Tribesmen of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “Earrings,” I said to her, “by Gorean girls, are regarded as the ultimate degradation of a female, appropriate only in sensual slave girls, brazen, shameless wenches, pleased that men have forced them to wear them, and be beautiful.”

  “Do free women on Gor not wear earrings?” asked Alyena.

  “Never,” I said.

  “Only slave girls?”

  “Only the most degraded of slave girls,” I said. “Are you not shamed?”

  She laughed, merrily. “Slaves are not permitted pride,” she said proudly.

  She turned her head from side to side, the loops swinging.

  “Many slave girls,” I said, “once they become used to earrings, come to love them, and even beg them of their masters.”

  “I love mine,” she said.

  “Only a collar makes a woman more beautiful,” I said.

  “I wear both!” said Alyena. She lifted her head, smiling.

  “But surely you object?” I inquired.

  “Oh, certainly!” she said, quickly. She looked at me. “A slave girl is supposed to object, is she not?”

  “I suppose so,” I said.

  “Then,” she said, smiling, “I suppose that I object.”

  “But your master does with you what he pleases?” I asked.

  She squared her shoulders. She stood very straight. Her eyes flashed. “My master,” she said, “does with me precisely what he pleases. He is not weak!”

  “I did not mean to imply that he was,” I said.

  “My will must bend to his, perfectly, completely, in all things,” she said. “I am nothing. He is all. He is the master.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “I am owned,” she said. “He commands perfect obedience in me. I have no choice but to give it. I am his slave.”

  “And how do you feel about this?” I asked.

  She looked at me. Then she said, “I love it.”

  “Make me tea,” I said.

  Lifting her skirt the girl went to the tent, to make tea. Far off I could see a subtle, almost invisible lifting of dust. The raiders were returning.

  I went to the tent, and, on one of the mats, near its entrance, sat down, cross-legged.

  I brushed back the hood of the burnoose. It was hot. There is an almost constant hot wind in the Tahari.

  “I feared, when first I saw you,” said the girl, measuring the tea, from a tiny tin box, “that you had come to carry me off. But, I suppose, had that been your intention, you would have already done so.” She had, in the tent, removed the tan jacket of kaiila hair, with hood. As she bent down, her breasts hung lovely against the cheap rep-cloth of the blue-and-yellow-printed blouse.

  “Perhaps not,” I said.

  Her hand shook, slightly, on the metal box of tea. Her eyes clouded.

  “You are worked hard here?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes!” she laughed. “From morning to dark I am worked. I must gather brush and kaiila dung and make fires; I must cook the stews and porridges, and clean the pans and the bowls; I must shake out the mats and sweep the sand in the tents; I must rub the garments and polish the boots, and leather; I must do the mending and sewing; I weave; I make ropes; I bead leather; I pound grain; I tend the kaiila; twice daily I milk the she-kaiila; I do many things; I am much worked.” Her eyes sparkled. “I do the work here of ten women,” she said. “I am the only female in camp. All unpleasant, light, trivial work devolves upon me. Men will not do it. It is an insult to their strength.” She looked up. “You, yourself,” she said, “have made me make your tea.”

  “Is it ready?” I asked. I looked at the tiny copper kettle on the small stand. A tiny kaiila-dung fire burned under it. A small, heavy, curved glass was nearby, on a flat box, which would hold some two ounces of the tea. Bazi tea is drunk in tiny glasses, usually three at a time, carefully measured. She did not make herself tea, of course.

  Casually I glanced at the horizon. The dust was nearer now. On a pole, beside the entrance of the tent, hung a water bag.

  “And at night,” I asked the girl, “you are permitted to rest from your labors?”

  She was still stained from sweat, from pounding the grain outside the tent.

  “My diurnal labors,” she laughed, “may be those of a free women, but do not forget what I am.”

  I regarded her.

  “I am a slave girl!” she laughed.

  “In the night,” I said, “you remove your slippers, and put on silk and bells.”

  “If permitted,” she smiled. “Often I serve nude.” She laughed. “It is at night that I truly labor! Oh, the things he has made me do, things I would never have dreamed of!”

  “Are you happy?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Do the other riders share you?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she said. “I am normally the only girl in camp.”

  “From time to time there are others?” I asked.

  “Sometimes,” she said. “Free women, slave girls, taken from caravans.”

  “What happens to them?”

  “They are taken to oases, to be sold,” she said. “My labors as a slave,” she confided, “are not limited to the nights. He uses me often. Sometimes, when his need is on him, he calls me in, sweaty, from work, and makes me serve him. Sometimes he merely throws my skirt over my head and hurls me to the mats, taking me swiftly, then ordering me to resume my work outside.”

  “Are you often whipped?” I asked.

  She turned about and pulled up her blouse, showing me her back. “No,” she said. There were few marks on her back, though I saw the traces of a beating or two. There was no scarring. The soft, pliant, broad-bladed five-strap lash had been used. It is the common instrument, if not the switch, used on girls. It is a valuable tool. It punishes with a terrible efficiency, and does not leave the girl permanently marked.

  “I was punished twice,” she said, “once, early in the tents, when I dared to be insolent, a second time when I was clumsy.” She smiled. “I have not been insolent, nor clumsy since,” she said. She lifted the kettle from the fire and, carefully, poured me a tiny glass of tea.

  I took the glass. “Is your master brutal?” I asked.

  “No,” she said, “he is not brutal, but he is severe.”

  “Harsh?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, “I would say he is harsh.”

  “But not brutal?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Your relation to him?”

  “Slave.”

  “His relation to you?”

  “Master.”

  “Discipline?” I asked.

  She smiled. “I am kept under the strictest of disciplines,” she said.

  “But you are seldom whipped?”

  “Almost never,” she said. “But I know that he is fully capable, as he has demonstrated, of whipping me. Should I not be pleasing, I know that I, as a slave girl, will be lashed.”

  “You live under the threat of the whip?”

  “Yes,” she said. “And the threat is not empty.” She looked at me. “He is strong enough to get what he wants out of me. He knows it. And I have learned it. He is strong enough, if I do not please him, to lash me.”

  “How do you find this?” I asked.

  “Meaningful,” she said, “—and thrilling!”

  “You seem to enjoy being dominated by a male,” I said.

  “I am a woman,” she said. She looked down. “I have discovered feelings I never knew I had,” she said. She looked up. “I have discovered, in the arms of a strong, uncompromising man, how fantastic, how deep and glorious is my female sexuality.”

  “You do not speak as a woman of Earth,” I observed.

  “I am a Gorean slave girl,” she said, kneeling straight, touching her earrings.

  “It seems to me,” said I, “you care for your master.”

  “If not restrained by his command,” she said, boldly. “I would lick the dust from his boots!”

  Sud
denly she looked about. She, too, now, saw the dust. She recognized the raiders were returning. Her eyes, suddenly, were frightened.

  “You must flee!” she said. “They may kill you if they find you here!”

  “I have not finished my tea,” I said.

  “Is it—is it,” she said, standing, uncertainly, “your intention to do harm to my master?”

  “I have business with him,” I said, simply.

  She backed away. I set the tea down on the sand, between two mats, beside me. I did not think it would spill. She took another step backward. I reached to the side, to pick up a length of chain which lay there, one of several, doubtless ready for securing slaves, anticipated perhaps as prizes from the afternoon’s caravan raid. Alyena turned, and, with a cry, fled from the tent, toward the dust. The length of chain, hurled from my hand, bola-like, caught her about the ankles, whipping about, and she, in a flurry of skirt and blond hair, sprawled, hands outstretched, to the dust. In an instant I was on her, kneeling across her back, my left hand across her mouth, pulling her head up, painfully, and back. I then put my right hand swiftly over her mouth, before she could cry out, and, my left hand in her hair, pulled her to her feet and dragged her back into the tent. I looked about, and found some materials at hand, which I kicked together into a pile on the mats. I then put her on her back on the mats, and, kneeling across her body, I pinned her in place. I then suddenly removed my right hand from her mouth and reached for the scarf beside her head. She took in a breath to scream, but before she could do so I had the scarf in hand and thrust it, wadded, deep into her mouth. I then fastened it in place with several turns of sash, using the extra length of the sash, tying it, to blindfold her. I then threw her on her stomach. With a length of strap I tied her hands behind her back, and, with another scarf, crossed and bound her ankles. I then threw her to the back of the tent, on the right side, which is that side of the nomad’s tent reserved for the possessions of men.

  I then went and stood near the entrance of the tent. My kaiila was tethered in the rear.

  First over the rise, on his kaiila, with the two girls tethered, stumbling, exhausted, feet bleeding, to the pommel, was the leader. Instantly he saw me and was alert. He cried out to his men. They deployed, circling.

  I saw the scimitar, lifted, in the hand of the leader.

  Unlooping, swiftly, with his left hand, the tethers of the prisoners from his pommel, he threw the straps to one of his men. Behind them I could see the captured pack kaiila. There were nine men, not including the leader. The leader’s kaiila reared. I saw it was his intention, not dismounting, to ride the kaiila against and through the tent, it striking against the beast’s forequarters. It would be ripped from its pegs, the frame shattered, but he, leaning down from the saddle, would have his stroke.

  I lifted the water bag from the pole, where it hung, outside the entrance of the tent.

  One of the men cried out with rage.

  I lifted the bag, drinking deeply. I replaced the plug and put back the bag, wiping my mouth on my sleeve.

  The leader resheathed his scimitar and, lightly, dismounted from the kaiila.

  I returned to the mats, sat again cross-legged upon them, and picked up my small glass of tea, which I had not yet finished.

  He entered the tent, bending down.

  “Tea is ready,” I said to him.

  He went to the back of the tent and, with a knife, freed Alyena of her restraints. She looked up at him, terrified. But he was not irritated with her. It is nothing for a man to overpower a female.

  “Serve us tea,” he said.

  Trembling she measured him a tiny glass of tea. His men stood outside, wary.

  “The tea is excellent,” I said.

  In sharing their water I had made myself, by custom of the Tahari, their guest.

  9

  Zina, a Beautiful Traitress, is Dealt With in the Fashion of the Tahari

  “Chain the two prisoners,” said the leader of the raiders, to one of his men.

  He then looked at me.

  One of the men came into the tent and picked up a chain which had lain, with several others, of various sorts, coiled, on the mats, in readiness. One length of chain he retrieved from the dust, where I had hurled it, snaring the fleeing Alyena by her ankles.

  “Kneel,” said one of the men.

  “No, Hassan!” cried one of the girls. The other girl, she who had torn at her hair when captured, knelt. The girl who had, when captured, looked disbelievingly at the bonds on her wrists, stood, angry, defiant.

  She came and stood before him, naked in the tent, on the mats. Her body was covered with sweat. The legs, from the thighs down, were covered with dust, dark in her sweat, and scratched by the myriad thrusts of brush through which, tethered, she had been dragged at her captor’s stirrup.

  “It was I, Zina,” she said, “who, for a tarn disk of gold, betrayed the caravan into your hands, giving you its inventory, its schedule, its route!”

  Such matters, I knew, were usually carefully guarded in the Tahari, even in times of relative peace.

  The other girl cried out in anger at her, but did not dare rise. “Chain her,” said Hassan, indicating the kneeling girl. One of the men, from behind, put ankle rings on her, joined by about a foot of chain. I heard the two, heavy snaps of the locks. He then unbound her wrists and coiled the tether. Before her body he locked her wrists in three-link slave bracelets.

  “In the sun,” said Hassan to two others of his men. They departed and, shortly, returned with a heavy, pointed stake. It was some four feet in height, some four inches in diameter. One man held the stake and the other, with a heavy hammer, drove it deeply, firmly, into the earth, until only some four inches of it were visible. At this end, fastened to a bolted band, fitted into a groove at the termination of the stake was a metal ring. The man who had held the stake then took a snap collar, with chain and snap lock, about a yard in length, and secured the girl, on her knees, by the neck, to the stake.

  “Free me!” demanded the girl, Zina.

  “Free her,” said Hassan.

  One of his men took the binding fiber from her wrists.

  “Pay me!” she demanded.

  At a gesture from Hassan, one of the men, from a small coffer to one side, drew forth a golden tarn disk, and gave it to the girl. She clenched it in her hand.

  “Give me clothing,” she said.

  “No,” said Hassan.

  She looked at him, frightened.

  “You have been paid,” he said. “Go.”

  She looked about herself, fearfully. She looked at the tarn disk.

  “Give me water,” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  “I will buy it,” she said, frightened.

  “I do not sell water,” he said. “Go.”

  “No!” she wept.

  “Go,” he said.

  “I will die in the desert,” she cried. The golden tarn disk glinted in her hand.

  “I betrayed the caravan to you!” she cried.

  “You have been paid,” he said.

  She looked from man to man, into the eyes of each. Her lip trembled. “No,” she whispered. “No!”

  She looked at Alyena, who knelt beside the tea, looking down at the mats, not daring to raise her eyes. Alyena’s shoulders shook. Her breasts, pendant, were sweet, loose, inside the rep-cloth blouse. The naked girl knelt beside her, frantic, timid, and reached out to touch her shoulder.

  “Plead for me,” begged Zina.

  “I am only a slave,” wept Alyena.

  “Plead for me!” begged Zina.

  Alyena, anguished, tears in her eyes, looked at Hassan, her master. “I plead for her, Master!” she cried.

  “Leave the tent or be lashed, Slave,” said Hassan.

  Alyena leapt to her feet, weeping, and fled from the tent.

  The girl then, again, now half crouching, looked about at the men, from face to face. She looked into the eyes of each. Their eyes were merciless.
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  She leapt to her feet. “No, Hassan! No!” she cried, the golden tarn disk clutched in her small palm.

  “Leave the camp,” he said.

  “I will die in the desert,” she whispered.

  “Leave the camp,” he said.

  “Keep me as a slave girl!” she cried.

  “Are you not a free woman?” he asked.

  “Please, Hassan,” she wept, “keep me as a slave girl!”

  “But you are free,” he said.

  “No!” she cried. “In my heart I have always been a true slave girl. I only pretended to be free. Whip me for it! Though I was fortunate enough never to be collared or branded, or mastered, I am a natural slave! Though I have lived as a free woman since birth, I concealed the fact that I was a true slave!”

  “And when did you learn this fact?” asked Hassan.

  “When my body changed,” she said, looking down. The men laughed.

  I looked upon her. Her contours were lovely. It was not unlikely she would please a master.

  She stood before Hassan, relaxed, soft, though frightened, her right foot at a right angle with her left, turning her hip out, opening her beauty to him, as a slave girl. “I confess to you, Hassan,” she said, “what I have never confessed to any other man—that I am a slave girl.”

  “Legally,” said he, “clearly you are free.”

  “More real than the law is the heart,” said the girl, quoting a proverb of the Tahari.

  “It is true,” said Hassan.

  “Keep me,” she said.

  “I do not want you,” he said.

  “No!” she cried.

  “I do not want you,” he said. Then he said, “Conduct this free woman from the camp.”

  One of the men seized her by the arm.

  “Let me sell myself!” she wept.