"'I have heard of you,'" translated the light-skinned lad. "'It is well known on the plains that there is one among the Kaiila whose name is Cuwignaka, Woman's Dress, who has no quarrel with the Fleer.'"
Cuwignaka, standing, his arms folded, regarded the Fleer warrior. He said nothing.
"It is because of you," said the Fleer warrior, "that we came to Council Rock."
Cuwignaka looked puzzled.
"Do you know," asked the Fleer warrior, "why we came to Council Rock, and, because of us, the Sleen came?"
"No," said Cuwignaka. The Fleer and Sleen are allies.
"Because," laughed the warrior, "we have no quarrel with Cuwignaka!"
He then turned his kaiila about, by its jaw rope, and rode away.
"There will be peace, I think," I said, "between the Kaiila, and the Fleer and Sleen."
"No," said Canka, standing nearby, "I do not think so. It is only, rather, that it was a noble warrior's gesture."
"I did not think they were capable of such," said a man.
"Of course they are," said Hci, with us. "They are fine enemies."
"Canka does not think there will be peace," I said.
"Let us hope not," said Hci.
"I do not understand," I said.
"Ah, Tatankasa, Mitakola," said Hci, "I fear you will never understand us, or folk such as the Fleer or Sleen."
"Perhaps not," I said.
"War is part of our life," he said. "It is what makes us what we are. I do not think the Kaiila could be the Kaiila without the Fleer, or the Fleer the Fleer, without the Kaiila."
"Good friends are priceless," said a man. "So, too, are fine enemies."
"Great enemies," said a man, "make great peoples."
"Do not be concerned, Mitakola," said Cuwignaka. "I do not think I understand them either. They are my people, and I love them, but I, too, may never understand them."
I watched the Fleer riding away. "That is reassuring," I said.
"You are now a warrior, my friend," said Hci to Cuwignaka. "What name will you take? Have you chosen one?"
"Will you take again your old name?" asked Canka. "Petuste?" 'Petuste', in Kaiila, means "Fire-Brand."
"No," said Cuwignaka. "And I have chosen my name."
"What will it be?" asked Hci.
"Cuwignaka," smiled Cuwignaka.
Hci smiled. "You have made it a warrior's name," he said. "Others, too, might now take it as such."
"What of you, Hci, my friend?" asked Cuwignaka. "Long ago you were known as Ihdazicaka. Will you take again that name?" 'Ihdazicaka', in Kaiila, means "One-Who-Counts-Himself-Rich."
"No," smiled Hci. "Now, although I feel I am one who may truly account himself rich, I shall keep the name Hci. It is a name of which I have become proud. In the time that I have worn that name I have taken my highest coups. More importantly, in the time that I have worn that name, I have, for the first time in my life, found friends."
Canka, Cuwignaka and Hci clasped hands.
A few hundred feet away, I saw some Dust Legs, a party of them, returning to their own country.
Among them, stripped naked, his hands tied behind him, riding backwards on a kaiila, his ankles bound together on a long strap, it running between them under the belly of the kaiila, rode the officer who had won the draw. He was a blond, slim young man. He had been the youngest of the officers. At the edge of the Ihanke, when it was reached, some weeks from now, he would be tied and beaten with switches, as though he might be a slave girl. Then, still stripped, and his hands tied then behind him, he would be released, to make his way as he could to Kailiauk, that white settlement closest to the Ihanke.
I saw a white slave girl staggering past, bent over. She was stripped. She carried a great bundle of sticks, tied together, on her back. She was pretty. The sticks would doubtless serve as fuel. She was doubtless on her way to the lodge of her master.
The Yellow Knives had been defeated ten days ago.
We were now in a great victory camp, near water, within sight of Council Rock, some seven or eight pasangs in the distance. In this camp there were Fleer, Sleen, Dust Legs, and Kaiila. There had been dances and feasts. There had been much loot to divide, taken from Yellow-Knife encampments, and there had been much exchanging of gifts, even between hereditary, inveterate enemies such as the Fleer and Kaiila. Women, too, even free women, of these peoples, of those bands within trekking distance, had journeyed to the encampment. Such times of celebration, of festivals and peace, particularly among diverse tribes, are rare and precious. This was now Wayuksapiwi, in the calendar of the Dust Legs, the Corn-Harvest Moon, or, as it is spoken of in the reckoning of the Kaiila, Canwapekasnawi, the moon when the wind shakes off the leaves.
Only too clearly did the browning grass and the cool winds presage the turning of the seasons, and the advent of the gray skies and long nights of the bitter moons, Waniyetuwi, called the Winter Moon; Wanicokanwi, called the Mid-Winter Moon; Witehi, the Hard Moon; and Wicatawi, the Urt Moon. The vernal equinox occurs in Istawicayazanwi, the Sore-Eye Moon. Grunt and I had originally come to the Barrens, it now seemed long ago, in Magaksicaagliwi, the Moon of the Returning Gants. Already various groups, in small numbers, had begun to withdraw from the victory camp.
I, too, I thought, must soon be on my way. I must soon take my leave of the Barrens. I must begin the long journey back to the Ihanke, and thence to the Thentis Mountains, and the Vosk, and the Tamber Gulf and Port Kar.
I turned my steps toward my lodge, that which I shared with Cuwignaka, and his slave, Cespu, and with she who was now my own slave, she to whom I now held full legal title, lovely, obedient blond Mira. Cuwignaka had wished to give her to me but I had insisted on paying five hides for her. Grinning, he had accepted. She was a slave. Why should she not be bought and sold? She was now mine, totally.
I stopped before a quartet of stripped, kneeling white slaves, neck tethered, with their hands bound behind their back. They were the four girls who had been taken from Grunt long ago by Yellow Knives, near the scene of the massacre of the wagon train, and the battle between the soldiers and the coalition of red savages, Lois, Inez, Corinne and Priscilla. They had been returned to Grunt after the defeat of the Yellow Knives, as a part of his portion of the booty. I examined them. They were lovely flesh loot. Priscilla bore a mark in black paint on her left breast. She had been sold for four hides to Akihoka, a friend of Canka, and also a member of the All Comrades. Corinne, the French girl, also bore a mark in black paint on her left breast, a different mark. Grunt had sold her to Keglezela, another of Canka's friends, also for four hides. Keglezela was also a member of the All Comrades. Neither Akihoka nor Keglezela had yet taken delivery on the women.
Lois and Inez had not been sold. They would serve as burden bearers for Grunt, on his way back to the Dust-Leg country. Then, if he had not sold them in the meantime, presumably they would accompany him back to Kailiauk in the spring, whence, after selling his goods and making his profits, and restocking his stores, he would presumably return once more, trading, to the Barrens, this time presumably in the company of the light-skinned young man he had met amongst the Dust Legs but weeks ago, his son.
I pulled Lois' head up by the hair. "You gave the alarm," I said, "when I, and two friends, stole tarns from Kinyanpi at a Yellow-Knife camp."
She shuddered with terror, held.
"Did you know that it was I with them?" I asked. "Did you recognize me?"
She trembled. "Yes, Master," she whispered, terrified.
"You did well," I said.
She looked at me, startled.
"What are you?" I asked.
"A slave," she said, frightened.
"What sort of slave?" I said.
"A female—a female slave!" she said.
"Yes?" I said.
"A girl," she said, "a girl slave!"
I continued to regard her.
"A slave girl," she whispered. "I am a slave girl. I am a slave girl!"
"And it is appro
priate, is it not," I said, "that a slave girl well serves her masters."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"And see," said I, "that you serve your new masters even better."
"Yes, Master," she said.
I then released her, and turned about. Inez's neck, too, I had noted, looked well in its leather bond.
Women look well on their knees, as slaves.
It is little wonder that Goreans make them slaves, and keep them as such.
What honest man does not desire a slave?
And Goreans will have them.
Others, too, there were, whose fate I had learned, Max and Kyle Hobart, and the two former Earth girls, Ginger and Evelyn, who had been slaves in Kailiauk. The Hobarts, with men, had pursued Grunt into the Barrens. Dust Legs, friends of Grunt, had attacked them. Grunt, retracing his steps, had located the scene of the attack. There he had found them, the only survivors, stripped and put in leg stretchers, as though they might be slave girls, lying in the grass, awaiting his attentions. He had not killed them. He had chained them in his coffle. They, though strong men, had been forbidden to so much as touch any of the scantily clad beauties who, neck-chained, as they, preceded them in the coffle.
Near the field of the massacre and near the place where the soldiers and red savages had fought they, with two girls, Ginger and Evelyn, whom they had muchly desired, as long ago as Kailiauk, were taken from Grunt by Sleen warriors. This was done at the same time as Yellow Knives had been appropriating Lois and three others of her sisters in bondage, Priscilla, Corinne and Inez. The Sleen had taken the Hobarts to serve as boys, performing lowly tasks and doing such things as watching kaiila. The girls they had taken for the common purposes for which luscious white females are employed by red masters.
During their time with the Sleen apparently Max and Kyle Hobart, unable to help themselves any longer, and finding the girls staked out, naked, in a desolate place, presumably as punishment, perhaps for some minor infraction, or some supposed lack of total pleasingness, had raped them. Shortly after this the slaves had begun to meet. These meetings were typical of the clandestine trysts of slaves. They took place in the shadows, behind lodges and at places marked in the high grass, where they might lie in one another's arms, if only fearfully and briefly, fearing the step of a master, the shadow of a whip.
It was in these days, and in these meetings, so different from the alcoves of Kailiauk, that the girls learned that they were the slaves of the Hobarts and the Hobarts learned to their joy that they, though themselves collared, owned slaves. The relationship of the Hobarts and the girls, I am sure, had not escaped the attention of the Sleen. I think it quite likely that the Sleen, in their kindness, and recognizing the need of strong men, such as the Hobarts, for women, had taken this fashion of rewarding them for good service. I am sure that it was no accident that the Hobarts had been sent on an errand near the place where the two beauties had been staked out. Similarly, there is little, I suspect, which transpires between slaves which is not known to masters. It is usually only a question as to whether the masters wish to take action or not. This hypothesis is further confirmed by the fact that the Sleen, in trading with Grunt, Grunt making use of booties acquired from the Yellow Knives, offered him, in effect, the package containing both the Hobarts and their lovers.
The Hobarts, with whom I later discussed these things, now share my suspicions in this matter. Grunt, incidentally, has freed the Hobarts, and put them temporarily in his employ. They will accompany him to the country of the Dust Legs, helping him in the transportation of goods to that point, and will then, before the winter, continue on to Kailiauk, there to arrange buyers for Grunt's hides, to be delivered in the spring. They will then, presumably, return to their ranch, outside of Kailiauk. In payment for these services each will receive a female slave.
I saw two lovers riding by, the woman behind the man, on his kaiila. Their names were Witantanka and Akamda.
"Master!" cried a slave girl, desisting for the moment from following her master, and kneeling swiftly before me, and kissing my feet.
"Greetings, Oiputake," I said.
She looked up at me. "I thank you," she said, "for the most precious gift a man can give a woman."
"What is that?" I asked.
"Herself," she said.
"It is nothing," I said.
"Howo, Oiputake," called her red master, turning about. He was Wapike, "One-Who-Is-Fortunate," of the Isanna.
"Ho, Itancanka!" she cried, springing to her feet, joyfully, and running to follow him.
Two hunters I saw returning, friends; one was Cotanka, "Love Flute," of the Wismahi, and the other was Wayuhahaka, "One-Who-Possesses-Much," who had elected to remain with the Isbu. Once he had been Squash, a lad of the Waniyanpi. Across the back of the kaiila, before the lad, lay a tabuk. I was reminded that the Kaiila, in spite of the stores acquired from the Yellow Knives, much of which had been their own, from the summer camp, must still do hunting for the winter.
Hurrying at the flank of Cotanka's kaiila, welcoming him back to camp, was a blonde, barefoot, collared and wearing a brief shirtdress. It was she who had functioned, in effect, as a "lure girl" in one of the actions at the summer camp. She now belonged to him. A thousandfold and more, doubtless, had Cotanka seen that she had repaid him for her part in the duplicity which had endangered him before permitting her to lapse into the stringencies of a more common slavery, that of the absolute and uncompromising bondage in which female slaves are typically, and without a second thought, held on Gor.
The hunters and the slave were met at the entrance to Wayuhahaka's lodge by another slave, a blond, barefoot girl in a brief, tightly-belted tunic of Waniyanpi cloth. She greeted her master radiantly. She lowered her head and knelt, crossing her arms over her breast. This, in effect, was a mixture of sign and Gorean convention. Crossing the arms over the breast indicates love in sign. That she had done this kneeling and lowering her head, then, signified submission, love, and that she was a slave. She sprang to her feet at a command from Wayuhahaka. The name 'Strawberry' was still being kept upon her. This seemed a suitable name for a slave. The tabuk was then slid from the back of the kaiila into the girls' arms. They staggered under its weight as it was, for such a beast, a large one. While the women worked the men would sit before the entrance to the lodge and talk.
"Wasnapohdi!" I called, seeing her passing by, a roll of kailiauk hide on her shoulder.
She, delighted, ran to me and knelt before me.
"Are you pleased with your new master?" I asked.
"Oh," she cried, breathlessly, rapturously, "he is my master! He is my master! For years, in my heart, I have known I belonged to him! Now, at last, I am his legal slave! He is so strong with me, and perfect! I am so happy!"
Her new master was a lad of the Napoktan, some two years her senior, Waiyeyeca, "One-Who-Finds-Much," who, long ago, had once owned her when they were both children. He was now a fine young warrior and she a needful, curvaceous slave. One who found Wasnapohdi in his arms, I thought to myself, would indeed be one who had found much.
"I was so fearful that he would not buy me," she said. "I was fearfully overpriced by Grunt, my former master!"
"What did you bring?" I asked. I already knew, of course.
"Four hides of the yellow kailiauk!" she said.
I whistled, softly, as though astonished.
"Can you believe it?" she asked.
"I think so," I said. "You are, after all, a property not without certain charms."
"And Grunt, my master, would not even bargain," she said. "The price was put on me as a fixed price."
"I see," I said. This was unusual in the Barrens, and unusual, too, even in the cities.
"And I," she said, "only a white female and a slave!"
"Grunt is a shrewd trader," I said. "Doubtless he was sure of his buyer."
"My master was not pleased to pay so much," she said. "When he took me to his lodge he was angry and beat me. Then he made length
y love to me, and I was his."
"I see," I said. Grunt had doubtless priced Wasnapohdi as high as he did in order that the young man might never again be tempted to lightly dispose of such a property. Yet I think this precaution was not truly necessary on Grunt's part. I did not think that Waiyeyeca, now having come again into the ownership of his former childhood slave, would ever be likely to let her go again.
"I shall miss my former master, though," said the girl. "Though he was strict with me, as is fitting, for I am a slave, he, too, was very kind to me."
"He saved your life at the summer camp," I said, "putting you on a tether and enforcing slave sanctions upon you, to lead you to safety."
"I know," she said.
"Doubtless, Slave," I said, "you are on an errand. That you not be whipped for dallying I permit you to be on your way."
She put down her head and, tenderly, kissed my feet. Then, with a smile, shouldering again the roll of kailiauk hide she was carrying, she leapt up, and sped on her way. She was going toward the lodge of Waiyeyeca. Something, I supposed, had been exchanged for the hide. Perhaps it would be used to repair one of the skins in Waiyeyeca's lodge. He had a woman now to attend to such matters. He had recently purchased her.
I continued on, then, toward my own lodge.
"Hurry, hurry, lazy slave!" I heard. I heard then the hiss of a switch and a girl, carrying two skins of water, cry out in pain. She was a white female slave. She was naked, collared, red-haired and large-bosomed. She belonged to Mahpiyasapa. One of Mahpiyasapa's wives, with a switch in her gnarled, mutilated hand, the woman with whom I had once spoken outside of his lodge before the attack on the summer camp, was supervising her in her duties.
The large-bosomed, red-haired girl looked at me. My face was expressionless. Then, crying out, she hurried on, struck twice more by the switch. She was now called Natusa. 'Natu' designates corn silk, or the tassel on the maize plant; it can also stand for the hair on the side of the head. These things, of course, are all silky and smooth to the touch. 'Sa' stands for red. The name, accordingly, has no precise translation into either Gorean or English. "Red Silk" will not do as a translation because corn silk, or the hair at the side of the head, is quite different from silk, the cloth. Similarly, the expression "red silk," in Gorean, tends to be used as a category in slaving, and also, outside the slaving context, as an expression in vulgar discourse, indicating that the woman is no longer a virgin, or, as the Goreans say, at least vulgarly of slaves, that her body has been opened by men. Its contrasting term is "white silk," usually used of slaves who are still virgins, or, equivalently, slaves whose bodies have not yet been opened by men. Needless to say, slaves seldom spend a great deal of time in the "white-silk" category. It is common not to dally in initiating a slave into the realities of her condition. The translation "Red Corn Silk," too, does not seem felicitous. The best translation is perhaps "Red Tassel," the tassel being understood as that of the maize plant, prized by the red savages. The connotation in all these cases, with which the red savage, in the fluency and depth with which he understands his own language, is fully cognizant, and to which he responds, is that of something red which is pleasant to feel, something that is soft and smooth to the touch.
Blood Brothers of Gor Page 57
