably not suspect in how great a hurry I actually was.
He then entered the cot, to ready the bird.
I went about the shed and cot, and crossed the yard, moving between buildings. I wanted to make certain that the gate was indeed open. It was. It had not been opened to facilitate my departure, of course, but, as a matter of course, during the day, for the convenience of new arrivals. The two parts, or leaves, of the gate, within their supporting framework, of course, opened inward. They were now fastened back. In opening, they swung back across the landing platform, which was a foot or two above the level of the height of the palisade. An extension of this platform, retractable when the gate was closed, and probably braced with hinged, diagonal drop supports, would extend beyond the palisade. There was a ramp leading up to the platform on the inside, on the right. The leaves of the gate were very large, each being some thirty feet in height and some twenty-five feet in width. They are light, however, for their size, as they consist mostly of frames supporting wire. Whereas these dimensions permit ordinary saddle tarns, war tarns, and such, an entry in flight, the landing platform is generally used. It is always used, of course, by draft tarns carrying tarn baskets. The draft tarn makes a hovering landing. As soon as it senses the basket touch the ground it alights to one side. The sloping ramp, of course, makes it easy to take the tarn basket, on its leather runners, no longer harnessed to the tarn, down to the yard. It is also convenient for discharging passengers, handling baggage, and such. Not all tarn gates have this particular construction. In another common construction the two parts, or leaves, of the gate, within their supporting framework, lean back, at an angle of some twenty degrees. They are then slid back, in a frame, on rollers, each to its own side. This gives the effect of a door, opening to the sky. The structure supporting the gate, in such a case, with its beams, platforms, catwalks and mastlike timbers, is very sturdy. Narrow ladders, too, ascend it here and there, leading to its catwalks and platforms. Such a construction, of course, requires the more time-consuming, hovering landing of all birds, not simply draft tarns, carrying tarn baskets. It does, however, make the landing platform unnecessary. The construction at the Crooked Tarn, incidentally, was more typical of a military installation, in that it permitted the more rapid deployment and return of tarnsmen, coupled with the capacity to open and close the tarn gate in a matter of Ihn. The tarn gate’s construction here suggested that the Crooked Tarn might not always have served as an inn. Probably at one time or another, before the founding of Ar’s Station, it had served to garrison troops, perhaps concerned to monitor the more northern reaches of the Vosk Road. This was suggested, too, by its distance from the Vosk, which was approximately one hundred pasangs. The ordinary one-day march of the Gorean infantryman on a military road is thirty-five pasangs. The Crooked Tarn, then, was almost exactly three days march from the river.
I loosened my blade in my scabbard and returned to the vicinity of the tarncot.
The tarn was ready.
It was within the cot, tearing at a piece of meat, a haunch of tarsk, hung from a rope. The rope was some two inches thick. The suspension of the meat reminded me of the way peasant women sometimes cook roasts, tying them on a cord and dangling them before the fire, then spinning the meat from time to time. In this way, given the twisting and untwisting of the cord, the meat will cook rather evenly, for the most part untended, and without spit turning. The rope then, drawn tightly as it was, so tautly, so fiercely, toward the tarn, suddenly, a foot or so above the meat, snapped. The tarn then had the meat and the lower portion of the rope on the ground, the meat grasped in his talons, tearing it away from the bone.
I spun suddenly about, the sword half drawn.
The girl stopped, extremely frightened.
She put her hand before her mouth, the back of her hand toward her face.
She stepped back, faltering, frightened.
She was slim, and extremely dark-haired, and very white-skinned. Her hair was drawn back behind her head and tied there with a yellow cord. Her breasts were bared. A black cord was knotted about her waist. Tucked over this cord in front was a long strip, some seven inches wide, of heavy, opaque, yellow cloth. It then passed under her body and was pulled up, snugly, and thrust over the cord in the back. The front and back ends of this cloth hung evenly, and fell about midway between her knees and ankles. The effect was much like that of the curla and chatka, a portion of the garmenture, or livery, in which the wagon peoples of the south place most of their slave females, save that the curla, the cord, was black and not red, and the chatka, the strip, was of cloth and yellow, not of black leather. She had nothing corresponding, of course, to the kalmak, or southern slave’s brief, open vest of black leather, and the cord binding her hair was quite different from the koora, the red band of cloth commonly used to confine the hair of the southern slave. In all then, since she wore cloth and not leather, and less than the southern slave, her appearance, if anything, was even more slavelike than hers.
“Why are you not kneeling,” I asked her, “and with your knees spread?” She was, after all, in the presence of a free man. Too, clad as she was, I assumed she must be a pleasure slave. Such kneel before men in the open-kneed position.
She sank to her knees on the stone, and hastily spread them. The cloth looked well, fallen between her thighs, on the damp stone.
I looked upon her.
She was now in a position of subservience and respect, suitable for a woman before a man.
I replaced the blade in the sheath.
She looked up at me, frightened.
I regarded her.
She had a beautiful face, exquisitely and sensitively feminine.
She lowered her eyes before my gaze.
She was slimly beautiful.
I regarded her garbing. It did afford her a nether closure, but it was, at least, a precarious one. In compensation it well bared her thighs.
“Are you frightened?” I asked.
“Yes,” she whispered.
It seemed to me, interestingly enough, if I did not misread the matter, that she was extremely sensitive to, and timid concerning, the revealing nature of her garbing. I had the feeling, based on certain expressions and tiny movements, that she more than once resisted the impulse to huddle before me, her head down, covering herself with her hands. But she remained much as she was. Indeed, she even straightened herself, and lifted her body before me, timidly, as if for my consideration.
“What is wrong?” I asked.
It seemed she wanted to speak, but lacked the courage to do so.
“What is that in your hand?” I asked. She had something clutched in her right hand.
She opened her hand, holding it out a little, that I might see what she held. There, in the palm of her right hand, was a small sack, bulging, seemingly weighty for its size, from the look of it, a sack of coins. It was leather. It had strings.
“Hold your hand out, closer, palm more open, for my examination,” I said.
She did so.
“I see now why you were so frightened,” I said. “You have stolen a sack of coins.”
“No, no!” she said.
“Many masters,” I said, “do not permit a slave to so much as touch money. To be sure, they might let her carr
y coins in an errand capsule, or an errand sack, tied about her neck, instructions to a vendor perhaps also contained within it, her hands braceleted behind her.”
She looked up, frightened.
“And few masters, indeed, I assure you,” I said, “even if so lenient as to let her venture to a market with a coin or two in her mouth, on a specific errand, would permit her to scamper about with a trove such as that which now seems to be in your keeping.”
“You do not understand,” she said.
“Kneel more straightly,” I said.
She complied. I viewed her. I wondered what her master had paid for her. Probably a goodly price. She was worth such.
“How did you expect to escape the palisade?” I asked.
She looked at me, agonized.
“Were you approaching me, intentionally?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“It was your intention, I gather,” I said, “to attempt to bribe me, that I might abet your escape.”
Tears sprang into her eyes.
“But do you think I would do other then than to carry you into my own chains?”
She trembled. She clutched the tiny sack.
“You have been caught,” I said. “You are a caught slave. I will now turn you over to an attendant, for binding and holding, pending what punishments your master might see fit to visit upon you.”
“You do not understand,” she whispered.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The coins are mine,” she said.
“Surely you are an inn girl,” I said, “though your collar is now off.”
“I do not have a collar,” she said.
“That is surely an incredible oversight on the part of your master,” I said.
“I do not have a master,” she whispered.
I looked at her, puzzled, such a woman.
“Am I truly pretty enough to be an inn girl?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said, “and a superb one.”
She looked up at me, elatedly, gratefully.
“Who is your master?” I asked.
“I do not have a master,” she repeated.
“Do not seek to compound your crime with deceit,” I said.
“I am not a slave,” she whispered. “I am a free woman. Oh!”
I had seized her, half lifted her, and turned her from side to side, examining her slim, attractive thighs for the tiny brand which would confirm the matter. The most common brand sites, that on the left thigh, the favorite, and that on the right thigh, lacked slave marks. This determination, given the nature of her garmenture, could be instantly made. I then put her on her feet. “Oh!” she said. She was not branded on the lower left abdomen. That is perhaps the third most favored brand site. I then checked several other brand sites, such as the insides of the forearms, the left side of the neck, behind and below the left ear, the backs of her legs, and her buttocks. I even examined the insteps of her left and right feet. Her body was not branded.
“I am a free woman,” she said, so rudely handled.
“It seems you have not yet been branded,” I said.
“I am not a slave,” she said. “I am a free woman.”
This did not seem to me possible, of course, clad as she was, in this place.
“Do you not recognize me?” she asked.
“On your knees,” I said.
Swiftly she knelt.
“Do you not recognize me?” she asked.
I looked at her, puzzled. To be sure, something about her seemed familiar.
“Crouch before me,” she said.
I did so.
She put her hands before her face, the strings of the sack looped twice now about her left wrist. As she held her hands before her, rather to the bridge of the nose, they concealed the lower portions of her face, much as would a veil.
“Ah!” I said. It was not so much at first, however, that I recalled her upper facial features, as they would have appeared over the veil, if only because it had been very dark in the upper level when I had sought my space last night, as I recalled immediately, vividly, the appearance and positioning of her small hands. The small palms of them, with their delicate, extremely sensitive, exposed openness, faced outwards. It was in this way that I first realized who she was. During the night she had perhaps realized what she had done. Perhaps, then, she had sobbed with shame. Yet now, in the morning, presumably by now fully aware of what she was doing, she dared to again so hold her hands before a man. Even last night, once she must have realized how her hands were positioned, I recalled she had not quickly, shamed, turned them about, presenting their backs to me. One expects a Gorean woman, attempting to conceal her features from a man, to place her hands, cuplike, over her nose and mouth. As I have indicated, the lips and mouth of a female are commonly regarded as extremely sensuous features to a Gorean, hence the concern of many free women, particularly of high caste, in the high cities, to conceal them. A simple way to uncup the woman’s hands is to take the small finger of her left hand in your right hand and pull that hand to the side, and then take the small finger of the right hand in your left hand, and pull that, too, to the side. This opens the barrier and reveals the mouth and lips of the woman to you. In this case, however, as she held her hands, with the palms facing me, I simply took her wrists and, gently, drew them apart. This exposed her lips and mouth to me. Her lips were slightly parted. She was breathing quickly.
“I remember,” I said. Last night I had face-stripped her, before gagging her with her own veil. It had been very dark on the level last night, with only the tiny lamps far to the side and back, but I could see now, upon close examination, that it was indeed the same woman.
“You gagged me,” she said. “You made it so that your will was imposed upon mine. I could not cry out or speak. You did not choose to permit it.”
I nodded.
“And you tied me!” she said.
“Of course,” I said. I had done so with her stockings, hand and foot.
She looked at me, with awe in her eyes. Perhaps she had never been tied before. I considered her beauty. It seemed made for rope, and steel and leather.
“Did you manage to free yourself?” I asked. I was curious to hear what she would respond.
“No,” she said. “I was absolutely helpless. I could not begin to free myself. I was freed by an itinerant metal worker.”
“I see,” I said.
“You knew I could not free myself!” she said, suddenly, reproachfully.
“Yes,” I said.
She shuddered. “Are slaves sometimes bound like that?” she asked.
“Sometimes,” I said.
“You cut apart my clothing, and removed the hooks and fastenings from it,” she said. “Yet you did not strip me. You left it lying upon me in such a way that my modesty might be protected. You even covered my head and face with my hood, that I might not lie there face-stripped. Thank you.”
I nodded.
“To be sure,” she said, “the hood in such a placement functioned almost like a slave hood.”
“True,” I said.
“If I did not move I could not see,” she said, “and if I did move I might well face-strip myself.”
“The choice was yours,” I said.
“And if I had as much as squirmed,” she said, “I would have stripped myself.”
“Again,” I said, “the choice was yours.”
“As I am a free woman?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said.
“Had I been a slave girl,” she said, “I gather I would not have had such choices.”
“Probably not,” I said. “The slave girl, normally, stays simply as men put her, for example, in such a case, presumably naked and bound.”
“Doubtless stark naked,” she said.
“Of course,” I said, “save for her collar.”
“And helplessly bound?”
“One supposes so,” I said.
“Hand and foot?”
“After you disarmed me, and made me helpless, what did you do with my dagger?” she asked.
“I destroyed it,” I said, “and threw it out.”
She nodded.
“Do you object?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
“It could have gotten you killed,” I said.
“I realize that now,” she said. “It was terribly foolish to carry it.”
“True,” I said.
“Beyond such matters,” she said, “I should not have had such a thing. It was pretentious and wrong of me to have had it.”
“Perhaps you will avoid such mistakes in the future,” I said.
“I will,” she said.
A woman’s defenses are not steel, but such things as her helplessness and vulnerability, and her capacity to give astounding pleasure.
I stood up.
I glanced into the tarncot. The bird was finishing the meat, that which had earlier been suspended on the rope.
The attendant was near it, his hand on the harness.
I glanced back at the woman.
“I left you an amplitude of garments,” I said, “though they would have to be redone, or resewn. They could, at least, have been clutched about you. How is it then, that you are dressed as you are?”
“It is appropriate for me,” she said, “that I should have this to wear, or such things, or less, or perhaps nothing.”
I did not respond.
She lowered her eyes. She seemed terribly embarrassed. Doubtless she was extremely sensitive about her degree of exposure. Yet she had herself arranged it so. She was extremely white-skinned. Doubtless this was in major part because she was very lightly complexioned genetically, but it was, too, in part, doubtless, because she would have commonly worn the ornate, heavy, stiff, cumbersome robes of concealment affected by most well-to-do Gorean women. The contrast between the robes of concealment and her present revelatory vestiture, more suitable for a property girl, must be particularly, and shockingly, dramatic to her, who knew her own antecedents and station. She must now be experiencing a wealth of new sensations, for example, kneeling on damp stone, and feeling the air upon her body.
Renegades of Gor Page 14
