Witness of Gor coc-26

by John Norman

  He held her to him, in confusion, in fury, in consternation.

  “Up, Janice,” said the officer, and I sprang to my feet, joyfully.

  “It is chilly here,” he said. “You must be half frozen. It is well you are with us. Else you might be picked up as a stray by the watch.”

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  “Perhaps you can warm some wine in my compartments,” he said.

  “Gladly, Master,” I said.

  “You do not mind if I return her to the pits later in the morning, do you?” inquired Terence of the pit master.

  “She is to be returned by the tenth Ahn, as you know,” said the pit master.

  I did not understand that. It sounded as though something had been arranged.

  “Granted,” said Terence.

  “You tricked me,” said the pit master.

  “Do not despair,” said the officer. “One cannot leap to one’s death every day.”

  “How am I to live with myself?” asked the pit master. “My honor is by my honor betrayed.”

  “How could that be?” inquired the officer.

  “As you have arranged it,” said the pit master, bitterly.

  “You did not lose a prisoner,” said the officer. “You saved a prisoner. He would have been murdered had you not acted as you did. In this, in protecting the prisoner, in preserving him, you kept the oath, in a manner far more profound than you realize.”

  “I did not keep the oath,” said the pit master.

  “Then the oath, my friend,” said Terence, “kept you.”

  “I do not understand,” said the pit master.

  “We are sometimes moved by forces and understandings deeper than we can understand. You acted in such a way as to fulfill your office more grandly than could have been possible in any other course of conduct.”

  The pit master held Fina to him. He looked at the officer, puzzled.

  “In thinking you betrayed your oath, you were mistaken. Rather you were bringing about the very ends which it envisaged. Do you think that the meaning of an oath is the words it wears? It is rather what it celebrates and intends, the meaning behind the meanings of words. Repudiated in words, it was revered in deeds. Denied, it was fulfilled. Forsworn, it was kept. Honor rejected was honor transformed, honor restored. How often do we seek to do one thing and discover we have done another? How often we achieve ends which we do not intend. You have not betrayed the Home Stone of Treve. Rather you have kept her from the stains upon her which a venal administration would authorize.”

  “I would return to the depths,” said the pit master.

  “Hold!” said a voice.

  Instantly Fina and I knelt.

  It was the watch, four men and a subaltern. Two held lanterns.

  “Ah, Captain, it is you,” said the subaltern. He looked through the darkness, studying the visage of the pit master, in the light of a lantern. “And you, sir,” he added. Fina na di were then illuminated in the light of the lantern. Demetrion and Andar stood to one side.

  “These slaves are with you?” asked the subaltern.

  “Yes,” said the officer.

  “It is early.”

  “It will be light soon,” said the officer.

  “Is all well?” asked the subaltern.

  “Yes,” said the officer. “All is well.”

  The watch then continued on its way.

  The pit master reached down to pick up his cloak and hood which he had discarded on the stones, near the wall.

  “Master,” said Fina, “I am cold.”

  The pit master held the cloak and hood. “But I may be seen in the city,” he said.

  “I am freezing,” smiled Fina.

  He then had her stand and put the cloak and hood about her.

  He would not cover his features now. He would return to the depths, thought the streets of the early morning, as he was. He would not hide his face.

  “Come, walk beside me,” he said to Fina.

  “I will heel Master,” she said.

  The pit master and the officer of Treve then embraced. The pit master was weeping. Then, shaken, he left the surface of the tower. He was followed by Fina, on his left, three paces behind.

  “Are we to keep him under surveillance any longer?” Demetrion inquired of the officer.

  “No,” said the officer. “It will not be necessary.”

  Demetrion and Andar then, Andar bearing the lantern, left the surface of the tower, as had the pit master and Fina.

  “Master,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What is special about the tenth Ahn?”

  He looked at me.

  “Oh, I know, Master,” I said, “that curiosity is not becoming in a kajira, but I would know. I would know.”

  “Your life is going to change, Janice,” he said. “You will have to leave Treve.”

  “Master?” I said.

  “You, and the other pit slaves who were in the depths recently. The pit master has made arrangements for you all, and I have mad them, unbeknownst to himself, for him. I will see to it that he will be able to take Fina with him.”

  “What of you?”

  “I, too, and certain other men, will be leaving.”

  I suddenly began to understand what might be the nature of the arrangements, the dispositions, which the pit master had been concerned with recently.

  “You cannot leave the city of your Home Stone!” I said.

  “We have received word,” he said, “that a delegation from Cos will arrive in Treve shortly.”

  “What will be done with me, and with Fecha, Tira, and the others?” I asked.

  “Other than Fina?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You are going to be sold,” he said.

  “Sold?”

  “Of course, my pretty little property,” he said.

  “I do not understand,” I said.

  “Surely it is not so difficult to grasp,” he said. “You were sold before, you know.”

  “Of course, Master,” I said, falteringly.

  “It is not just you, Janice,” he said. “All the pit slaves who were recently in the depths will be sold, as well. Even Fina, in a sense, will be sold, purchased from the state, but I will see that she comes within the keeping of the depth warden. She will make a lovely gift for him. I would think.”

  “And the rest of us?” I said.

  “To be sold in different cities,” he said. “You will be scattered, papers will be changed. You will disappear to the eight winds. It will not be possible to trace you.”

  “I understand,” I said. We had seen too much, or knew too much, and I doubtless, most of all. Had the black-tunicked men been successful in the depths I suspected we might all have had our throats cut, even the other girls, whose understanding of these things must be even less than mine, which was negligible. The black-tunicked men are trained to kill for a purpose, and to think as little of it as others might of the cutting of wood.

  “None of you will be sold publicly, of course,” said the officer of Treve. “We will not risk that. The sales will be discreet, and private. They will be purple-booth sales.”

  “That is a great honor, Master,” I said.

  “You are all excellent-quality merchandise,” he said.

  “Thank you, Master,” I said.

  “See that you, in your performance in the booth, do not disappoint the buyer’s agent.”

  “Yes, Master,” I whispered.

  “You may rise,” he said.

  I rose to my feet. I held my arms folded about myself, for the air was chilly here, on the surface of the tower, in the early morning. He had gone to stand near the wall, looking out toward the mountains.

  “This all has to do with the prisoner, the peasant, does it not, Master?” I asked.

  “He died out there, in the mountains,” said the officer.

  “But you do not know that,” I said.

  “No man could survive alone out there,�
� he said.

  “Perhaps some men, Master,” I said.

  “Yes,” said he, “perhaps some men. And yes, my lovely Earth woman slave, my lovely Gorean slave girl, it does have to do with the peasant, all of it has to do with the peasant.”

  “Are we to return to your compartments?” I asked. “Am I to warm wine for you?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “It will be light soon,” I said.

  “I shall miss you,” he said.

  “And I shall miss you, Master,” I said.

  “There is nothing more to be done here,” he said. He then turned about, and I followed him.

  We heard the call of the watch, that all was well in Treve. I did not know, however, if it were true or not. I did know that the surface of this tower, in the coldness of the morning, had, as the tops of certain peaks in the distance by light, been touched by honor.

  41

  I lay on my stomach, on my may, in the house of my new master. My eyes were filled with tears. Aynur had laid the switch to me well. This evening she had had Tima and Tana tie me to the whipping post in the garden. The other women, the flowers of the garden, had been summoned forth to watch. My crime, as it had been announced to the flowers, was that of having approached the wall. The roughness on the bottoms of my feet, no longer bleeding then, had been shown to the other girls.

  “The barbarian is stupid,” had said one of the girls.

  “They all are,” said another.

  “Why would she go to the wall?” asked another. “She cannot climb it.”

  That was true.

  But I wanted to press my hands against its solidity, knowing there was a world on the other side of the garden, and that I was then a little closer to it. One could hear the noises, the cries, from outside. One knew there was a world there, teeming, busy, with its sights, and sounds, and smells, a turbulent, active world, one different from that of the garden. I wanted to be on the other side of the wall. I wanted to be there, where I might run through the streets in a tunic and collar, where I might drink water from the lower basins, where I might press through crowds, carrying package or vessel upon my head, unable to defend myself against the touches of men, who might touch me as easily as one might pet a dog. I did not object to such things, for I was less than a dog. I was a slave. Too, such things are flattering. They bespeak one’s appeal. They say, you are attractive, you excite them. You are not without interest to masters. They would not mind using you, perhaps even owning you. I wanted to be seen by men, and found desirable. I wanted to see the desire in their eyes, and sense their heat. I wanted them to turn their heads to look after me, as I made my way down the street. I wanted them to wonder what I would look like, naked, in their own collar, or their own furs, at their feet, their property, one who must serve them to the best of her abilities in whatever manner they might please. I wanted to be on the other side of the wall, even if it meant being forced to labor long hours for a harsh master. I did not fear rising before dawn, and taking up a basket, and hurrying though the gray streets to the market. I did not fear the public washing places, the shallow cement tanks where one might launder. I did not fear the needle, the broom, the kettles, the yards, the sheds, the kitchen. I would be grateful at night even for a rush mat. Better to be chained in a hovel, subject to the whip of the least in the city, than a flower in the garden!

  Doubtless the girls had been puzzled as to why I was switched as hard and lengthily as I had been by Aynur, only for going near the wall. They did not know, as did Tima and Tana, and Aynur, about the tall, long-haired man who had come to the garden, who had commanded me, he to whom I had fearfully, but eagerly and gratefully, surrendered, serving him with all the desperate, pleading needs of my body. Had the flowers known that would they not have cried out that I should have been more grievously punished? How starved we were in the garden. I wondered if there were not many amongst us who would have welcomed being thrown to galley slaves.

  I lay on the mat, chained in its vicinity by the left ankle, to a ring on the floor. If I had been so chained during the rest period this afternoon, I would not have been able to enter the garden, to approach the wall, to encounter the stranger. It would have been better, doubtless, if I had been chained where I was now. I was not clear on how he had gained admittance to the garden. It must be, of course, that he was known in the house, to the master, or the guards. Aynur, for example, had obviously recognized him. Indeed, she had seemed to be very familiar with him. That frightened me. I wondered if he were known to the master, my current rights holder. I had never seen the master, but I supposed that the had seen me. It might have been he behind the screen when I was first stripped and exhibited in the house. On the other hand it could have been an agent, or house master. I did not know. I knew very little about the master. I did know his name, and it was clear that he was very rich, which seemed unusual, I gathered, for the current state in the city, which was occupied, I gathered, by foreign troops. He had dealings in slaves it seemed, and had extensive agricultural holdings, he also had something to do with at least certain theaters and theatrical companies in the city. It was said he was welcome, even, in the central cylinder of the city. The name of this city, if I have not mentioned it before, is Ar. It is nominally governed, as I understand it, by a ubara, whose name is Talena. The actual governance is presumably in the hands of a military governor, one named Myron, who bears the title of Polemarkos of Cos, or, more strictly, Polemarkos of Temos, which is the third larges city on the island of Cos. He is said to be the cousin to Lurius of Jad, the Ubar of Cos. I had heard of Lurius of Jad in Treve. It was he who sent the back-tunicked men to that city. My master, interestingly, had shown no interest in me, nor, indeed, as far as I know, in any of the other slaves. We, or most us, did not understand this. Aynur may have understood, but she never spoke to us about it. His name is Appanius, Appanius of Ar.

  “My dear Gail,” said Aynur.

  Immediately I tensed with terror, on my belly, on the mat. I feared to be struck again.

  She had approached, barefoot, as are most slaves, softly on the tiles. I had not heard her.

  “I am sorry I displeased you, Mistress,” I said. “Please do not strike me again!”

  “You are only a pretty little barbarian slave,” she said. “How could you know what you were doing? Here, I have brought some soothing lotion for your back. Lie still.”

  “Mistress?” I said.

  “Ah,” she said, “is that not better.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said, tensely. The lotion was cool on my striped back.

  “Mistress?” I asked, frightened.

  “You should not have gone on the stones,” she said. “You might have injured your feet.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said.

  “Your feet are to be soft and pretty,” she said.

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said.

  “You are a pleasure-garden girl, you know,” she said.

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said.

  She continued to apply the lotion.

  “After this,” she said, “if you want to go into the garden during the rest period, you should ask me, first.”

  “Of course, Mistress,” I said. “Forgive me, Mistress.”

  “And if, in the future, you should see someone in the garden, someone you suspect may have no right to be there, you should hurry in and inform me.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said. “I am sorry, Mistress, that I pleased him.”

  “You are only a little barbarian,” she said, gently. “You could not please such a man.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said. I was not truly sorry, of course, that I had pleased the visitor. I had been hungry to do so. Too, I was sure that I could please him at least as well as she. Indeed, some men like barbarians. They put us though our paces quite well. And I had little doubt that I could tell when a man was pleased and when he was not. One does not wear a collar long before one becomes quite adept at such determinations. Indeed, if they are not pleased,
we are likely to soon find out about it, at the receiving end of the leather, of a switch, or strap, or whip.

  “That is better, isn’t it?” she asked, leaning back, putting the lotion to one side, wiping her hands on a towel.

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said, gratefully.

  “I will return in a moment,” she said, “with your supper.”

  When she returned I sat up, and ate. She had brought some choice viands, perhaps begging from the meals of men. Too, she had a small, shallow bowl of wine.

  “Thank you, Mistress,” I said, finishing this repast. “I am terribly sorry I did wrong earlier. I did not wish to annoy you, or displease you. You are very kind.”

  “Now,” she said, “let us remove this heavy, ugly shackle from your ankle.”

  She opened the shackle and put it, on its chain, the chain running to the ring, to one side. She held the keys to such things.

  “Now, she said, “you may come and go as you please, within the quarters of course.”

  “Thank you, Mistress,” I said.

  No other girls were now with us in the rest area, not even Tima and Tana, who were her assistants.

  “You are very kind,” I said.

  “It is nothing,” she said, kissing me lightly on the cheek. She then gathered up the dish and bowl and left.

  I lay back down on the mat.

  I did not understand this change in Aynur’s behavior. I was sure she had been outraged at finding me in the arms of the tall, longhaired man. I had little doubt that he came sometimes to see Aynur. Earlier, in the garden, she had seemed almost insanely jealous of his attentions to me. Indeed, she had been humiliated before me, and her assistants, by being put to her knees by him, and by having to fetch his sandals, sandals which he then, pointedly, had me tie. I would not have thought that such insults would have been easily passed over by a woman such as Aynur. Too, she would have her needs, doubtless as keen and stressful as those of others. In this house, in the garden, there was much pain. Sometimes, to be sure, we entertained, in the house or garden, some singing and playing, others, such as I, fetching food and drink, attending on the guests, then all of us, later, as we might be selected, or allotted, or assigned, serving, as slaves. But it was not enough for us. Could that not be told simply by looking at our necks, and seeing that there were collars there? Did this detail not serve as token, if none other, that slave fires had been lit in our bellies? Had men not seen to it?