“The defenses cannot be long maintained?” she asked.
“It is thought not,” I said.
“You wish to gain entrance to the city,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Why?” she asked.
“I have business there,” I said.
“Your accent is not of Ar,” she said.
“I would hope not, in this camp,” I smiled.
She used a tiny fire maker and set fire to the leaves and twigs. She blew on the small flame, encouraging it.
We could smell cooking fires about. It was near dusk.
“Your plans have not proceeded as you hoped?” she asked.
“I do not complain,” I said. “Things might have proceeded better than they have, but they have gone much as I expected they would.”
She added sticks to the small flame.
The first portion of my plan had been to reach Ar’s Station as swiftly as possible, which meant, in effect, to do so on tarnback, and in such a way as to gain immunity from the attentions of Cosian tarn patrols. That I had managed. The patrols, which were thick in the vicinity, given my habiliments and accouterments, and my brandished pouch, presumably a diplomatic one, had taken me for a courier. Also, although I had not planned it, the presence of the blindfolded, braceleted girl before me, apparently a capture, presumably picked up en route, and doubtless soon to be collared, added to the effect. The ears of the delicate Phoebe must have burned as she heard the snapping of wings near us and the shouting of ribald, raucous jests, of which her beauty and its probable disposition were the subject. At times I had even received an escort, which happily, at their patrol limits, had been suspended. I had hoped, of course, somehow, ideally, to be able to enter Ar’s Station on tarnback. As I had feared, however, this had not been possible. Even my garb as a courier had not permitted me free access to the airspace over Ar’s Station. I had been immediately pursued and fired upon by flights of Cosian tarnsmen. I had made the attempt in the afternoon and again in the evening of the first day I had arrived in the vicinity of Ar’s Station. Had it not been for the strength of the bird and my start I might have been downed over the city. I had escaped the second time only with considerable difficulty, by taking my way over the citadel and harbor, past the chained rafts closing the harbor, and across the Vosk itself, eluding my pursuers only after a long run, under the cover of darkness.
In these attempts I had, of course, not taken Phoebe. I had no wish to risk a quarrel’s penetrating that beauty, which, properly refined and improved, would, in my opinion, not have shamed even the central block of the Curulean. Too, her weight, slight as it was, might have made the difference between falling to pursuers and eluding them. I had, accordingly, before these excursions, sat her down, closely, before a small tree, her legs on either side of it. I had then tied a rope on her left ankle, looped the rope about another tree, a yard or so away, before the first tree, as she faced it, and brought it back, to tie about her right ankle. I did this in such a way, adjusting the length of the rope, that though her legs were forced to be rather extended, they were also permitted to flex enough for comfort. I then pushed her belly against the bark and braceleted her arms about the tree. The extension of her legs, of course, was such that she could not reach the ropes on her ankles with her braceleted hands. It also, of course, made it impossible for her to rise to her feet. I had sat her down there, and she would remain there, sitting, and as I had placed her. Such details help a woman to understand to whom she is subject, and to what extent. The location of the tree was close enough to the road that she might, if I had not returned by morning, call out, attracting attention to herself, thus saving herself, even if, at the same time, making it almost certain that soon thereafter her thigh would know the fiery kiss of a slave iron, and her neck the clasp of a master’s collar.
She built up the fire.
I watched her.
She unfolded and adjusted a single-bar cooking rack, placing it over the fire. From this she suspended a kettle of water. The single bar, which may be loosened in its rings, and has a handle, may also function as a spit.
“And what did you do today?” I asked.
“I knelt in a body hood,” she said.
“It was only a sack,” I said.
“It served,” she said.
The sack I had drawn over her was an improvised body hood. There are several varieties of body hoods on Gor, which is not surprising in a society in which slavery, and particularly female slavery, is an essential ingredient. Most body hoods are made of leather or layers of stout canvas. I have seen at least one in which two layers of canvas were sewn about a lining of linked chain. They may be fastened by means of such devices as cords, straps and laces. They may be tied shut or locked shut. The prisoner is entered into some body hoods from the back, her legs being placed through openings in the lower portion of the hood, the hood then being pulled up and, from the back, laced shut. Most of these hoods do not have openings for the arms, but some do. In most hoods the arms are confined within the hood, either free within the hood itself or bound or braceleted within it. Some hoods are open at the bottom, and fastened on the prisoner by means of thongs or straps, often looped about the thighs. Others are constructed in such a way that they may be opened at the bottom, for the master’s convenience. Sometimes the hood is thrust up and fastened about the prisoner’s waist. The typical hood provides hand and arm security with the advantages of the blindfold. Most body hoods, unlike many common slave hoods, do not have provisions for an internal gag. The prisoner, of course, may be gagged before being hooded. The body hood, like the slave hood, tends to keep a female docile. This may be a particular advantage early in her training, when she may not yet fully understand her new nature and its meaning. Another advantage of the body hood is that it is intriguing and attractive on a woman, baring her legs but usually, unless the arms are also intriguingly bared, concealing the rest of her, this sort of thing exciting male interest, and yet, in virtue of the predominant concealment afforded, making her seizure and rape less likely than if she were lying about more exposed in common bonds. Slavers, in moving their wares through the streets, sometimes place them in body hoods. To be sure, it is more common to throw a cloak or sheet, which might be of various lengths, over their heads, this usually being fastened on them by means of a cord or strap looped once or twice about the neck and fastened under the chin. In many cities free women object to the marching of naked slaves through the streets. Still, even though the girls may be covered with cloaks or sheets, the men will usually come to watch, and call out to them, and jeer, and such. It is understood, of course, that the girls, beneath those cloaks or sheets, are slave naked. It is sometimes very trying, though also perhaps very instructive, for a new slave, perhaps a woman of a conquered city, to be marched thusly through the streets, stung with pebbles, pinched and slapped, subjected to the most intimate forms of raillery, jocosity and abuse.
“Do you object?” I asked.
“No,” she said, suddenly, quickly. Then she put herself on her belly, on the dirt floor of the small tent, before me. She lifted her head, looking up at me.
“When,” she asked, “may I use the word ‘Master’ truly to you, in all honesty?”
“But you are a free woman,” I said to her.
“I beg the collar!” she said.
“Is that not an unusual request for a free woman?” I asked.
“My freedom is now a mockery,” she said. “After what you have done to me these past two nights, how could I even think of being free? Do you think that that delusion can be meaningful to me any longer?”
“You have then learned something about yourself,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “I have learned that I should be branded, that I should be in a collar!”
I smiled.
“Do not frustrate me,” she begged. “Let me be what I truly am, in all honesty!”
I regarded her.
“I beg it!” she said.
>
I did not speak.
“I am a woman!” she wept.
“So?” said I.
“I am not a man!” she said.
“I do not dispute that,” I said.
I regarded her.
What man would not want such a woman kneeling before him, his?
“I am not a man, not a man!” she cried.
“No,” I said. “You are not a man.”
“Do not then think of me as a man, or treat me as such!” she said, tensely.
“I was not aware that I had done so,” I said.
“I am a woman, and have the needs of a woman!” she said. “I want to belong, to love and serve, to be pleasing, to be wanted, to be lusted for, to be sought, and desired, to be taken in hand, to be possessed, to be made to serve, to have no choice but to serve with perfection, and yield all! I am ready to kneel. My head is down. My lips and tongue are ready to perform obeisance. My throat desires to be dressed in the slave band. I am ready to kiss the whip! I am ready for my chain! I want to be wanted so much that I will find myself owned! Can you not understand that? Is it so hard to understand? I am a woman. I have the needs of a woman. I want a master! I need a master!”
“The porridge water should be salted,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, and crawled to the front of the tent.
“Salt it lightly,” I said. She was learning to serve.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
The days I had spent here had not been fruitless. I had muchly reconnoitered. I had thought that perhaps I might have been able to ascend the walls of Ar’s Station on one of the scaling ladders, in a morning attack, but I had soon thought the better of it. Resistance was still such that few Cosians could reach the parapets, and those who did were usually driven back. Whereas I supposed it was possible that I might enter the city in this way this modality of ingress seemed dubious at best. It was difficult to see how my projects would be furthered if, while attempting to identify myself and explain my mission, I were to be cut open with a boat hook. Similarly I was not interested, in the midst of friendly overtures, in receiving a bucket of flaming oil in the face or, say, being struck from a ladder by a roofing tile brought from the interior of the city. I had also considered trying to enter the city through its main gate, in the confusion, when it opened for sorties by the defenders. There had been no sorties, however, for twenty days. That in itself was an index of the straits of the defenders, their will and numbers. Also, it did not seem to me practical to try to enter the city during the daylight hours from the harbor side because of the besiegers. Similarly, during the night hours, it seemed the defenders might be unusually alert. I did not, of course, know any appropriate signs and countersigns. One might well be set upon as soon as one tried to haul oneself unto a wharf. Indeed, they probably patrolled the pilings and such in small boats. An additional problem, at least to a swimmer, I had gathered, from talking with some of the soldiers, were Vosk eels. These often lurk in shadowed areas, among the pilings beneath piers. Whereas they normally feed on garbage and small fish it is not unknown that they attack swimmers. In the last few weeks, too, given the fighting at the rafts, and in the harbor, predictably, river sharks, usually much farther to the west, had made their appearance. My second plan, or the second portion of my plan, involved the women from the Crooked Tarn. Late this afternoon, as I had expected, they, in the keeping of the sutler, Ephialtes, had arrived. I had made contact with him away from his wagon and I had had him blindfold the women, with the exception of Liadne, the first girl, and the only slave among them, before I inspected them. Liadne, who was delighted with her name, showed them off to me, proudly.
She had done a good job with them, particularly considering the amount of time they had been in her charge. The free women knelt very straight, their bellies sucked in, their shoulders back, their breasts thrust forward. Too, they knelt back on their heels, their knees spread, as those of slaves. They were all there, Lady Temione, Lady Amina, the Vennan, Lady Elene, from Tyros, and Ladies Klio, Rimice and Liomache, all from Cos. All of them had, or had desired, to exploit men. But in this they had not recently been as successful as they might have hoped, for they had been seized at the Crooked Tarn as debtor sluts. Then they had been redeemed, it would seem, by some mysterious benefactor. But then, instead of being freed, they had found themselves being coffled, and had been brought to the vicinity of Ar’s Station as though they might have been naught but slaves. Now they knelt before me, not knowing who it was before whom they knelt. I regarded them. Once they had been haughty, proud free women. They now knelt within the fringes of a military camp, frightened, confused, chained, blindfolded, shaved-headed prisoners. They did not know in whose power they were, or what their fate might be. I had plans for them, or some of them. They, or some of them, would learn soon enough what these might be.
I watched Phoebe pour some meal into the boiling, salted water.
Temione and Klio had had marks on their bodies. Perhaps they had dared to be initially recalcitrant, at least to some small degree. Perhaps, incredibly enough, they had even had some reservations, free women, to being handled and treated as slaves, being stripped, and chained behind a wagon, for example, or to having to obey promptly and perfectly the orders of a slave, Liadne, who had been put over them, as first girl, kneeling before her, addressing her as “Mistress,” and such. Perhaps, free women, they had dared, at least initially, to think that they might be above such things. They had learned differently. It is not difficult to correct such misapprehensions in a woman. They now knelt well, frightened, their knees spread as those of slaves. The treatment they had received, of course, had been good for them. It is excellent for a woman’s psychology to learn discipline. It improves her considerably. Too, their treatment might, in some trivial ways, perhaps smooth, or make a bit less traumatic, the transition to bondage, which was a likely, as well as suitable, disposition for them. To be sure, there is probably no fully adequate way for one to anticipate, or prepare for, psychologically, the actual transition to bondage, even if one eagerly seeks it, even if one welcomes it joyously, for with it comes a new and profoundly different understanding of one’s self and nature; by it, you see, a categorical and radical transformation of one’s realities is effected; in it one realizes, suddenly, that one is now no longer what one was before, that one is now something absolutely different, that one is now no longer a free person, but a property, subject to buying and selling, an animal, a slave.
Phoebe knelt near the fire, back on her heels. Occasionally she would kneel, up, off her heels, and stir the porridge.
“Keep your back straight,” I told her.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
Her body was slim, her hair was long, bound behind the back of her head with the black cord.
Others about, too, were cooking.
She still wore the garmenture so much like the curla and chatka, the cord at her belly and the long, single strip of cloth, the latter passing over the cord from the outside to the inside in front, and then up, and over it again in the back, moving from the inside to the outside, the whole then, above the cord, pulled up and adjusted, snugly.
She stirred the porridge.
The bottoms of her feet were dark with dirt.
There was a scuffling sound outside and, looking up, we saw a stumbling woman, naked, a rope on her neck, her hands tied behind her, being dragged among the tents. She cast us one wild, desperate glance, and then was dragged past.
Phoebe knelt even straighter.
“I think it is a good thing that I kept you covered in my absence yesterday and today,” I said.
“Master?” she asked.
“Do you know why I did so?” I asked.
“That I may learn discipline?” she said. “That I may learn that I am truly your servant, and what it is to be the servant of a man such as you? And that I may learn to be a good servant?”
“Such things,” I said, “but there is, too, another reason.”
“What is that?” she asked.
“That it is more likely that you will be here when I get back,” I said.
“I would not run away,” she said.
“I was not thinking of that,” I said.
“I do not want to run away,” she said, “but, too, I would be afraid to run away.”
“But you are a free woman,” I said. “It is not as though you were a slave.”
“But if you caught me,” she said, “you would punish me, would you not, and terribly?”
“Yes,” I said. “But still it would not be as though you were a slave.”
She shuddered. “If I were a slave,” she said, “if I were branded and collared, I would not even dare to think of running away.”
I nodded. Gorean, she was not unacquainted with the severities typically inflicted upon wayward slaves, slaves foolish enough to attempt escape. Too, escape, in effect, is impossible for the Gorean slave girl. The law, the culture, and such, are not set up to permit it.
“But why then?” she asked.
“That it would be less likely that you would be stolen,” I said.
“Really?” she asked, pleased.
“Yes,” I said.
“Do you really think a man might want to steal me?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said.
“Would you?” she asked.
“I might consider it,” I said. “I think you would look well on all fours, bringing me a whip in your teeth.”
“Phoebe has gathered, the last two nights,” she said, shyly, “that she may not be without attractions to master.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
“Even though I am a free woman?” she asked.
“Most slaves begin as such,” I said.
“I want to live for a master,” she said, suddenly, looking at me, “and to give him pleasure. I want it to be the meaning of my existence!”
“I see, free woman,” I said.
“‘Free woman’!” she said. “I am free in name only! You know that in my heart I am a slave!”
“True,” I said.
“I want a master to be everything to me,” she said, “even if he scarcely notices me, or cares if I exist.”
Renegades of Gor Page 18
