Explorers of Gor coc-13

by John Norman

  “No,” she cried. “No!”

  He then stepped behind and to one side of her, with the whip.

  “Shaba!” she cried. “Shaba!”

  “Your services are no longer required, my dear,” said he.

  “No!” she cried.

  “Hear me, Slave,” said Msaliti. “I have long been patient with you. But the time of masters being patient with you is now at an end. We shall ignore thousands of infractions and insubordinations in the past, presumptions, and speakings and actions, and consider only the past few moments. But a few Elm earlier you dared to touch a cup on the table of masters, as though it were your own, and would have, if not stopped, drunk from it. Also, you have spoken without permission. Also, once you did not respond to the first issuance of a command, but required its repetition. Also, but a moment ago, you addressed a free man not as Master, but by his name.”

  “Msaliti!” she begged.

  “Ah,” said he, “what a dull slave. You have repeated the offense. ”

  “You would not dare to strike me!” she said.

  “Earlier I told you,” said he, “that the whip would be later used. You said, as I recall, that you would look forward to it.”

  “Do not strike me,” she begged.

  “Prepare to be beaten as what you are, a slave,” he said.

  “I do not fear the whip,” she said.

  “Have you ever felt it?” he asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “You will find the experience instructive,” he said.

  “I am not one of those girls,” she said, “who at a touch of the leather will crawl to you and kiss your feet.”

  “Speak bravely,” said he, “after you have felt the whip.”

  She tensed at the ring, preparing for the stroke. Her eyes were open. She held the ring with her small. braceleted hands.

  Then it fell upon her, once, the slash of the five-bladed Gorean slave whip.

  I saw disbelief, startled, wild, enter her eyes. Then she shut her eyes, tightly, tears squeezed from between their lids, wetting the lashes and her cheeks. Her knuckles were now white on the ring they clutched. “No,” she whispered, “it cannot be.”

  Msaliti did not immediately again strike her. He knew the whip. He gave her several Ihn, that she might begin to feel the pain of the first stroke.

  “I will obey you,” she whispered. “Do not strike me again.

  Then the second stroke fell upon her and she screamed with misery, her grip lost on the ring, half thrown against the wall, scratching at it with her braceleted hands, the side of her face against the heavy boards. There were now two layers of pain in her body, overlapping, each reinforcing and intensifying the other. Her body, sensitized by the first stroke, helpless, raw, aware, expectant, exposed, felt the second, as was intended, mingling with the burning echoes, the searing, throbbing wounds of the first, a thousand times more cruelly. “It is enough!” she wept, gasping, sobbing. “It is enough! I will do whatever you want!”

  Msaliti then began her beating.

  “No, Master!” she screamed at the ring, twisting and writhing. But Msaliti administered to her an efficient, though brief, discipline. As beatings go it was not particularly severe. On the other hand, it was genuine. Evelyn had been truly beaten. She had felt the whip.

  “Have mercy, Master, on your slave!” she wept.

  Msaliti then, after some ten or twelve strokes, lowered the whip. He spoke to the askaris. They unlocked the left slave bracelet of the girl, freeing her from the ring. She fell to her stomach, weeping.

  “To my feet,” said he.

  She crawled to his feet and kissed them. “Yes, Master,” she said.

  Msaliti again spoke to the askaris and they pulled the girl’s wrists behind her back and, refastening her left wrist in the left slave bracelet, the right still locked on her right wrist, secured them there.

  Msaliti looked down at her, on her stomach at his feet.

  “What a miserable, worthless thing you are,” he said.

  I recalled that these had been the words the dark-haired girl had used to the blond-haired barbarian, still kneeling blindfolded, but now terribly frightened, to one side. She knew little of what was going on. She did understand, of course, that some sister in bondage, near to her, had just been disciplined.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Behold,” said Msaliti, smiling, to Shaba and myself. Then, to the dark-haired girl, he said, sharply, “Nadu!”

  She struggled to her knees and, as she could, her wrists braceleted behind her, assumed before him the lovely, elegant position of the pleasure slave.

  “Despicable slave,” smiled Msaliti to the girl.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, sobbing.

  These words, too, I recalled, had been used by the dark-haired girl earlier to the blond-haired barbarian.

  The dark-haired girl now knelt, collared, before Msaliti, herself, too, now only a girl, and slave, at the mercy of men.

  Msaliti spoke again to the askaris. He gave one of them the key to the girl’s collar.

  “Several days ago,” said he to the kneeling girl before him, “your sale to Pembe was arranged. Tonight you will be delivered to him.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “It seems he has taken a fancy to you,” said Msaliti. “He thinks that you may have in you the makings of a paga girl. I do not know if it is true or not. I would, however, if I were you, attempt to do my best to justify Pembe’s confidence in you. Pembe is not a patient man. He has taken the hands and feet from more than one girl.”

  She turned white. “Yes, Master,” she said.

  The askaris lifted her to her feet, one holding each arm. “Master,” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “May I have permission to speak?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Do I have even a name?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, “unless Pembe should choose to give you one.”

  “Master,” she said. “Yes,” he said.

  “What did you get for me?” she asked.

  “You have a slave girl’s vanity,” he said. “Do you not?”

  She put down her head. “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “That is an excellent sign,” he said. “Perhaps you will even survive.

  She looked at him, piteously.

  “Four copper tarsks,” he said.

  “So little?” she said.

  “In my opinion it is more than you are worth,” said Msaliti. Then he waved his hand to the askaris, and they turned the slave about and thrust her, ahead of them, from our presence, out into the anteroom. There, in the anteroom, one of them retrieved the tiny scrap of yellow pleasure silk the girl had brought with her, wadded in her hand, when she had come earlier to the building. He tied this, snugly, on her collar. She looked back at us, frightened. Then she was thrust stumbling though the outside door, and into the street.

  I stood up, near the table. “I shall see you, then, tomorrow evening,” I said.

  “Bring with you,” said Shaba, “the false ring and the notes.”

  “And you,” I said, “do not neglect to bring the genuine ring with you.”

  “I shall have it with me,” he averred. I did not doubt it.

  Msaliti, to one side, had begun his transformation into the beggar, Kunguni. He had already slipped the padded hump beneath his tunic and adjusted the straps by which it was held in place. He was now, at a mirror, with paste and ocher, attending to the matter of the simulated scar.

  “What of this slave?” I asked Msaliti, indicating the blond-haired barbarian.

  Msaliti shrugged. “She Is now worthless to us,” he said.

  “What did you pay Uchafu for her?” I asked.

  “Five silver tarsks,” he said.

  “I will give you six,” I said.

  “She is hot,” admitted Msaliti.

  “Have you subjected her to rape test?’ I asked.

  “
No,” said he. “Only to the touch of the owner’s hands.”

  “That is usually a reliable test,” I said.

  “I will take six tarsks for her,” said he, “if you are serious in the matter.”

  I gave Msaliti six silver tarsks for the girl. She was then mine. In the situation, as I assessed it, either she should have been given to me, upon my expression of interest, or I should have paid something for her in increments of silver tarsks, something over the price Msaliti had paid. Things turned out much as I had expected. I did not think Msaliti, truly, whom I took to be a shrewd, clever fellow, and one concerned with matters of wealth and power, would wish to give a girl away. Too, since he had paid for her in silver tarsks he would wish to sell her in the same denomination and, presumably, at some profit. My offer of six seemed perfect. It permitted him to satisfy his sense of venality and yet not appear excessively mercenary. Had I tried to obtain her for less than six tarsks or he tried to obtain more for her I think the situation could have become unpleasant.

  Msaliti, his scar now affixed, and his disguise intact, bent down and removed the shackles from the blond barbarian’s ankles. He then removed the collar from her and, with it, the rope which had tethered her to the wall. He then jerked her to her feet and unbound her hands. He then thrust her stumbling, blindfolded and naked, but otherwise unbound, to me. She stood against me, clutching me, frightened.

  “I now own you,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  She lifted her hands to remove the blindfold.

  “Do not remove the blindfold,” I told her.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, her lip trembling.

  “You may have the blindfold,” smiled Msaliti. “Keep her in it until she is well away from here.”

  “Very well,” I said. He did not wish her, of course, to be able to find her way again to this place.

  “You are not to touch the blindfold without permission,” I told her.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, standing quietly beside me. So simply, she a slave had been placed in the shackles of my will.

  “Until tomorrow night,” said Msaliti, lifting his hand.

  “Until tomorrow night,” I said.

  He then left.

  “We are now alone.” I said to Shaba. The presence of the girl, of course, did not count. She was a slave.

  “Yes,” said Shaba, rising from behind the table.

  I measured the distance to him.

  “Who are you truly?” he asked.

  “I think,” I said, “you have the ring upon you, and would not leave it elsewhere.”

  “You are a shrewd man,” said Shaba. He lifted his left hand, on the first finger of which was a fang ring. He folded his left hand into a fist and, with his thumb, pressed a tiny switch on the ring. The fang, of hollow steel, springing up, was then exposed.

  “It contains kanda?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said he.

  “It will do you little good,” I said, “if you cannot strike me with it.”

  “A scratch will be sufficient,” he said.

  “One must, upon occasion, take risks,” I said.

  “I think I may easily multiply the risks,” said he. He reached into his robes with his right hand. In a moment he had seemed to swirl and then, the light-diversion field activated, had vanished from my view.

  “Tomorrow,” I said, “I shall bring the false ring and. the notes.”

  “Excellent,” said Shaba. “I think that we now understand one another quite well.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “It is a pleasure to do business with such an honest fellow,” he said.

  “I entertain a similar sentiment toward yourself,” I said.

  I then turned about and, taking the slave girl by the arm, left the room.

  Soon I was in the street, outside.

  13. I Return To The Golden Kailiauk

  “Do not fear,” I said to Pembe. “It was only a passing indisposition.”

  His hands shook.

  “Look,” I said. “See. I do not have the plague.”

  “Your skin,” said he, “is truly clear, and, too, your eyes.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “You are well?” he asked, uncertainly.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Welcome to the Golden Kailiauk,” he said, relieved. “I shall return to the counter in a moment,” I said. I went to the wall against which I had placed the blond-haired barbarian. I had told her to put her belly and the palms of her hands, lifted, against the wall. She remained, of course, as I had placed her.

  “Kneel here,” I said to her. “Back on your heels,” I said to her.

  She did so, by the wall.

  “Now grip your ankles in your hands,” I said, “and put your head down.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “And do not break that position.” I said, “until given permission.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said. “Master!” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She spoke with her bead down, her ankles gripped.

  “Who are you?” she said. “Who owns me!”

  “Be silent,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  I then returned to the counter. “Do you have a white-skinned paga slave here,” I asked, “a barbarian girl?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I obtained one only tonight, for four tarsks. I have not yet even put her on the floor.”

  “I threw him a copper tarsk. “Paga,” I said, “and the slave.”

  “You must know the askaris of Msaliti,” he said.

  “I have made their acquaintance,” I said.

  He turned to one of the paga attendants. “Bring the new paga slave to the floor,” he said. “Excellent,” he said, to himself, “already there is a call for her.”

  I saw the girl, naked, in her collar, even the bit of yellow slave silk which had been tied to her collar gone, thrust through the beaded curtain by the paga attendant

  “Ah,” I said. She had not yet seen me. “I think,” I said, “you will soon make back your four tarsks on her.”

  “But one must figure in, too,” said he, “the cost of the paga.”

  “That Is true,” I said.

  “She is a new girl,” he said. “If she is not entirely satisfactory, let me know, and I will have her whipped and have your money refunded.”

  “Very well,” I said. “I will be at that table,” I said, indicating a table in the rear of the tavern, not far from a red-curtained alcove.

  “Yes, Master,” said Pembe.

  I went and sat down, cross-legged, behind the table. I had thought it wise not to go directly back to my room. If someone were to follow me, he would have quite a wait. My stop at the paga tavern, I thought, would make it easier to elude pursuit. I had stopped at this tavern, of course, because of Pembe’s new paga slave. When she thought she had been pretending to serve us in the headquarters of Shaba and Msaliti she had, of course, whether she intended it or not, much aroused me. I desired her. So I would now have her. Too, I thought that it might be to the girl’s advantage to be broken in by me, one more aware than would be most Goreans of the limitations of Earth girls. Usually it is the first two or three nights which are the most difficult for a girl to survive in a Gorean paga tavern. After the first two or three nights she has usually learned, and well, what she is, a paga slave. If she has not learned it in that time it is likely that her throat will have been cut by some customer, her sales price being then paid to her owner, plus a token tarsk or two, of copper, for good will.

  The girl was thrust, her arm in the grip of the paga attendant, on the far side of the room, to the counter. He released her before the counter. Pembe placed a goblet of paga in her hands. He then pointed in my direction.

  She turned about. She nearly spilled the paga, trembling. It was well for her that she did not spill it.

  Slowly, alone, a paga slave, naked and collared, she approached my
table.

  She then knelt there, before me.

  “Press the cup to your belly,” I told her.

  She did so. She then held it there, in both hands. “Paga, Master?” she whispered.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She sobbed.

  “Kiss the cup,” I told her.

  She lifted the metal cup from her belly and, turning her head to the side, pressed her lips against it. She then kissed it. She then, her knees wide, her arms extended to me, her head down, between her arms, proffered the paga to me. “Your paga, Master,” she whispered.

  I did not yet take the paga. “Has Pembe given you a name yet?” I asked. she said.

  “No, Master,”

  “For purposes of your service to me tonight,” I said, “I name you Evelyn.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Use now to me,” I said, “the second of the two formulas, personalized, which you. earlier used to me, when you had so foolishly thought yourself a free woman.”

  “I am Evelyn,” she said. “I serve you, naked and collared. Take me later to the alcove. I beg to be taught my slavery.”

  “Very well,” I said.

  She knelt back, about a yard from the table. I looked at her. I sipped the paga.

  “You are a pretty slave, Evelyn,” I said.

  “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  “Are you white silk?” I asked.

  “I am virgin,” she said.

  “Then you are white silk,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Have you ever been curious,” I asked, “about what it would be to be a slave?”

  She looked at me.

  “Beware,” I said. “You are naked and kneeling. You wear a slave collar. It will not be easy to lie.”

  “Yes,” she said, putting her head down, “I have been curious to know what it would be to be a slave.”

  “You will learn,” I told her.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  I then gave my attention to the paga, and to my thoughts. In time I sent her back for another cup. The price for the second cup, in the tavern of Pembe, was only a tarsk hit. I paid it to the paga attendant, who collected it at the table. The girls in Pembe’s tavern, as in many taverns, are not permitted to touch coins. Evelyn, of course, who had come with the higher price of the first cup, was mine until I chose to leave the tavern or in some other way release her.