Rogue of Gor

by John Norman

  "They are not permitted them," I admitted.

  "I hate female slaves," she said.

  I shrugged.

  "Why are they preferred over free women?" she asked.

  "Because they are slaves," I said.

  "What are the differences?" she asked.

  "There are thousands," I said. "Perhaps, most simply, the female slave is submitted to men. This makes her the most total of women."

  "Disgusting," she said.

  "Perhaps," I said.

  "No man could ever break my will," she said.

  "That is the sort of thing which is usually said by a woman who is yearning for her will to be broken, by a strong man," I said.

  "I hate female slaves," she said.

  I did not speak.

  "Do you think I would make a good female slave?" she asked.

  "I think you would make an excellent little slave," I said.

  "Stay with me tonight," she said.

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Break my will," she said. "Make me a slave."

  "You are a woman of Earth," I told her.

  "I see," she said. "I am too fine, and different."

  "Of course," I told her. "Do you need to be told that?"

  "No!" she said. "I know it!"

  "Very well," I said, angrily.

  "Stay with me tonight," she begged. "Make me your slave!"

  I looked at her.

  "My will, broken, will lie before you as yielding, as supine and vanquished, as my body," she said. "I beg of you, Jason, make me your slave!"

  "I am going to the paga tavern," I said.

  "I hate you!" she cried.

  I turned away from her then and began to make my way toward the house. She, after a moment, running in her sandals, followed me.

  "Jason," she said, "wait! Wait for me!"

  But I did not wait.

  * * * *

  I opened the door and looked within. Then I stepped back, and indicated that she should precede me into the house.

  "I expected to heel you into the house," she said.

  "You are a free woman," I said. "You will enter first."

  She looked at me, warily. "What is to be done with me inside?" she asked.

  "You are a woman of Earth," I reminded her. "Nothing."

  "Where is the topaz?" she asked.

  "What topaz?" I asked.

  She cried out in anger, and then entered the house. She would enter first, for she was a free woman.

  19

  Glyco, of Port Cos;

  I Obtain a Silver Tarsk;

  He Seeks Callimachus

  "Stop, Thief!" cried the portly fellow, his robes swirling.

  Darting away from him was a small, quick fellow, clutching in his hand a bulging purse, its strap slashed. In the small fellow's right hand there was clutched a dagger. Men stood aside to let the thief run by them.

  "Stop him!" cried the portly fellow, stumbling, puffing, trying to pursue the running man.

  I watched, a bale of rep fiber on my shoulder, near the rep wharf.

  As the running man approached me I lowered the bale of rep fiber and, as he came within feet of me, suddenly slid it before him. He struck the bale and stumbled over it, rolling on the boards. Instantly I was upon him. He slashed at me, on his back, with the knife and I seized his wrist with both hands and yanked him to his feet. He dropped the purse. I spun him about twice by the wrist and then, with this momentum, hurled him into a tower of nail barrels on the side. They cascaded down. I jerked him back, groggy. He was bloody. There were splinters in his tunic and face. I then, with two hands, broke his wrist and kicked the fallen knife to the side. I then turned him about to face me. He looked at me wildly, clutching his wrist. A bone fragment was jutting through it. I then kicked him squarely and he threw back his head, screaming with pain. I then turned him about again and, holding him by the back of the neck, ran him to the edge of the wharf where, seizing his ankle, and holding his neck, I upended him into the water below. He struck out toward the shore, then clambered toward it, getting his feet under him. He screamed twice more. When he stood in about a foot of water, among pilings, near the next wharf, he struck down madly at his legs with his left hand, striking two dock eels from his calf. Then, painfully, he moved himself up the sand, staggering, holding his legs widely apart.

  "Where are the guardsmen, to apprehend him?" puffed the portly fellow, who wore the caste colors of the merchants, white and gold.

  "There are no guardsmen in Victoria," I said.

  "Two copper tarsks, one to each of you," said the merchant to two dock workers who stood nearby, "to apprehend and bind that fellow!"

  Swiftly the two dock workers set out after the thief.

  Though men stood about none had attempted to steal the purse of the merchant, which lay nearby. Most of those of Victoria are honest fellows.

  One of them handed the purse back to the merchant, who thanked him.

  "What is your name, Fellow?" asked the merchant of me.

  "Jason," I said.

  "Of Victoria?" asked the merchant.

  "It is here that I am now," I said.

  He smiled. Drifters among the river towns are not uncommon. They come from all over Gor. "You have had difficulties with guardsmen?" he asked.

  "I had some difficulties with guardsmen in Tancred's Landing and Fina," I admitted.

  "I am Glyco," said he, "of the Merchants, of Port Cos. You are a bold fellow. I am grateful for your aid."

  "It is nothing," I said.

  Whining, the thief was dragged before us by the two dock workers. He was still in great pain. He could scarcely stand. The dock workers had torn off his clothes and, ripping his tunic, had made a rope of twisted cloth, with which they had bound his hands behind his back. They also had him on a short neck leash, also fashioned of twisted cloth, from his tunic. His right hand was bleeding, and his left leg, in two places. The leg seemed gouged. The dock eels, black, about four feet long, are tenacious creatures. They had not relinquished their hold on the flesh in their jaws when they had been forcibly struck away from the leg, back into the water. The thief shrank back from me. The dock workers threw him to his knees before the merchant.

  The merchant turned to me. He handed me a silver tarsk from the purse.

  "You need give me nothing," I said. "It was not important."

  "Take, if you will," said he, "as a token of my gratitude, this silver tarsk."

  I took it. "Thank you," I said. Several of the men about, striking their shoulders in the Gorean fashion, applauded the merchant. He had been very generous. A silver tarsk is, to most Goreans, a coin of considerable value. In most exchanges it is valued at a hundred copper tarsks, each of which is valued, commonly, at some ten to twenty tarsk bits. Ten silver tarsks, usually, is regarded as the equivalent of one gold piece, of one of the high cities. To be sure, there is little standardization in these matters, for much depends on the actual weights of the coins and the quantities of precious metals, certified by the municipal stamps, contained in the coins. Sometimes, too, coins are split or shaved. Further, the debasing of coinage is not unknown. Scales, and rumors, it seems, are often used by coin merchants. One of the central coins on Gor is the golden tarn disk of Ar, against which many cities standardize their own gold piece. Other generally respected coins tend to be the silver tarsk of Tharna, the golden tarn disk of Ko-ro-ba, and the golden tarn of Port Kar, the latter particularly on the western Vosk, in the Tamber Gulf region, and a few hundred pasangs north and south of the Vosk's delta.

  The merchant then looked at the thief. "I will have him taken to Port Cos," he said, "where there are praetors."

  "Please, Master," said the thief, "do not deliver me to praetors!"

  "Are you so fond of your hands?" asked the merchant. I noted that the thief's left ear had already been notched. That had doubtless been done elsewhere than in Victoria.

  "Please, Master, have mercy on me," begged the thief.

  "He has had
a rather hard day already," I said, putting in a word on the thief's behalf.

  "Let us then just slit his throat now," said a fellow standing nearby.

  The thief squirmed. "No," he begged. "No!"

  "What do you suggest?" asked the merchant of me.

  "Give him to me," I said.

  "No, please, Master!" whined the thief to the merchant.

  "He is yours," said the merchant.

  I yanked the fellow by the neck leash of twisted cloth to his feet. I thrust the silver tarsk into his mouth, so that he could not speak. "Seek a physician," I told him. "Have your wrist attended to. It appears to be broken. Do not be in Victoria by morning." I then turned him about and, hurrying him with a well-placed kick, sent him running, awkwardly, painfully, whimpering and stumbling, from the dock.

  "Surely you are a guardsman," said the merchant.

  "No," I said.

  The men gathered about watched the thief hurrying, bound, away. There was laughter.

  "You are magnanimous," said the merchant.

  "He was not a woman," I said. "Too, it was not my purse he stole."

  The merchant laughed.

  I looked after the fleeing fellow, now disappearing between warehouses. I did not think honest folk in Victoria would again find him troublesome.

  "One thing more, Fellow," said the merchant. "I am in Victoria on business. I seek one once of Port Cos, a warrior, one whose name is Callimachus."

  I was startled to hear this name, for it was the name of he who had saved me, some weeks ago, from the steel of Kliomenes, the pirate.

  "At night," said I, "he often drinks at the tavern of Tasdron. You might find him there, I think."

  "My thanks, Fellow," said the merchant, and, smiling, turned about and made his way back among the boxes and bales on the crowded wharf.

  "Have you no work to do this day," asked the man in whose fee I was that afternoon.

  "That I have, Sir," I grinned, and turned again to my labors.

  20

  The Tavern of Hibron;

  I Return Home Alone

  "Stand back," said the pirate.

  Two blades, his, and that of a companion, were leveled at my breast.

  "Beverly!" I said. My hand, palm sweating, was poised over the hilt of my sword.

  "Make no unfortunate move," said the pirate, he who had spoken to me before.

  "Who is that fellow?" asked Beverly, airily. She knelt, in the position of the free woman behind the small table.

  "Come home with me now," I said. "I have sought for you long." Returning from the wharves to the house I had not found her on the premises. There had been no sign of forced entry or struggle. Anxious, I had begun to search the public places of Victoria. Then, after two Ahn of searching, I had found her here, near the wharves, unattended, in the tavern of Hibron, a miserable tavern, a low place, called the Pirate's Chain.

  "I do not wish to come home with you now," she said, lightly, a bit of Ka-la-na spilling from the silver goblet she held. At a gesture from Kliomenes, who sat, cross-legged, beside her, a half-naked paga slave, whose left ankle was belled, refilled Miss Henderson's cup.

  "Come home with me," I said, "you little fool." I felt the points of the two swords, through my tunic, against my flesh.

  "If you may pleasure yourself in taverns," she said, "surely so, too, may I."

  "Free women," I said, "do not come here. It is too close to the wharves. It is dangerous. This is Gor."

  "I am not afraid," she laughed.

  "You do not know the danger in which you stand," I said to her.

  "May I introduce my new friend," she said, "Kliomenes, a river captain."

  "Surely you remember him well," I said. "It was he, and his men, who captured you from Oneander when you were a slave, and sold you."

  "Perhaps that was a mistake," said Kliomenes. He grinned at her. She had thrust back the hood of her robes and unpinned her veil. Her face was bared; her hair, darkly brown and silken, cascaded down about her shoulders. These things were not unnoted by the men in the tavern. There was probably not a man there but was wondering how she would look stripped and in a collar.

  "That you captured me?" she asked, puzzled.

  "No," said he, "that I sold you."

  She laughed merrily, and shoved at him, playfully. "Do not insult a free woman, Sleen," she laughed.

  There was much laughter, but there was an undercurrent of menace in the laughter which, I think, the girl did not recognize.

  "But that sort of thing is behind me now," she said to me, throwing back her head and quaffing deeply of the ruby-red Ka-la-na in her cup. She again looked at me. "Kliomenes is a merchant," she told me. "I am now a free woman. We are met now on different terms. We meet now as equals. He is really a nice man, and my friend."

  "Come with me now," I said to her. "Come home with me, now."

  "I do not wish to do so," she said.

  Kliomenes again gestured to the half-naked slave, with the belled ankle, that she refill the girl's cup. The slave did so, deferentially, smiling. Her hair had been cut short. There was a steel collar on her neck.

  "Come home with me, now," I said to the girl.

  "Kliomenes is buying me a drink," she said. "He is a gentleman, and a true man."

  "I did not know she was yours," said Kliomenes, amused. "That is delightful."

  "I am not his!" said the girl. "I am a free woman!"

  "Are you his companion?" asked Kliomenes.

  "No!" she said.

  "Is she your wench slave?" asked Kliomenes.

  "No," I said, angrily.

  "I share his quarters," she said, angrily. "We are not even friends."

  "Are you concerned for her?" asked Kliomenes, amused.

  "I wish her to return home with me now," I said.

  "But she does not wish to do so," he smiled. "Do you wish to go with him now?" he asked.

  "No," she said, snuggling against him.

  "You see?" asked Kliomenes.

  "I am a free woman, in all respects," she said, "and may, and will, do precisely as I please."

  "You have heard the lady," said Kliomenes, putting his arm about her shoulders.

  "Kliomenes, meet Jason," she said. "Jason, meet Kliomenes."

  Kliomenes inclined his head, amused.

  "We have met," I said. I remembered the tavern of Tasdron. I would presumably have been slain there had it not been for the intervention of the derelict, Callimachus, once a warrior of Port Cos.

  "Begone, Buffoon," said Kliomenes, not pleasantly. I felt again the points of the swords of the two pirates at my chest.

  "Begone, Buffoon," laughed the girl.

  "Have no fear," grinned Kliomenes. "I will see that she is taken care of properly." There was laughter in the tavern.

  "Begone, Buffoon!" laughed the girl.

  "Unless," said Kliomenes, rising to his feet, "you care to meet me with steel."

  My hand, wet with sweat, fingers moving against one another, opened and shut at the hilt of the sword I wore.

  Kliomenes looked at me, grinning.

  "Please, Master," said Hibron, the proprietor of that low tavern, "I do not wish trouble. Please, Master!"

  I turned about, angrily, and strode from the tavern. There were tears of fury, of helpless rage, in my eyes. I knew myself no match for Kliomenes, or the others. I did not even know the first uses of the steel which I wore at my hip. As I left the tavern I heard the laughter of Kliomenes and his men behind me, and the laughter, too, of the girl.

  Outside the tavern I paused, fists clenched. I heard Kliomenes, within, call out. "More wine for the Lady Beverly, the free woman!" There was laughter. "Yes, Master," I heard the slave with the wine vessel say, and heard the sensuous ring of the bells locked on her ankle as she hastened to comply.

  I then returned home. I waited late for the return of Beverly. In the morning I went as usual to the hiring yard. When I returned home that night she had still not arrived, nor, again, by the next mor
ning.

  21

  I Hear the Ringing of an Alarm Bar;

  I am not Accompanied to the Wharves

  "Forget her, Master," whispered Peggy. She lifted her head from the furs, and kissed me. There was a tiny rustle of chain and collar. She was fastened by the neck to a ring at the back of the alcove. It had pleased me to so secure her this evening.

  "I have," I said.

  Peggy laughed. "I am a slave," she said, "but do not think we are stupid."

  "I have never thought that," I smiled.

  I supposed there were stupid slaves, but I did not think them abundant. Most female slaves I had encountered on Gor, whether natively Gorean or of Earth origin, had impressed me as being sensitive and intelligent, as well as feminine and beautiful. And, too, in time, as the slave fires began to burn in their bellies, they became helplessly, needfully, passionate. I think that I have already, earlier, given some general indications as to the sort of criteria apparently used by Gorean slavers in, as it is sometimes said, harvesting from the slave fields of Earth. Another saying pertinent in these matters, which is occasionally heard, is "picking fruit from the slave orchards of Earth." Certainly many women of Earth, fallen to the slave noose or net, seem to have been taken as easily as one might consider, select and pick excellent fruit, luscious fruit, simply waiting to be picked, from the sweet, fragrant branches of an unguarded orchard. One might mention in passing that some Goreans find it difficult to believe that the Earth girls brought to Gor were not already collared on Earth. How could such a woman, so feminine and beautiful, not have been a slave? Surely the men of Earth are not such fools as to allow such desirability out of their collars? Do they not wish to own them? And if they do wish to own them, why do they not do so? A second reason has to do with the readiness of the Earth girl for bondage, and her gratitude for the collar. At last she is provided for, and protected, and comforted, and loved. At last she can be in the arms of a true man. She loves what she is, and her master. Choiceless, she obeys and strives to please. She is sexually and psychologically fulfilled in ways unthinkable on her more artificial world. She is owned, and dominated, and treasured. She is subject to the whip and chains, and loves it. She knows that she has value, and is admired by men, and even lusted for, and that she is envied, and even hated, by free women. She thrives in the culture. She can now be a true woman as she now has, at last, a true master. The third reason is a more Gorean reason; it is that many, perhaps most, slave raids, as opposed to major attacks on cities, have as their principal object not the acquisition of free women, who are commonly well protected, but rather of slaves. Thus, some Goreans, denied what is called "the second knowledge," who do not realize that Earth is a different planet, but think of it rather as simply some remote district, suppose that "girls from Earth" are simply slave booty similar to that obtained in other far places, all on their own world. Gorean, for example, is not spoken on all parts of Gor. On the other hand, as Earth women in Gorean markets have become more familiar and numerous, most Goreans have come to accept that their origin is a different world. Certainly Earth women are seldom whipped today for lying about their antecedents, which, I fear, may have been too frequently the case in the past. How they have come to Gor, of course, remains largely mysterious to most Goreans, and often, at least in detail, to the girls themselves. Some Goreans, interestingly, but understandably enough, unaware of the absence of an adequate atmosphere between worlds, as were most intellectuals of Earth for centuries, as well, suppose simply, and naturally enough, that these new crops of slave beasts have been brought in lashed in tarn baskets, or chained to saddle rings, or perhaps strapped naked, supine and arched, across saddles, before the bold raiders who have taken them. That is often the way slaves are transported between camps and cities. Between geographical points, of course, long coffles, sometimes pasangs in length, are not uncommon. In these the girls are usually marched naked, in single file, chained together by the neck, under the surveillance of armed guards. Dalliance is discouraged by means of long-bladed whips and the prodding and striking of reversed lances. After such a journey, a destination of slave pens and auction blocks is joyously welcomed. Will each woman, sooner or later, in one sale or another, passing through various hands, sometimes many, find the master of her dreams? It is not known.