Norman, John - Gor 23 - Renegades of Gor.txt

Norman, John - Gor 23 - Renegades of Gor.txt Page 22

by Renegades of Gor [lit]

  “What?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Sirs,” cried Klio, “soldiers of Cos, warriors for truth and justice, redressers

  of wrongs, kinsmen from across the sea, I am Lady Klio, of Telnus, of Cos! I am

  a free woman! I beg your kindness, your indulgence, your protection! Rescue me

  from this barbarian. Clothe and honor me! Return me in dignity to freedom!”

  “Many of these fellow,” I said, “are not of Cos, but are mercenaries in the

  service of Cos.”

  She looked about the faces, frightened. On many faces there was amusement.

  “I am of Telnus,” said a fellow.

  “I, too,” said another.

  “Free me!” she cried. “I demand it!”

  They smiled.

  “Some of these fellows have not had a female in a long time,” I said.

  “Had?” she stammered.

  “Yes,” I said.

  These men were front-trench fighters, most of them. Probably in defense, and in

  support of assaults, and in assaults themselves, they had been muchly employed

  and risked. The siege had been long and bitter. Those who were not of Cos, and

  were mercenaries, fighting only for their fees, and some loot, perhaps a female

  or two, and gold, would presumably not be much moved by appeals to Cosian

  heritages or patriotism. Their loyalties would be less to Cos than to their

  captains and comrades. In some cases, they might be loyal, as well, to their

  word, to their oaths and pledges, and, if they understood what they were marking

  at the recruitment tables, their contracts. And the fellows from Cos itself, and

  from Tyros, and their close allies, were surely by now, if they had not been

  before, hardened veterans, men unlikely to be swayed by the self-serving appeals

  of beautiful women, men accustomed (pg.172) to seeing such women, of whatever

  city, in terms of the collar and chain.

  “Why are you not in Telnus?” asked a fellow.

  Klio was silent, in consternation.

  “She lived from men, following them and exploiting them,” I said. :She was a

  debtor slut. I paid her bills and thus came into her de facto ownership, through

  the redemption laws.”

  “But he did not free me then!” she cried.

  “No,” I said.

  “Where did you pick her up?” asked a fellow.

  “South, on the Vosk Road,” I said, “at the Crooked Tarn.”

  “I know that place!” said one of the men.

  “I, too,” said another.

  “I was once well taken at the Crooked Tarn,” said the first man, “by a wench

  whose redemption cost me three silver tarsks, plus travel money, supposedly to

  get her back to Cos. For all this I received not so much as a kiss, she

  informing me that that would demean our relationship, putting it on a physical

  basis. She only laughed at me, from a fee cart, moving rapidly away, with my

  purse, waving the redemption papers, signed for freedom, in her hand. I was a

  fool. Often since I have dreamed of her in my power, naked and in a collar, my

  slave! I would use her well! Her name was Liomache.”

  I was interested to hear this. Had I known it I would have brought Liomache

  along. It seemed to me quite possible that the Liomache I had on the chain of

  Ephialtes might be the same woman. if so, she would be doubtless delighted to

  renew her acquaintance with the soldier. Certainly he, at any rate, would be

  delighted. Even if she were not the same woman, she had been making her living

  in the same way, and had had the same name. That might well have been enough to

  interest him in buying her. If she were the same woman, I did not think I would

  envy her, to find herself in the possession of her former dupe. She might too, I

  supposed, discover that their relationship might have, indeed, something of a

  physical aspect. Indeed, it would then be a totalistic relationship, the most

  totalistic relationship possible between a man and a woman, that in which she is

  total slave, and he absolute master.

  (pg.173) “This woman, in effect,” I said, “made her living in the same way as

  your Liomache.”

  “Kill her,” said a man.

  “Do not kill me, please!” said Klio.

  The eyes of many of the men were hard upon her.

  “She exploited men,” said a fellow.

  “I will not do it again!” cried Klio.

  She looked from face to face, but found little to comfort her in those

  countenances.

  Too, besides their anger, these men were Goreans, and many of them regarded

  women in terms of the perfection of the collar. Too, many had been frustrated by

  free women, and free women in their own city. It was a rare fellow who did not,

  from time to time, regard the women of his own city as quite as suitable for

  collaring as those of other cities. Were they not all women? Many Goreans, for

  example, rejoiced in the situation in Tharna, where almost every female is a

  slave.

  “I will not do it again!” whispered Klio.

  “You may attempt to do it, as you please, in the future,” I said, “but I think

  you will do it within the limits of the collar.”

  “Oh, please, no!” she wept.

  “I have shaken the leash, once,” I said. “You did not then perform. Fortunate it

  was for you then that you were a free woman, and not a slave. Even so, I was not

  pleased. Do you understand?”

  “Yes!” she said.

  “Now, when I shake it again, you will perform.”

  She put her head down, trembling.

  “Do you understand?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “You must remember, gentlemen,” I said, “she is only a free woman.”

  I shook the leash and Lady Klio, naked, attempted to perform.

  Some of the men laughed.

  “Surely you can do better than that,” I said.

  She sank to her stomach, in the dirt, at the bottom of the trench, weeping.

  “Whip her,” said a tall fellow, watching her, with his arms folded.

  (pg.174) She looked up at him, frightened.

  His eyes suddenly glinted. I had not seen what passed between them but I suspect

  that he had seen in her eyes something swift, some flash of sudden fear and

  recognition, that she had seen him as her master.

  Then she put down her head again and there, in the dirt, shuddered.

  “On your knees,” I said. “Now,”

  She cried out, and rose quickly to her knees.

  “Knees spread,” I said.

  She knelt there, her knees spread. She blushed crimson. It seemed she could not

  take her eyes off the tall fellow.

  “Perform,” I encouraged her. “Move. Call attention to your charms.”

  Again the Lady Klio began to perform, as she could.

  “It may not be much, gentlemen,” I informed them, holding the leash, “but surely

  for such a woman it is an unusual activity. I suspect that she is not accustomed

  to doing it. Perhaps in the future she will be better at it. Look, gentlemen.

  Little as it may be,
I suspect this is far more than was provided for the many

  chaps who paid for her meals, her lodging, her wardrobe, her transportation, her

  luxuries, her claimed needs, her numerous bills.”

  “Continue to perform,” I said. “You may leave your knees, but do not rise to

  your feet.”

  She regarded me, in wild protest.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “Do not make me do these things,” she begged. “Do not make me dance and writhe

  so. I am a free woman!”

  “Your freedom will soon be a matter of the past,” I told her. “How well you do

  now could influence the quality of your life in the future.”

  “Do not fear,” I said. “I know you are truly a slave. I learned it in your kiss,

  when you were shackled at the wall at the Crooked Tarn. I think that perhaps, in

  the same kiss, you learned it.”

  The men laughed. She sneaked a glance at the tall fellow, and then, hastily, put

  down her head. He smiled.

  “Lady Elene, of Tyros, your friend, whom you remember from the Crooked Tarn, and

  the coffle,” I said, “is even now (pg.175) in a slave collar. “ It had been put

  on her within moments of her sale.

  Klio looked back at me.

  “In her performance,” I said, “the slave, unrestrained, emerged quickly and in

  moments the woman discovered that it was she. It pleased the men abundantly. It

  brought a good price. It is now collared.”

  Klio sobbed.

  “Frankly,” I said, “I had not expected you to be inferior to her.”

  She looked at me, angrily.

  “But perhaps the women of Tyros,” I said, “are superior to those of Cos?”

  “I think not,” said a man, rather angrily.

  There was laughter from the others. I supposed he must be Cosian, natively.

  “But then,” I said, “it is said, I have heard, that those of Port Kar prize

  Cosians as slaves.”

  “Show us what a Cosian can do,” said a man.

  “Thus,” I said, “it seems that it is not, really, that the women of Tyros are

  superior to the women of Cos, but merely that, in your particular case, you are

  inferior to the Lady Elene.

  She looked at me, again, angrily.

  “But that is only to be expected, upon occasion, I suppose,” I said, “that some

  woman of Tyros would be superior to some woman of Cos. Too, it is no disgrace to

  be inferior to the Lady Elene, who is quite attractive and, in time, might even

  make a dancer.”

  “I am not inferior to Elene,” she said, angrily.

  The men laughed at her vehemence.

  She looked at the tall fellow.

  I quickly then, that she would feel the authoritative signal of the leash and

  collar rings while she was looking at the tall fellow, shook the leash.

  “Ah!” said a fellow.

  I was quite pleased then with Klio.

  My expectation, I then felt, that she would prove to be the most exciting and

  desirable of the two, was borne out. That was why I had saved her for last, of

  course, for use in the trench closest to Ar’s Station. To be sure, I might have

  been (pg.176) somewhat prejudiced, for I remembered Klio’s lovely dark hair, and

  I tend to be partial to brunets. Who, eventually, would prove to be the best

  slave I did not know. Let such women compete desperately with one another, and

  with other slaves, each striving to be the best.

  One of the men cried out with pleasure.

  That had been an excellent leash move, to be sure. Klio displayed herself

  brilliantly on the leash. Such things seem very natural for a woman. perhaps

  they are, to some extent, like slave dance, instinctive, the biological

  template, or genetic dispositions for them, having been selected for thousands

  of years ago, the most pleasing of captive women, perhaps, those squirming best

  on their tethers, or in their bonds, tending to be utilized for sexual conquest.

  Perhaps, however, they are associated, in their way, with something even deeper,

  something clearly selected for, the biological need of a woman to belong, to be

  approved of and to love.

  “Superb!” said a fellow.

  I wondered if Klio, sensing these deep, dark, wonderful, frightening things

  within her, the rightfulness of the destiny of submission to men for her, and

  such, had not, perhaps in the privacy of her own chambers, before her mirror,

  put the leash on herself. Perhaps she had then, there, before the mirror, in the

  privacy of her own quarters, moved similarly. It is not unusual for women to do

  this sort of thing, alone, often in bonds and chains, expressing plaintively

  therein their longing for a master.

  “Superb! Superb!”

  Klio, I recalled, had chosen a dangerous way of life, one which she must surely

  have realized, on one level or another, might lead to the collar.

  “’Klio’,” I said to the men, “might be an excellent name for a slave, do you not

  think so?”

  “Yes!” said more than one.

  Klio flushed with pleasure. Somehow it seemed she became even more sinuous, more

  sensuous, then.

  I saw that she was paying a bit too much attention to the tall fellow.

  “On your belly,” I said to Klio. “There, that fellow,” I said, indicating a

  grizzled sapper to one side, his tools near him, “address yourself to him, about

  the feet and legs.”

  (pg.177) He grinned.

  “No!” said the tall fellow.

  I had thought this move on my part might bring him into action.

  Klio stopped, and turned, from her knees, to regard him.

  “I will buy her!” he said.

  “She is not cheap,” I said. It seemed to me I might as well get what I could for

  Klio. I fear I must admit occasionally to a streak of opportunistic greediness.

  “A silver tarsk!” he cried.

  “Done!” I said. I had not really expected anything like that. Klio, redeemed

  through Ephialtes, had only cost me thirty copper tarsks. Perhaps I should have

  held out for more, seeing the eagerness of the fellow, but, after all, I was

  taken by surprise by the splendid offer, and even opportunistic greediness has

  its limits, particularly when surprised.

  “On all fours,” I said to Klio.

  Immediately she went to all fours.

  “A silver tarsk,” I said.

  It was placed in my palm and I put it in my pouch. I then removed my leash and

  collar from her neck. I had not even returned the leash and collar to my pouch

  before I heard a decisive click and a small cry from Klio. She looked up,

  collared, a slave, at her master.

  “She dances the leash dance well, does she not?” I asked.

  “I will improve her in it,” said he, grimly.

  Klio quickly bend her head, unbidden, to his feet, and kissed them.

  “Share her,” said a fellow.

  “Let her dance again,” said another, “not in the leash.”

  “Proffer her to the arms of each of us,” said another, “in tu
rn.”

  “She is mine,” said the fellow.

  “We are your comrade in arms,” said another.

  “True!” said another.

  “Have no fear,” said the tall fellow. “I will share the slave, and my good

  fortune, with you, but do not forget that in the end it is I alone to whom she

  belongs, that it is mine alone whose slave she is.”

  The men had crowded about Klio now, and I could hardly see her among them. Even

  the fellow from the low wooden (pg.178) platform, which gave him a vantage over

  the top of the trench, had joined them.

  I backed away, unnoticed, toward the nearest sapling trench. In a moment I had

  then turned and was making my way rapidly toward the walls. In places the

  sapping trench was covered with planking, which might protect workers, or

  soldiers in their advance. In an Ehn or so I had come to its end, some twenty

  yards or so from the wall. Boulders lay about there, probably rolled from the

  height of the wall. Some were lodged at the trench, having crushed in the timber

  cover. The trench had not been taken around these obstacles. My heart was

  beating rapidly. I emerged from the trench, and waving a piece of white cloth,

  which on Gor is a truce cloth, as it is on Earth, climbed, slipping up, up the

  rather steep incline toward the base of the walls.

  “Ho!” I said. “Do not fire! I am a friend. I have come here at great risk! I

  have a message for Aemilianus from Gnieus Lelius, Regent of Ar! Admit me!”

  There was silence from the height of the wall.

  There were no posterns here, and the great gate was hundreds of yards away. Too,

  in such a time, it would surely not be open for one man.

  I waved the white cloth vigorously.

  That such a cloth may be used upon Gor as a truce cloth may have a direct

  historical connection with the similar device on Earth. Certainly many Gorean

  institutions and practices would seem to have Earth origins. On the other hand,

  in relationship to the Earth device may be merely a coincidental one, a white

  cloth, in effect, a blank flag, seeming to be a reasonably natural device to

  signify neutrality. Blank standards, too, or, more commonly, standards draped

  with white cloth, sometimes serve similar purposes. There are other devices,

  too, pertinent to such matters, particularly in formal contexts, such as the

  symbolic laying aside of arms, but I was certainly not, in this context, about

 

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