thirsty men, who had moved at night on the desert, had come upon it, discovering
it. Dew had formed on the large flat stones thereabout and, in the light of the
dawn, had made them, from a distance, seem to glint like silver. Dew,
incidentally, is quite common in the Tahari, condensing on the stones during the
chilly nights. It burns off, of course, almost immediately in the morning.
Nomads sometime dig stones before dawn, clean them, set them out, and, later,
lick the moisture from them. One cannot pay the water debt, of course, with the
spoonful or so of moisture obtainable in this way. It does, however, wet the
lips and tongue.
“If there are so many Kavars about,” I said, “and Ta’Kara, you do not have
enough men to defend this caravan.” Indeed, in such a situation, militarily, so
small an escort as a hundred men would seem rather to invite attack.
Hamid, lieutenant to Shakar, captain of the Aretai, did not respond to my
remark. Rather he said, “Give me the stones. I will keep them safe for you. If
you do not give them to me, you may lose them to Kavars. I will see Suleiman for
you. He will not see you. I will bargain for you. I will get you a good price in
date bricks for them.”
“I will see Suleiman myself,” I said. “I will bargain for myself.”
“Kavar spy!” he hissed.
I did not speak.
“Give me the stones,” he said.
“No,” I said.
“It is your intention.” he said, “to gain access to the presence of Suleiman,
and then assassinate him!”
“That seems an ill-devised strategem to obtain a good price in date bricks,” I
said. “You have drawn your dagger,” I observed.
He lunged for me but I was no longer there. I moved to my feet, and kicking
loose the pole which held the tent, slipped outside, drawing my scimitar. “He!”
I cried. “Burglar! A burglar!”
Men came running. Among them came Shakar, captain of the Aretai, blade drawn,
and several of his men. Drovers, slaves, crowded about. Inside the fallen tent,
struggling was a figure. Then the tent, as men held torches, at a sign from
Shakar, was thrown back.
“Why,” cried I in amazement, “it is the noble Hamid. For give me, Noble Sir. I
mistook you for a burglar!”
Grumbling, brushing sand from his robes, Hamid climbed to his feet.
“It was clumsy to let a tent fall on you,” said Shakar. He sheathed his
scimitar.
“I tripped.” said Hamid. He did not look pleased as, following his captain,
looking back, he disappeared in the darkness.
“Set the tent aright,” I told Alyena, who was looking up at me, frightened.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
I then went to find Farouk. There was little point in his losing men.
We did not have to wait long for the attack of the Kavars. It occurred shortly
after the tenth hour, the Gorean noon, the following day.
Not much to my surprise the men of the escort of Aretai rushed forth to do
battle, but, seeing the numbers of their enemy, which indeed seemed
considerable, sweeping down from the hills, wheeled their kaiila and, abandoning
the caravan, rode rapidly away.
“Do not offer resistance!” cried Farouk to his guards, riding the length of the
caravan. “Do not fight! Do not resist!”
In a few moments the Kavars, howling, lances high, burnooses swirling, were
among us.
The guards of Farouk, following his example, dropped their bucklers to the dust,
thrust their lances, butt down, in the earth, took out their scimitars and,
flinging them blade downward from the saddle, hurled them into the ground,
disarming themselves.
Slave girls screamed.
With lances the Kavars gestured that the men dismount. They did so. They were
herded together. Kavars rode down the caravan line, ordering drovers to hurry
their animals into lines.
With their scimitars, they slashed certain of the bags and crates on the kaiila,
determining their contents.
One Kavar warrior, with the point of his lance, drew a line in the graveled
dust.
“Strip your women,” he called. “Put them on this line.” Women were hurried to
the line. Some of them were stripped by the scimitar. I saw Alyena pulled by the
arm from her kurdah and thrown to the gravel. As she knelt on her hands and
knees in the gravel, looking up, terrified, a warrior, behind her, on kaiila,
thrust the tip of his lance beneath her veil, between the side of her head and
the tiny golden string, and, lifting the lance, ripped the veil from her,
face-stripping her. She turned to face him, terrified, crouching in the gravel.
“A beauty!” he cried. “Oh!” she cried. The steel, razor-sharp point of the lance
was at her bosom. “Run to the line, Slave Girl,” she was ordered. “Yes, Master,”
she cried.
“Why have you not disarmed yourself?” asked a Kavar, riding up to me.
“I am not one of Farouk’s guards,” I said.
“You are a member of the caravan, are you not?” he asked.
“I am journeying with it,” I said.
“Disarm yourself,” he said. “Dismount.”
“No,” I said.
“We have no wish to kill you,” he said.
“I am pleased to hear it,” I said. “I, too, have no wish to kill you.”
“Find Aretai,” said the man, riding by. “Kill them.”
“Are you Aretai?” asked the man.
“No,” I said.
I saw certain of the kaiila being led past. Others were left with their drovers.
There was dust about, raised by the paws of the animals. I saw the girls,
standing on the line. There was dust on their ankles and calves and, light, on
their bodies. Their eyes were squinting, half shut, in the dust and sun. Two of
them coughed. Some of them shifted about, for the dust and gravel was hot on the
soles of their small, bare feet. They were all stripped. None left the line. An
officer rode rapidly back and forth the length of the line, examining them. He
called orders. The first one to be prodded with the side of a lance from the
line was Alyena.
This pleased me, that she had been found suitable to be a slave of Kavars.
“Stand there, Girl,” ordered a man.
It did not surprise me, however. She was becoming more beautiful each day, as
she, not knowing it herself, and repudiating the very thought, was coming to
love her collar. She was a slave. On Gor, sooner or later, she would be forced
to face this fact; she would be forced to look deeply within herself; to
confront herself, perhaps for the first time, with candor, and uncompromising
honesty; I wondered if, at that time, seeing herself, truly, she would go mad,
or if, boldly, with joy, she would dare to be what she found that she was; a
human of Earth she had been carefully conditioned to imitate stereotyped images,
produced by others, alien to her own nature; what Earth most feared was the
peril of men, and women, becoming themselves; on Earth it was regarded as
horrifying that millions of beautiful, feminine women, in spite of conditioning,
wanted to be the slaves of strong, powerful men; on Gor it was not regarded as
horrifying but appropr
iate; indeed, what other sort of woman is worth putting in
a collar; one of the most common emotions felt eventually by an enslaved girl,
in a slave culture, where their sort, if not respected, is accepted, is, perhaps
surprisingly, gratitude. I am not clear what they have to be grateful about.
They are totally under the power of strong masters, and must do what they are
told.
Eight other girls now stood behind Alyena, ready for chains. Some six girls had
been rejected by the Kavars. “Run to your masters,” cried a Kavar to the
rejected girls. In tears they fled from the line. I could see that Alyena was
pleased to lead the line. I saw she was pleased that Aya, who had caused her
much trouble, had been rejected. Alyena stood, naked, very proud, very straight,
waiting for her chains. They would not be put on her, of course.
“It is my recommendation to you,” said the Kavar, “to disarm yourself and
dismount.”
“It is my recommendation to you,” I said, “that you, and your fellows, ride for
your lives.”
“I do not understand,” he said.
“If you were Aretai,” I asked, “would you have surrendered the caravan without a
fight?”
“Of course not,” he said.
His face turned white.
“Fortunately,” I said. “1 see only dust rising in the east. I would not,
however, strike due west. That would be the natural path of departure of
surprised, startled men. Others may await you there. Considering the extent of
the terrain, and the likely numbers that the Aretai can muster, it will be
difficult for them to encircle you unless you permit them to close with the
caravan. My own recommendation, though it may be imperfect, given that I have
not scouted the terrain, would be to depart, with haste, south.”
“South,” he said, “is Aretai territory!”
“It seems unlikely they would expect you to move in that direction,” I said.
“You may always deviate from that course later.”
He stood in his stirrups. He cried out. An officer rode up. Together they looked
to the east. Dust, like the blade of a dark scimitar, for pasangs, swept toward
us.
“Let us fight!” cried the man.
“Without knowing the nature and number of the enemy?” I inquired.
The officer looked at me.
“What are their numbers?” he demanded.
“I’m sure I do not know,” I said, “but I expect they are ample to accomplish
what they have determined to do.”
“Who are you?” demanded the officer.
“One who is bound for the Oasis of Nine Wells,” I told him.
The officer stood in his stirrups. He lifted his lance. Men wheeled into
position.
Kicking the kaiila in the flanks, angrily, the officer urged his mount from the
camp. The swirling burnooses of the Kavars and Ta’Kara left the camp.
They rode south. I regarded their leader as a good officer.
I rode over to Alyena. She looked up at me. “It seems you will not be chained,”
I said.
“How pleased I am,” she cried.
“Do not be disappointed,” I told her. “As a slave girl you will become quite
familiar with chains. You will wear them often, and helplessly.”
“Oh?” she said, pertly.
“Certainly,” I assured her.
She looked up at me. “I would have been the first chained,” she laughed. “I was
the first girl taken from the line. I would have led the slave chain!”
“There would have been no chain,” I said. “One cannot march naked girls across
the desert. You would have been chained and, individually, or in pairs, put
across saddles.”
“Had there been a chain,” she said, “I would have led it.
“Yes,” I said. I lifted her to the saddle.
“And I am not the tallest,” she said. “I am not the tallest!”
“Do you grow insolent?” I asked.
“Of course not, Master,” she said. “But does it not mean I am the most
beautiful?”
“Among tarsk,” I said, “even a she-sleen looks well.”
“Oh, Master!” she protested. I placed her in the kurdah. She knelt there. With
my lance tip I retrieved her veil from the dust, and put it to the side of her
left knee. “Repair it,” I said, “and don it. With it conceal your mouth, which
is rather loud of late.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
I turned to look at the dust from the east. I could see riders now. There were
four hundred of them.
“Master,” said the girl.
“Yes,” I said.
“I know that I am beautiful,” she said.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
She knelt there, naked, in the kurdah, the veil by her knee. She straightened
herself. She put her hands on her collar. She lifted her head, her chin,
proudly. Her neck was delicate, aristocratic, a bit long, as she held it, white.
I saw the close-fitting, obdurate metal, inflexible, with its lock behind the
back of the neck, encircling it. Her eyes were strikingly blue, and bright,
lively; her hair, long, blond, streamed behind her.
“How do you know that you are beautiful?” I asked.
She shook her head a little, arranging her hair, and then looked at me, saucily,
directly, her fingers on the metal at her throat. “Because I am collared,” she
laughed.
With the tip of my scimitar I made ready to conceal her again within the kurdah.
The Aretai were nearing the caravan, a pasang or so away, sweeping down upon it.
Now, from the west, too, I could see some two hundred men riding in. Neither
group, of course, would find Kavars in the caravan. The plan had been a good
one, only the Kavars, apparently, had escaped.
“Is it not true, Master?” she said.
“It is true,” said I, “Slave Girl. Had men not found you beautiful they would
have been quite content to leave you free. Only the most beautiful are thought
worthy of the brand; only the most beautiful are found worthy of the collar.”
“But how miserable,” she moaned, “that I fell slave!”
“The more excruciatingly beautiful a woman is,” I said, “the more likely it is
that she will be put in brand and collar.”
She looked at me.
“Any true man,” I said, “who sees such a woman wishes to own her.”
“On this world,” whispered Alyena, “they can!”
“On this world,” I said, “they do.”
“Poor women!” said Alyena.
I shrugged.
“Master,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“May Alyena, your obedient girl, your dutiful girl, be taught to dance?”
“You have not forgotten your young nomad, have you?” I asked.
She looked down, sullenly.
“To be sure,” I said, “it would be difficult to compete for him unless you could
dance.”
“I do not even like him!” she cried. “He is a beast! He is a terrible person!
Did you not see how he abused me?”
“In his arms,” I laughed, “he would treat you only as a slave.”
“Terrible,” she wept.
To her indignation I felt her body. It was hot and wet. “Yes, pretty Alyena,” I
said to her, “I will have you taught to dance, for in y
our belly is slave fire.”
“No!” she wept.
“Slave fire,” I said.
I then brushed down the curtain of the kurdah, as she cried out with rage,
closing her within.
The Aretai, from the east, and west, lances down, scimitars high, with much
dust, crying out, shouting, swept into the caravan. They did not find the
Kavars, or the Ta’Kara.
Suleiman was a man of discrimination, and taste; he was also one of high
intelligence.
He studied the stones.
It had been he who had organized the trap.
“Twenty-five weights of date bricks,” he said.
“Ninety,” I said.
“Your price is too high,” he said.
“Your price, in my opinion,” I said, “great pasha, is perhaps a bit low.”
“Where are the Kavars!” had cried Shakar, captain of the Aretai, when he had
swept into the caravan, his kaiila rearing, his lieutenant, Hamid, behind him.
“They are gone,” I had told him.
Had the Kavars been caught in the trap there would have been a massacre.
Suleiman was a man to hold in respect.
The true worth of the stones, which I had had appraised carefully in Tor,
against their best information as to the date yields, was between sixty and
eighty weights in pressed date bricks. I was not interested, of course, in
driving bargains, but in meeting Suleiman. I had been more than a month at the
oasis. Only now had he consented to see me. Recently, too, had Ibn Saran, with a
caravan, arrived at the oasis. Some twenty thousand people lived at the oasis,
mostly small farmers, and craftsmen, and their families. It was one of the
larger eases in the Tahari. It seemed important for me to see Suleiman. As a
portion of my assumed identity, I wished to sell him stones. Moreover, with the
dates purchased by these, I hoped to have a suitable disguise, as a merchant in
date bricks, in moving eastward. I suspected that my being summoned to the
presence of Suleiman was not unconnected with the arrival of Ibn Saran at the
oasis. He had, I suspected, interceded in my behalf. For this I was surely
grateful. He remembered me, of course, from the hall of Samos. Had I not seen
Suleiman shortly I would have had to strike eastward myself. Without a guide
this would have been incredibly dangerous. The men of the Tahari kill those who
Norman, John - Gor 10 - Tribesmen of Gor.txt Page 13
