Witness of Gor coc-26

by John Norman

  “Master?” I asked.

  “He is to be tortured,” he said.

  I was silent.

  “Let him, helpless in his chains, be mocked and taunted,” he said, fiercely, “as might be a helpless male slave by an insolent slave girl.”

  I did not look up. My left cheek was upon the tiles. I saw only his feet.

  “He is to suffer,” he said. “He is to well understand the contempt in which we hold him, the insult we do him.”

  “Master?” I asked.

  “He is my enemy,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  And so it seemed that I, a lowly slave, figured somehow, in no way I clearly understood, in some obscure affair of state. I now better understood, as well, my having been obtained. My beauty, of beauty it was, was intended to have its purpose in certain plans. It was, it seemed, to be as food exhibited to a starving man. And it seemed, too, that, from the point of view of those on this world, that some grievous insult was intended as well, first, doubtless, the general insult that he, a free man, would be attended by a mere slave, an insult common to those in the pits, and, second, that he, a free man, would be attended by such a slave, a mere pierced-ear girl, and one who would be clad in such a way before him, and behave in such a way before him, one whom he, to his misery, would be unable either to enjoy or punish. He must endure, even, it seemed, if they had their way, the provocations, the mockery, of a slave. How rich the joke! How delicious the insult! But I wondered, really, if the peasant, so simple, so huge, so remote, would even understand this sort of thing. Might it not all be lost upon him? I was not certain he understood he was in chains, in the depths. Perhaps in his mind, he was in some simple hut, far off, perhaps in some small, fertile valley, tending his fields.

  “You understand what is required?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  He turned away.

  “Master!” I called to him.

  He turned back to face me.

  “What you did to me last night!” I cried. “What you made me do! What you made me feel!”

  “It is nothing,” he said.

  “I do not even know Master’s name,” I said.

  “Your name is ‘Janice’,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  He then left.

  A few minutes later one of the slave girls entered the room. The other was a little behind her.

  They busied themselves, picking up, tiding.

  One of them came over and looked down at me. “You are a well-tied little vulo,” she said.

  I did not respond.

  “It stinks in here,” said the other, lightly. “There must be a pit slave somewhere.”

  The two girls wee not twins, but they were clearly a matched set. They were similar in height, figure, hair and eye color. They also wore matching tunics, brief, of yellow silk. I wondered if they had been sold as a matched set, or if the officer had matched them himself. I wondered if they served his pleasure together. Many men, of course, won more than one woman. How they apply them, or mix them, is up to them.

  “She is a pierced-ear girl,” said the girl standing near me.

  “I wish he wouldn’t bring them here,” said the other. “It lowers the quality of the compartments.”

  “You are an Earth slut, aren’t you?” asked the girl near me.

  I did not respond.

  “Oh!” I cried, in pain, kicked.

  “Aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Yes!” I said.

  “Yes, what?” she asked.

  “Yes, Mistress!” I said.

  “Speak when you are spoken to, slut,” said the girl.

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said. “Forgive me Mistress.”

  “Let us give her a switching,” said the other girl.

  “No, Mistress!” I begged. ‘Please, no, Mistress!”

  “You will be a good little slave, won’t you, Earth slut?’ asked the first girl.

  “Yes, Mistress!” I assured her.

  “What do the masters see in such curvaceous little sluts?” asked the second girl.

  “They are pretty little bundles of slave curves.” Said the first.

  “That is doubtless it,” said the second.

  “But we are pretty too!” insisted the first.

  “Yes,” agreed the second.

  I did not think we were really so much different, either. Indeed, we are all rather similarly figures. Their yellow silk certainly did not do much to conceal their own “slave curves.” What difference did it make, really, if I was from Earth and they were not? In the end were we not all the same, all women, all slaves?

  There was a knock on the door.

  “That will be the guard,” said the first girl. “Bundle her silk!”

  In a few moments I was standing, back-braceleted. A slave sheet was thrown over my head and body. It fell to my calves. It was held on me by a collar, fastened closely about my neck. To a ring on this collar a leash was attached.

  The jewelry I had worn, the bracelets and the bangles, the armlet and the earrings, had been removed from me. They had been given, together with my silk, to the guard. He placed them in a pouch. These things would be returned to one place, and I to another.

  I was then led from the compartments. I had been brought to them silked and veiled. I was taken away covered in a slave sheet. There would be few, thusly, who would be able to connect me with the officer.

  17

  “What are you doing?” cried the pit master, with horror.

  I turned about, startled, in the cell, that in which the peasant was confined.

  “Obeying, Master!” I said, frightened.

  “Down on all fours!” he cried.

  Swiftly I went to all fours.

  The peasant, sitting, cross-legged, by the wall, in his chains, looked at me, dully.

  I heard the pit master draw his belt free of his tunic.

  I moaned.

  Down came the belt with a hiss and I cried out in misery, and went to my stomach, my eyes filled with tears.

  I looked up at the peasant. He regarded me, impassively. I do not even know if he understood what was happening.

  Twice more the belt struck me. I wept. I had not known the pit master could be so angry.

  “Please, Master!” I wept.

  “Who told you to behave in such a fashion?’ said the pit master.

  “The tall man,” I said, “the officer, he whom I served last night!”

  “And who gave you permission to appear before this prisoner clad as you are?” he asked.

  “It was my understanding that I should so serve!” I said.

  Certainly this had been expressed to me, and the pit master, as well, had heard words to this effect in the cell. I could recall that.

  “Are you trying to torment this prisoner?” he asked.

  “Master?” I asked.

  “Beg his forgiveness,” he said.

  I crawled to the peasant on my stomach, over the stones. I was careful not to come within reach of those mighty hands. I did not think even the pit master would have cared to have come within their compass. I did not doubt but what the peasant could have torn me head from my shoulders.

  “Forgive me, Master,” I said, weakly.

  I heard the snapping of the pit master’s fingers. Quickly I backed away, on my stomach, from the peasant, and then rose up, on my knees, to kneel, head down, before the pit master.

  “I have seen you move,” said the pit master, his rage seemingly dissipated.

  I looked up at him, frightened, and the looked away. It was still hard to look upon those grotesque, massive, twisted features, the irregular placement of the eyes, one larger than the other.

  “You did not move as you might have, before him,” he said.

  “No,” I admitted.

  “It is one thing,” said the pit master, “to appear bare-breasted, in a string and slave strip, before guards, before soldiers, before free men, serv
ing their feasts, crawling at their feet, licking their thighs, dancing before them, and quite another before a prisoner. The free men may seize you upon a caprice and fling you down for their pleasure. They have whips. They may lash you to the furs. You may hope they will be kind enough to merely put you to their lengthy pleasures. It is not the same with a chained prisoner.”

  I hung my head.

  “Yet,” he said, “I know you. You had not move as you might have.”

  I was silent.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I do not know,” I said.

  “I think you are not one of those petty, insolent slaves,” said he, “who must have her wrists tied over her head and be whipped.”

  “Master?” I asked.

  “You were told to torment him, weren’t you?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Did you do so?”

  “Of course, Master!” I said.

  “I know you, Earth slut,” he said. “You could make a rock scream with need, but you did not do so.”

  “Forgive me, Master!” I said.

  “You were reluctant, you were hesitant.”

  “Forgive me,” I said.

  “Were you afraid of him?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I am afraid of him.”

  “He is chained,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,”

  “He cannot hurt you,” he said.

  “No, Master,” I said.

  “You might then have tormented him with impunity,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  “but you were reluctant to do so,” he said. “You held back.”

  “Forgive me, Master,” I said.

  Does it seem honorable to you,” he asked, “to torment a helpless prisoner?”

  “No, Master,” I said.

  “Do you think I would have permitted it?” he asked.

  I looked up at him, startled. Then I looked down, in awe. ‘No, Master,” I whispered, frightened, trembling, “you would not have permitted it.”

  Then I looked up at him, in misery. “Who am I to obey?” I cried. “The officer has told me one thing, and you tell me another! Who am I to obey?”

  “You will obey me,” said the depth warden.

  “But is he not higher than you?” I asked, timidly.

  “Yes,” he said. “He is higher than I, but you will obey me.”

  “Master?” I asked.

  “For I am closer to you than he,” he whispered.

  I shuddered. I was indeed in the keeping of the depth warden. It was in his quarters that I had my kennel. It was on the wall of those quarters that hung the whip to which I was first subject. It was he within whose direct reach I was. I was in his power, at his mercy. He could do with me as he pleased. But I was frightened, too, because now I realized that the dept master was in direct violation of the orders of his superior. He would manage the depths as he saw fit. His, then, was the responsibility.

  “Whom do you obey?” asked the depth warden.

  “You, Master,” I said.

  The depth warden then turned to the peasant. “This is only a stupid slave, and I am only a stupid jailer,” he said. “Forgive us. This will not happen again.”

  The peasant regarded us. I did not think he understood any of what had gone on.

  “In the future,” said the depth warden to me, “you will serve the prisoner with care and deference.”

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

  “Yes?” he said.

  I put my head down and kissed his feet. “Thank you, Master,” I said.

  He then stepped away from me, and went to the door of the cell.

  I, on my knees, gathered in the food and water bowl of the prisoner.

  I had come to the cell originally to fetch and replenish them.

  The depth warden had stopped at the door of the cell. He was standing there, looking back at the prisoner.

  “Is it time for the planting?” asked the prisoner.

  “No,” said the depth warden.

  I may have been mistaken, but I thought that I detected the path of a tear on the cheek of the depth warden.

  He turned to leave.

  “Master!” I called.

  He turned to face me.

  “How shall I be dressed, to serve here?” I asked. I knew, of course, as did the depth warden, what had been the instructions of the officer.

  “You will be tunicked,” said the depth warden.

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  The depth warden then, indeed, was taking much responsibility upon himself.

  “But do not fear, pretty Janice,” he said. “The sight of you in a slave tunic will be torment enough for any man.”

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  18

  I was elated.

  My heart pounded madly.

  “The raiders are returning!” I heard. “The raiders are returning!”

  “Kneel here, by the ring, quickly!” I said.

  “Do you see him anywhere?” she asked, the free woman, who wore the collar on which was inscribed the name ‘Tuta’, a suitable slave name.

  “He will doubtless be about, as before,” I said. “It was the usual time. We have had our walk, and now is the time I put you here.”

  I looked up. I could see the tarns, in the distance, one by one, approaching. They are frightening, but very beautiful. There must have been more than a hundred. They would alight on the docking area, between the cliff and the warehouses. Numbers of citizens were moving even now across the terrace, and bridge, to the docking area. It is something like “festival,” when a large raiding part returns. But the free woman, rising up on her toes, straining, had eyes only for those on the terrace, scanning them.

  “Must a command be repeated?” I inquired.

  “Please, Janice,” she begged, looking about.

  “It seems we must return to the depths,” I said, angrily.

  Quickly she knelt, her back toward the wall. Her wrists were pinioned behind her, in slave bracelets, as usual. Today she wore a simple brown slave tunic. It was a brief, sleeveless, pullover tunic with a deep V-neck. In virtue of such a tunic a free man has little difficulty in conjecturing the delights of a slave’s figure. The skirt was also cut at the sides. This made it easier to spread the knees in kneeling.

  As she was in my keeping, I had thought it only fitting that I wear a somewhat more modest tunic myself, one with a higher neckline, a lower hemline, but the pit master, this day, would not hear of it. He had taken his whip and hurled it across the room. I had then, on all fours, fetched it back to him, in my teeth, and, lifting my head, delivered it into his grasp.

  “Do you beg to be clothed?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” I said, before him, on all fours.

  “Who begs to be clothed?” he asked.

  “Janice begs to be clothed,” I said.

  He shook out the blades of the whip.

  “And how does Janice beg to be clothed?” he inquired.

  “Janice begs to be clothed in any way that Master sees fit,” I assured him.

  He then threw an identical tunic to the floor.

  I put my head down to his feet and kissed them, gratefully. “Thank you, Master,” I said.

  I had then donned the garment. So now the free woman and I were identically tunicked, in spite of the fact that it was I who held the leash. We might have been, I supposed, a matched set. Indeed, some viewers may have taken us for such a set. Slaves, incidentally, even on this world, where they are common, tend to attract masculine attention. There are few men who do not enjoy looking upon them. That is one reason that it is important for us to pay attention to our posture, and such. Strangers will reprimand us, and even strike us, if we do not hold ourselves well. In a sense, I suppose, we are part of the beauties of the city, an aspect of its scenic delights, part of the attractions of the area, as might be her flower trees and brightly plumaged birds.

  This sor
t of thing may be difficult for those of Earth to understand. Perhaps they must content themselves to do the best they can with it.

  The slave is a lovely animal-can those of Earth even understand this? — tender, vulnerable, graceful, needful-and she can think, and feel, and speak, and serve, and love! Surely then it is easy to understand how her presence might be thought to improve a cityscape, a villa, a bench.

  What red-blooded male would object to viewing us? What truly virile male would object to owning one or more of us?

  And suppose that we were not that rare. Think of the flower trees, the brightly plumaged birds!

  Surely, in some way, we not only characterize, but adorn a city.

  One of the pleasures of fellows coming in from the country is to look upon the urban slaves, for which purpose they will stroll the avenues and loiter about in the plazas, the markets, and bazaars. We are apparently much different from the slaves they are used to, usually sturdy, large-boned girls, often of peasant stock, the sort which are most useful in the fields. And certainly few men will visit an unfamiliar city, on business or otherwise, without comparing the girls of that city with the girls of their own. Sometimes when important visitors arrive in a city, perhaps to negotiate trade agreements or contract alliances, many slaves are walked, or even sent on meaningless errands, to certain quarters, that they may be viewed. They are part of the display of the city, and are exhibited as an aspect of its wealth and abundance, intended to produce a favorable impression. Just as a city prides itself on the ebullience, variety, and colorfulness of its architecture, on its spacious plazas and broad avenues, on its numerous parks and gardens, to, too, it prides itself on the number and beauty of its slaves. Indeed, sometimes cities compete in such modalities, each seemingly eager to stimulate the admiration, if not excite the envy, of her neighbors. There is some speculation that this sort of thing has motivated more than one clandestine, intermunicpal slave raid. To be sure there is little need for covertness in these matters for there are many cities on this world, mostly small, but some quite large, and each city usually will have its quota of, or plenitude of, allies and enemies. Furthermore, there is no dearth of women, and on this world women, even free women, are regarded as legitimate and appropriate booty. A common recreation for a tarnsman, for example, particularly when not on duty, not on maneuvers or campaign, is to steal women from a “fair city,” that is, one at war with, or on poor terms with, his own city. These women may be either slave or free. Most commonly, of course, they will be slaves, as they, often beautiful, are the commonly desiderated quarry of the net and rope, but, too, of course, doubtless, at least in part, because free women are more difficult to obtain, being more carefully sheltered, protected, and guarded. He brings the captives back to his city, where he may dispose of them as he wishes, often keeping them for a time, until, say, he tires of them, and then selling them. I might mention, briefly, in passing, what seems to be a variation on this custom. Spies in one city ascertain, by rumor, and such, who are supposedly the most beautiful free women of a city. One need not have recourse to rumors, of course, where slaves are concerned. One need only look. These women, then, the allegedly beautiful free women, preferably of high birth and considerable position, are regarded as prize game. They are “trophy catches.” Tarnsmen draw lots and the winner sets out to obtain the particular woman. If he has “chain luck” he brings her back and presents her, stripped, to a committee of peers. They decide whether or not she is worthy to be a slave girl in their city. Is she desirable enough, beautiful enough, to ear a collar in that city? One would not wish her to reflect poorly on the city, of course. There seems, incidentally, to be a general view among hostile cities that the women of the enemy belong to them in some sense, that they are already in some sense their slaves-it is then just a matter of bringing them into their rightful collars. The committee of peers, so to speak, in the “trophy case,” may either rule favorably or unfavorably on the catch. Let us suppose they rule unfavorably. The woman is then placed in a coarse, sacklike garment, usually a sul sack with holes cut in it for the head and arms, and returned scornfully, rejected, her wrists thronged behind her, to the vicinity of her city. Occasionally this is done with a stunningly beautiful woman, which is to say to the enemy, “even the most beautiful of your women is not worthy of a collar in a city such as ours.” The effect on the woman, of course, is often pathetically unsettling. It is not unusual that such a woman will afterwards take to wandering the high bridges and lonely streets, the hem of her garments hitched above her ankles, perhaps that she not soil them, her veils disarranged a bit, perhaps by the wind. She then, so to speak, courts the collar, eager to reassure herself of her beauty, her desirability, her fittingness to be owned, she wants to prove to herself now that she does have some value, after all, as she had hitherto thought; had she been mistaken; had her arrogant surmise been no more than a little she-tarsk’s vanity; too, now, after her experience, her abduction, her subjection to male domination, and such, she ahs some inkling of what it might be to be a slave; and she longs now, on some level, to belong to a man, she wants now, though she may not be fully aware of this, that she wants, and needs, a master; she wants now to be helplessly owned, and to serve and love. There are, of course, many differences among slaves, ranging from the preferred slave of a ubar, often a witty, literate, talented, highly educated, brilliant woman, though she, too, is at his feet, to the simplest kettle-and-mat wench, who, too, of course, is expected to be throbbing, kicking, helpless delight in the furs, or blankets.