Tribesmen of Gor

by Norman, John;

  But when I descended the narrow gangplank of the dhow which I took upstream from Kasra to the village port of Kurtzal, it was not as a tarnsman. The tarn I had sold in Kasra, for four golden tarn disks. I wore now the rags of a drover of kaiila. Bent over, carrying a grossly woven bag of kaiila-hair cloth, filled with accouterments, I set foot on the cracked boards of the Kurtzal dock. Moments later I stood inland, ankle deep in the white dust. Following me down the gangplank, clad in a black haik, could have been only my companion, the pitiful free woman who shared my poverty. The haik, black, covers the woman from head to toe. At the eyes, there is a tiny bit of black lace, through which she may see. On her feet were soft, black, nonheeled slippers, with curled toes; they were decorated with a line of silver thread.

  Beneath the haik none needed know the woman was naked and wore a collar.

  We took a salt wagon, empty, to Tor from Kurtzal.

  There was another reason I had brought Miss Blake-Allen, as we may perhaps speak of her for purposes of simplicity, to the Tahari districts. Cold, white-skinned women are of interest to the men of the Tahari. They enjoy putting them in servitude. They enjoy, on their submission mats, turning them into helpless, yielding slaves. Too, blue-eyed, blond women are, statistically, rare in the Tahari districts. Those that exist there have been imported as slaves. Given her complexion and coloring, I thought, and Samos concurred, we could get a good price for the wench in Tor, or in the interior, at an oasis market. We had little doubt that the men of the Tahari would pay high for the body and person of Miss Blake-Allen. It had entered my mind, too, that it might prove most profitable, under certain conceivable circumstances, to exchange her for information.

  In Kasra I had learned the name, and father, of the boy who had found, in pursuing a kaiila, the rock on which had been inscribed ‘Beware the steel tower’. His name was Achmed, and his father’s name was Farouk, who was a Kasra merchant. I had failed to contact them in Kasra, as I had planned, but I had learned that they were in the region of Tor, purchasing kaiila, for a caravan to the kasbah, or fortress, of Suleiman, of the Aretai tribe, master of a thousand lances, Ubar of the Oasis of Nine Wells.

  A merchant passed me, climbing the stones of the street. He wore a striped, hooded, sleeved, loose robe, a djellaba. The striping was that of the Teehra, a district southwest of Tor, bordering on the Tahari. Following him, in a black haik, was a woman. Suddenly I was startled. As she passed me, her stride small and measured, I heard the clink of light chain, the sound of ankle bells. She was slave. She turned her head, briefly, to look at me; I saw her eyes, dark, through the tiny opening in the haik, through the tiny, black-lace screen, about an inch in height and four inches in width. Then, with a rustle of the chain, and the tiny music of her bells, she turned swiftly, following her master. Beneath the haik, I supposed her collared, naked. The use of a light walking chain, tethering the ankles, meant to be worn abroad, accompanying the master, incidentally, is not uncommon in the regions of the Tahari. A beautifully measured gait is thought, in the Tahari, to be attractive in a woman. There is dispute as to the desiderated length of the stride, and the chain may be adjusted accordingly. To me it seems obvious that one must experiment with the given girl. Height and hip structure vary. I resolved to obtain such a set of chains for Miss Blake-Allen. I was curious to see what measure of stride would best suit the slave in her. Free women, in the Tahari, incidentally, usually, when out of their houses, also measure their stride. Some fasten their own ankles together with silken thongs. Some dare even the chain, though they retain its key. Free girls, not yet companions, but of an age appropriate for the companionship, sometimes signal their availability to possible swains by belling their left ankles with a single “virgin bell.” The note of this bell, which is bright and clear, is easily distinguished from those of the degrading, sensual bells of the slave. Sometimes free girls, two or more of them, as a girlish lark, obtain slave bells and, chaining their ankles, dress themselves in their haiks and go about the city. Sometimes their girlish amusement does not turn out as they expect. Sometimes they find themselves being sold in markets at obscure oases.

  There was a great shouting, and, passing through the market gate, I had turned into the nest of market streets.

  I brushed away two sellers of apricots and spices. “Come with me to the cafe of Red Cages,” said a boy, pulling at my sleeve. They receive a copper tarsk for each patron they bring through the arched portal of the cafe. I gave the boy a copper tarsk, and he sped from me.

  I made my way carefully through the crowds.

  The vendors come early to the market, leaving their villages outside of Tor in the morning darkness, that they may find a yard of pavement, preferably near the market gate, to display their wares. I was jostled to one side by two men in djellabas. My ankle stung. I had nearly stepped into a basket of plums. Not even looking up, a woman had cried out, and, with a stick lashed out, protecting her merchandise. “Buy melons!” called a fellow next to her, lifting one of the yellowish, red-striped spheres toward me. A boy passed, spitting out the seeds of a tospit. The thought of Kamchak, of the Tuchuks, passed through my mind. I smiled. Only the rare, long-stemmed tospit contained an even number of seeds. On the Plains of Turia, or in the Land of the Wagon Peoples, it was available only late in the summer. Here, in Tor, however, with its two growing seasons, they might be available much earlier. Still, if pressed, I would have guessed that the boy’s tospit contained an odd number of seeds. Most tospits do. I would not, however, have been likely to wager on the matter with Kamchak of the Tuchuks. I was mildly surprised that the boy had been eating the tospit raw, for they are quite bitter, but, I knew, that people of the Tahari regions, these bright, hot regions, relished strong tastes and smells. Some of the peppers and spices, relished even by children in the Tahari districts, were sufficient to convince an average good fellow of Thentis or Ar that the roof of his mouth and his tongue were being torn out of his head.

  I looked about myself, from time to time, as a warrior does. Seldom does he move any great distance without turning to see what is behind him. Then I continued toward the bazaar.

  I passed crates of suls.

  A veiled woman was hawking dates by the tefa. A handful with the five fingers closed, not open, is a tef. Six such handfuls constitutes a tefa, which is a tiny basket. Five such baskets constitutes a huda.

  To one side sat a fellow selling soap. It was in round, brownish cakes, sliced. It is made by boiling ashes with fat cut from meat.

  When I had arrived in Tor I had, immediately, rented one of the small, hovel-like compartments in the plastered, mud-brick buildings near the street of caravan tables. Almost always, except in the greatest heat of the summer, between the fourth and sixth passage hands, when few caravans ply the wastes of the Tahari, there are many of these available. It was reached by climbing a narrow flight of wooden stairs between closely pressing walls, and opened off a narrow corridor, lit by a hanging tharlarion-oil lamp; off this corridor, too, were the doors of several similar rooms.

  As soon as the wooden door was shut, the bar dropped in place, I turned to regard Miss Blake-Allen. She was standing, concealed in the haik, regarding me. I strode to her and threw her to the rough boards at my feet, tearing the haik from her. She looked up at me, terrified.

  “A girl,” I told her, “on entering the compartment of her master, kneels.”

  “I did not know, Master,” she said.

  “Furthermore,” I said, “commonly, in the presence of a free man, the girl kneels.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said, frightened.

  I looked at her. I hoped that she was not stupid.

  Then I threw her on her back on the straw, and used her. When I had finished, I said to her, “I am going to sleep now. Clean the room.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  While I slept, on her hands and knees, with a brush and cloth, and a pan of water, she cleaned the compartment. When I awakened, she knelt, trembling, while I inspected
the room. It was spotless. “It is satisfactory,” I told her. Her shoulders relaxed. She would not be beaten. I then, on the straw, again used her. I much kissed and chewed about her brand, making her acutely conscious of it. She, on her back, moaned in misery. With my fingertip I traced its incised delicacy. “A nice brand,” I told her. “Thank you, Master,” she whispered. When I left her I chained her ankles together, tightly, so that she could not rise to her feet. She, on her side, lifted her arms to me. “When will you return to me, Master?” she begged. I cuffed her, and she turned, weeping, to her stomach, her head down, her tears falling in the straw.

  I had then left her and gone to the cafes, to find what I might learn. In the cafes, as in the paga taverns of the north, one learns the realities of a city, what is its latest news, what is afoot in the city, what are its dangers, its pleasures, and where its power lies.

  Most importantly I had gathered that there was brewing bad blood between the tribes of the Kavars and the Aretai. Raids had been becoming more frequent. If war should erupt their vassal tribes, such as the Char, the Kashani, the Ta’Kara, the Raviri, the Tashid, the Luraz, the Bakahs, would all become involved. The Tahari would, from east to west, flame with war.

  I am of the warriors.

  Yet I did not look with pleasure on the prospects of a broad-scale conflict in the Tahari.

  It would not, if it occurred, make my work easier.

  The dancers in the cafes were splendid. In two of the cafes I paid a use-coin to the floor master and, by the hair, conducted she who had pleased me most to an alcove.

  I had returned late to the compartment. Miss Blake-Allen, head to the floor, knelt when I entered. In the cafes I had feasted well. I had had verr meat, cut in chunks and threaded on a metal rod, with slices of peppers and larma, and roasted; vulo stew with raisins, nuts, onions and honey; a kort with melted cheese and nutmeg; hot Bazi tea, sugared, and, later, Turian wine. I did not forget the slave, of course. Crusts of bread did I throw to the boards before her. It was slave bread, rough and coarse-grained. The beauty ate it eagerly. She had not known if she was to be fed that day. Sometimes the slave is not fed. This might occur for aesthetic reasons, as, for example, if her measurements, which are generally carefully kept, should minutely depart from her master’s conception of her ideal curvatures; sometimes merely to remind her of on whom she depends, totally, for her very life; sometimes as a training or disciplinary measure; sometimes merely to startle or puzzle her; what has she done; she is not told; has she not been sufficiently pleasing; she is not told; the girl, frightened, anxious, redoubles her efforts to please in all the thousand spheres of her slavery, intellectual, physical and imaginative; no master, it is said, who has not denied his girl food knows her; pleasant indeed are the surprises which such a fellow, who thought thitherto he knew his girl, upon the completion of the simple experiment, receives; the girl’s wits are sharpened; she becomes resourceful, helpless, desperate, attentive, inventive; “Feed me!” she begs. “Please feed me, Master!”; at the conclusion of such an experiment, when she is fed, it is always, kneeling naked, from his hand. The lesson is not soon forgotten. Few things so impress the dominance of a male on a woman, and her dependence on him, as his control of her food. This dominance, provided it is absolute, thrills a woman to the core.

  I had, from time to time, kept Miss Blake-Allen hungry, giving her only sparing rations. I had not, however, by means of food, truly impressed her slavery on her. I did not want to bring her to her belly at my feet. That pleasure I would deny myself, that it might be reserved for her first full, true master. I wanted to keep her, save for some refinements, a free woman of Earth, wearing a collar, until she was sold. The delights of making her a true slave girl, completely, in the full sense of the word, I would accord to the fellow to whom I would give or sell her. I could imagine her, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, angry, proud, rebellious, determined to be untamed, standing naked on his submission mat in his tent. After a week I wondered what she would be like.

  I turned from the market streets into a street of shops and stalls, the bazaar, which, in Tor, is most commonly reached through the market gate.

  “The Aretai will act,” I heard one man telling another.

  I paused before a given stall, where light, walking chains were being sold. They were strung over racks rather like parrot perches. Without much haggling, I bought one, which seemed to me pretty. They are adjustable, with rings, from a length as small as two inches, for security, to a stride length of about twenty inches. Two keys are provided, each of which fits both ankle-ring locks. I also purchased a set of slave bells, of the thong as opposed to the lock variety. They are less expensive than the lock variety; also, they may be tied at various places on the body, about the neck, the wrist, the ankle, about the thigh, about the arm, etc.; it is delightful to bell a girl; she may not remove them, of course, without her master’s permission.

  I passed by the door of a slaver’s house. High in the house, through one of the narrow windows, I saw a girl, looking out. She smiled, and put her arm out through the window, waving. Her face pressed against the bars. She was collared. I blew her a kiss in the Gorean fashion, brushing it upward to her with my fingers.

  I looked into a shop where pottery was being turned. To one side of the wheels, along a wall, sitting among many bowls and vessels, a boy, with his finger, was carefully applying bluish pigment to a large, two-handled pitcher. When the pitcher was placed in the kiln this pigment would be burned, hardened, into the glaze. The kilns were in the back of the shop.

  “The Kavars, even now, are hiring lances,” I heard.

  The rugs of Tor are very beautiful. I paused to look upon several of them, hanging in stalls, many others, lying on top of one another, in great, shaded piles. It takes five girls more than a year to make certain of these rugs. The patterns, memorized by the callers, some of them blind, are intricate, and passed down through families. They are made on simple looms and the pile is knotted onto the warp and weft. Some of these rugs have as many as four hundred knots per square hort. The hort is approximately an inch and a quarter in length. Each knot, by a girl, a free woman, is tied individually by hand. There are many varieties of such rugs. Almost all are incredibly beautiful. The dyes used in the making of these rugs are, on the whole, natural dyes, vegetable dyes, some made from barks and leaves, and roots and flowers, others from animal products, crushed insects, etc. At various places in the bazaar, from poles laid between the buildings, numerous skeins of wool hung, dyed in various bright colors, drying. The carders and the dyers, incidentally, are subcastes separate from the weavers. All are subcastes of the rug makers, which, itself, interestingly, perhaps surprisingly, is accounted generally as a subcaste of the cloth workers. Rug makers themselves, however, usually regard themselves, in their various subcastes, as being independent of the cloth workers. A rug maker would not care to be confused with a maker of kaftans, turbans or djellabas.

  I looked up at skeins of wool hanging from the wooden poles between the flat roofs. They were quite colorful. The finest wool, however, is sheared in the spring from the bellies of the verr and hurt, and would, accordingly, not be available until later in the season. The wool market, as was to be expected, was now slow.

  I passed the door of another slaver’s house. I swung the light walking chain casually in my hand. It would look well on the slim ankles of the lovely Miss Blake-Allen.

  I passed a fellow inlaying wood, and the shop of a silversmith, and stalls filled with baskets, some of which, grain baskets, were large enough to hold a man. In another place tanned, dyed leathers were hanging, purple, red, yellow. I passed a boy in a shop using a bow lathe. He spins the wood with bow and string, held in his right hand. He uses his left hand and his right foot to guide the cutting tool. Djellabas and burnooses, sleeveless, hooded desert cloaks, were being sold in another stall. The burnoose can, as the djellaba cannot, because of the sleeves, be thrown back, freeing the arms. One who rides the swift kaiila, who handles
the scimitar and lance, chooses the burnoose.

  I passed another stall, in which mats were being sold. These are used for various purposes, sometimes vertically for screens, more normally, horizontally, for sitting and sleeping. They can be tightly rolled and occupy little space. Among them I saw rough-fibered slave mats, and among those, the coarsest of all, submission mats, on which the female slave may be forced to perform for her master.

  There were sellers of scarves and sashes, veils and haiks, chalwars and tobes, and slippers and kaftans, and cording for agals. Too, there were cloth merchants, with their silks and rolls of rep-cloth. Cloth is measured in the ah-il, which is the length from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, and the ah-ral, which is ten ah-ils. I saw sleeve daggers. I brushed a mat salesman away.

  In another stall a slave girl was being vended. I watched her for a time dance before me, then I turned away.

  I smelled veminium oil.

  The petals of veminium, the “Desert Veminium,” purplish, as opposed to the “Thentis Veminium,” bluish, which flower grows at the edge of the Tahari, gathered in shallow baskets and carried to a still, are boiled in water. The vapor which boils off is condensed into oil. This oil is used to perfume water. This water is not drunk but is used in middle and upper-class homes to rinse the eating hand, before and after the evening meal.

  At one place, on a stone shelf, under awnings, several girls, chained naked, were for sale, interestingly, at set prices. It was a municipal sale, under the jurisdiction of the courts of Tor. One brown-skinned girl, dark-eyed, no more than fifteen, kneeling, her wrists and ankles tightly chained, looked up at me. She was being sold to pay her father’s gambling debts. I purchased her, and freed her.

  “Where is your father?” I asked.

  “At the gaming tables of the Golden Kaiila,” she wept.