Then she put down her head again and there, in the dirt, shuddered.
“Surely you can do better than this,” I said.
“Please,” she said, “have mercy!”
“No,” I said. “You are a woman.”
She trembled in her weakness and slightness, and beauty, her femaleness, at the mercy of men.
“On your knees,” I said. “Now.” I kicked her.
She cried out, and rose quickly to her knees.
“Knees spread,” I said.
She knelt there, her knees spread. She blushed crimson. It seemed she could not take her eyes off the tall fellow.
“Perform,” I encouraged her. “Move. Call attention to your charms.”
Again Lady Klio began to perform, as she could.
“It may not be much, gentlemen,” I informed them, holding the leash, “but surely for such a woman it is an unusual activity. I suspect that she is not accustomed to doing it. Perhaps in the future she will be better at it. Look, gentlemen. Little as it may be, I suspect this is far more than was provided for the many chaps who paid for her meals, her lodging, her wardrobe, her transportation, her luxuries, her claimed needs, her numerous bills.”
“Those days are finished for you, wench,” said a man.
“Put them behind you,” said another.
“Please, no!” she said.
“Continue to perform,” I said. “You may leave your knees, but do not rise to your feet.”
She regarded me, in wild protest.
“Yes?” I said.
“Do not make me do these things,” she begged. “Do not make me dance and writhe so. I am a free woman!”
“Your freedom will soon be a matter of the past,” I told her. “How well you do now could influence the quality of your life in the future.”
“No!” she said.
“It is true,” I said. “If you doubt me, look about you.”
She looked at the faces about her, and then shuddered, and put down her head.
“Do not fear,” I said. “I know you are truly a slave. I learned it in your kiss, when you were shackled at the wall at the Crooked Tarn. I think that perhaps, in the same kiss, you learned it.”
“Please,” she wept.
“Or did you know it before?” I asked.
She dared not answer, and the men laughed. She sneaked a glance at the tall fellow, and then, hastily, put down her head. He smiled.
“Lady Elene, of Tyros, your friend, whom you remember from the Crooked Tarn, and the coffle,” I said, “is even now in a slave collar.” It had been put on her within moments of her sale.
Klio looked back at me.
“In her performance,” I said, “the slave, unrestrained, emerged quickly and in moments the woman discovered that it was she. It pleased the men abundantly. It brought a good price. It is now collared.”
Klio sobbed.
“Frankly,” I said, “I had not expected you to be inferior to her.”
She looked at me, angrily.
“But perhaps the women of Tyros,” I said, “are superior to those of Cos?”
“I think not,” said a man, rather angrily.
There was laughter from the others. I supposed he must be Cosian, natively.
“But then,” I said, “it is said, I have heard, that those of Port Kar prize Cosians as slaves.”
“Show us what a Cosian can do,” said a man.
“Thus,” I said, “it seems that it is not, really, that the women of Tyros are superior to the women of Cos, but merely that, in your particular case, you are inferior to the Lady Elene.”
She looked at me, again angrily.
“But that is only to be expected, upon occasion, I suppose,” I said, “that some woman of Tyros would be superior to some woman of Cos. Too, it is no disgrace to be inferior to the Lady Elene, who is quite attractive and, in time, might even make a dancer.”
“I am not inferior to Elene,” she said, angrily.
The men laughed at her vehemence.
I noted she had not referred to her rival, so to speak, as the Lady Elene. To be sure, the female in question was no longer a lady, but was now only another lovely, curvaceous female animal on Gor, a slave, and, indeed, one who might, as far as I knew, be nameless at the moment.
She looked at the tall fellow.
I quickly then, that she would feel the authoritative signal of the leash and collar rings while she was looking at the tall fellow, shook the leash.
“Ah!” said a fellow.
I was quite pleased then with Klio.
My expectation, I then felt, that she would prove to be the most exciting and desirable of the two, was borne out. That was why I had saved her for last, of course, for use in the trench closest to Ar’s Station. To be sure, I might have been somewhat prejudiced, for I remembered Klio’s lovely dark hair, and I tend to be partial to brunettes. Who, eventually, would prove to be the best slave I did not know. Let such women compete desperately with one another, and with other slaves, each striving to be the best.
One of the men cried out with pleasure.
That had been an excellent leash move, to be sure. Klio displayed herself brilliantly on the leash. Such things seem very natural for a woman. Perhaps they are, to some extent, like slave dance, instinctive, the biological template, or genetic dispositions for them, having been selected for thousands of years ago, the most pleasing of captive women, perhaps those squirming best on their tethers, or in their bonds, tending to be utilized for sexual conquest. Perhaps, however, they are associated, in their way, with something even deeper, something clearly selected for, the biological need of a woman to belong, to be approved of and to love.
“Superb!” said a fellow.
I wondered if Klio, sensing these deep, dark, wonderful, frightening things within her, the rightfulness of the destiny of submission to men for her, and such, had not, perhaps in the privacy of her own chambers, before her mirror, put the leash on herself. Perhaps she had then, there, before the mirror, in the privacy of her own quarters, moved similarly. It is not unusual for women to do this sort of thing, alone, often in bonds and chains, expressing plaintively therein their longing for a master.
“Superb! Superb!” cried another fellow.
Klio, I recalled, had chosen a dangerous way of life, one which she must surely have realized, on one level or another, might lead to the collar.
“‘Klio’,” I said to the men, “might be an excellent name for a slave, do you not think so?”
“Yes!” said more than one.
Klio flushed with pleasure. Somehow it seemed she became even more sinuous, more sensuous, then.
I saw that she was paying a bit too much attention to the tall fellow.
“On your belly,” I said to Klio. “There, that fellow,” I said, indicating a grizzled sapper to one side, his tools near him, “address yourself to him, about the feet and legs.”
He grinned.
Klio slid to him on her belly, her femaleness prostrate before his maleness, and then, bit by bit, licking and kissing, began to rise to her knees before him. You could see the places on his legs where her small tongue had licked free the dirt.
“No!” said the tall fellow.
I had thought this move on my part might bring him into action.
Klio stopped, and turned, from her knees, to regard him.
“I will buy her!” he said.
“She is not cheap,” I said. It seemed to me I might as well get what I could for Klio. I fear I must admit occasionally to a streak of opportunistic greediness.
“A silver tarsk!” he cried.
“Done!” I said. I had not really expected anything like that. Klio, redeemed through Ephialtes, had only cost me thirty copper tarsks. Perhaps I should have held out for more, seeing the eagerness of the fellow, but, after all, I was taken by surprise by the splendid offer, and even opportunistic greediness has its limits, particularly when surprised.
“On all fours,” I said
to Klio.
Immediately she went to all fours.
“A silver tarsk,” I said.
It was placed in my palm and I put it in my pouch. I then removed my leash and collar from her neck. I had not even returned the leash and collar to my pouch before I heard a decisive click and a small cry from Klio. She looked up, collared, a slave, at her master.
“She dances the leash dance well, does she not?” I asked.
“I will improve her in it,” said he, grimly.
Klio quickly bent her head, unbidden, to his feet, and kissed them.
“Share her,” said a fellow.
“Let her dance again,” said another, “not in the leash.”
“Proffer her to the arms of each of us,” said another, “in turn.”
“She is mine,” said the fellow.
“We are your comrades in arms,” said another.
“True!” said another.
“Have no fear,” said the tall fellow, “I will share the slave, and my good fortune, with you, but do not forget that in the end it is I alone to whom she belongs, that it is mine alone whose slave she is.”
The men had crowded about Klio now, and I could hardly see her among them. Even the fellow from the low wooden platform, which gave him a vantage over the top of the trench, had joined them. I backed away, unnoticed, toward the nearest sapping trench. In a moment I had then turned and was making my way rapidly toward the walls. In places the sapping trench was covered with planking, which might protect workers, or soldiers in their advance. In an Ehn or so I had come to its end, some twenty yards or so from the wall. Boulders lay about there, probably rolled from the height of the wall. Some were lodged at the trench, having crushed in the timber cover. The trench had not been taken around these obstacles. My heart was beating rapidly. I emerged from the trench, and waving a piece of white cloth, which on Gor is a truce cloth, as it is on Earth, climbed, slipping, up the rather steep incline toward the base of the walls.
“Ho!” I cried. “Do not fire! I am a friend. I have come here at great risk! I have a message for Aemilianus from Gnieus Lelius, Regent in Ar! Admit me!”
There was silence from the height of the wall.
There were no posterns here, and the great gate was hundreds of yards away. Too, in such a time, it would surely not be opened for one man.
I waved the white cloth vigorously.
That such a cloth may be used upon Gor as a truce cloth may have a direct historical connection with the similar device on Earth. Certainly many Gorean institutions and practices would seem to have Earth origins. On the other hand, its relationship to the Earth device may be merely a coincidental one, a white cloth, in effect, a blank flag, seeming to be a reasonably natural device to signify neutrality. Blank standards, too, or, more commonly, standards draped with white cloth, sometimes serve similar purposes. There are other devices, too, pertinent to such matters, particularly in formal contexts, such as the symbolic laying aside of arms, but I was certainly not, in this context, about to lay aside any arms.
“Admit me!” I cried.
Was there no one on the wall?
I looked back, toward the trench. I saw no unusual activity there.
Doubtless Klio herself had not penetrated to my plan. As far as she knew I had just been out to make some money on her. Indeed, I had made more than three times her redemption fee on her. I was rather pleased with that. That was nothing to sniff at. In any event, she was probably much too occupied now to take note of my absence. Too, in her new reality, that of slave, it was not up to her to concern herself with, or inquire critically into, the affairs of free men. It was hers now, rather, simply to serve and please such men.
“Ho!” I called, waving the cloth. “Ho!”
There was silence.
“Is there no one there?” I called.
For a wild, irrational moment I wondered if the city might have been deserted. But that would not be possible, of course. The garrison and population could not have withdrawn unnoticed. The land side was invested. The countryside swarmed with Cosians, and their mercenaries and allies. The harbor was closed with ships and rafts. What was more likely, of course, was that there were few men on the walls. What defenders there were would presumably be summoned by alarms to threatened points. I feared my position might be noticed at any moment by Cosians, and that I might be trapped against the wall.
“Is there anyone there?” I called. I assumed that at the distance I could not be heard in the Cosian lines.
Suddenly a basket, on a rope, was flung over the wall and lowered.
I hurried to it. In it lay a golden tarn disk.
“You are mad to come in daylight,” called a voice from above. “Put your food in the basket, quickly, and be gone! Hope that no one has seen you!”
I stepped back a few yards.
I thrust the white cloth in my belt.
There would be no point in climbing the rope as it could be cut or dropped, or, if I were not welcomed at the height of the wall, I could be cut from it there.
“I am Tarl, of Port Kar,” I called, “a city enemy to Cos.”
“Do you have food?” called a man. I could see his face now, in one of the crenels at the height of the wall, some eighty feet above the embankment at the foot of the wall. It was gaunt, and hard.
“I come from Gnieus Lelius, regent in Ar,” I called. “I bear a message for Aemilianus! Admit me!”
I saw part of a crossbow at one of the other crenels. These crenels, like many, were wider on the outside than inside, constituting embrasures. This affords a wider range of fire by missile weapons.
“Do you have food?” called a voice.
“No!” I said.
“Go away!” it said.
The basket, on its rope, maddeningly, drew upward some yards.
“Admit me!” I called. “Look! I have a diplomatic pouch, too, taken from a courier of Artemidorus. It may contain matters of moment! Admit me.”
“It seems you offer us many inducements to admit you,” called a fellow.
“Admit me!” I cried, urgently. “Do not fire!” I called out to the fellow with the crossbow.
“Go away!” said one of the voices.
“You would be mad to enter this place,” said another voice.
“He is a spy, who would see behind our walls, who would inquire into our defenses,” said another.
“No!” I said. “Blindfold me, if you will. Take me to Aemilianus!”
“You have been seen,” said another fellow, the voice drifting down to me. I saw his hand, pointing out, toward the Cosian lines.
I turned about. I could see one or two fellows standing at the height of the trench.
“Your friends call to you,” said a voice. “Make it back to them, if you can.” I saw the crossbow move. Then, in another crenel, I saw another.
“Do not fire!” I called.
“Spy!” called one of the fellows.
“No!” I said.
“If you were not of Cos, you could not have come through their lines,” he called.
“No!” I said.
“How came you through the lines?” called another.
“By trickery,” I said.
I heard laughter, unpleasant laughter.
“Admit me!”
“Return to your friends,” laughed another fellow.
“I am of Port Kar!” I cried. “I am a courier for Gnieus Lelius. Summon Aemilianus, if no other can admit me!”
“Your friends are in the trench,” called a fellow. “They come to support you! Perhaps you can make it to the trench. Run!”
I made no move to approach the trench. I looked back. To be sure, there seemed to be movement in the trench. I could see it here and there, from the embankment, in the openings between the wooden coverings.
“Admit me!” I cried. Then I raced, suddenly, to the foot of the wall. Two quarrels struck into the embankment where I had stood.
“Admit me!” I cried upward, from the fo
ot of the wall. It would be hard to be struck from the wall in such a place.
“If you are a friend, show yourself,” called a fellow.
“Come out where we can see you, friend,” called another voice, enticingly.
A quarrel then, suddenly, from the direction of the sapping trench chipped the wall, beside my head.
“They are firing on him!” said someone, from above.
Even before he had spoken two answering quarrels from the wall had leaped toward the trench, one skittering off one of the boulders there, then bounding oddly away, end over end, to the right, another passing half through some of the planking spread over the trench.
I heard the basket, scraping against the wall, dropping down, on the rope.
I saw a fellow rise up, in the trench, his bow leveled. I moved, faster, then slower, laterally, watching him, toward the rope. His bolt struck the wall, flashing against it, ahead of me. He had overled his shot. I then had my hands on the rope, above the basket. I swung wildly, kicking away from the wall, and was then, for a moment, half climbing, half being drawn upward. “Fire!” I heard from the trench. Two more quarrels struck near me. “Fire!” I heard from above. I continued upward, sometimes climbing hand over hand, feverishly, as I could, the rope momentarily arrested, at other times then, the rope moving rapidly upward, doing little more than clinging to it, sometimes, again, both climbing and being drawn upward. I swung as I could, too, and kicked away from the wall, that the target of the men in the trench would move in more than one plane. More quarrels struck about me, bursting chips from the wall, some striking me like stinging pebbles, then, at last, after a seemingly endless ascent, hands burning and raw, I was at the height of the wall, some eighty feet above the embankment, and hands reached out, seized me, and pulled me inward, through a crenel.
“My thanks!” I gasped.
I was flung to my stomach on the walkway behind the parapet. Hands held me down. My weapons and pouch were removed.
“Strip him and chain him,” said a voice.
In a moment, lying on my stomach, on the walkway behind the parapet, I was stripped and chained, my hands manacled behind me, a chain running from the manacles down to join another chain, one strung between the shackles on my ankles.
Renegades of Gor Page 21
