by John Norman
Behind me there was a barred gate, locked.
The lamp came closer.
There were walls of stone on either side of me.
He lifted the lamp, and the light fell upon me. I knelt. "Be merciful to a poor slave, Master," I whispered.
"Kneel," said he, "with your belly and cheek against the wall, and place your hands behind your back, with your wrists crossed."
I did so. He placed the lamp he carried on a shelf to one side. He placed the sword he carried behind him on the stones of the flooring and crouched behind me. Binding fiber was looped about my wrists and pulled tight; then it was tied; I winced; I was helpless.
"You will not need this," he said.
I felt his hands in the silk I wore.
With a swift movement it was torn away.
He took me by the arms and turned me, sitting me down on the flooring, my knees up, my back against the stone wall.
"Be merciful to a poor slave, please, Master," I whispered. I had muchly taunted him, and muchly had I delighted myself at his expense. Now I wore his binding fiber, and was alone with him, in a dark passageway deep below the keep of Stones of Turmus.
I blinked against the light of the lamp.
He withdrew an object from his pouch, and held it before me.
"Do you know what this is?" he asked.
"No, Master," I said.
It was like a small, veined, metal leaf, narrowly ovate in shape. It had a tiny hole in the wider end, in which, in a tiny loop, there was twisted a small wire.
"It is a marking tag," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said. I had no idea what he was talking about. What would be marked? But I gazed at the object with some apprehension.
On the leaf, indented in, was a sign, and some tiny printing.
"Do you know this sign?" asked the man.
"No, Master," I whispered.
"It is the sign of Treve," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"You are illiterate, are you not?" he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"I had thought so," he said.
"Forgive me, Master," I said.
I had not, in the courtyard, of course, acknowledged my illiteracy. Yet he had doubtless surmised it.
"You cannot then read this?" he said, pointing to the printing on the object he held. "Even something this simple?"
"No, Master," I said.
How ignorant, and stupid and foolish I felt!
Of course I could not read Gorean. I had not been taught!
But many slaves, as I have indicated, are illiterate.
Many masters are simply not concerned with whether their girls can read or not. It does not matter to them. They see no point in teaching them. They are domestic animals. "We would not teach a verr or tarsk to read, they might say, so why should we teach a slave to read?" Some masters, on the other hand, make an actual point of seeing to it that their girls are kept illiterate. They want them that way. They think, it seems, that that is simply appropriate for a slave, that she be kept illiterate. Or, perhaps, they think that this makes them easier to control and puts them more at their mercy. Such a view, however, would seem to me incorrect. We are in all ways subject to the complete and perfect control of our masters, and we are totally at their mercy, always, whether we can read or not. Certainly an illiterate master, say, of the tharlarion drivers, may relish having a former high-caste beauty, perhaps of the scribes or builders, educated and literate, cleaning his stalls and, when commanded, crawling to him over the boards on her belly begging his touch. There are no particular regularities involved in these matters and it is not unusual for a literate master to have either literate or illiterate slaves, nor for an illiterate master to have either literate or illiterate slaves. The slaves are slaves, whether literate or not. Some literate masters, of course, relish the ownership and absolute domination of literate girls, preferably former high-caste women, those who are well educated, highly intelligent and gifted. Such girls must be regarded as quite valuable; on the block they commonly bring the highest prices. It is also said they make the best slaves. About that, of course, one does not know. It certainly need not be true. In my view highly intelligent slaves make the best slaves, of course, it being hard to gainsay that, but intelligence, obviously, is not always associated with literacy, and on Gor, quite often, it is not so associated. Intelligence is important in a slave; literacy is not. Had I been sold on Earth, of course, I would have counted as such a girl, a valuable slave, lovely, articulate, literate, highly educated, and such; on Earth, I would doubtless have brought my master a good price; on Gor, however, I was only another piece of illiterate collar meat.
"It is my name," said the man. "Rask."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"It is with these devices," said the man, holding up the tiny leaf, with its wire, sign and printing, "that we of Treve, in our various ventures of raiding, mark our booty."
Suddenly I understood him only too well!
"Please, no, Master!" I cried.
"And you are booty," he said.
"Please, no, Master!" I wept, in misery. "Please, please, no! No! Please, no, Master!"
I shrank back against the wall. He held my left ear lobe, pulling it taut. I cried out, wincing, as the wire pierced the lobe, and then he threaded the wire through and, twisting the ends together, formed a tiny loop, from which the silver leaf dangled. I felt it at my left cheek.
"It will be pleasant to tag you," he had said to me earlier. I had not understood him at the time. I now understood him. I looked at him with horror. I had been tagged.
"You do not now appear so insolent as formerly," he said.
"No, Master," I wept.
He then seized my ankles and pulled me from the wall. I threw my head back, moaning. An ear had been pierced. This, in itself, is little or nothing, but on Gor it is mighty in its portent. The other ear, almost certainly now, to match its mate, would sometime be pierced, and I would then be a "pierced-ear girl," the lowest of female slaves. I had heard another girl crying out earlier, as she had been tagged, although at the time I had not understood what had been done to her. It had not been the pain which had made her cry out so miserably but its meaning. An ear had been pierced.
I looked up at Rask of Treve reproachfully. He laughed. He well understood what he had done to me, and he knew well, too, that I understood.
"Is your vengeance sweet, Master?" I asked him.
"I have not yet begun to take my revenge, pretty little slave," he said. He thrust apart my ankles.
I resolved to resist him. I turned my head to the side, and heard the small sound of the silver leaf, on its tiny loop, fastened in my ear, touch the stones of the flooring of the passage.
But his hands were sure.
"No," I begged, "do not make me yield to you!"
But he did not see fit to show me mercy. I cried out with misery, lost in sensation, lifting my body to him, piteous for his slightest touch.
When he finished with me I lay between his feet, a shattered, yielded slave girl.
He lifted his head. "Smoke," he said.
I, too, smelled smoke.
"The keep is afire," he said. "On your feet, Slave."
I struggled to my feet, bent over.
We journeyed through flaming halls. In a few Ehn we emerged, after climbing stairs, on the roof of one of the buildings, and, thence, by a narrow bridge, crossed to one of the parapets. There there were several tarns, great fierce saddle birds of Gor. I could see fire licking through the roof of one of the buildings. The parapet was crowded. Goods were bound over the saddles of tarns. Strings of plates and vessels were tied at the pommels. Over several of the saddles, bound, belly up, fastened to rings, was a stripped slave. Some were already squirming, being caressed. Other girls stood beside the winged monsters, their hands over their heads, slave braceleted through the stirrups of the beasts. They were fastened one on each side, or, in some cases, two on a side. In this way the weigh
t is balanced. They must cling as they could to the stirrups with their small strength; else, braceleted as they were, they must simply dangle far above the earth, painfully and helplessly, hoping that not a link in the bracelets would fail. Behind some of the beasts there were tarn baskets, on trailing ropes. Girls, too, and various goods, had been thrust in these. I saw Sucha, her hands braceleted over her head, at one of the stirrups. She looked terrified. She cast me a wild glance and pulled futilely at the bracelets, threaded through the stirrup ring. She was beautiful, fastened at the stirrup. In the light of flames, I saw, reflected, the glint of a marking tag, it suspended from its wire, in her left ear. I did not know what fellow had taken her. Surely he was a fortunate fellow and might be well pleased with his catch. She was a prize. Men mounted swiftly to the saddles. Below in the courtyard, chained together, I could see Borchoff, and the soldiers and staff of the keep. There was much smoke about them. I saw tharlarion, released, in the courtyard. Men struggled not to be trampled. I was pulled along by the arm, by my captor. "Let us hurry, Captain," said one of the men.
"We must move under the cover of darkness," said a lieutenant. "We must be at the merchant rendezvous before dawn."
"To your saddle, Lieutenant," grinned Rask of Treve.
The man grinned, and leapt to the ladder leading to the high saddle of the great beast.
I saw below that the great gate of the keep had been swung open. Tharlarion rushed through.
I was thrust into the hands of a soldier, who conducted me to one of the tarn baskets.
Borchoff, below in the courtyard, looked upward. Rask of Treve lifted his hand to him, in a salute of warriors. The gate had been opened. Borchoff and his men might make their way, though chained, to safety.
Then Rask of Treve looked about himself, making swift inspection of his men and tarns, and their burdens, riches and slave girls.
The soldier lifted me lightly from my feet and thrust me, feet first, through a hatchlike opening, with flat door, in the top of the tarn basket. He pushed my head down, thrusting me down between the other girls. I crouched down, wedged in. I could scarcely squirm. I looked up, seeing the flat door swung shut. In an instant he had tied it closed. I knelt. We could not stand upright. Eight of us were imprisoned in the basket. Our wrists were tied behind our backs. Silk, and gold, too, had been thrust in the basket. I looked about. Scarcely could we move. From the left ears of the other girls, as from mine, there dangled a silver leaf, a tag, which had been placed upon them by the men who had taken them. I wondered who had taken them. I knew who had taken me, who had imperiously thrust the wire of his claiming leaf through the lobe of my left ear, then twisting it shut, tagging me as his property, he, Rask of Treve.
What a fool I had been to taunt him as I had!
Surely I had gone beyond the command Borchoff had imposed upon me.
And how richly he had had his vengeance on me, exacting from me not only the profound and delicious pleasures of a slave girl, which my body had no choice but to deliver to him, but, far beyond this, he had made me piteously cry myself his, had made me yield to him, helplessly, as a devastated, ravished slave!
Well had he had his vengeance!
How thoroughly he had humbled the haughty slave girl, how insolently he had mastered her!
I could see flames through the heavy, woven fibers of the tarn basket. Too, I could catch a glimpse of the moons. It was crowded in the basket. I was wedged in. I struggled a little with my bound wrists but could not free them. The other girls, like myself, were naked. Raiders, I gathered, seldom leave women clothing. Was this to make it difficult to conceal weapons, or to assist in their summary assessments of the catch? Or was it merely because they were raiders and we were woman? To be sure, we were slave girls, animals. Why should animals be permitted clothing? I tried to move a little. I found I could, though with difficulty, do so. Slowly then I made my way, inch by inch, through encumbrances, through the close, flame-lit darkness of the basket, the flickering light from outside oddly in small moving patches illuminating the flesh, the gold, within, to the edge of the basket, so that I might see out more easily through the interstices of the fiber. I wanted to see, though I feared to do so, what was going on, the men who now owned us, their movements, the tarns, the ropes and chains, the slaves bound over saddles, and fastened at stirrups, the flames, the wild, racing, distorted shadows, the parapets and towers of the keep of Stones of Turmus. I reached my goal. The corner of a box hurt my leg. I moved a little. I heard a girl sob. It was crowded in the basket. I could now see outside. Flames were raging. Tarns lifted and spread their wings, uneasily. Sandaled feet hurried by. How magnificent, I thought, were the men! Surely we existed to serve such, hoping only that we might be found sufficiently pleasing. How clearly then did I see the complementarities of men and women! Nothing more was entered into the basket. We would soon depart. I knelt near the side of the basket. The basket had been fastened shut. It was filled with booty. And I knew that I, too, kneeling there in the crowded darkness, as Rask of Treve had called to my attention, was booty, only that, and so, too, of course, were the others. We were all booty, as much as the coins, the plate, the cloth. I thought, oddly, of Earth, and of the rustling of cattle, the stealing of horses. It is not so different, I thought, Indeed, it is the same! We, too, slaves, were properties, animals. We were such that we, too, being animals, could be run off, carried away, driven away, stolen, simply stolen. At that moment, as this comprehension sank in, my entire body shook suddenly with anguish. I think I understood then in yet another dimension what I was, what it was to be such as I, a slave.
I was property. I could be stolen!
I was not being abducted, or kidnapped. No such dignity was mine. Such fates were for persons, not slaves. I was an animal, one being stolen!
I shuddered again, in misery, in anguish. It could not be happening to me!
"What is wrong with you, Dina?" whispered a girl.
"Nothing," I whispered.
"Peek through the fibers, look outside," whispered another girl. "Do not let them see you look. What do you see? What is going on?"
"We are to soon depart," I whispered.
"I am glad to be leaving Stones of Turmus!" whispered another.
"Be quiet!" whispered another.
We had not been given permission to speak. I hoped the masters would not hear us.
"I, too, am pleased," whispered another girl.
We could always be whipped later, I knew.
But it was happening to me!
Of course you can be stolen, foolish Dina, I said to myself. Do you not know by now you are a slave girl?
What do you expect—girl—slave girl!
It can be unsettling, of course, to understand that you can be stolen, that you are the sort of thing which can be subject to theft.
"I hope to come into the keeping of a personal master," said one of the girls.
"I, too," said another.
Foolish girls! Did they not know they were being stolen?
But sometimes, I thought, suddenly, perhaps it is not so bad to be, say, a stolen horse. Who knew to what new stable one might be taken? Perhaps it is not so bad to be a stolen slave, sometimes, I thought. Who knew to what new chains one might be taken?
Was it not even said that occasionally free women, lonely and miserable, their most profound needs unsatisfied, desperate for love, frequented high, lonely bridges at night, putting themselves in peril of capture and enslavement? Surely a slave girl would not dare to do such a thing, for it might displease a feared and hated master. And was it not said, as well, that sometimes the free woman, before daring to embark upon so perilous a venture, would remove her sandals, loosen her hair and don the tunic of a slave, that she might appear the more to the roving tarnsman or raider a man's dream of pleasure, the female slave? But men do not enjoy being tricked. Perhaps, discovering she was free, unbranded, her captor would angrily rectify that omission and soon return her, stripped, bound and helpless, to th
e very bridge from which she had been captured, that guardsmen might find her there and remand her into custody, that she might become then a despised slave in the very city whose precincts she had sought to flee. But, I wondered, would this truly displease her? To be sure, it is not pleasant to feel the lash. But she would have then at last, in any event, the collar she needed, that circlet necessary to make her whole. But perhaps her captor, if she seemed slave-suitable, and was sufficiently desperate and zealous in her pleadings and prostrations, might be moved to keep her, she weeping and kissing at his feet, petitioning for this privilege.
Much depended on many things.
Perhaps things would be better.
In any event, such things were not within our province to direct, influence or alter. Men would decide what was to be done with us.
We were slaves.
Theft was simply a risk to which we were subject. Surely I should understand that.
"Where are they taking us?" I asked one of the girls.
"We do not know," said one.
"What are they going to do with us?" I asked.
"Surely you know," said another of the girls.
"No," I said.
"What do you think?" she said.
"I do not know," I said.
"What a little fool you are," she said.
"You do not know, truly, what will be done with you?" asked another girl.
"No," I said.
"Then you are indeed a little fool," she said.
What would be done with us?
What would be done with me?
I did not know.
"Ho!" cried Rask of Treve.
I turned my attention back to the tiny interstices in the woven fabric of the basket.
We were ready to take flight!
I was suddenly excited.
I did not know what was to be done with us, other than that it would be what men pleased.
I had never been in tarn flight. I hoped the ropes on the basket would hold.
I thrust my face to the fibers, looking out.
"Ho!" cried the men of Rask of Treve.
The man who had placed me in the basket, and then tied it shut, climbed swiftly to the saddle of his tarn; our trail lines, those attached to the basket in which we were confined, ran to the tarn's stirrups. When the tarn took to flight the basket, following it, would be lifted into the air. He awaited only the command of flight.
