Vagabonds of Gor

by Norman, John;

  "But I am a woman!" she protested.

  "Perhaps," I said. "You would seem at least to have a female's body."

  "I am a woman!" she said. "Wholly a woman!"

  "How can that be," I asked, "as you are not yet a slave?"

  She moved angrily in the leather.

  It interested me that she would now, in her present plight, naturally, unthinkingly, and unquestioningly fall back upon, acknowledge, and call attention to, the uniqueness and specialness of her sex, its difference from that of men, and its entitlement to its particular considerations.

  "Why would they put me here?" she asked. "Why would they not spare me—if only to make me a slave?"

  "I wondered about that," I said.

  "Well?" she asked.

  "From what you have told me, I now think the answer is clear," I said.

  "What?" she said.

  "I suspect it has to do with their assessment of your character," I said.

  "I do not understand," she said.

  "I suspect they did not regard you as being worthy of being a slave," I said.

  "What!" she cried.

  "Yes," I said, "I suspect they did not think you were worthy of being a slave."

  "But a free woman is a thousand times more valuable than a slave!" she said.

  "Many," said I, "regard a slave as a thousand times more valuable than a free woman."

  She cried out, angrily.

  It interested me that she had put a specific value on a free woman.

  "But then," I said, "many also believe that the free woman and the slave are the same, except for a legal technicality."

  "Surely you do not mean that slaves are actually free women," she said.

  "No," I said. "I do not mean that."

  "Sleen! Sleen!" she said.

  "Free women are only slaves, not yet collared," I said.

  "Sleen!" she wept.

  "I must be on my way," I said.

  "No, no!" she said. "You must take me with you! I know your sympathies are with Cos! So, too, are mine! I may be of Ar, but I am an agent of Cos. Thus we are allies!"

  "You admit that you are a Cosian spy?" I said.

  "Yes," she said, hesitantly.

  "Truly?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said.

  "Speak loudly and clearly," I said.

  "I am a Cosian spy," she said.

  "More clearly, more loudly," I said.

  "I am a Cosian spy," she said.

  "Excellent," I said.

  "Release me now," she said.

  "But my sympathies are not with Cos," I said.

  "But you are not of Ar!" she said.

  "My sympathies are with neither Ar nor Cos," I said.

  "What is your Home Stone?" she asked, suddenly, fearfully.

  "That of Port Kar," I said.

  She moaned. It is said that the chains of a slave girl are heaviest in Port Kar.

  I made as though to leave.

  "Wait!" she cried.

  I turned, again, to face her.

  "Free me!" she said. "I will give you riches!"

  "The only riches you have to bestow," I said, "and they are not inconsiderable, are now in the keeping of rencer thongs."

  "I will give them to you!" she said.

  "They are mine for the taking," I pointed out to her.

  "Then take them," she urged.

  "I must be on my way," I said.

  "You cannot leave me here for tharlarion!" she wept.

  "Rencers have seen fit to put you here," I said. "Who am I, a fellow of Port Kar, a stranger in the delta, to dispute their choice?"

  "They are barbarians!" she said.

  "Perhaps less so than I," I said.

  "Free me," she said.

  "Why?" I asked.

  "I will make it worth your while," she said.

  "In what way?" I asked.

  "As a female," she said.

  "Speak more clearly," I said.

  "As a female, with my favors!"

  "Interesting," I said.

  "'Interesting'?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said, "you bargain with your beauty."

  "Of course," she said.

  "But then it seems you have little more to bargain with."

  She blushed, again, even to her toes.

  A free woman may bargain with her own beauty, of course, and it is often done. This is quite different from the case of the female slave. Her beauty, like herself, is owned by the master. It may, of course, like herself, figure in his bargains.

  I looked up at her.

  "I will submit to you, if you wish," she said. "I will be your slave."

  "Beware of your language," I said, "lest you inadvertently speak words of self-enslavement."

  Such words, of course, are irrevocable by the slave because, once spoken, she is a slave.

  "Nonetheless, if you wish," she said, "I will speak them!"

  "And be a slave?" I asked.

  "Yes!" she said.

  "Do you not recognize me?" I asked.

  "Should I?" she asked.

  "Do you recall a camp in the marsh, some days ago," I asked, "to the southeast, an evening, a prisoner?"

  She looked down, frightened.

  "And did you not," I asked, "boldly, to torture me, I helpless before you, show me your ankles?"

  "Oh!" she said.

  "Yes," I said, touching her ankles, "they would look well in shackles."

  "You!" she wept.

  "Yes," I said.

  She put back her head, moaning.

  We heard a tharlarion bellowing in the marsh.

  She lifted her head, hearing the sound. Her eyes were wide with fear.

  "I am a woman," she said, suddenly, piteously.

  I saw that it was true. Through everything, beneath everything, in spite of everything, deeply, essentially, she was a woman.

  "I wish you well," I said.

  "Do not go!" she cried.

  "Perhaps you can free yourself," I said.

  "My ankles are muchly thonged!" she said.

  "Yes," I said, "they do seem to be well held, fastened excellently to the pole and crossbar. I doubt that you can free them."

  "And my arms!" she said.

  "Yes," I said, "they would seem well fastened, also, simply and effectively."

  "Please," she said. "Have mercy!"

  "I wonder if you realize how clever the rencers have been," I said.

  She looked down at me.

  "You cannot even try to rub the thongs, the three of them, against the wood," I said. "The interiors of your arms are against the wood, and the thongs themselves are about your wrists, and across your belly. Yes, they are clever. The wood and the leather, both, you see, are far stronger than your flesh."

  "You know that I cannot free myself," she said. "I am absolutely helpless!"

  "You are right," I said.

  The tharlarion again bellowed in the marsh, this time more closely.

  "You risked your life to save me!" she said.

  "Believe me," I said, "I did not realize at the time that I was risking it. I thought the beast, given some encouragement, and perhaps annoyed, would simply depart."

  "But it did not," she said.

  "True," I said. "Unfortunately."

  "You defended me!" she said.

  "As it turned out," I said.

  "You even called yourself to its attention in the marsh, when you understood how tenacious, how dangerous, it was!" she said, triumphantly.

  "So?" I asked.

  "So you found me of interest!" she said. "So you wanted me!"

  "Put back your shoulders," I said, "thrust out your breasts, lift your chin."

  She obeyed immediately, beautifully.

  "Yes," I said, "I can see how a man might find you of interest." I was also interested to note how well she had obeyed.

  "You want me," she said. "Free me!"

  "To be sure," I said, "it is a long time since I have had a woman."

  "I am a
prize!" she said, angrily.

  "You are not even a slave," I said.

  She threw her head back, angrily.

  "Are you a virgin?" I asked.

  "No," she said. "I am not a virgin. I have permitted men to make love to me twice. I assure you I can stand it."

  I smiled.

  "Would you prefer that I was a virgin?" she asked.

  "No," I said. Virgins presented special problems, particularly of a psychological nature. Also, their sexual responses usually required lengthening, deepening and honing. On the whole, I, like most Goreans, preferred opened women. And, of course, most women are opened. Virgins, for example, are almost never available in the slave markets.

  She looked down at me.

  "I assure you," I said, "there would have been little point in lying about the matter."

  "I suppose not," she said.

  "On the other hand," I said, "you would seem to be, for most practical purposes, having to do with the furs, a virgin."

  "No," she said, "twice I permitted men to make love to me."

  "They were lucky fellows," I said.

  "I never permitted either of them to do so again," she said.

  "Doubtless they have spent years in repining."

  "Perhaps," she said. "I do not know."

  "You are sure you can stand it?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said, "I can stand it."

  She shrank back a little but I, carefully, with the tip of my knife, inserting it between her ankles and the thongs, freed her legs.

  "Ah," she said, relievedly. One could still see the several deep imprints of the thongs in her ankles. These marks, in an Ahn or two, or a few Ahn, would disappear. The thongs had not cut into her, nor burned her deeply.

  I looked up at her.

  "My arms," she said. "I am still helpless!"

  "Perhaps I shall leave you now," I said.

  "No, no!" she said.

  "Do you beg to be freed?" I asked.

  "Yes, yes!" she sobbed.

  "Speak, then," I said.

  "Please free me," she said. "I beg it! I beg it!"

  I then, the knife in my teeth, climbed to the lower crossbar, on which I put my foot.

  "Why have you sheathed your knife?" she asked.

  "One can see over the rence from here," I observed. I steadied myself with my left hand on the pole.

  "Free me," she begged. "Oh!"

  She looked at me, wildly. Then she looked away, swiftly. "Please!" she protested. "Please!"

  "Look at me," I told her.

  She turned her head to face me. Her eyes were very wide. Then she turned her head away again, desperately. "I am a free woman!" she wept.

  "It is only my hand," I said.

  "But it is on me in such a way!" she said.

  "Can you stand it?" I asked.

  "I do not know!" she said.

  I withdrew my hand. Her body shuddered. She looked at me, in protest, almost piteously, but also, interestingly, questioningly, and, in a manner, in consternation and amazement. I gathered her feelings were profoundly ambivalent. Among them seemed to be at least resentment, surprise, and curiosity. Too, I think there was fear. I gathered that she might be trying to understand, and cope with, unusual things which had occurred in her body, perhaps for the first time, things which, even in their incipience, even in the first and most inchoate forms, had profoundly stirred her, things which had perhaps hinted at profound latencies of scarcely suspected feelings, and had, perhaps to her dismay or terror, suggested to her what might be done to her, what she could, if a man wished, be made to feel. To be sure, she had probably never been in a man's power before, at least in this way. Her slave reflexes, I noted, were not far below the surface. I did not think it would do to tell her this, of course. She was, at least as of now, and in a way, a free woman.

  "What is that called," she asked, "what you did to me?"

  "It is one of the ways," I said, "in which one may put one's hand on a woman—in the manner of the master."

  "'In the manner of the master'!" she said.

  "Yes," I said.

  "No one ever touched me in that way before!" she said.

  "I would suppose not," I said.

  "Surely that is a touch commonly reserved for slaves!" she said.

  "True," I said.

  "Owned sluts, mere chattels, to whom anything may be done!"

  "Yes," I said.

  "But I am a free woman!" she said.

  "True," I said. "It was highly inappropriate that I touch you in that fashion. I apologize, profoundly."

  "Very well," she said, uncertainly.

  "You accept my apology?" I asked.

  "And if I do not?" she asked.

  "Then I will leave you here," I said.

  "I accept your apology," she said.

  "Sincerely, eagerly?" I asked.

  "Yes," she sobbed. "Yes!"

  "And you forgive me?" I inquired.

  "Yes," she said.

  "Profoundly, sincerely, and with no hard feelings?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said. "Yes! Yes!"

  "Perhaps I will then free you," I said.

  "'Perhaps'?" she asked, in dismay.

  "Yes, perhaps," I said. I then took the knife from the sheath and, carefully, put it between her belly and the three thongs which, dark, half buried in her flesh, in collusion with the crossbar, held her wrists in place at her sides. With one motion the straps flew apart.

  "Steady," I said to her. I resheathed the knife. She moaned as I slowly, and carefully, lifted her left wrist back and over the bar. I then, similarly, steadying her, freed her right arm of the bar. I then held her, that she not fall forward. She was doubtless in pain. "Hold to the bar," I said. She grasped it. I then dropped to the sand. I took her then about the upper legs and lowered her to the sand. She sank to her knees, and crawled away a few feet in the sand. Her wrists were still encircled by thongs, of course, with the free ends of thongs dangling from each. She rose unsteadily to her feet, and faced me. It was hard to read her eyes. I did not doubt, of course, that she would bolt. I decided I would give her the opportunity to do so. "It would not do for rencers," I said, "to find this pole empty. I do not wish to spend the next several days, or weeks, attempting to elude their pursuit. Accordingly, I think it best that they infer that its absence is due to changes in the currents or, perhaps, that it was pulled from the sand by tharlarion, attempting to acquire its fair occupant. I shall, accordingly, draw it up from the sand."

  "It is too heavy," she said.

  "One may put one's shoulder under the lower crossbar," I said. "I do not think it will be difficult."

  I then turned away from her, addressing myself to the pole. I got my shoulder under it and, as I had expected, it was not difficult to lift from the soft sand. When I had it on the sand I looked up, and saw that she was gone. I could see her footprints in the sand, and where they entered the marsh. In the marsh, of course, she might have gone any way. I surmised the route I supposed she would take, at least for the time, but I did not pursue it. I then dragged the pole to the marsh and, floating it, waded out a way, and thrust it into the center of what seemed a deep, promising channel. I then returned to the island, and from the island, back into the rence, to locate the raft, and my things.

  I had barely reached the raft when I heard, once more, a scream.

  I turned about.

  It came from the direction from which I had come, from the direction of the island.

  I again heard the scream.

  Then I saw, about a hundred yards away, to the right, the head of the ul, stalking, bobbing, over the rence.

  Tenacious, indeed, I thought.

  I heard screams, splashing.

  Then the ul struck its huge wings against the air, lifting itself above the rence, hovering.

  The screams stopped.

  The ul then began to climb, then turn, and circle, scanning. Its quarry, I supposed, must be hiding in the rence. It had lost contact with it. Then I saw
the total alteration in the attitude of the monster, and it turned, and began to glide downward, silently, toward the marsh. When it struck the marsh water splashed up, furrowing, twenty or thirty feet in the air. I heard more screaming. I caught sight of the Lady Ina plunging through the marsh, her hands extended, her hair wild behind her. Following her, over the rence I now again saw the small head of the ul, bobbing, inquisitive, birdlike.

  I drew my blade and began to hasten toward the island, intending to intersect the path of the Lady Ina's flight. Once I caught a glimpse of her again, small, white, blond, terrified, crashing through rence. There was no difficulty, of course, in keeping track of the ul, whose head overtopped the rence. Once I saw its entire body, moving with great speed, impelled by a snap of those huge skin wings. Then again, only its head. In a sense, of course, though I seldom saw her, it was also easy to surmise the position of the Lady Ina. The purposefulness of the ul located her for me. She was before him, fleeing. It was on her trail he trod. Then I again saw her plunging through the marsh, pushing her way through rence, approaching the edge of the island. She was wading, falling, getting up, wading again. Then she emerged onto the island, the sand to her ankles. She looked wildly about. Then the ul burst through the rence behind her. She looked back and screamed. She tried to turn then, to run, but stumbled and fell into the sand, and in that instant the ul was upon her, pinning her to the sand with one giant, clawed foot. She squirmed wildly in the sand, half covered, and the ul, then, locked its foot about her. It then put its other foot on her, as well, and also closed it about her body. She was as helpless as though she were clutched in the talons of a tarn. She lifted her head inches from the sand and screamed. The ul had reached its head down, its jaws gaping, when it saw me approaching, some yards away. It then lifted its head, closing its jaws. It watched me approaching. It then, for what reason I am not sure, perhaps because of its memory of fire, perhaps because of the injuries I had caused it, perhaps because of a mere desire to safeguard its prey, smote its great wings, and, blasting sand about, bending nearby rence almost to the water, began to rise into the air. My eyes half closed, crouching, fighting my way through the sand and wind, I lunged toward it. I did not attack its feet for fear of striking the girl. I, then, was under it, running. It, hovering, backed over the marsh. I leapt upward with the sword and the blade met the beating wing on its forward strike and the blade and my arm, too, given the force, penetrated it like paper, and the thing rose up uttering a wild, hissing noise, clutching the girl, I hanging in the rent wing. Its flight was erratic and it climbed, and spun, and circled against me, the injured wing, air passing through it, burdened, too, with my weight, muchly ineffective. I swung in the wing, dangling. I saw the marsh dizzily spinning beneath me. The noise of the creature now was a wild deafening squeal. The monster's quarry, its creamy flesh in its grasp, its blond hair spread in the wind, made gasping, sobbing, choking noises. I think it could hardly breathe, for the movements, the ascents and descents, the turnings in the air. My arm slipped down through the skin. I feared I might rip free and fall to the marsh below, sometimes a hundred feet below, sometimes as little as thirty or forty feet. The creature tried to bite at me, to pull me from its wing, and I kicked at it, and thrust at its jaws, pushing them up, away. Once my hand slipped inside the lower jaw and I managed to withdraw it only an instant before the upper jaw, like the lid of a box, snapped shut against the lower. Then the ul was spinning erratically again, and we were turning head over heels. I then managed, hanging there, swinging, when it again achieved some stability, to transfer the sword to my left hand, under the wing. With my left hand I thrust the blade again and again into its left side. I could get little leverage for these thrusts, but they were repeated, again and again, and blood told of counts tallied. Then the jaws opened widely, perhaps four or five feet in width, and reached for me. I tried to swing back but could move very little. I thrust the blade out, between the jaws. The jaws snapped downward and the point of the sword emerged through the upper jaw and the lower jaw was tight under the hilt of the sword. The tongue, moving about, from one side to the other, cutting itself, bleeding, pushed against my hand. The creature, turning and spinning, hissing, tried to close its jaws. This put the blade higher through the upper jaw. Closer and closer to my hand came the relentless upper jaw, until it was stopped, held by the guard. The tongue pushed against my hand and the hilt. It then, spinning about, climbing, tried to open its jaws. I tried to turn the blade, to keep the jaws pinned shut. Its left eye was balefully upon me. Its left side bled in a dozen places. Then it began to fall, erratically, turning in the air, and then, somehow, again, it regained some stability. I saw what I took to be the island below, to the left. We were perhaps fifty or seventy feet then from the rence. It put back its head, lifting it, twisting it, and given the power of its body, the sword, fixed still in its jaw, was torn from my grasp. I heard the girl scream, released. I saw her falling toward the marsh below. Unburdened then to that extent the creature tried again to climb. It could manage only a few feet. The great wings no longer beat frenziedly. Then it tried to reach me with its legs. Its left leg, given my position, could not do so. Reaching across its body it tried to reach me, too, with its right leg. I tried to pull back. Claws tore at me, raking my leg. Then it tried to reach me with the claws of its right forelimb, the wing claws, at the arch of the wing. These claws, I think, are largely vestigial, given the modification of the forelimb to support the wing. They may, however, together with those of the feet, enable the creature, in suitable environments, to cling, batlike, to surfaces, such as rock faces and trees. They may also be used in intraspecific aggression. I pushed them away. In trying to reach me with these claws, of course, it lost aerial stability, and began to fall, twisting downward. It recovered in a moment and then, with the wing itself, began to beat, and thrust, at me. In attempting this, however, it again lost aerial stability, and began once more to plummet, spinning toward the marsh. It opened its wings to try to climb again, perhaps some fifty feet or so, above the marsh, and did climb, yard by yard, as though it would ascend to the clouds, but then it fell slowly, its wings beating, toward the marsh. It was suddenly in the water and I freed myself of the wing and backed away. I saw the claws of the forelimb, and the wing itself, push against where I had been. I stood back. It was lying there then, half submerged, its wing twisted and torn. The head turned to regard me. I waited for a time. The body went lower in the water. I then, carefully, freed my sword from its jaws. I then thrust once, deeply, cleanly, into its left side. It was then dead. The ul, I thought, is not the monarch of the delta. Man, small man, puny man, with his weapons, is the monarch of the delta. There was much blood in the water and I waded back toward the island. Two short-legged tharlarion passed me, like ships, moving toward the dead ul.