by John Norman
“Your war is lost,” I told her. “It is done.”
She looked upon me in fury. For an instant there were tears in her eyes, bright and hot. I saw that she was a woman. Then again she was Tarna.
“Never!” she cried.
“It is true,” I told her.
“No!” she cried.
We could bear men fighting in the distance, somewhere in the corridors beyond.
“The kasbah has fallen,” I told her. “Ibn Saran is dead. Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars and Suleiman, high Pasha of the Aretai, are already within the walls.”
“I know,” she said, miserably. “I know.”
“You were relieved of your command,” I told her. “You were no longer of use.
Even those men who once served you fight now, decimated, for their lives.” I regarded her. “The kasbah has fallen,” I said.
She looked at me.
“You are alone,” I said. “It is over.”
“I know,” she said. Then she lifted her head, angrily, proudly, “How did you know where to find me?” she asked.
“I am not unfamiliar with the quarters of Tarna,” I said.
“Of course,” she said. She smiled. “And now you have come to take me,” she laughed.
“Yes,” I told her.
“Doubtless for he who brings me in, his rope on my neck, before the noble Pashas Haroun and Suleiman, there will be a high reward,” she said.
“I would suppose that would be the case,” I said.
“Fool!” she said. “Sleen! I am Tarna!” She lifted the scimitar. “I am more than a match for any man!” she cried.
I met her charge. She was not unskillful. I fended her blows. I did not lay the weight of my own steel on hers, that I not tire her arm. I let her strike, and slash, and feint and thrust. Twice she drew back suddenly in fear, almost a wince, or reflex, realizing she had exposed herself to my blade, but I had not struck her.
“You are not a match for a warrior,” I told her. It was true. I had crossed steel with hundreds of men, in practice and in the fierce games of war, who could have finished her, swiftly and with ease, had they chosen to do so.
In fury, again, she attacked.
Again I met her attack, toying with the beauty.
She wept, striking wildly. I was within her guard, the blade at her belly.
She stepped back. Again she fought. This time I moved toward her, letting her feel the weight of the steel, the weight of a man’s arm. Suddenly she found herself backed against a pillar. Her guard was down. She could scarcely lift her arm. My blade was at her breast. I stepped back. She stumbled from the pillar, wild. Again she lifted the scimitar; again she tried to attack. I met her blade, high, forcing it down; she slipped to one knee, looking up, trying to keep the blade away; she wept; she had no leverage, her strength was gone; I thrust her back, and she fell on her back before me on the tiles; my left boot, heavy, was on her right wrist; the small band opened and the scimitar slipped to the tiles; the point of the blade was at her throat.
“Stand up,” I told her.
I broke her scimitar at the hilt and flung it to a corner of the room.
She stood in the center of the room. “Put your rope on my neck,” she said. “You have taken me, Warrior.”
I walked about her, examining her. She stood, angrily, inspected.
With the blade of my scimitar I brushed back the slashed, left leg of her trousers. She had an excellent leg within.
“Please,” she said.
“Remove your boots,” I told her. In fury, she removed them. She then stood, barefoot, on the tiles in the center of the room.
“You will lead me barefoot before the Pashas?” she asked. “Is your vengeance not sweet enough, that you will so degrade me?”
“Are you not my prisoner?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Then I will do with you as I please,” I told her.
“Oh, no!” she wept.
In a moment I told her to kneel. She knelt on the tiles, her head down, her head in her bands. She was stripped completely by my scimitar.
“What have we here?’’ asked Hassan, entering the room. To my interest he had changed his garments. He no longer wore the white of the high Pasha of the Kavars but simpler garments, those which might have befitted Hassan, the outlaw of the Tahari.
“Lift your head Beauty,” said I, gently putting the point of the scimitar beneath her chin, lifting it.
She looked at Hassan, incredibly beautiful, her cheeks stained with tears.
“This is Tarna,” I said.
“So beautiful?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“The capture is yours,” said Hassan. “Put a rope on her neck.
Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars, and Suleiman, high Pasha of the Aretai, are eager to see her.”
I smiled. From within my sash I found a length of prisoner rope. It was coarse rope.
“Doubtless,” said Hassan, “Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars, and Suleiman, high Pasha of the Aretai, will pay a high reward to the man who brings Tarna before them.”
“Doubtless,” I said.
“I have heard them crying out for her,” said Hassan.
I knotted the rope about the beauty’s neck. She was mine.
Hassan looked down upon the stripped, tethered beauty.
“I do not want to die,” she suddenly cried. “I do not want to die!”
She put her head down, in her hands. She wept.
“The punishment for breaking a well,” said Hassan, “is not light.”
Tarna, shuddering, wept, her head to the floor, my rope on her neck.
“Come, Female,” I said. I jerked her head up, by the rope. “We must go to see the Pashas.”
“Is there no escape?” she wept.
“There is no escape for you,” I said. “You have been taken.”
“Yes,” she said, numbly, “I have been taken.”
“Are you thinking, Hassan,” I asked, “what I am? That there might be one hope for her life?”
“Perhaps,” grinned Hassan.
“What?” cried Tama. “What!”
“No,” I said. “It is too horrifying.”
“What!” she cried.
“Forget it,” I said.
“Forget it,” agreed Hassan. “You would never approve. You are too proud, too noble and fine.”
I jerked on the rope, as though to draw Tarna to her feet, in order to lead her to the presence of the Pashas.
“What!” she cried.
“Better torture and impalement on the walls of the kasbah at Nine Wells,” said Hassan.
“What?” wept Tarna.
“It is too horrifying, too terrible, too utterly degrading, too sensual,” I said.
“What?” wept the tethered beauty. “Oh, what?”
“On the lower levels,” said Hassan, “I understand that slave girls are kept.”
“Yes,” said Tarna “for the pleasures of my men.”
“You no longer have men,” I reminded her.
“I see!” cried Tarna. “I might be slipped among them!”
“It is a chance,” admitted Hassan.
“But I am not branded!” wept Tarna.
“That can be arranged,” said Hassan.
She looked at him with horror. “But then,” she said, “I would truly be a slave.”
“I knew you would not approve,” said Hassan.
I jerked at the rope on the beauty’s neck. Her chin was pulled up. The knot was under her jaw on the right, turning her head to the left. “No,” she said. “No!”
We looked at her.
“Make Me a slave,” she whispered. “Please! Please!”
“There will be much risk,” said Hassan. “If Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars, should hear of this, he might skin me alive.”
“Please!” wept Tama.
“It will not be easy,” I said.
“Please, Please!” she wept.
&n
bsp; “How should we go about this?” I asked.
“One thing,” said Hassan, “prisoner rope is not appropriate. She must be put on a wrist tether.”
“I see little problem in this,” I said.
“A more serious problem,” be said, “will occur in leading her through the halls.”
“I can walk with my head down, as a slave,” said Tarna.
“Most female slaves,” said Hassan, “walk very proudly. They are proud of their slavery, and their mastery by men, They have learned their womanhood. It has been taught to them. In their way, though imbonded, totally, I suppose they are the truest and freest of women. They are closest, perhaps, to the essentials of the female, those of subservience to the masculine will, obedience, service and pleasure. In being most themselves, utter slave, they are most free. This is paradoxical, to be sure. Most girls, verbally, will object to slavery, but this half-hearted, pouting, ineffectual rhetoric is belied by the joy of their behavior. No girl who has not been a slave can understand the joy of it, the profundity and freedom. The objections of girls to slavery, I have noted, are usually not objections to the institution which, in the sweet heat of their bodies, they love dearly, and fear only to lose, but to a given master. Given the proper master they are quite content, in the proper collar a woman is serene and joyful.”
“Are slave girls truly proud?” asked Tama.
“Most,” said Hassan. “You may think only of have dominated, or seraglio mistresses, presiding over weaklings. But have you seen girls, truly, before men?”
“In a cafe, once,” she said, “I saw a girl dance before men. She was scandalous!
And the girls, too, who served in the cafe! Shameful! Scandalous!”
“Speak with care,” said Hassan, “Girl, for someday you, too, may so dance and serve.”
Tarna turned white.
“Did the girls seem proud?” asked Hassan.
“Yes,” said Tarna, sullenly. “But why should they have been proud?”
“They were proud of their bodies, their feelings, their desirability,” said Hassan, “and proud, too, of their masters, who had the will and power to put them in a collar and keep them there, because it pleased him to do so.”
“How strong such men must be,” whispered Tarna.
“Too,” said Hassan, “undeniable females, secure in their sexuality, it was difficult not for them to be proud. Too, joy can make girls proud.”
“But why, why,” wept Tarna, “should they be proud?”
Hassan shrugged. “Because they knew themselves to be the most perfect and profound of women,” he said. “That is why they are proud.” Hassan laughed.
“Sometimes,” he said, “girls grow so proud it is necessary to whip them, to remind them that they are only slaves.”
“I can walk proudly,” said Tarna. “Lead me through the halls.” She rose to her feet, and stood before us.
“There is a difference,” laughed Hassan, “between the pride of a free woman and the pride of the slave girl, The pride of a free woman is the pride of a woman who feels herself to be the equal of a man. The pride of the slave girl is the pride of the girl who knows that no other woman is the equal of herself.”
Tarna suddenly shuddered, inadvertently, with pleasure. I could see that this insight had thrilled her to the quick.
“You are no longer competing with men,” said Hassan. “You are now something different.”
“Yes, yes!” suddenly whispered Tarna. “I see! I am different! I am not the same!” She looked at us. “Suddenly. “ she said, “for the first time I love the thought of not being the same. “ “It is a start,” said Hassan.
“Do you think she is fit to be led through the halls?” I asked. I could hear men shouting outside. There was singing, the sounds of carousing.
“She cannot yet walk like, or truly seem a slave girl,” said Hassan, “for she is not yet a slave girl, but if little attention is paid, we may have a chance.” He turned to the captive. “How do you look upon men, Wench?” he asked. “How do you meet their eyes?”
Tarna gazed upon him.
Hassan moaned. “We shall lose our heads,” he said.
I dragged Tarna by the rope to her vast couch, and flung her to the yellow cushions. At the head of the couch I tied the rope which was knotted on her neck. She could not rise more than a foot from the cushions. She twisted on the cushions, turning to look at me. “What are you going to do with me?” she asked, horrified.
Hassan grinned. “She is your capture,” he said. “First capture rights are yours.”
Tarna cried out with misery.
In a short time, we led Tarna through the balls of the kasbah. We had taken the prisoner rope from her neck, to conceal the fact that she was a free prisoner. I led her by a wrist tether, her wrists crossed and bound, and the tether running to my hand. Sometimes I pulled her abruptly, making her stumble, or run or fall.
I did this for three reasons; it concealed her awkwardness; I was in a hurry; and it pleased me. The wrist tether was from the cords holding the hangings in her room. The cords were not such that they could be easily identified.
“Are these cords such that they are unique to your quarters?” I had asked her.
“No,” she had said. “No.” I had then bound her with them.
“Is she not much too clean?” asked Hassan.
I looked at the bound girl. “Yes,” I said. Then I said to the girl, “Down, down on the floor, on your belly and back, roll.”
She looked at us angrily, but then complied. When she stood again before us, Hassan took soot from one of the tharlarion-oil lamps and rubbed it, here and there, on her body. He then took some tharlarion-oil and, as she shuddered, poured and rubbed it on her left shoulder.
“Of great danger to us now,” said Hassan, “is her lack of a brand.”
“Unless you have an iron with you,” I said, “there is not much helping that at the moment.”
Still the problem was serious. Girls are branded prominently, usually on the left or right thigh. The brand on a slave girl is not something for which, when the wench is stripped, one must hunt. If it were noted, in our journey to the lower levels, that the woman we led was unmarked, it would be assumed that she was free. This would excite curiosity, and would be sure to be later recalled.
Tarna, of course, would be unmarked. Indeed, she would be likely to be the only unmarked female in the kasbah.
I tore down one of the hangings, a yellow one, and ripped a narrow strip from it. I wound this about the girl’s thighs, low, to reveal her navel. It is called the slave belly. On Gor it is only slave girls who expose, their navels. But the cloth would cover the area, on either hip, which be the likely site of the incised slave mark.
“It might be better,” said Hassan, studying the beauty, “if she were completely stripped.”
“Not without a brand,” I said.
“You are right,” said Hassan. “We cannot risk it.”
“Let them assume,” I suggested, “that we are leading her to someone to whom we are giving her, and that we wish to tear off her last veil, to her horror, only before her new master.”
“Excellent,” said Hassan. “It is at least plausible.”
“It will have to do,” I said.
“Please,” said Tarna. “Lift the cloth to cover my navel.”
I thrust the cloth down, another inch on her hips. She shook with anger, but was silent. She did not much approve either when Hassan cleaned his hands on the cloth about her hips. This dirtied the cloth, making it more fitting to be worn about the hips of a slave; too, of course, it removed the soot from his hands, from the tharlarion-oil lamp.
As we had led her through carousing soldiers, many of them reached for the girl, whom they assumed, as we had intended, was slave. “Oh,” she cried. “Oh!” She found herself much caressed, with the rude familiarity with which a slave girl is handled.
“Hurry, Slave,” I barked at her. She did not even know enough to say, “Y
es, Master.” I did not lead her gently. At last, to my relief, we reached the door leading to the lower levels.
“Did you see them look at me?” she asked. “Is this what it is to be a slave girl?”
We did not respond to her. Hassan threw back the heavy door. I removed the bonds from the girl, and threw them aside. I took her by the arm and, Hassan preceding us, I conducted her down the curving, narrow, worn stairs, deep below the kasbah.
We had brought her safely through the halls. This pleased me.
I have little doubt that our success in this matter was largely to be attributed to what Tarna, stripped and roped back by the neck, had learned on her own couch. There is a great deal of difference in the way that various sorts of women relate to men and look upon them. These differences tend often to be functions of what their experiences have been with men. For example, do they regard themselves as the equals of men, or their superiors? Or, have they been taught, forcibly and clearly, that they are not the dominant organism? Have they been put, helpless, beneath the Will of a male? Have they learned their delicious vulnerability, that they are the male’s victim and prey, his pleasure and delight? And have they learned, to their helpless horror and joy, the fantastic things he can do to their body? “How do you look upon men, Wench?” Hassan had asked. “How do you meet their eyes?” he had asked.
And Tarna had gazed upon him.
He had moaned. “We shall lose our heads,” he had said.
I had then dragged her by the neck to her own couch, that swift instruction be administered to her.
She had thousands of pasangs to go, but we had made a start with her, enough to get her through the halls.
I had seen her react as we had dragged her through the soldiers. She was not then the Tarna of old. She was a woman who had been taught what men could do with her.
I heard singing, shouting, from below, too. We descended four levels, until we reached the bottom level. Tarna looked sick.
“The smell,” she said. A drunken soldier, carrying a bottle, brushed against us.
I let her throw up, twice, in the hall. Then I pushed her ahead of me, holding her by the arm, stumbling through the straw and slime down the corridor. She cried out, miserably, as an urt scurried past, brushing her ankle. We looked through one cell door, swung open. It led into a large, long, narrow room.
