prisoners. There are various reasons for this. It humiliates the prisoner, and
pleases the captor. It shows the prisoner that he is now in someone else’s
power. Too, it makes it difficult to conceal weapons. Too, there is no generally
utilized type of clothing or garb for prisoners on Gor, few “prison uniforms,â€
or such. Accordingly, the marking out of prisoners, identifying them as
prisoners, the alerting of others as to their status, etc., which in one culture
might be achieved by such garb are often, on Gor, achieved by the absence, or
near absence, of clothing. The nudity, or semi-nudity, of the prisoner is likely
to alert all who observe it to his status. Too, even if the prisoner should
escape his bonds, (pg.22) he then faces the additional problem of locating
clothing, and of a suitable type. It might also be mentioned, of course, that
most Goreans do not approve of criminals. Accordingly, they have no objection to
depriving them of clothing, and such. It says to them that they have been
caught, and may now expect to be treated as they deserve.
These remarks, incidentally, pertain primarily to free criminals, and not to
prisoners of war or slaves. The stripping of prisoners of war, if it is done, is
generally a temporary matter, having to do with marking them out, as many Gorean
soldiers, particularly mercenaries, do not have distinctive uniforms, and
preventing the concealment of weapons. Whether the slave is clothed or not is at
the discretion of the master. In the houses of slavers and in slave markets,
beautiful women, for example, are almost always kept nude.
In another stroke of lightning, I caught sight again, of the swinging “grease
bucket,: it filled presumable with tar and tallow, hanging on its strap from the
axle housing of the wagon ahead of me. I thought the brigands, all things
considered, would be just as happy to go south to a work gang. Perhaps, in time,
they would even be released, in two or three years perhaps, when it was thought
they had been exemplary prisoners, hard-working and suitably docile. Because of
the storm, the rain and wind, another method of dealing with such fellows had
not been suggested back there on the road, but it is not unknown. It is
sometimes done as part of what is know as “wagon justice.†I will not go into
detail, but the method involves the tar and tallow, and fire. Goreans, as I have
suggested, do not much approve of criminals.
I withdrew my pack from the wagon beside which I was walking and let it pass me,
and then, following diagonally behind it for a moment, crossed to the left side
of the road. Another vehicle passed me, then, behind me. I looked up. In a new
flash of lightning I saw the stony plateau, surmounted by the inn of the Crooked
Tarn. The wind and rain lashed at the right side of my head and body. I stepped
from the road. There was a graveled wide place here, connected with the inn. It
was at least fifty yards deep and wide, affording room where even wagons pulled
by ten tharlarions might turn. A (pg.23) lantern was hung on a post ahead of me.
I made toward it. In other flashes of lightning I saw roads wending about the
plateau. There would be flat places, where wagons might camp.
I could see several wagons crowded together on the side of the plateau to my
left, the lee side. Some other wagons were more ahead of me, turned away from
the rain. I felt the gravel of the turn yard beneath my sandals. I paused by
some of the wagons. Then I made my way again toward the lantern. It surmounted a
post which was at the right corner of the wagon bridge, over the moat, ascending
toward the inn gate above me. In a flash of lightning, I saw two girls peeping
out from under a tarpaulin on one of the wagons. In the same instant,
frightened, they had seen me. When the sky was again lit the tarpaulin was down.
I had seen little but their eyes, but I did not doubt but what they were
kijirae. They had the look of women who had well learned that men were their
masters. I trod the wet gravel toward the left side of the wagon bridge. I
paused there to look across the moat. It was some forty feet in width. The
ground approaching it sloped down, gently, toward its retaining wall, only some
inches in height, too low to allow a man cover behind it. In this wall, at its
foot, there were openings every twenty feet or so to allow for water from the
outside to drain into the moat. This pitch of the land, too, incidentally, makes
it difficult to drain the moat. It could be done, of course, by men working
under a shed, to protect them from missile fire, arrows, lead sling pellets, and
such, or, say, more safely, and less exposed to sorties, by siege miners,
through a tunnel. Either project, of course, would require several men, be
costly in time and would constitute an engineering feat of no mean proportion.
There are, of course, various other approaches to such problems, for example,
attempting to bridge the moat, perhaps using dugout pontoons, having recourse to
rafts on which one might mount siege ladders, and even attempting to fill it.
Starvation of a garrison is usually ineffective, incidentally, for various
reasons. There is usually a large amount of supplies laid in, often enough for
one or two years, and water is generally available in siege cisterns within, if
not from rain or the moat itself. Similarly, after a time the besiegers tend to
exhaust the food supplies in the countryside and (pg. 24) may well themselves
suffer from hunger before the besieged. Maintaining a siege indefinitely
generally requires an extensive and efficient apparatus of logistics, arranging
for the acquisition, transportation and protection of supplies. To be sure, much
depends on the numbers of the besiegers and besieged, the nature of the
defenses, and such. For example, if the besieged do not have enough men to man
the extent of their walls, their lines must be thinned to the point where in a
multipoint attack penetration is invited. Still, statistically, sieges are
almost always unsuccessful. That is why cities have walls, and such. Usually,
too, within a city, there will be a citadel to which defenders may withdraw,
which is likely to be next to impregnable. They are likely to be safe there even
if the city is burned about them.
If it is of interest, sieges usually do not last very long, seldom more than a
few weeks, before the besiegers, not seeing much point in the matter, and
generally feeling the pinch of short rations, or possibly even because the
captain’s war contract has expired, or the men’s enlistment agreements are up,
will withdraw. Indeed, sometimes the soldiers, particularly if they are levied
citizen soldiers, may wish to return home simply to attend to their own
business, such as gathering in the harvest. More towns and cities, I think, have
fallen to trickery and bribery than frontal assaults. A good besieging captain
is usually aware of the political dissensions with a polity and attempts to
exploit them, a promised consequence of his success supposedly being to bring
one party or another into power. The traitorous party then, and perhaps honestly
enough in its own mind, is likely to
hail the conqueror as a liberator.
Dietrich of Tarnburg, one of the best known of the mercenary captains on Gor, is
legendary for his skill in such matters. He has doubtless taken more towns with
gold than iron. The gold expended, of course, may be later expeditiously
recouped from the public treasury, and the sale of goods, such as precious
plate, rugs, fine cloths, tapestries, inlaid woods, silver and gold wire, art
objects, jewels, tharlarion, tarsks, and women. Indeed, such gains may be levied
as a “liberation fee,†which fee it will be then incumbent on the party in power
to welcome with good grace and vigorously justify to the people.
(pg.25) The water in the most, from the inpourings from the land about, the
drainages, dark and roiling, was almost to the foot of the bridge.
The lantern to my right, to the side, on its post, at the right side of the
bridge, swung wildly in the rain and wind.
I looked up. There was a blast of lightning. This illuminated starkly, for a
moment, the palisade at the height of the plateau.
Lightning burst again across the sky.
The boards of the bridge were slick with water. It was about eight feet wide.
Two wagons could not pass on it. It led upward to a covered gate, which,
probably, had a covered, walled hall and another gate beyond it. The two gates,
the inner and the outer, are seldom open at the same time. in the covered way,
like an enclosed hall between the gates, there would doubtless, both above and
to the sides, be arrow ports. Two massive ropes, better than eight inches in
diameter, sloped down from the gate structure to the bridge, which allowed for
the raising and lowering of a portion of it at will. When the section was
raised, pulled up against the gate, further protecting it, the inn would be, in
effect, sealed off, an island in its small sea.
Such inns can serve as keeps or strongholds, but they seldom do so. For example,
one can simply come to them, and buy entrance and lodging. In that sense they
are open, though it is not unusual for them to be closed at night. They can,
however, as I have suggested, serve as keeps. More than once, such inns have
served rural areas as a place of refuge from foragers or marauders. They have
been seized, too, upon occasion by the remnants of defeated forces, as places,
in which to make desperate, perhaps last, stands. Too, such places, particularly
in remote, restless or barbarous districts, may be pacified. Within the palisade
there would be room for several wagons. In this place I did not know how many.
Too, though I did not think it was now lit, there might be a sheltered tarn
beacon somewhere, usually under a high shed. This signifies not only the
location of the inn, and its amenities, but also a safe approach, one unimpeded
by tarn wire, for a tarnsman, or a tarnsman with tarn basket. One brings (pg.26)
the bird in to the left of the light, of course. By custom Gorean traffic keeps
to the left. In this fashion one’s sword arm, at least if one is right-handed,
as are most Goreans, faces the oncoming traffic.
There was a wagon to the left of the bridge. Its canvas cover was drawn down.
The rain poured from it. Under the wagon there was a small, huddled figure, a
tarpaulin clutched about its head and shoulders. Within the wagon, then, I
supposed, there might be a fellow and his free companion. Doubtless, unless it
had been displeasing in some way, the location of the small figure beneath the
wagon, huddling there in misery and cold, was a consequence of the presence of
the free companion within it. I did not doubt but what the small figure was more
beautiful and attractive than the free companion. That was suggested by what
must be its status. Free women hate such individuals and lose few opportunities
to make them suffer. I wondered if the fellow in the wagon had acquired the
individual under it merely for his interest and pleasure, or perhaps, too, as a
way of encouraging his companion to take her own relationship with him more
seriously. Perhaps, if his plan worked, in such a case, he might then be kind
enough to discard the individual beneath the wagon, ridding himself of it, its
work accomplished, in some market or other.
I crouched down. I could then see the heavy chain passed through the ring under
the wagon. One end of it went between the folds of the tarpaulin clutched about
the figure’s throat, probably to be padlocked there, about its throat, or
attached to a collar. The other end went behind the figure and downward,
probably to fasten together its crossed ankles. seeing my eyes upon it, the
small figure knelt under the wagon, and, its hands coming from the tarpaulin,
their palms now on the gravel, put down its head, rendering obeisance.
“Oh!†she said, softly, as I lifted the tarpaulin back. she looked up from all
fours. The chain which passed through the ring wound twice about her neck, where
it was padlocked. From her neck, through the ring, lifting, and thence
descending, it served also to secure her ankles, which were, as I had
anticipated, crossed and chained closely together. This makes it so that the
prisoner cannot walk. It is common to chain female prisoners so that they cannot
rise to their feet. In this (pg.27) there is not only a security but a
symbolism, one that bespeaks their rightful place. Beneath the tarpaulin I saw
that she was naked, and, as I had thought she might be, beautiful.
She looked up at me, from all fours. Her body now was streaked with the slanted
rain. Her hair, apparently from before, was wet and very dark. It fell about her
shoulders. Her knees were on the tarpaulin, within which she had huddles, over
the gravel. I knelt her back, and then took her hands in mine. They were also
cold. I rubbed them for a time. Then I put them on her thighs. I touched her
body, gently, rubbing the rain about it. She shuddered, her shoulders and
breasts wet now, and slick, with the rain.
“You are helpless,†I said to her, “and will make very little noise.â€
“My ankles are chained,†she whispered.
I put her to her back, a bit more under the shelter of the wagon. The chain
moved a little through the loop ring above us. I heard the wagon creak a little,
too, above us. Someone had stirred in it, or was moving, it seemed. The fellow
who owned the wagon, I supposed, was turning in his sleep, or was addressing
himself to his companion. But it then seemed quiet, and there was little noise
except for the wind and rain, and the distant rumble of thunder.
My face was close to here. “You are slave,†I whispered.
Suddenly there was a great burst of lightning and crash of thunder.
I saw her eyes, and pressed down upon her, holding her head, pressing her lips
with the kiss of the master.
I drew back.
There was another great flash of lightning and I saw her eyes, looking up at me,
wild, frightened, needful. “Yes,†she whispered intensely, helplessly. “I am a
slave! I am a slave!†Then she lifted her body and seized me in her arms and
pressed her lips eagerly, needfully, gratefully to mine.
I put her to her back.
>
Then I caressed her, and she squirmed, writhing on the wet tarpaulin over the
gravel, beneath the wagon, in the flashes of lightning, in the explosions of
thunder.
She was small, naked and cuddly. Her thigh, as I determined, (pg.28) in turning
her about, and caressing her, first, by feel, and then, in a flash of lightning,
wore the common Kajira brand, the small, delicate “Kef,†for “Kajira,†sometimes
called the staff and fronds, suggesting beauty subject to discipline. On her
neck, beneath the coils of the heavy, padlocked chain, was a common,
close-fitting Gorean slave collar.
“Alas,†she wept softly, in misery, in frustration, “my ankles are chained!â€
I gathered she might not have been a slave long.
“Oh!†she cried, softly.
I thrust up her legs and slipped between them, and hen her legs were tight about
me, I within their chained circuit. I lifted her up, and lowered her. “Ohh,†she
said, softly. She clutched me.
The storm was fierce.
Then, after a time, I lifted her up and slipped back, freeing myself.
There are various ways, of course, to use a woman whose ankles were bound. I had
utilized one of them.
“If a question comes up,†I said to her, “you were warned to silence, and were
helpless.†To be sure, this was even true. “You were merely utilized by a casual
passer-by.†I said. Such things, incidentally, are not that unusual with female
slaves, particularly if they are put out, without an iron belt, in effect for
the taking.
“I cannot believe the feelings I had,†she whispered.
“You must endure such feelings and more,†I said, “When men choose to impose
them upon you.â€
“Yes, Master,†she whispered, in awe.
The extent and nature of such feelings, I think, are largely a function of the
individuals involved. To be sure, they are usually, too, a function of many
other factors, as well. For example, in this particular case, I suspected that
her chaining might have been a factor. Restraining the female, sometimes
symbolically, sometimes in fashions which are literally, physically coercive,
making her absolutely helpless, for various reasons, psychological and physical,
Norman, John - Gor 23 - Renegades of Gor.txt Page 3
