Mercenaries of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “Who were you?” I asked.

  “Lady Charlotte, of Samnium,” she said.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “A slave, only a slave, yours,” she said.

  “What is your name?” I asked.

  “I have no name,” she said. “I have not yet been given one. My master has not yet given me a name.”

  “Your responses are correct,” I said.

  She sobbed with relief.

  “Do you wish a name?” I asked.

  “It is all within the will of Master,” she said. “I want only what Master wants. I desire only to please.”

  “It will be a convenience for me to have a name for you,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “You are ‘Feiqa,’” I said, naming her.

  “Thank you, Master,” she breathed, elated. ‘Feiqa’ is a lovely name. It is not unknown among dancers in the Tahari. Other such names are ‘Aytul’, ‘Benek’, ‘Emine’, ‘Faize’, ‘Mine’, ‘Yasemine’ and ‘Yasine’. The ‘qa’ in the name ‘Feiqa’, incidentally, is pronounced rather like ‘kah’ in English. I have not spelled it ‘Feikah’ in English because the letter in question, in the Gorean spelling, is a ‘kwah’ and not a ‘kef’. The ‘kwah’ in Gorean, which I think is possibly related, directly or indirectly, to the English ‘q’, does not always have a ‘kwah’ sound. Sometimes it does; sometimes it does not; in the name ‘Feiqa’ it does not. Although this may seem strange to native English speakers, it is certainly not linguistically unprecedented. For example, in Spanish, certainly one of the major languages spoken on Earth, the letter ‘q’ seldom, if ever, has the ‘kwah’ sound. Even in English, of course, the letter ‘q’ itself is not pronounced with a ‘kwah’ sound, but rather with a ‘k’ or ‘c’ sound, as in ‘kue’ or ‘cue’.

  I gathered my shield and weapons from the grass near us, where they lay with my pack. I slung my helmet over my left shoulder. I set my eyes to the southeast, away from the high gray walls of Samnium.

  “Fetch my pack, Feiqa,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said. She would serve as my beast of burden.

  I watched her as she, unaided, struggled with the pack. Then she had it on her back. Her back was bent. “It is heavy, Master,” she said. I did not respond to her. She lowered her head, bearing the pack. The wind moved through the trampled grass. She shivered. It was now late in Se’Kara. Already on Thassa the winds would be chill and the cold waves would be dashing and plunging to the bulwarks and washing the decks with their cold floods. I regarded the girl. In warmer seasons, or warmer areas, one may take one’s time in making the decision as to whether or not a female is to be permitted clothing. Some masters keep their slaves naked for a year or more. The girl is then grateful when, and if, she is permitted clothing, be it only a bit of cloth or some rag or other. In this latitude, however, and in this season, I would have to see to the slave’s garmenture. I looked back at the discarded clothing on the grass. She could take none of that, of course. It was no longer proper for her. It was the clothing of a free woman. That sort of thing was now behind her. I could have her fashion something from a rough blanket perhaps, and find her something to wrap her feet in. Too, I might be able to find her something which might function as a cloak. That she could clutch about her head and shoulders.

  “Do you know how to heel, Feiqa?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she said. She was a Gorean woman, familiar at least superficially with the duties and obligations of slaves. To be sure, as a recently free woman, she might perhaps find herself astounded and horrified at some of the things that would now, even routinely, be required of her. I did not know. Certain things which are not only common knowledge to slaves but even a normal, familiar part of their lives seem to be scarcely suspected by free women. These are the sorts of things about which free women, horrified and scandalized, scarcely believing them, sometimes whisper, fearfully, delightedly, among themselves. Some Earth-girl slaves, brought to Gor, incidentally, do not even know how to heel. Incredibly, they must be taught. They learn quickly, of course, in the collar, and subject to the whip.

  I gazed upon Feiqa, who lowered her head.

  This was not inappropriate.

  “You may look at me,” I said.

  She raised her head, and smiled. “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  Even though Feiqa was Gorean, she would have much to learn about being a slave. It is very different from being a free woman.

  Slave training is offered in the houses of many slavers, and, of course, they often train their own girls to one extent or another before putting them up for sale. Needless to say, training tends to improve a girl’s price, and an extensively trained pleasure slave is likely to go for more than a less extensively trained pleasure slave, and so on. Many masters, of course, like to buy an inexpensive girl and train her to their own tastes and interests. I rather like that. It is pleasant, as you might suppose, to train a woman.

  Feiqa doubtless had much to learn, but I thought her highly intelligent, and expected her to learn quickly.

  In time I thought that she would make an excellent slave, for me, or for anyone else, for anyone, to whomsoever I might give or sell her.

  She was an excellent addition to the slave population of Gor.

  So, too, prove to be many Earth girls.

  I looked back, again, to the walls of Samnium. It had been spared the savageries of the war, doubtless because of its relationship with Cos. I then set out, to the southeast. I did not look back. I was followed by Feiqa.

  2

  There Are Hardships in these Times;

  I “Share a Kettle”

  I looked up from Feiqa, moaning in my arms, clutching at me. I had heard a tiny noise. I thrust her back, and away, she whimpering. I reached to my knife, and stood up, in the darkness. I stood on the lowered circular floor, dug out of the earth, packed down and tiled with stone, behind a part of a wall. It was the remains of a caulked, woven-stick wall. It was now broken and charred. I could see the dark sky, with the moons, over its jagged, serrated edge. Leaves, curled and dark, blew by, and, standing there, I could hear the whisper of other leaves outside. They were blown to and fro, like dry, brittle fugitives, on the small, central commons between the huts. We had made our camp here, in the burnt, roofless, half-fallen ruins of one of the huts. It had given us shelter from the wind. The village had been deserted, perhaps, judging from the absence of crockery, household effects, and furnishings, even before it had been burned. It stood like most Gorean villages at the hub of its wheel of fields, the fields, striplike, spanning out from it like spokes. Most Gorean peasants live in such villages, many of them palisaded, which they leave in the morning to tend their fields, to which they return at night after their day’s labors. The fields about this village, however, and near other villages, too, in this part of the country, were now untended. They were untilled and desolate. Armies had passed here.

  “Is there someone there?” asked a voice, a woman’s voice.

  I did not respond. I listened.

  “Who is there?” she asked. The voice sounded hollow and weak. I heard the whimpering of a child.

  I did not respond.

  “Who is there?” she begged.

  I saw now a figure in the doorway, that of a woman. I did not think she should have framed herself in that fashion. One did not know, of course, if she were alone or not. It is not unprecedented to use a woman to allay suspicion, to reconnoiter, to bring a quarry into view, such things.

  I moved a little in the shadows, slowly, and back, and toward the center of the hut. In moving slowly one tends to convey, on a very basic level, that one is not intending harm; to be sure, even predators like the larl occasionally abuse this form of signaling, for example, in hunting tabuk, using it for purposes of deception; more rapid movement, of course, tends to precipitate defensive reactions. In moving back I had also tended to reassure the figure in the doorway that I meant no harm; this mo
vement, too, of course, had the advantage of ensuring me reaction space; in moving toward the center of the hut I made it possible for her to see me better, this tending, too, one supposes, to allay suspicions; in this way, too, of course, I secured myself weapon space. These things seem to be instinctual, or, at least, to be done with very little conscious thought. They seem very natural. We tend to take them for granted. It is interesting, however, upon occasion, to speculate upon the possible origins of just such familiar and taken-for-granted accommodations and adjustments. It seems possible they have been selected for. At any rate, they, or their analogues, are found throughout the animal kingdom.

  The small figure stood just outside what had once been the threshold of the hut. It had come there naturally, it seemed, as if perhaps by force of habit, or conviction, although the door was no longer there. It seemed forlorn, and weary. It clutched something in its arms.

  “Are you a brigand?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “It is a free woman,” whispered Feiqa, kneeling on the blankets.

  “Cover your nakedness,” I said. Feiqa pulled her tiny, coarse tunic about herself.

  “This is my house,” said the woman.

  “Do you wish us to leave?” I asked.

  “Do you have anything to eat?” she asked.

  “A little,” I said. “Are you hungry?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Perhaps the child is hungry?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “We have plenty.”

  I said nothing.

  “I am a free woman!” she said, suddenly, piteously.

  “We have food,” I said. “We have used your house. Permit us to share it with you.”

  “Oh, I have begged at the wagons,” she said suddenly, sobbing. “It is not a new thing for me! I have begged! I have been on my knees for a crust of bread. I have fought with other women for garbage beside the road.”

  “You shall not beg in your own house,” I said.

  She began to sob, and the small child, bundled in her arms, began to whimper.

  I approached her very slowly, and drew back the edge of the coverlet about the child. Its eyes seemed very large. Its face was dirty.

  “There are hundreds of us,” she said, “following the wagons. In these times only soldiers can live.”

  “The forces of Ar,” I said, “are even now being mustered, to repel the invaders. The soldiers of Cos, and their mercenary contingents, no matter how numerous, will be no match for the marshaled squares of Ar.”

  “My child is hungry,” she said. “What do I care for the banners of Ar or Cos?”

  “Are you companioned?” I asked.

  “I do not know any longer,” she said.

  “Where are the men?” I asked.

  “Gone,” she said. “Fled, driven away, killed. Many were impressed into service. They are gone, all of them are gone.”

  “What happened here?” I asked.

  “Foragers,” she said. “They came for supplies, and men. They took what we had. Then they burned the village.”

  I nodded. I supposed things might not have been much different if the foragers had been soldiers of Ar.

  “Would you like to stay in my house tonight?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Build up the fire,” I said to Feiqa, who was kneeling back in the shadows. She had put her tunic about her. Too, she had pulled up the blanket about her body. As soon as I had spoken she crawled over the flat stones to the ashes of the fire, and began to prod among them, stirring them with a narrow stick, searching for covert vital embers.

  “Surely you are a brigand,” said the woman to me.

  “No,” I said.

  “Then you are a deserter,” she said. “It would be death for you to be found.”

  “No,” I said. “I am not a deserter.”

  “What are you then?” she asked.

  “A traveler,” I said.

  “What is your caste?” she asked.

  “Scarlet is the color of my caste,” I said.

  “I thought it might be,” she said. “Who but such as you can live in these times?”

  I gave her some bread from my pack, from a rep-cloth draw-sack, and a bit of dried meat, paper thin, from its tied leather envelope.

  “There, there,” she crooned to the child, putting bits of bread into its mouth.

  “I have water,” I said, “but no broth, or soup.”

  “The ditches are filled with water,” she said. “Here, here, little one.”

  “Why did you come back?” I asked.

  “I have heard there are more wagons coming, she said. “Perhaps there will be fewer to follow these.”

  “You came back because you wanted to see the village again?” I speculated. “Perhaps you wanted to see if some of the men had returned.”

  “They are gone,” she said.

  “Why did you come back?” I asked.

  “I came to look for roots,” she said, chewing.

  “Did you find any?” I asked.

  She looked at me quickly, narrowly. “No,” she said.

  “Have more bread,” I said, offering it.

  She hesitated.

  “It is a gift, like your hospitality,” I said, “between free persons. Did you not accept it I should be shamed.”

  “You are kind,” she said, “not to make me beg in my own house.”

  “Eat,” I said.

  Feiqa had now succeeded in reviving the fire. It was now a small, sturdy, cheerful blaze. She knelt near it, on her bare knees, in the tiny, coarse tunic, on the flat, sooted, stained stones, tending it.

  “She is collared!” cried the woman, suddenly, looking at Feiqa.

  Feiqa shrank back, her hand inadvertently going to her collar. Too, her thigh now bore a brand, the common kajira mark, high on her left thigh, just under the hip. I had had it put on her two days after leaving the vicinity of Samnium, at the town of Market of Semris, well known for its sales of tarsks. It had been put on in the house of the slaver, Teibar. He brands superbly, and his prices are competitive. No longer could the former Lady Charlotte, once of Samnium, be mistaken for a free woman.

  The free woman looked at Feiqa, aghast.

  “Belly,” I said to Feiqa.

  Immediately Feiqa, trembling, went to her belly on the stained, sooted stones near the fire.

  “I will not have a slave in my house!” said the free woman.

  Feiqa trembled.

  “I know your sort!” cried the free woman. “I see them sometimes with the wagons, sleek, chained and well-fed, while free women starve!”

  “It is natural that such women be cared for,” I said. “They are salable animals, properties. They represent a form of wealth. It is as natural to look after them as it is to look after tharlarion or tarsks.”

  “You will not stay in my house!” cried the free woman to Feiqa. “I will not keep livestock in my house!”

  Feiqa clenched her small fists beside her head. I could see she did not care to hear this sort of thing. In Samnium she had been a rich woman, of a family well known on its Street of Coins. Doubtless many times she would have held herself a thousand times superior to the poor peasant women, coming in from the villages, in their bleached woolen robes, bringing their sacks and baskets of grain and produce to the city’s markets. Her clenched fists indicated that perhaps she did not yet fully understand that all that was now behind her.

  “Animal!” screamed the free woman.

  Feiqa looked up angrily, tears in her eyes, and lifted herself an inch or two from the floor on the palms of her hands. “I was once as free as you!” she said.

  “Oh!” cried Feiqa, suddenly, sobbing, recoiling from my kick, and then “Aii!” she cried, in sharp pain, as, my hand in her hair, she was jerked up to a kneeling position.

  “But no more!” I said. I was furious. I could not believe her insolence.

  “No, Master,” she wept, “no more!”

  I
then, with the back of my hand, and then its palm, first one, and then the other, back and forth, to and fro, again and again, lashed her head from side to side. Then I flung her on her belly before the free woman. The was blood on my hand, and about her mouth and lips.

  “Forgive me!” she begged the free woman. “Forgive me!”

  “Address her as ‘Mistress,’” I said. It is customary for Gorean slaves to address free women as “Mistress” and free men as “Master.”

  “I beg your forgiveness, Mistress!” wept the girl. “Forgive me, please, I beg it of you!”

  “She is new to the collar,” I apologized to the free woman. “I think that perhaps even now she does not yet fully understand its import. Yet I think that perhaps she understands something more of its meaning now than she did a few moments ago. Shall I kill her?”

  Hearing this question Feiqa cried out in fear and shuddered uncontrollably on her belly before the free woman. She then clutched at her ankles and, putting down her head, began to cover her feet with desperate, placatory kisses. “Please forgive the animal!” wept Feiqa. “The animal begs your forgiveness! Please, Mistress! Please, gracious, beautiful, noble Mistress! Forgive Feiqa, please forgive Feiqa, who is only a slave!” I looked down at Feiqa. I think she now understood her collar better than before. I had, for her insolence and unconscionable behavior, literally placed her life in the hands of the free woman. She now understood this sort of thing could be done. Too, she would now understand even more keenly how her life was completely and totally, absolutely, at the mercy of a master. It thus came home to her, I think, fully, perhaps for the first time, what it could be to be a Gorean slave.

  “Are you sorry for what you have done?” asked the free woman.

  “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, Mistress!” wept Feiqa, her head down, doing obeisance to one who was a thousand times, nay, infinitely, her superior, the free woman of the peasants.

  “You may live,” said the free woman.

  “Thank you, Mistress!” wept Feiqa, head down, shuddering and sobbing uncontrollably at the free woman’s feet.