"I will make you beg to wear a collar," said the man.
I turned and looked up, frightened. He loomed over me. He held a slave whip.
"No, Master!" I cried.
Well did he punish me then for my insolence. There was nowhere to crawl or run. He whipped me as a Gorean master. At last I lay blubbering at his feet.
"I think now you are tamed," he said.
"Yes, Master," I sobbed, "yes!"
"Are you tamed?" he asked.
"I am tamed, Master!" I wept. "I am tamed!"
"Do you now beg to wear a collar?" he inquired.
"Yes, Master!" I cried.
"Beg," said he.
"I beg to wear a collar," I wept.
He then fastened the collar on my throat. It closed with anefficient metallic snap. I collapsed to the stones.
He turned and left me, placing the slave whip on the wall, where it had hung, convenient to hand. He rang a bell. A door opened, and a soldier, a guard, appeared. "Send for Sucha," said the captain. "There is a new girl."
I lay on the stones. Timidly, when he was not watching, but sitting behind his desk, engaged in work, perhaps entering my acquisition and price in his ledgers, I touched the collar, rounded, steel and gleaming. It was truly locked on my throat. I was collared. Only the brand had made me before feel so much a slave. I wept. I was branded and collared.
I heard the jingle of tiny bells, slave bells.
I became conscious of a woman's feet, bare, near me.
The bells, tiny, in four rows, were thonged about her left ankle. A whip touched me, prodding me, in the back. I shuddered. "Get up, Girl," said a woman's voice. I looked lip. She wore a wisp of yellow silk. Her dark hair was bound back with a yellow, silk talmit.
I stood up.
"Stand as a slave," she said.
I stood beautifully.
"A Dina," said the woman.
Her own brand was the customary Kajira brand, the initial letter in cursive Gorean script, about an inch and a half high, and a half inch wide, of the expression "Kajira," the most common Gorean expression for a female slave. It was clearly visible on her thigh. The wisp of silk she wore made no pretense to cover it.
"I am Sucha," said the woman.
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"Why were you whipped?" asked Sucha.
"I asked not to be put in a collar," I whispered.
"Remove it," she said.
I looked at her puzzled.
"Remove it " said the woman.
I tried to `pull the collar from my throat. I jerked it against my neck until I cried. I struggled to force it apart. I turned the collar and, with my fingers, tore at the lock. It remained obdurately, perfectly, inflexibly fastened.
I looked at the woman with agony. "I cannot remove it," I said.
"That is true, Slave Girl," she said. "And do not forget it."
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"What were you called?" she asked.
"Dina," I said.
Sucha looked at the captain. "It is acceptable," he said.
"For the time then," said Sucha, "until masters wish otherwise, you will remain `Dina.'"
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"Follow me, Dina," she said. I followed her. She, too, wore a Turian collar. The girls of the Wagon Peoples, too, I understand, wear such collars.
We walked along a long passage. Then we left that passage, and took others. We passed numerous storerooms, closed by barred gates. At one point, we passed through a heavy iron door, watched by a guard. On the other side of the door, she said, "Precede me, Dina." "Yes, Mistress," I said. I preceded her. We walked along another long passage. It, too, was lined with barred gates, giving access to store-rooms.
"You are very beautiful, Mistress," I said, over my shoulder.
"Do you wish to feel my whip?" she asked.
"No, Mistress," I said. I was then silent.
I knew why I was now preceding her. It was fairly common Gorean custom. We must be nearing the slave quarters. If I should now turn and flee, she was behind me, to stop me, with the whip. Sometimes new girls become frightened at the entrance to their slave quarters. There is something fearful about being locked within, as a slave.
"Are you tamed?" I asked her.
There was a pause. Then she said, "Yes."
We walked on.
"We are all tamed girls here," she said. "We have been taught our collars."
"Men can tame us!" I wept.
"Men tame girls or not, as they please," said Sucha. "It is their will which determines the matter. Some men do not tame their girls quickly, in order to tease and play with them longer, but the girl, if she is not a fool, knows to whom it is in the end that she belongs. In the end it is the man who holds the whip. This the girl knows. In the end, when the master wishes, we crawl into his arms, docile and tamed. We are women. We are slaves."
"I hate men!" I cried.
"Speak softly, lest you be whipped," cautioned Sucha.
"Do you not, too, hate men?" I demanded.
"I love them," said Sucha.
I cried out in anger. I turned about. "I am not tamed!" I cried. "I will never be tamed!"
"Tell it to the masters," said Sucha.
I shuddered.
"You are tamed," said Sucha.
"Yes," I said, miserably, "I have been tamed." I had been tamed since the first Gorean male had touched me, long ago, when I had worn a chain and collar in a Gorean field. Something instantly in me had told me who were my masters. And I remembered Clitus Vitellius, and Thurnus, and the captain, strict with me in his office. I touched the Turian collar which I wore, looped and locked about my neck.
"Tamed girl," said Sucha.
"Yes," said the former Judy Thornton. now the slave, Dina, "I am tamed."
I knew I must obey men.
"Here," said Sucha, "is the entrance to the kennels of the female slaves."
I shrank back. The door was small, and thick, and iron, some eighteen inches by eighteen inches square.
"Enter," said Sucha.
She stood behind me with the whip.
I turned the handle on the tiny door and, falling to my belly, squirmed through.
Sucha followed me.
Within we stood up. I gazed about myself with wonder. The room was lofty, and spacious; it contained numerous slender, white pillars, rich hangings; it was tiled in purple, and there was in it a scented pool; the walls were glossy and richly mosaiced with scenes of slave girls at the service of their masters; I uneasily touched the collar at my throat; light filtered down from narrow, barred windows, set high m the glossy, mosaiced walls. Here and there, about the pool, lay indolent girls, not set to work. They regarded me, appraising my face and figure, doubtless comparing it to their own.
"The room is beautiful," I said.
"Kneel," said Sucha.
I knelt.
"You are Dina," she said. "You are slave now within the Keep of Stones of Turmus. This is a merchant keep, under the banner and shield of Turia." That the keep was under the banner of Tuna designated it as a Turian keep, distinguishing it in this sense not only from keeps maintained by other cities but more importantly from the "free keeps" maintained by the merchant caste in its own right, keeps without specific municipal affiliations. Similarly, the merchant caste, which is international, so to speak, in its organization, arranges and conducts the four great fairs which occur annually in the vicinity of the Sardar mountains. The merchant caste, too, maintains certain free ports on certain islands and on the coasts of Thassa, such as Teletus and Bazi. Space in a "free keep" is rented on a commercial basis, regardless of municipal affiliation. In a banner keep, or one maintained by a given city, preference, if not exclusive rights, are accorded to the merchants and citizens of the city under whose banner the keep is established and administered. That the keep was also under the shield of Tuna meant that it was defended by Turians, that its garrison was Turian. Sometimes a keep will fly a given banner but its garr
ison will be furnished by the city within whose territory it lies. It is not unknown for a keep to fly the banner of one city and stand behind the shield of another. Both banner and shield of Stones of Turmus, however, were Turian. Stones of Turmus was Turian. "In the garrison there are one hundred men and five officers," said Sucha. "There are twenty men who are ancillary personnel, a physician, porters, scribes and such."
The other girls in the room came casually to where I knelt before Sucha. There were several of them. Most were naked. All wore Turian collars.
"A new silk girl," said one.
I straightened my body. It pleased me that they saw me as a silk girl.
"There are twenty-eight girls in Stones of Turmus," continued Sucha. "We come from nineteen cities. Six of us are bred slaves."
"She is a pretty one," said another girl.
I smiled.
"Teach her she is low girl," said Sucha.
One of the girls seized me from behind by the hair and threw me back to the tiles. I cried out. The other girls then, swiftly, kicked and struck at me. I screamed, twisting. "Enough," called Sucha. The beating had lasted no more than a brief handful of seconds, perhaps no more than five or six seconds. Its purpose was no more than to intimidate me. I looked up, horrified, my head still held down by the hair. My leg was bleeding where I had been bitten.
"Release her," said Sucha. "Kneel, Dina."
My hair released, I knelt.
"You are low girl," said Sucha.
"Yes, Mistress," I said. I was terrified. I did not even dare look into the eyes of the other girls. I could sense their readiness, their eagerness, on the least provocation, to put me under slave-girl discipline.
There was a pounding on bars, from several yards away. I heard a man's voice. It sounded authoritative, especially significant, in such a place. We listened, Sucha carefully, too.
"The girl, Sulda," he called, "is summoned to the couch of Hak Haran."
"Be swift, Sulda," whispered Sucha. "Hak Haran does not like to be kept waiting."
"Yes, Mistress," said a stunning brunet, her face suffused with pleasure, hurrying away from us.
"The girl hears and obeys," called Sucha.
"It is well," said the man.
"I," said another of the girls, "am never summoned except to the couch of Fulmius."
The other girls laughed at her.
"Leave us," said Sucha.
The other girls, some with last looks at me, drifted away.
"They do not like me," I said.
"You are very pretty," said Sucha. "It is natural for them to resent you."
"I thought they were tamed," I said.
"They are tamed to men, who are the masters," said Sucha. "But we are not tamed to one another."
"I do not want to be hurt," I said.
"Remember then," said Sucha, "that you are low girl. Please them. Conduct yourself with care among your sisters in bondage."
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"Get up. Follow me," said Sucha.
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
I knew that slave girls were often left to impose their own order upon themselves, masters usually not interfering in such matters. The kennel rooms of slave girls could be jungles. Usually the strongest, largest girl, with her cohorts, dominated. Order tended to be imposed by physical means. The head girls, too, their dominance assured, often did not impose a further order among the lesser girls, leaving it to them to determine their own rankings. Squabbles among slave girls can be nasty. In them there is likely to be much screaming and rolling upon the tiles; vicious clawing, biting, kicking and hair pulling tend to figure in such feminine disputations; even more shameful perhaps is the fact that the other girls find such contests amusing and encourage the contestants. Sometimes a strong girl even orders two friends to fight, until one establishes a dominance over the other. "I have been beaten," is the whimpered submission phrase of the loser, clawed and frightened. "Command me, Mistress," she then whispers. She must then serve the victor. If she objects the matter is again subjected to physical adjudication. In a closed set of kennels the order among the girls is usually meticulous and extremely precise. I was low girl.
"Here is your kennel," said Sucha. "You will customarily be locked in here at night, if you are not serving the men."
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
It was a cell alcove, off the large room, with a small, barred gate. It must be entered and left on the hands and knees. A girl, thus, cannot rush from it; too, in leaving it, she is simple to leash. Perhaps most importantly she can enter or leave her "place" only with her head down and on her knees, this involving a tacit, mnemonic psychology, reminding her and impressing upon her that she is a slave. The cell itself was some eight feet deep and four feet wide and four feet high. I could, thus, not stand in the cell. Its furnishings were only a thin, scarlet mattress and a crumpled slave blanket of rep-cloth.
"I trust you find the accommodations satisfactory," she said.
"Yes, Mistress," I smiled. Indeed, it was the most luxurious cage I had seen. It was dry, and there was a mattress. Short of being chained on furs at the foot of a master's couch, what more could a girl desire?
"Follow me," said Sucha.
"Yes, Mistress," I said, following her.
She took me about the pool to another room. In walking about the pool she pointed out the gates of the kennels to me. "This is the rear gate," she said. "It is that through which we entered." It was small and iron. "There is no handle on this side," I said. "No," said Sucha, "it may be opened only from the outside. I recalled the other gate, down the corridor, which had been tended by a guard. "Why then," I asked, "was there a guard down the corridor?" Sucha looked at me. "Did you not see the side gates in the corridor?" she asked. "Yes," I said. "To guard them," said Sucha. "Not us?" I asked. She laughed. "We are the least valuable things in the fortress," she said. "Oh," I said. I continued to follow her, but looked behind me at the small gate. It was stout. It could not be opened from our side. Beyond it, in the corridor, lay storage rooms for truly valuable merchandise, worthy of having a guard posted in the passage. I had passed, earlier, in walking through the corridors, several storage rooms. They had been locked, but not individually guarded. They held less valuable, bulk goods. I was angry that Sucha had said we were the least valuable things in the fortress. But then I remembered I had cost only six copper tarsks.
Sucha walked past a small room, and came to a short corridor, leading from the lofty room. In it was a large, barred gate, with another visible beyond it. It had been on the bars of the innermost gates that the man had pounded when summoning Sulda, the slave, to the couch of the man Hak Haran. But there were now no soldiers, or guards, in sight. Both gates, however, were double locked, with square, heavy locks. Two keys would be required for each. The gates were separated by about twenty feet. An ornate corridor could be seen beyond, with vases and carpeting. I looked at the two heavy locks on the innermost gate.
"They cannot be picked," said Sucha. "They are sleeve locks. The sleeve prevents the direct entry of a wire or pick. Too, within the sleeve there is a plug, a rounded, metal cone, which must be unscrewed before the key can be inserted. A wire or pick could not turn the cone."
"Is there anything," I asked, "in the kennels which might serve as a stout wire or long pick, one of suitable length to even try?"
"No," said Sucha.
I held the bars, dismally.
"You are an imprisoned slave," said Sucha. "Come along."
With one last look at the heavy bars and locks I turned to follow her. She led me to the small room we had passed earlier. It was a preparation room for slave girls. In it were mirrors. In them I saw a lovely dark-haired girl, naked, in a Turian collar, myself, followed by a beautiful woman, dark-haired, in a wisp of yellow silk, carrying a whip.
Sucha indicated one of five small, sunken baths, and oils and towels.
She showed me the use of the oils and towels.
"You are an ignorant
girl," she said. "You do not even know how to take a bath."
I blushed.
My hair then I washed, and dried, and combed and brushed, taking from it the dust of the road leading to Stones of Turmus, and the sweat of the afternoon and early evening.
"I am hungry," I said.
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