by John Norman
I struggled in the chains. The words of Ligurious, that I would be come for, now took on a new and frightful meaning for me.
I looked down into the crowd.
Now it seemed, truly, I had been come for.
“Make way! Clear the way!” called Miles of Argentum. Soldiers began to clear the aisle of men and women, that we might have a clear exit from the great hall. I was lowered to my feet.
“What are you going to do with me?” I asked Miles of Argentum.
“We are going to take you into the courtyard,” he said, “and put you in the golden cage. You may recall that I told you once that you belonged in a cage, a golden cage.”
Tears sprang into my eyes. I did not want to be put into a cage. I was not a slave, or another type of animal. Too, I did not understand the meaning of a golden cage.
At a sign from Miles of Argentum a soldier picked me up, lightly, in his arms. He held me as easily as though I might have been a child.
Then, in his arms, I was carried rapidly down the steps of the dais and down the aisle, between the halves of the parted crowd.
In a matter of but moments I was blinking against the sunlight in the courtyard. Too, I felt the heat and the sun on my bared skin. I was put on my feet near a tall, narrow, cylindrical cage with a conical top. The height of this cage was about seven feet; its rounded floor was perhaps a yard in diameter. In the top of the cage, at the top of the cone, on the outside, there was a heavy ring.
I was thrust into the cage and the door was locked shut behind me.
It had two locks, one about a third up from the door and the other about a third down from the top.
“In this cage, Lady Sheila,” said Miles of Argentum, “you will be paraded through the streets of Corcyrus, exhibited in our triumph. Doubtless you will enjoy receiving the love and devotion of your people. You will, thereafter, be transported in this same cage to Argentum. I might mention to you that the bars of this cage, like the chains you wear, are not of pure gold, but of a sturdy golden alloy. Similarly, portions of the cage, like the floor and the interior of the top, and the gilded cone ring, are of iron. You will find that the holding power of these various devices is more than adequate, by several factors, to hold ten strong men. Incidentally, allow me to commend you on how well you look in chains. You wear them beautifully enough to be a slave.”
I clutched the golden bars, in order not to fall.
“Your body, also,” he said, “is beautiful enough to be that of a slave.”
I moaned. I could see men approaching, with rope. Too, behind them, drawn by two tharlarion, came a flat-topped wagon. At the back of this wagon was an arrangement of beams, with a projecting, supported, perpendicularly mounted beam that extended forward, some fifteen feet in the air, toward the front of the wagon. At the forward portion of this projecting beam there was a ring, not unlike the one on the top of the cage.
Miles of Argentum surveyed me, and the chains, and the cage.
“Yes,” he said, “these arrangements all seem suitable and efficient. I think we may count on your arriving in Argentum in good order.”
A rope was being passed through the ring at the top of my cage.
The flat-topped wagon was being drawn near. I gathered that the cage would be suspended from the ring on the projecting beam on the wagon, that it would hang suspended over the surface of the wagon, some feet from the flat bed of the wagon. From within the cage, it suspended thusly, I would not even be able to touch anything outside of the cage.
I was totally in their power.
I was inutterably helpless.
“What are you taking me to Argentum for?” I asked.
“For impalement,” he said.
Chapter 14 - THE CAMP OF MILES OF ARGENTUM; TWO MEN
“No,” I whimpered. “No!” I awakened, my legs drawn up, cramped, in the tiny cage. I lay on my side. I heard the chains move on the small, circular floor of the cage. I twisted to my back, my knee raised. I could feel the chain from the collar lying on my body. My manacled hands were at my belly. The chain joining them I could feel, too, on my belly. I could feel the extension of the central chain, below the manacles, too, on my body, and then it passed between my legs, lying on the iron floor, then making its rendezvous with my shackled ankles.
I had been dreaming that I was again being carried in the cage through the streets of Corcyrus. Because of the width of the wagon bed and the height of the cage, some five feet or so above the surface of the wagon bed, I had been reasonably well protected from the blows of whips, the jabbings of sticks. Soldiers, too, patrolled the perimeters of the moving wagon. More than one man, pressing between the soldiers and clambering onto the wagon, sometimes unarmed, sometimes with a whip or stick, sometimes even with a knife, was seized and thrown back into the crowd by soldiers.
The crowds cheered Miles of Argentum and his men. And, as my wagon passed them, they seemed to go mad with hatred and pleasure, crying out and jeering me, and shrieking with triumph to see me so helplessly a captive. The people of Corcyrus, it was clear, had welcomed the men of from Ar as liberators. The colors of Argentum and of Ar, on ribbons and strips of cloth, angled from windows and festooned, even being stretched between windows and rooftops overhead, the triumphal way such colors, too, were prominent in the crowd, on garments being waved, fluttering, by citizens and sometimes even children, perched on the shoulders of adults.
I had stood in the cage, frightened, bewildered and confused. I had not been able to even begin to understand the hatred of the people. I had stood in the cage that I might be better seen. If I did not do so, Miles of Argentum had informed me, simply, I would be beaten like a slave.
I had now awakened in the cage, frightened. I had dreamed I was being again carried through the streets of Corcyrus. I had recoiled, fearfully, from the sting of a fruit rind hurled at me. Often in that miserable journey, suspended in the cage, carried between jeering crowds, I had been pelted with small stones, garbage and dung.
I whimpered, chained in my tiny prison. At least I was alone now, and it was quiet. The cage creaked a little, moving in the wind. I crawled to my knees and, with my fingers, parted the opaque cloth which had been wrapped about the cage for the night, before it had been raised to its present position. I looked out through the tiny crack. I could see fires of the camp, and several tents. I heard music from the distance, from somewhere among the tents, where perhaps girls danced to please masters. We were one day out of Corcyrus, on the march to Argentum. I looked down to the ground. It was some forty feet below. The cage was slung now not from the ring on the wagon beam but from a rope which had been thrown over a high stout branch of a large tree. The cage had then been hoisted to this height and the rope secured.
“Villainess of Corcyrus! Tyranness of Corcyrus!” the people had cried.
I lay back down then in my chains, on the small iron floor of the cage, my knees pulled up high, and looked upward at the hollow, cone-like ceiling of the cage. It seemed I had no more tears to cry.
I did not want to die.
I heard the music in the distance.
I wished that I were a slave, that I might have a chance for life, that I might have an opportunity to convince a master somehow, in any way possible, that I might be worth sparing.
But I was a free woman and would be subjected only to the cold and inhuman mercies of the law.
I was being transported to Argentum for impalement.
I could not cry any more.
Then, suddenly, I felt the cage drop an inch, and then another inch.
I scrambled to my knees, looking out, as I could. But, because of the opaque covering of the cage, its fastenings and the difficulty of moving it, I could see very little.
Then the cage was still. Then, after a time, it dropped another inch, and then another. I knelt in the cage, holding my chains, to keep them from making noise.
Slowly the cage was lowered. Then it rested on the ground.
My heart was beating wil
dly. I now seemed very much alive. The stealth, and the gradualness, which seemed to characterize what was going on, did not suggest the activities of authorized representatives of Miles of Argentum. It did not even occur to me to scream. From whom would I summon help, and to what purpose? If these nocturnal visitors wished to steal me, perhaps to make me a slave or sell me, I would go only too willingly into whatever bondage they chose to inflict upon me. I would enter it joyfully. I would revel in it. I would, in my gratitude, see to it that I proved to be to them a slave beyond their wildest dreams.
Then suddenly I was terrified. What if these visitors were not opportunists or slavers? What if they were men of Corcyrus who wished to return me to the city, there to subject me to secret and horrifying tortures which might shame the agonies of an impaling spear on the walls of Argentum?
I did not know whether to cry out or not.
The cover on the cage was unlaced, and thrust back, around the cage. Two men were there. They were dressed entirely in black. They wore masks. One of them held an unshuttered dark lantern and the other opened a leather wrapper containing keys and tools on the ground. He, then, with a variety of keys and picks, and small tools, swiftly, expertly, trying one thing and then another, addressed himself to the upper lock. He was skillful, and apparently a smith in such matters, perhaps a skilled specialist within his caste. In fifteen Ehn both locks had yielded. The cage door was opened and I was pulled out.
I was put on my back and the man, swiftly, with numerous small keys, and some of the other tools, addressed himself to my collar lock. I felt the collar pulled away. Then, in a few Ehn, I had been freed, too, of the manacles, and then the shackles. I was turned to my stomach. My right wrist was tied to my left ankle.
I struggled about, turning my head. I saw the golden sirik put back in he cage; it was not the sort of thing, I gathered, which these fellows would care to have found in their possession; I then saw the cage closed and the cover readjusted about it, then, together, the two men, with the rope, drew it slowly upward; in a few moments it hung quietly where it had before, when it had been occupied. If its lowering and raising had not been noticed, I did not think that now anyone would be likely to find anything amiss until morning, when it would be lowered and found empty.
The cord which had fastened my wrist to my ankle was then removed and I was drawn to my feet. I was startled that I was put in no bonds. A cloak was handed to me. I drew it swiftly about my body and over my head, grasping it closed with my fists beneath my chin. Over my head as it was, and it being a short cloak, too, it fell midway, as I held it about me, on my calves. I was grateful not only for the disguise it afforded me, but, too, because it gave me some way to conceal my nakedness. I felt a hand at my back and I was conducted from the area of the tree and the suspended cage.
As we removed ourselves from that area we passed the slumped figures of two guards, an overturned flagon near them.
“Hold!” called a drunken voice, as we passed between tents.
We stopped. My left upper arm, now that we had left the area of the tree and cage, under the cloak, was in the custody of the man on my left. He had taken it in charge almost immediately upon leaving the cage area. He did not wish to accept the risk, it seemed, that I might attempt to escape, perhaps impulsively attempting to dart away into the darkness. There was little danger of that now. His grip was like iron. I still held the cloak together, and about my face, with my right hand. I attempted to pull the cloak forward more, and averted my face, that my features might not be seen.
“Masks, eh?” said the newcomer. “So she is a free woman, is she? But perhaps not for long!”
He laughed drunkenly, and staggered about, in front of us. He tried to reach for the cloak I held clutched about my face. I turned my face away, clutching the cloak about it.
“A modest pudding,” he said, surprised. “Forgive me, Lady,” he said, bowing low. Then he staggered about, behind us, again.
Then I suddenly felt the cloak being lifted behind me. “She has legs good enough to be those of a slave,” he said. We then proceeded on our way. I was shaking. Too, I now had some idea of the publicness of a slave’s body.
I was pulled back into the shadows between some tents. Two guardsmen, with a lantern, passed. Then, again, we threaded our way amongst the canvas-lined lanes of the camp of the men of Argentum.
Most of the tents were dark. Within some were small fires. When men passed between the fires and the canvas wall of the tent we could see their shadows on the canvas. In one tent a girl danced slowly, sensuously, before a seated male. Her skills suggested that she might be a camp slave, a girl from one of the strings of camp slaves, strings of girls owned by authorized merchants, holding contracts for certain season or campaigns, kept within the camp, and traveling with it, for renting out to soldiers at fees stipulated in the contracts.
Too, of course, she might be a girl even from Corcyrus, or another community, perhaps a paga girl. Such as these are sometimes brought to the camps on speculation. The fees for their use are not contractually controlled, as are those of the regular camp slaves, but the fees of the camp slaves, of course, being fixed and almost nominal, tend to exert a considerable, informal influence on the market; they set competitive standards, ensure realistic pricings and reduce the risk of excessive local profiteering. On Earth it is not unusual for a free woman to attempt to take a profit on her own beauty, using it, for example, if only in mate competitions, to advance herself economically. On Gor, however, if that same woman should be enslaved, she will soon discover that the profits accruing from her beauty belong now not to her, but to her master. This is quite appropriate. It, like she herself, is his.
As we passed another tent, a darkened one, I heard the sounds of chains from within. “Oh, more, Master, I beg you, please, more,” I heard, “more, more, please, oh, my Master, more, please more, please more, my Master, I beg you!” How scandalized I was! What was it within, a harlot, a whore! But I feared it was far worse, something a thousand times lower, something a thousand times more despicable and helpless, a slave.
In a few moments we stopped, between some darkened tents. I was then lifted from my feet and placed, sitting, on he ground.
“Why are we stopping here?” I whispered. “Who are you? What are you doing!”
My last question was prompted by the fact that one of the men, the larger of the two, he who had held my left arm, had now crossed my ankles. He was now wrapping a long piece of binding fiber about them, sometimes looping them both, sometimes taking it about only one ankle, sometimes snaking it about both ankles and securing it between both with tightly drawn loops. He even, occasionally, threaded an end through other, already secured loops. He then pulled the entire tie tight. What he had done was far more elaborate and complex than was required to hold a girl’s ankles. A loop or two, properly knotted, I did not doubt, would be adequate for the perfect accomplishment of such a task. Then, to my surprise, he placed the two loose ends of the binding fiber in my hands. I held them, puzzled. He had not knotted the tie. Similarly no move had been made to secure my hands.
“Wait!” I whispered. “No!” I then understood what they intended.
The smaller of the two men, he who had been so expert with the locks and chains, placed his fingers across my lips.
“No!” I whispered. “Don’t leave me! Who are you? Why have you done what you have done?”
He increased the pressure of his fingers on my lips, and I was silent.
He leaned close to me and whispered. I did not recognize the voice.
“We have brought you here,” he said. “It is a half of a pasang from the cage.”
I nodded, miserably.
“The camp will be awake in three Ahn,” he said.
I nodded.
He withdrew his fingers from my lips.
“Do not leave me!” I begged.
“The camp will be awake in three Ahn,” he said.
“Who are you?” I begged.
&nb
sp; He was silent.
“Why have you done what you have done?” I asked.
“Once you did me a kindness,” he said. “I have never forgotten.”
“What kindness?” I asked.
“Our accounts are now squared,” he said. “It is done. The matter is finished.”
“And what, then, is his motivation?” I asked, indicating the, larger man.
“It is other than mine,” said the smaller man.
The larger man then drew his cloak away from me. I was then sitting in the dirt, naked, with my ankles fastened together, the two ends of the fiber clutched in my hands.
“Do not leave me,” I begged. “Keep me. I am prepared even to be your slave!”
The larger man suddenly, angrily, reached for my throat. I felt those large hands close about it. For an instant things went black. I know he could crush the life from me at his whim.
“Do not kill her,” said the other.
The hands left my throat.
I gasped. I swallowed painfully. The larger man retrieved his cloak.
The two men stood, preparing to take their leave.
“Do not leave me here, I beg you!” I whispered.
“Already, in this,” said the smaller man, “you have been granted more than a hundred times the lenience and favor that you deserve.”
“Are you not my friends?” I asked.
“No,” said he. “We are your enemies.”
I looked up at him, in misery.
“Farewell,” said he, “Lady Sheila, villainess and tyranness of Corcyrus.”
“Wait!” I whispered.
But they were gone, and gone in different directions. I thought of crying out, but doubtless they would be away by the time men would come, and with their masks doffed, who would know them? I would succeed in doing little more than calling attention to myself.
“Wait,” I whispered softly, piteously. But they had vanished.
“The camp will be awake in three Ahn,” the smaller man had said.
Feverishly I began to unwind and unthread the binding fiber on my ankles. It took me better than an Ehn to do so.