by John Norman
"Why not experiment with the truth?" I said.
"We already believe the truth," said one of the fellows about.
"How do you know?" I asked.
"The Teaching tells us," said another.
"You must understand," said another, "that we do not like putting people out to die. It makes us very sorry to do this. On the occasions of an expulsion we often eat a meal in silence, and weep bitter tears into our gruel."
"I am sure it is a touching sight," I said.
Pumpkin looked down toward the girl. He did not look directly at her, but she knew herself to be the object of his attention, indirect though that attention might have been.
"Teach me your Teaching," she said. "I want to be a Same."
"Wonderful," said Pumpkin. He almost reached out to touch her, so pleased he was, but suddenly, fearfully, he drew back his hand. He blushed. There was sweat on his forehead.
"Excellent," said more than one of the Waniyanpi.
"You will not regret it," said another.
"You will love being a Same," said another.
"It is the only thing to be," said another.
"When we reach the vicinity of the compound," said Pumpkin, "and you are unbound and properly clothed, in suitable Waniyanpi garb, you will lead us all through the gate, preceding us, this thus attesting to your honor amongst us and the respect in which you are held."
"I shall look forward eagerly to my reception into the compound," said the girl.
"And so, too, shall we, welcome citizen," said Pumpkin. He then turned to the others. "We must now return to our work," he said. "There is refuse to be gathered and debris to be burned."
When the Waniyanpi had filed away, taking their leave, I turned to regard the girl.
"They are mad," she said, "mad," squirming in the yoke.
"Perhaps," I said. "I suppose it is a matter of definition."
"Definition?" she said.
"If the norms of sanity are social norms," I said, "by definition, the norm is sane."
"Even if the society is totally misrelated to reality?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Even if they think they are all urts, or lizards or clouds?"
"I gather so," I said, "and in such a society the one who does not think that he is an urt, or, say, a lizard or a cloud, would be accounted insane."
"And would be insane?" she asked.
"On that definition," I said.
"That is a preposterous definition," she said.
"Yes," I admitted.
"I do not accept it," she said.
"Nor do I," I admitted.
"Surely there can be a better," she said.
"I would hope so," I said, "one that was framed with a closer regard for empirical reality, the actual nature of human beings, and such."
"Someone is insane," she said, "who believes false things."
"But we all, doubtless, believe many false things," I said. "Theoretically a society could believe numerous false propositions and still, in normal senses of the word, be regarded as a sane, if, in many respects, a mistaken society."
"What if a society is mistaken, and takes pains to avoid rectifying its errors, what if it refuses, in the light of evidence, to correct its mistakes?"
"Evidence can usually be explained away or reinterpreted to accord with treasured beliefs," I said. "I think it is usually a matter of degree. Perhaps when the belief simply becomes too archaic, obsolete and unwieldy to defend, when it becomes simply preposterous and blatantly irrational to seriously continue to defend it, then, perhaps, if one still continues, compulsively, to defend it, one might speak of insanity."
"I should think so," she said.
"But even then," I said, "other concepts might be more fruitful, such as radical obstinacy or institutionalized irrationality."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because of the vagueness of the concept of insanity," I said, "and its often implicit reference to statistical norms. For example, an individual who believed in, say, magic, assuming that sense could be made of that concept, in a society which believed in magic, would not normally be accounted insane. Similarly, such a society, though it might be regarded as being deluded, would not, in all likelihood, be regarded as insane."
"What if there were such a thing as magic?" she asked.
"That society, then, would simply be correct," I said.
"What of these people who were just here?" she asked. "Are they not insane?"
"By carefully chosen definitions, I suppose we could define them into sanity or into insanity, depending on whether we approved of them or not, but it is difficult to derive satisfaction from victories which are achieved by the cheap device of surreptitiously altering a conceptual structure."
"I think they are mad, insane," she said.
"They are at least mistaken," I said, "and, in many respects, are different from us."
She shuddered.
"The most pernicious beliefs," I said, "are not actually beliefs at all, but, better put, pseudobeliefs. The pseudobelief is not assailable by evidence or reason, even theoretically. Its security from refutation is the result of its cognitive vacuity. It cannot be refuted for, saying nothing, nothing can be produced, even in theory, which could count against it. Such a belief is not strong, but empty. Ultimately it is little more, if anything, than a concatenation of words, a verbal formula. Men often fear to inquire into their nature. They tuck them away, and then content themselves with other concerns. Their anchors, they fear, are straw; their props, they fear, are reeds. Truth is praised, and judiciously avoided. Is this not human cleverness at its most remarkable? Who knows in what way the sword of truth will cut? Some men, it seems, would rather die for their beliefs than analyze them. I guess that it must be a very frightening thing to inquire into one's beliefs. So few people do it. Sometimes one grows weary of blood-stained twaddle. Battles of formulas, you see, as nothing can count against them, are too often decided by wounds and iron. Some men, we have noted, are willing to die for their beliefs. Even larger numbers, it seems, are willing to kill for them."
"It is not unknown for men to fight for false treasures," she said.
"That is true," I said.
"But, in the end," she said, "I do not think that the battles are fought for the formulas."
I regarded her.
"They are only standards and flags, carried into battle," she said, "stimulatory to the rabble, useful to the elite."
"Perhaps you are right," I said. I did not know. Human motivation is commonly complex. That she had responded as she had, however, whether she was right or wrong, reminded me that she was an agent of Kurii. Such folk commonly see things in terms of women, gold and power. I grinned down at her. This agent, stripped and in her yoke, was well neutralized before me. She was no longer a player in the game; she was now only a prize in it.
"Do not look at me like that," she said.
"I am not of the Waniyanpi," I said, "Female."
"Female!" she said.
"You had best begin to think of yourself in such terms," I said.
She twisted, angrily, in the yoke. Then she looked up at me. "Free me," she demanded.
"No," I said.
"I will pay you much," she said.
"No," I said.
"You could take me from these fools," she said.
"I suspect so," I said.
"Then carry me off with you," she said.
"Do you beg to be carried off?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"If I did so," I said, "it would be as a slave."
"Oh," she said.
"Do you still beg to be carried off?" I inquired.
"Yes," she said.
"As a surrendered slave," I asked, "a total and abject slave?"
"Yes!" she said.
"No," I said.
"No?" she said.
"No," I said.
"Take me with you," she begged.
"I am going to leave you precisely whe
re you are," I said, "my lovely mercenary."
"Mercenary?" she said. "I am not a mercenary! I am the Lady Mira of Venna, of the Merchants!"
I smiled.
She shrank back on her heels. "What do you know of me?" she asked. "What are you doing in the Barrens? Who are you?"
"You look well in the yoke," I said.
"Who are you?" she said.
"A traveler," I said.
"You are going to leave me here, like this?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"I do not want to go to a compound of these people," she said. "They are insane, all of them."
"But you begged to be taken to their compound," I said, "to be taught their Teaching."
"I did not want to die," she said. "I did not want to be put out to die."
"You had best pretend well to believe their Teaching," I said. "They would not, most likely, look lightly on being deceived in this respect."
"I do not want to live a life of hypocrisy," she said.
"Doubtless many live such a life in the compound of the Waniyanpi," I said.
"Should I try to believe their absurdities?" she asked.
"It might be easier on you, if you could," I said.
"But I am not a fool," she said.
"To be sure," I said, "it is easiest to subscribe to odd beliefs when they have been inculcated in childhood. The entrenchment of eccentric beliefs is commonly perpetrated most successfully on the innocent and defenseless, even more successfully than on the ignorant and desperate."
"I am afraid of them," she said.
"They will treat you with dignity and respect," I said, "as a Same."
"Better a collar in the cities," she said, "better to be abused and sold from a public platform, better to be a slave girl fearful and obedient at the feet of her master."
"Perhaps," I said.
"I am afraid of them," she whispered.
"Why?" I asked.
"Did you not see how they would not look at me? I am afraid they will make me ashamed of my own body."
"In all things," I said, "remember that you are beautiful."
"Thank you," she whispered.
To be sure, the danger of which she spoke was quite real. It was difficult for one's values not to be affected by the values of those about them. Even the marvelous beauties and profundities of human sexuality, I knew, incredibly enough, in some environments tended to trigger bizarre reactions of anxiety, embarrassment and shame. To the average Gorean such reactions would seem incomprehensible. Perhaps such environments, apart from semantic niceties, might simply be regarded, if any, as insane. How tragic, in particular, it is, to see such reactions being absorbed by children.
"Do you truly think I am beautiful?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Then take me with you," she begged.
"No," I said.
"You would leave me with them?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Why?" she asked.
"It amuses me," I said.
"Tarsk!" she cried.
I held the quirt before her face. "You may kiss it," I told her, "or be beaten with it."
She kissed the quirt, the supple, slim leather.
"Again," I told her, "lingeringly."
She complied. Then she looked up at me. "You called me a mercenary," she said.
"I was wrong," I said. "You are only a former mercenary."
"And what am I now?" she asked.
"Surely you can guess," I said.
"No!" she said.
"Yes," I assured her.
She struggled in the yoke, unavailingly. "I am helpless," she said.
"Yes," I said.
She straightened her body. She tossed her head. "If you took me with you," she said, "I would doubtless be your slave."
"Totally," I told her.
"It is fortunate for me, then," she said, "that I will accompany the Waniyanpi to their camp. There I will be free."
"The Waniyanpi are all slaves," I told her, "slaves of the red savages."
"Do the savages live in the compounds?" she asked.
"Not normally," I said. "They normally leave the Waniyanpi much alone. They do not much care, I think, to be around them."
"Then, for most practical purposes," she said, "they are slaves without masters."
"Perhaps," I said.
"Then I, too, would be a slave without a master," she said.
"For most practical purposes, for most of the time, I suppose," I said. The Waniyanpi, incidentally, are owned by tribes, not individuals. Their slavery, thus, is somewhat remote and impersonal. That one is owned by a collectivity, of course, may obscure one's slavery but, in the final analysis, it does not alter it. Some slaves believe they are not slaves, because their masters tell them so.
"That is the best sort of slave to be," she said, "one without a master."
"Is it?" I asked. Lonely and unfulfilled is the slave without a master.
"When I was taken prisoner," she said, "I feared I would be made a slave, a true slave. I feared a tether would be put on my neck and I would be run to the camp of a master, sweating at the lathered flank of his kaiila, that there I would be his, to be dressed, if dressed, and worked and used as he pleased. I feared that hard labors and degradation would be mine. I feared that a beaded collar would be tied on my neck. I feared that I would be subject to ropes and whips, unsparingly applied if I were in the least bit unpleasing. Mostly I feared being alone with him in his lodge, where I must, at his smallest indication, serve him intimately, and abjectly and lengthily, as his least whim might dictate, with the full attentiveness and services of the female slave. You can imagine my terrors at the mere thought of finding myself so helplessly belonging to a man, so helplessly in his power, so helplessly subject to his mastery and domination."
"Of course," I said.
"And so it is," she said, "that I rejoice that I am to be spared all that. I am astonished at my good fortune. How foolish were the red savages to be so lenient with me!"
"They are not fools," I said.
"They took other girls," she said, "I heard, to their camps."
"Yes," I said.
"That was not done with me," she said.
"No," I said.
"They spared me," she said.
"Did they?" I asked.
"I do not understand," she said.
"You were found with the soldiers," I said. I then turned from her and mounted the kaiila.
"Yes?" she asked.
"The other girls were simply made slaves," I said. "They will now have the honor of serving worthy masters."
"And I?" she asked.
"You, being found with the soldiers," I said, "and obviously a personage of some importance, were singled out for punishment."
"Punishment?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. Indeed, I thought to myself, how much the red savages must hate the soldiers, and those with them, and how subtle and insidious they had been.
"But I am to be respected and accorded dignity," she said, kneeling below me in the grass, in her yoke. "I am to be sent to live with Waniyanpi!"
"That is your punishment," I said. I then turned the kaiila about, and left her behind me, in the grass, in her yoke.
18
Cuwignaka;
Sleen, Yellow Knives and Kaiila
"This is the lad of whom the Waniyanpi spoke," said Grunt. I joined my party on the crest of a small rise, at the eastern edge of the field of battle. He was some twenty years of age, naked, and staked out in the grass. Near him, on a lance thrust butt down in the turf, there was wound a white cloth. This marked the place in the grass where he had been secured. I did not understand, at that time, the significance of this form of marker, nor of the cloth.
"Is this the fellow you thought it might be?" asked Grunt.
"Yes," I said, looking down at the young man. "He is the one who was with the column." He was not now chained. His chains had been removed. He was now secured in a fashio
n more familiar to the Barrens.
"He is Dust Leg," said Grunt.
"I do not think so," I said. "Do you speak Gorean?" I asked him.
The young man opened his eyes, and then closed them.
"I have spoken Dust Leg to him, and Kaiila, and some Fleer," said Grunt. "He does not respond."
"Why?" I asked.
"We are white," said Grunt.
"He is not in good condition," I said.
"I do not think he will last much longer," said Grunt. "The Waniyanpi, doubtless by instruction, have given him little in the way of water or sustenance."
I nodded. They were to keep him alive until they left the field, as I recalled. Then he was to be left to die. I glanced from the rise back down into the shallow declivity between the low, grassy hills. I could see the Waniyanpi there, gathering and piling debris. I could see the remains of some wagons, too, and that behind which I had left the girl in the yoke.
"Do not consider interfering," said Grunt.
I went to my pack kaiila and fetched a verrskin water bag. It was half full.
"He is in the care of the Waniyanpi," said Grunt.
I bent down beside the lad, and put one hand gently behind his head. He opened his eyes, looking at me. I think it took him some moments to focus.
"He is in the care of the Waniyanpi," said Grunt.
"He does not seem to me well cared for," I said.
"Do not interfere," said Grunt.
"His body shows signs of dehydration," I said. I had seen this sort of thing in the Tahari. I had, from my own experience, some inkling of the suffering which could accompany this sort of deprivation.
"Do not," said Grunt.
Gently, cradling it partly in my arm, I lifted the water bag. The liquid moved inside the leather.
The lad took some of the water into his mouth and I withdrew the bag. He looked at me. Then, suddenly, with hatred, he turned his head to the side and spat out the water into the grass. He then lay back again, as he had before, his eyes closed. I stood up.
"Leave him," said Grunt.
"He is proud," I said, "proud, like a warrior."
"It would have done nothing anyway," said Grunt, "but prolong his agony."
"What is the significance of this lance," I asked, "with the cloth wound about it?"
"It is a warrior's lance," said Grunt. "Do you not see what the cloth is?"
