by John Norman
Then I realized it would not kill me, of course, at least not now, for I was the link between it and one or more of its kind, the key to its rejoining one or more of its kind.
I sank weakly to my knees.
I became aware that the beast had picked up my leash. I was then startled, for it had snapped the leash, twice. I responded instantly, as the trained beast I was. When I was standing, and I stood very straight, shoulders back, belly in, slender, and slimly erect, as one must, for one is a slave, the leash was snapped again, once. That is the signal to move. It is common, as in promenades, when the slave is to precede her master. If the slave follows her master, no such signal is required. The pressure on the collar ring makes clear that she is to move, as any other owned, tethered beast. I then began to make my way, preceding the monster, on its leash, toward the shop of Epicrates. I now knew it, as Lord Grendel, was not only rational, but informed. It knew how to manage slaves, how to handle and control them, and what to do with them. Perhaps, on some world or other, it even owned slaves. I was also now more willing to credit Antiope’s conjecture that slaves were exempt from the predations of the beast, or beasts, in the street. The slave, after all, as the free woman does not, has uses. Of what value is a woman, save for her pretensions and vanities, until she is collared, after which she will learn there are uses, a large number of them, to which she may be put? The free woman may be beheaded or impaled; the slave, an animal, will be preserved and protected, to be distributed or sold.
How was it, I wondered, that the Metal Worker had been in the vicinity of the market of Cestias tonight?
He stalks me, I thought. He finds me of interest. He wants me. It is not unusual, of course, for a man to want a slave. What male does not want one or more slaves?
Well, I thought, he, the arrogant brute, will never have me!
He knew my name. I recalled that from the vicinity of Six Bridges. So he must have made inquiries. Yes, I thought, the curves of this slim barbarian have intrigued the mighty master.
Let him pine then in vain!
I recalled how he had commanded me to my knees in the Sul Market, leaving me half-stripped and tied at his feet, how he had pressed himself upon me in the vicinity of Six Bridges, I unable to resist.
I did not even know his name.
I wondered if he were truly of the Metal Workers.
How I despised him!
He would never have me. I would run away. To be sure, it is hard to run farther than the length of the chain on one’s ankle.
I wondered what it would be like to be in his arms.
Would he find me pleasing, acceptable, as a slave? I knew that I, a slave, would have to do my best to please him, and in all the ways of the slave. The slave has no choice in such things, nor does she want one. She soon learns to beg, even pathetically, that she may be permitted to so serve.
How humble, and hopeful, she is, at the feet of her master!
Once, but only once, we were in the vicinity of guardsmen, two, one with a lantern. The beast would not know they were guardsmen, but he must have heard their footsteps, and voices, two voices, male voices. He drew me back, into a small side street, little more than a space between buildings, from which we had just emerged, for I had sought a most clandestine, unfrequented route to the shop of Epicrates, and, holding me tightly against him, covered my mouth tightly with one vast paw. I could not have begun to utter a sound.
The guardsmen passed.
I thought the guardsmen were fortunate that they had not discovered us. Even blind I had little doubt that the beast, from a small sound, the scrape of a boot on the stones, from the movement of a weapon departing from a sheath, from breathing, might locate an enemy. In such an altercation I would run or throw myself to my belly and cover my head with my hands. In such an altercation three might die.
We reached the shop of Epicrates well before the bar signifying the end of curfew. In another Ahn or so, some of the smaller gates would open, and many Peasants, with their baskets and sacks of fresh produce, would begin to make their way to the various markets in the city.
It was with relief that I, on the beast’s leash, it following me, slipped into the doorway to the left of the shuttered front of the shop, and climbed the stairs to the domicile of the Lady Bina and Lord Grendel.
The Lady Bina was asleep, but Lord Grendel was waiting for us.
I collapsed to the floor of the domicile.
I was aware of low noises from the beasts, conversing in Kur.
Shortly after dawn the lantern on its pole at the edge of the market of Cestias would be extinguished, and, a bit later, the market pennon would be hoisted to the height of the pole, above the lantern arm, after which, at the praetor’s signal, guardsmen would open the market.
There would doubtless be some speculation as to the damage undergone by one of the coin stalls.
I then fell asleep.
Chapter Sixteen
“Are you comfortable?” he asked.
“You!” I cried.
His head was thrust through the curtain, at the front of the wagon. His smile was that of a master, gazing on a slave.
I drew back, with a rattle of chain in the wagon bed, the chain sliding along the central bar. I was the only girl in the wagon. It was drawn by a tharlarion. The canvas was a common white, not the blue-and-yellow covering, sometimes silk, usually decorating, covering, a slave wagon. The central bar runs linearly the length of the wagon bed. It is hinged at the forward end and fits into a coupling, within which it is commonly locked, at the back end of the wagon bed. My ankles were shackled, and a foot of chain joined them, the chain looped about the central bar. If one wishes to remove a girl from such a wagon, one either unshackles her, or, more commonly, that she remain ankle-shackled, for example, in a camp, one lowers the back of the wagon and unlocks the bar from the coupling at the rear of the wagon, which, lifted, allows the girl to leave the central bar and wagon.
I moved toward the rear of the wagon and covered myself, as I could.
“Do not bother,” he said. “I like you naked.”
“Brute, beast, monster!” I said.
“Do not tell me the little barbarian is modest,” he said.
“I am untunicked,” I said. “Do not look at me!”
“Do you really think a tunic, a slave tunic, makes all that much difference?” he asked.
“Go away,” I begged.
“To be sure, it is nice to see you slave naked,” he said.
“Please leave,” I said.
In slave wagons, girls are nearly always transported naked.
He did not ask me to uncover myself. I was somewhat annoyed, as I think he gathered, at this. Did he not really want to see me bared before him, as the slave I was?
“I saw you at the road camp,” he said. “Your new tunic is quite nice, much better than the one you wore in Ar.”
“Go away,” I said. “Please.”
Five days ago, for whatever reason, the tunic to which I had become accustomed in Ar, one suitable for a woman’s serving slave, was taken from me.
“Put this on, Allison,” had said the Lady Bina, and handed me what seemed little more than a tiny scrap of rep cloth.
“Surely not, Mistress,” I had said.
“Yes, yes,” she said. “It is time you were put in a more revealing garment, one more suitable for a pretty slave.”
“But, Mistress,” I said, “this is the sort of garment in which a strong man might choose to display a slave, to boast of the beauty and pleasures he has at his disposal.”
“We have business,” said the Lady Bina, “and we must recruit some fellows to help us with it. If you are about, one of our beasts, especially so clothed, we anticipate things will proceed apace.”
“Mistress?” I had said.
“You will remember,” she said, “that I was concerned, even at your purchase, with your attractiveness to men.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
I recalled, too, he
r test in the market. How frightening had been that experience!
“It might serve my purposes,” she said.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
I did not inquire what purposes she might have in mind. The services and use of a slave, of course, may be bestowed as the master or mistress might wish. One advantage of a private male master is that they are commonly rather proprietary where their slaves are concerned, even jealous. It is a common act of courtesy at a feast, or a visit, to offer a guest the use of a slave, but too, it is understood that the sensitive guest will graciously forgo this gift. It is different, of course, with the girls kept at inns, and such, for such purposes. Also, feast slaves may be cheaply rented for the night, and longer. The Lady Bina, of course, was not a male master, let alone a jealous, possessive one, and I was afraid she might be generous, perhaps excessively so, in such matters. To be sure, I had not been put to slave use since the eating house and the gambling house, and that was long ago. I was uneasy, of course, for a master’s hands on my body, for which I subtly longed, but I was in no way in the sorry straits of many miserable girls, the conflagrations of whose slave fires periodically plunged them into acute torment.
And so I would have a new tunic.
To casually glance upon me, I supposed most would assume that I was a man’s slave. They enjoy putting us in such things. It was the sort of garment which, in Ar, might elicit a switching from a free woman.
“Too,” she had said, “we may buy two or three other girls, stupid girls, barbarians, as you.”
“I am not stupid, Mistress,” I said.
“Then uninformed, ignorant girls,” she said, “as you.”
“Barbarians, then?” I said.
“Of course,” she said.
“May I inquire,” I had asked, “the nature of Mistress’ business?”
“No,” she said. “Now put this on, and we will put you before men, and see if it should be shortened, or altered, a bit, perhaps slit at the hems, torn down some about the neck, such things.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I had said.
At least, I had thought, it is not a camisk.
I did not mention this, of course, for fear I would be camisked.
* * * *
“Please do not look at me in that fashion,” I said.
I drew up my legs further. He did not require that I change the position of my hands.
“Yes,” he said, “I like you slave naked.”
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“Looking at a naked slave,” he said.
“Master!” I sobbed.
“I am of your party,” he said. “Perhaps if you are very nice, I will let you cook for me.”
“I would salt your food so that you could not eat it,” I said.
“Then,” said he, “it would be you who would eat it, after which I would have the pleasure of lashing you.”
“I see,” I said.
“Your ankles look well in shackles,” he said.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“You may thank me,” he said.
“Thank you, Master,” I said, drawing my ankles a bit further back, with a rustle of chain.
“We are north of Ar, on the Venna road,” he said.
“We are bound for Venna?” I said.
“Doubtless for the tharlarion races,” he said. “It is the season.”
“I see,” I said.
“Actually,” he said, “I do not know.”
“I see,” I said.
“If you were to peep out, between the side boards and the canvas, you might occasionally see a tharlarion ranch.”
“Oh?” I said.
“But doubtless you are afraid to do so,” he said.
“Perhaps,” I said.
I did not know how long he had been with us. Perhaps he had noted, for all I knew, several times, the tiny lifting of the canvas. If the wagons were in the care of slavers, I supposed girls might be punished for such things. Slavers like to keep the girls in their wagons ignorant of their surroundings, their destinations, and such. Indeed, even in coffles the destination of the coffle is seldom made explicit to, so to speak, the “beads on the slaver’s necklace.” Native Gorean girls, of course, coffled, are rampant in their speculations in such matters. Here, however, in our party, there seemed to be permissiveness in such matters. Even so, I did not care to be discovered in my small, furtive reconnaissances.
“You have probably never seen a racing tharlarion,” he said.
“No,” I said.
“Perhaps they do not have them on the barbarian world,” he said.
“Perhaps not,” I said.
“Some,” he said, “are quadrupedalian, others bipedalian.”
“I do not even know your name,” I said.
“Why?” said he. “Do you want it on your collar?”
“No!” I said.
“Perhaps I will buy you,” he said.
“Do not!” I said.
“Are you comfortable?” he inquired, reverting to his initial question.
“No,” I said. “I am naked, the boards are hard, the Ahn are long.”
“Be glad,” he said, “the road is smooth. It may not be so later.”
“Master?” I said.
“I think we are going beyond Venna,” he said.
“Where?” I asked.
“Somewhere in the Voltai,” he said.
“What is there?” I asked.
“I do not know,” he said.
“Please, Master,” I said.
“Mountains,” he said.
I suspected that I might know more than he. There were three wagons in our small party. In the first, the stateliest and most comfortable, was the Lady Bina, and, possibly, Lord Grendel. I, as yet alone, occupied the second wagon, and, in the third wagon, its covering drawn tight, I was sure, was the blind Kur. It had been captured in the Voltai, and, I suspected, it was the intention of Lord Grendel to return it to its savage haunts, if savage haunts they were. Presumably, it might have fellows in the Voltai, who might look after it, if Kurii were concerned with such things.
“It is warm, and close, in here, is it not?” he asked.
“Master is perceptive,” I said.
“Beware you are not cuffed, girl,” he said.
“Forgive me, Master,” I said.
He seemed more amused with my insolence than annoyed. How, from the heights of his freedom, he looked upon me as nothing, only a slave! I was pleased, however, that he was not angry. I was quite certain that if a girl deserved a cuffing, or, in an ambiguous situation, it seemed she might deserve a cuffing, she would receive one, and sharply, at his hands. She must strive to keep things clear. It is dangerous for a slave to approach such borders. It is not wise for a girl to test the limits of a master’s tolerance. They do not care for such games, and the whip is theirs.
He smiled upon me, the beast!
I did not care to be so looked upon, as a meaningless chit. But before such men what could women be but meaningless chits?
“Perhaps Master has duties to which he might attend,” I suggested.
I was furious.
I lacked no confidence in my own excellencies, in my own qualities, and such, which I had deemed considerable, certainly for my former world, but I sensed, too, to my fury, that he, this brute, like so many Gorean men, was in many ways, and by far, my superior.
What could we be to such men but meaningless chits?
How angry that made me!
And yet, too, it made me want to yield to them, and serve, and please them.
How different he and so many others were from most of the men I had known on my former world. What had been done, I wondered, to the men of my former world? How superior to me, in so many ways, were these brutes of Gor! How slave I felt before them! Were such as I not fittingly owned by such as they, as the females of so many species of my former world were, in effect, owned by their males? To my chagrin such things were now, on Gor,
indisputably obvious to me. I was unable to deny them, as much as I might wish to do so. And such relationships on Gor were institutionalized, fixed in law! I was collared! I sensed that I belonged on the block, stripped, before such men, who might, fittingly, purchase me as an object, or toy. It is strange how one can sense such things, but, to my irritation, I was in no doubt about it. Before such men women could be but properties; they belonged at the feet of such men, as slaves.
But if one were a slave, why should one not be a slave?
Is there not a freedom, a liberation, a relief, in such an acknowledgement?
Are the miseries of a free woman so superior to the joys of a mastered, loving slave?
Let each consider the matter for herself.
With two hands, he thrust open the canvas curtains at the head of the wagon and light, and fresh air, surged into that narrow, rectangular, hitherto oppressive wood-and-canvas enclosure.
I blinked against the light. I could see, over the wagon box, the broad, arched back of the plodding tharlarion which was drawing the wagon. It was tied by its nose ring to the back of the preceding wagon. Its reins were looped about a hook to the left of the wagon box. The Metal Worker, if that were indeed his caste, was on the Teamster’s bench, which was, too, the lid of the wagon box. Within it, parts, harness, and other tackle can be stored. Within it, too, I supposed, would be other sets of chains and shackles, should other girls be added to the party. I had gathered that two or three might be purchased in Venna, though I knew not for what purpose, if we were proceeding to the Voltai. Slave girls do, however, I knew, make lovely gifts.
I was at the back of the wagon bed, to which I had retreated, drawing back along the central bar, to distance myself from the Gorean scrutiny of the unexpected, offensive intruder.
I hated him.
I wondered what it would be, to have his collar on my neck. I knew it would be easy enough to put there.
I recalled he had stood between me and the beast nights ago, in the market of Cestias. It was fortunate for him that he had not been slain. What had he been doing there? I smiled to myself. He might have followed me there, as a man might follow a slave. If he were tangled in the coils of my beauty, such as it might be, fastened there, he might prove to be the slave and I the mistress! Much power I knew could reside within a collar. Have not Ubars succumbed to the smile of a kajira? I could taunt and torment him, I suspected, if I were clever, to my heart’s content. As long as he did not own me, I could enact a girl’s vengeance on the hapless tarsk. I reminded myself that I despised him, that I loathed him. I was sure I could make him suffer. But then I wondered what might be the feel of his bracelets on my wrists. If he were kind enough to bracelet my hands before my body I might, when no one was about, lift them to my lips and kiss them.
