by John Norman
Then she felt a sudden chill. Perhaps he purchased me for a purpose for which he would not care to risk a Gorean girl!
She remembered the messages she had carried, the intrigues, the dangers in contemporary Ar. That is it, she thought to herself, miserably. He wants a meaningless, expendable tool! Then it seemed to her that this was too simple. He must also have wanted, she thought, an ignorant girl, one unversed in the politics of Ar, one who will understand little of what is being done, of what she is being used to accomplish, one who, even under torture, her flesh writhing on the rack, drawing back, screaming, from the heat of fierce, white irons, could reveal little or nothing of the matters in which she obediently, unwittingly, had figured.
What purpose has he in mind for me now, she wondered.
She did not doubt, however, but what Portus was fond of her. It was only, she was sure, that her value was negligible, and perhaps so, too, was that of dozens of free men, compared to some end in view, some projected goal in the city.
What had happened to Talena, she wondered. Why was the Ubara missing from the palace?
But doubtless there was nothing to worry about there.
But I think, she thought to herself, that I have little to fear, actually, little more than a horse might have to fear. I am property, I am goods. I may figure as spoils, being seized by one party or another, wearing one chain or another, but I do not think that I have to fear as might free persons fear. I would think that it would be Portus Canio, my master, who must fear, and Fel Doron and Tersius Major, his associates and friends, for they are free persons and would doubtless be held accountable for their actions, for theft, treason, or such.
I am a slave girl, thought Ellen.
As she stood there in the basket, in the wind, holding to the side of the basket, the blanket clutched about her, being sped through the night, beneath the moons, she had an odd sense of contentment, and pride.
I have never known such happiness as on Gor, she thought.
I am so pleased to have been brought here.
Here, for the first time, I am something, something exact and real. Here, for the first time, I have a function, a condition, a nature and an identity, an actual identity. For the first time I know what I am, and how I must be, and what I must do. Here, for the first time, too, my sex means something. Here, for the first time, my sex is truly meaningful. Too, for the first time I have an actual value. Free women may be priceless, but, thus, they are worth nothing. As what I am I now have a value and it will be determined by my beauty, which I have reason to believe is considerable, the desire of men, and the conditions of the market. On this world wars have been fought for slaves. We have value. Despite what masters say I suspect we are the most valuable form of merchandise on this world. Wagonloads of gold, hundreds of tarns, have been exchanged for high slaves. For some slaves cities have been bartered. Even average slaves are important items in the economy. Men desire slaves, and here they may have them.
Men fight for slaves. Men kill for them.
We are treasures, prizes. We are sought with eagerness, with zeal, with energy, with ambition, passion and power.
Men become great with our necks in their collars. At their feet we find our womanhood. Nature is confirmed, enhanced, fulfilled and celebrated.
The wind blew through her hair.
You may reject me, Selius Arconious, she said, bitterly, but others will not. I know that I have value, that I would bring a good price in a normal market. I may be young, and a barbarian, but I know that I am a beautiful slave. Yes, a beautiful slave! See me on a market block, Selius Arconious. See me perform! Then you will cry out with rage, with misery, with need, seeing what you have lost!
“You have lost a prize, Selius Arconious,” she cried, to the indifferent emptiness of the dark countryside. “You have lost a prize!”
The moons are beautiful, she thought, through tears.
Then, weeping, she lay down in the basket, a small figure, her knees drawn up, wrapped in the blanket.
I am a slave girl, she thought. I wonder whose chain my neck will wear.
In time she slept.
Chapter 20
COFFLED
Ellen, choking in the dust raised by the clawed feet of restless saddle tharlarion, stirring, grunting, snorting, coming and going, seemingly all about her, miserable in the heat, shutting her eyes against the dust and glare, the sun burning on her back, weeping, the tears mixing with the grit of dust, was forced to her knees, and then to all fours. She heard the rustle of chain behind her and then, in an instant, a heavy metal collar was clasped about her neck and locked. A chain dangled from its back ring, its posterior ring, that at the back of her neck, to a girl behind her, and another chain ran from her collar’s throat ring, or anterior ring, to the back ring, or posterior ring, of the next collar, which, a moment later, was closed about the lovely, slim neck of the slave before her, and so on, toward the beginning of the coffle.
“Stand, sluts!” she heard, and the crack of a whip.
Ellen struggled to her feet, with a rattle of chain. She felt the draw, the tension, the pull of the chain on the collar, before her and behind her. How hot the sun was! There was so much dust! It was hard to breathe, for the dust. She had her eyes half shut against the glare.
She felt miserable, and dizzy. Things swirled about her. Tharlarion rushed past. Men shouted. She heard the creak of wagon wheels. She feared she might be ill, that she might faint.
She grasped the chain before her, with both hands. How small and delicate seemed her fingers on the heavy, merciless links. How well they keep slaves, she thought.
“Put your hands at your sides, slave girl,” said a voice. “Keep your eyes straight ahead, stand gracefully.”
“Yes, Master,” said Ellen. The voice seemed not unfamiliar. It seemed she must have heard it somewhere, and recently.
She felt the coil of a whip beneath her chin, lifting it. It was then removed. She, of course, kept her head raised.
“I thought you would look well in coffle,” said the voice.
“Thank you, Master,” whispered Ellen. She dared not turn her head.
“You are perhaps a bit young, and a bit slender,” said he, “but you are nonetheless exquisitely formed. I have no doubt you will bring a good price. Figures such as yours sell well. I think you are intelligent, for a slave. You have a beautiful face, exquisitely sensitive and feminine, though smudged now, and excellent hair, long and flowing, though desperately now it needs washing, yes, excellent hair, long, fine, flowing, soft hair.” As he said this he was examining her hair. “You have a good throat,” he said, appraisingly, “good shoulders, stand straighter, yes, lovely breasts, a narrow waist, a nice belly, wide hips, a sweet love cradle, nice flanks, a pretty ass. I wonder —”
“Oh!” cried Ellen.
“Yes,” he said, satisfied, “you should bring a good price.”
The sun was hot.
“Perhaps I shall bid on you myself,” he said.
Ellen was confused, and miserable. She had been brought into the camp last night.
“Your former masters were fools,” said the voice. “They sought to outwit Cos. But the eyes and ears of Cos are everywhere.”
“Yes, Master,” whispered Ellen.
“Perhaps you are curious to know the fate of your companions?” he said.
“Yes, Master!” said Ellen, quickly.
“Curiosity is not becoming in a slave girl,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, sobbing.
“Lower your head,” he said.
She stood then in the dust and heat, her head bowed.
He was rather near her, and rather before her.
There was a pounding of claws on the earth and a saddle tharlarion, with a hurried, leaping gait, hurtled by.
She could hear, somewhere behind her, the grunting of a ponderous draft tharlarion, presumably being harnessed, or backed into its traces. To her left, yards away, tent pegs jerked from the earth, pol
es lifted and lowered, colorful, striped canvas seemed to collapse in upon itself, to be gathered and rolled, and tied. She heard a rattle of pans somewhere behind her.
The sun was hot upon her.
She hoped she would not faint in the heat.
“You may look upon me, slave girl,” said the voice.
Ellen lifted her head. He who stood near her she had seen before, in the loft. He was the Cosian subcaptain who had demanded documentation of Portus Canio, the subcaptain whose men had searched the loft, he who had confiscated her in the name of Cos, wiring the tag to her collar.
“Do you recognize me, slave girl?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
It was he who had speculated that she would look well, chained by the neck, being marched in a slave coffle.
He then turned away.
What was the fate of Portus Canio, Fel Doron and Tersius Major, she wondered.
Were they safe?
Men were cursing somewhere.
One she took to be the camp marshal passed her. He carried a list. She had seen him approaching, moving along the lines, stopping to confer with officers and drovers. It is the function of the camp marshal to choose sites, lay out the camps, and, when ready to move, to order the components in the march, arranging wagons, cavalry, stock, guards, scouts, and such. His arrangements, of course, may be overruled, or revised, by the camp commander, the highest officer with the march.
Several female slaves, indeed, a very large number, Ellen amongst them, had been arranged and “necklaced.” Not all the female slaves in the camp were in the coffle, of course. Those not in the coffle were presumably camp slaves, associated with the camp, properties of the Cosian military, or perhaps, in some cases, of officers. The presence of such women in the camp is a great convenience to the soldiers, as one might imagine, for they are useful in various ways, performing a variety of tasks, such as cooking, cleaning, laundering, and sewing, and, naturally, more delicate, subtle, pleasurable slave tasks, such as “serving wine,” and such. These slaves were tunicked much as common slaves, briefly, and in a variety of colors, though, at the left hip, low, near the hem of the tunic, on the side, rather in the back, there was a small, vertical, rectangular, gray patch, which color is often used for the tunics of state slaves. They looked upon the slaves in the coffle with contempt. As far as Ellen knew all slaves not commonly associated with the march, except some high slaves, the latter in barred slave wagons, were in the coffle. Ellen had no clear idea how many women were in the coffle. Usually about ten slaves are on a single, given chain, but chains are linked together, by padlocks and posterior rings, and such. Ellen estimated that there were between two hundred and fifty and three hundred women in her coffle. She knew that coffles of over a thousand women were not unknown. Ellen was rather toward the head of the coffle, perhaps some twenty or thirty women from its beginning. Curious, she determined that the coffle was not arranged in order of height, as are many smaller coffles. In a marching coffle she knew that the most beautiful were often put at the beginning, and the least attractive put at the end. Sometimes girls strove for a better coffle position, passionately trying to improve their attractiveness. In a sales coffle two policies tend to predominate: sometimes the most beautiful are saved for the end, which has led to the saying “rich enough to buy from the end of the chain,” or, more often, the girls are mixed on the chain with various sales strategies in mind, for example, mixing skin colors, facial types and such for aesthetic purposes, putting a moderately attractive girl between two less attractive girls to improve, by contrast, the chance of marketing the moderately attractive girl, and so on. Sometimes the positions are determined randomly, by lot. Buyers tend to approve of this arrangement, for one can then suppose that one has had the best buy, regardless of the girl’s position on the chain. To be sure, what all these approaches seem to overlook, though it is probably understood well enough by all, is that much which is very personal, even “chemical,” so to speak, is involved in these matters. A slave who is nothing to one man may be exactly the slave that another man must have at any price, and a stunning beauty, perhaps a flower from a defeated Ubar’s pleasure garden, perhaps even his preferred slave, these women vended in a war camp, might not appeal to a given common soldier, and such.
Ellen wondered if the coffle had been ordered in terms of beauty, at least as some men saw these things. If so, she was surely prized. This both flattered her, and frightened her. But then, again, the coffle might have been arranged in no particular order, or in an order in which beauty, or estimates of beauty, were irrelevant, an order of acquisition, or an order based on the night’s chaining, or such.
Too, she was certainly not in one of the barred slave wagons. She was a far cry from a high slave. She was only a youngish barbarian. Yet she was rather near the beginning of the coffle.
I am miserable. I am hot. I can scarcely breathe for the dust, thought Ellen. She looked toward the sun with closed eyes, and the insides of her eyelids were a warm, radiant red. She put her head down, and it seemed as though there was blackness about the edges of her vision. I must not faint, she thought. They would beat me. I must struggle to remain conscious. Why will they not let us sit down, or lie down? They have commanded us to rise. I fear the whip. They have made us rise. Soon I fear we must march. I will try to march well. I do not want to be struck with the whip.
Four soldiers on tharlarion thundered by. Dirt and gravel flew up from the animals’ passage, pelting, stinging the startled, chained girls, who shrank back, whimpering, and a rising, thick, floating cloud of dust, bright in the hot sun, lingered and swelled behind, enveloping the line. Ellen and the others, pelted, stinging, choking, half-blinded, turned their heads away from it, covering their eyes.
Then the dust settled, and Ellen felt it on her face, on her eye lashes, her breasts and body. Her hair, she knew, would be filthy with it.
She could feel the dust on her lips, as though in cracks there. She ran her tongue over it, and her tongue felt dirty. Her mouth felt dry, and dirty. Her head ached, from the glare of the sun. Her eyes smarted, from the brightness, and glare. Putting down her head, she tried to wipe her eyes, to free them, and her eyelids, of the dirt and dust, and powdered grit, which clung about them, and was lodged within them. The material was scratchy. Sweat, too, ran into her eyes. Her eyes smarted and stung. It was hard to see.
They have had us stand, she thought. I hope they do not whip us. Surely we must soon move.
And so she stood there, her feet in the hot, thick dust, chained with the others. She felt sick. She was miserable. I must not faint, she thought. Heat seemed to envelop her. It was like invisible fire. The sun boiled. She put her hands on the chain before her neck, running from her anterior collar ring to the posterior collar ring of the slave before her. The chain felt hot to her small fingers. The collar, of iron, some half of an inch in thickness, was close about her throat. It, too, felt hot. The light collar of Portus, the common collar, typical of Gorean slave collars, had been removed last night, and the tag that had been wired to it. The only collar she now wore was that which fastened her in the coffle. On her thigh, of course, was her brand. Even without the master’s collar, the brand would clearly mark her slave. The collar marks the girl as slave and commonly identifies the master. Too, it is generally visible. The brand marks her as slave, but is a generic emblem of bondage independent of a particular master. It would normally be covered by a slave tunic. She heard shouts along the line. Are they going to move us now, she asked herself. She heard an approaching tharlarion, from behind her, on her right. She closed her eyes, and tried not to breathe. It passed, rapidly. Once again the air burned with a choking, agitated smoke of grit and dust. Ellen then gasped for breath, and coughed, and wiped her face. There was the sound of the blow of a whip from somewhere behind her, and the cry of a girl in pain. A bit later she was aware of a man near her. She kept her eyes ahead. She straightened her body.
Then he had gone forward. H
e carried a whip.
She was naked, of course, as were the others.
She recalled that the officer of Cos, in the loft, had speculated that she would look well, a chain on her neck, marched in a coffle.
And now she stood here, somewhere, days from Ar, passive, obedient, as she and the others must be, awaiting the order to march.
She put her head down, under the merciless sun, in the dust and heat.
There was a chain on her neck.
She was coffled.
****
It will be recalled that Portus and his party left Ar under the cover of darkness. When morning came, the first day, they had landed, taken shelter in a grove of ka-la-na, and made their first camp. Clearly this was to be a concealed camp, and Portus had forbidden the lighting of fires. When the tarns in the progress of Tersius Major had come to the ground, Fel Doron, already landed, came to the last of the seven baskets, and lifted Ellen from the basket. She could have climbed from, or scrambled from, the basket, of course, but she had not been given permission to leave it. Too, slave girls are expected to be aware of what men want of them, expect of them, and demand of them, of their beauty, their image, and its suitable movements and demeanors. They are not expected to act like inert, unawakened, sexless tomboys. That is the last thing they are. And it is difficult to leave such a basket in a tunic without presenting yourself as a spread slave. The baskets in which free women travel have gates, through which they may proceed with suitable modesty, with due elegance. Ellen’s basket was a cargo basket, and a deep one. When she had been placed on the grass before Fel Doron, she knelt before him, put her head down, and kissed his feet, an act of deference appropriate for a slave. She was then set about small tasks in the camp. She was forbidden to leave the ka-la-na thicket. During the day the men, concealed among the trees, took turns watching the skies. She herself, when her chores were done, gathering grass for bedding, spreading blankets, preparing food and serving it to the men, and such, was chained by an ankle to a tree. Portus, within the thicket, with a crossbow, stalked and slew a small tabuk. Its meat was fed to the tarns. Ellen, awakening in the afternoon, about the twelfth Ahn, noted that Tersius Major was not in his place. It was his turn on watch. At nightfall the tarn train again took to the skies, Ellen once more in her conveyance. Ellen was much more content, and pleased, with her journey the second night, as many of her fears had been dispelled. They were, it seemed, now flying over a district in which there were many lakes. The moons were reflected in the waters. It took several Ehn to traverse some of these waters. Once, the second night, Ellen was frightened, but fascinated, because an Ahn or so after departure there was a great shadow in the sky near her, and, looking up, she saw the gigantic figure of a wild tarn wheeling away; it had approached silently. Ellen looked down at the countryside, interspersed as it was with waterways, pools, ponds and lakes. Before dawn the tarn train once more landed, this time amongst a cluster of small hills, covered with needle trees, evergreen trees, and took its shelter in a narrow ravine. This time, when her chores were done, Ellen, to her chagrin, was put in a belly chain with attached bracelets. In this device, if the slave’s hands are braceleted before her, the free ends of the device are closed and locked behind her, at the small of her back. If the slave’s hands are braceleted behind her, the free ends of the device are closed and locked before her, at her waist. She was back-braceleted. She was also gagged. That day, too, as might be expected, her left ankle bore as before its encircling metal impediment, by means of which, with its attached chain, she was secured to a small tree.
