Norman, John - Gor 25 - Magicians of Gor.txt

rear, as a slave. Later I did not think she would be often accorded the luxury

  of such transportation. Soon, perhaps in a day or two, she would be learning how

  to heel a man and to walk gracefully on his leash.

  “Oh!” said Phoebe.

  Someone in the crowd, in passing, had undoubtedly touched her. Marcus looked

  about, angrily. I did not know, really, what he expected.

  I looked back down the street. I could see the head of Milo, with its blond

  curls, over the heads of the crowd, about fifty yards away. He was standing near

  a wall. The free woman’s palanquin had stopped briefly by him, and then, after a

  time, continued on its way.

  “Oh!” said Phoebe.

  Marcus turned about again, swiftly, angrily. There was only the crowd.

  “If you do not care for such things,” I said, “perhaps you should give her a

  garment.”

  (pg. 14) “Let her go naked,” he said. “She is only a slave.”

  “Perhaps some article of clothing would not be amiss,” I said.

  “She has her collar,” he said.

  “You many never have noticed,” I said, “but she is an exquisitely beautiful

  female.”

  “She is the lowest and most despicable of female slaves,” he said.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Too,” said he, “do not forget that I hate her.”

  “It would be difficult to do that,” I said, “ as you have told me so many times.

  Phoebe lowered her head, smiling.

  “Too,” said he, “she is my enemy.”

  “If ever she was your enemy,” I said, “she is not your enemy now. She is now a

  slave. Look at her. She is simply an animal you own. Do you think she does not

  know that? She now exists for you, to please and serve you.”

  “She is Cosian,” he said.

  “Turn your flank to him, slave,” I said. “Touch you collar.”

  Phoebe complied.

  “You can see the brand,” I said. “You can see the collar. Furthermore, it is

  yours.”

  He regarded the slave, docile, obedient, turned, her fingers, too, lightly on

  her collar, so closely locked on her lovely neck.

  “And it is a pretty flank,” I said, “and a lovely throat.”

  He moaned softly.

  “I see that you think so,” I said.

  The feelings of the young warrior toward his slave were profoundly ambivalent.

  She was not only the sort of female that he found irresistibly, excruciatingly

  attractive, as I had known before I had shown her to him the first time, but, to

  my surprise and delight, there seemed to be a special mystery or magic, or

  chemistry, between them. Each was a dream come true for the other. She had been,

  it seems, in some profound genetic sense, born for his chains. They fitted

  together, like a lock and its key. She loved him profoundly, helplessly, and

  from the first time she had seen him. He, too, had been smitten. Then he had

  discovered that she was from Cos, that ubarate which was his hated foe, at the

  hands of whose mercenary and regular forces he had seen his city destroyed. It

  was no wonder that in rage he had vowed to make the lovely slave stand proxy for

  Cos, that he might then vent upon her his fury, and his hatred, for Cos, and all

  things Cosian. And so it was that he had determined to reduce and humiliate her,

  and make (pg. 15) her suffer, but with each cuffing, with each command, with

  each kick, with each blow of the whip, she became only the more his, and the

  more loving. I had know for a long time, even as long ago as the inn of the

  Crooked Tarn, on the Vosk Road, before the fall of Ar’s Station, that she had

  profound slave needs, but I had never suspected their depth until I had seen her

  in a camp outside Brundisium, kneeling before Marcus, looking up at him,

  unbelievingly. She had known then that she was his, and in perfection. I had no

  doubt they fitted together, in the order of nature, in the most intimate,

  beautiful and fulfilling relationship possible between a man and a woman, that

  of love master and love slave. To be sure, she was Cosian.

  Phoebe put down her head, shyly smiling.

  “Cosian slut!” snarled Marcus.

  He seized her by the arms and lifted her from her feet, thrusting her back

  against the wall of the building.

  He held her there, off her feet, her back pressed back, hard, against the rough

  wall.

  “Yes,” she cried. “Yes!”

  “Be thusly used, and as befits you,” said he, “slave, and slut of Cos!”

  “Yes, my Master!” she wept. She clung about him, her eyes closed, her head back,

  gasping.

  Then he cried out, and lowered her to the stones of the street.

  She knelt there, gratefully, sobbing. Her back was bloody. Marcus had not been

  gentle with the slave. She was holding to his leg.

  “Disgusting,” said a free woman, drawing her veil more closely about her face.

  Did she not know that she, too, if she were a slave, would be similarly subject

  to a master’s pleasure?

  “This is a very public place,” I said to Marcus.

  A small crowd, like an eddy in the flowing stream of folks in the street, had

  gathered about.

  “She is a slut of Cos,” said Marcus to a fellow nearby.

  “Beat her for me,” said the man.

  “She is only a slave,” I said.

  “A Cosian slut,” said one man to another.

  “She is only a slave,” I said again.

  The crowd closed in a bit more, menacingly. Phoebe looked up, frightened.

  In the press there was not even room to draw the sword, let alone wield it.

  “Let us kill her,” said a fellow.

  (pg. 16) “Move back,” said Marcus, angrily.

  “A slut of Cos,” said another man.

  “Let us kill her!” said another fellow.

  Phoebe was very small and helpless, kneeling on the stones, near the wall.

  “Continue on your way,” I said to the men gathered about. “Be about your

  business.”

  “Cos is our business,” said a man.

  The ugliness of the crowd, its hostility, and such, was, I think, a function of

  recent events, which had precipitated confusion, uncertainty and terror in Ar,

  in particular the military catastrophe in the delta, in which action, absurdly,

  the major land forces at Torcadino, one of the largest assemblages of armed men

  ever seen of Gor, under their polemarkos, Myron, cousin to Lurius of Jad, Ubar

  of Cos, had now set their standards towards Ar. Torcadino had been a supply

  depot for the forces of Cos on the continent. It had been seized by the

  mercenary, Dietrich of Tarnburg, to forestall the march on Ar. Ar, however, had

  failed to act. She had not relieved the siege at Torcadino nor that in the

  north, at Ar’s Station. Dietrich, finally understanding the treason in Ar, in

  high places, had managed to effect a withdrawal from Torcadino. His location was

  now unknown and Cos had put a price on his head. Now there lay little or nothing

&nb
sp; between the major forces of Cos on the continent, now on the march, and the

  gates of Ar. Further, though there was much talk in the city of resistance, of

  the traditions of Ar, of her Home Stone, and such, I did not think that the

  people of Ar, stunned and confused by the apparently inexplicable succession of

  recent disasters, had the will to resist the Cosians. Perhaps if there had been

  a Marlenus of Ar in the city, a Ubar, one to raise the people and lead them,

  there might have been hope. But the city was now under the governance of the

  regent, Gnieus Lelius, who, I had little doubt, might have efficiently managed a

  well-ordered polity under normal conditions, but was an unlikely leader in a

  time of darkness, crisis and terror. He was, I thought, a good man and an

  estimable civil servant, but he was not a Marlenus of Ar. Marlenus of Ar had

  vanished months ago on a punitive raid in the Voltai, directed against the

  tarnsmen of Treve. He was presumed dead.

  “Kill her!” said a man.

  “Kill her!” said another.

  “No!” said Marcus.

  “No!” I said.

  “There are only two of them,” said a fellow.

  (pg. 17) “Listen!” I said, lifting my hand.

  In that instant the crowd was silent. More than one man lifted his head. We

  turned down the street. Phoebe, very small and vulnerable, naked, in her collar,

  crawled more behind the legs of Marcus.

  We could hear the bells, the chanting. In a moment we could see the lifted

  golden circle, on its staff, approaching. The people in the streets hurried to

  press against the walls.

  “Initiates,” I said to Marcus.

  I could now see the procession clearly.

  “Kneel,” said the fellow near me.

  “Kneel,” I said to Marcus.

  We knelt, on one knee. It surprised me that the people were kneeling, for,

  commonly, free Goreans do not kneel, even in the temples of the Initiates.

  Goreans commonly pray standing. The hands are sometimes lifted, and this is

  often the case with praying Initiates.

  “I do not kneel to such,” said Marcus.

  “Stay down,” I said. He had caused enough trouble already.”

  We could now smell the incense. In the lead of the procession were two lads in

  white robes, with shaved heads, who rang the bells. Following them were two

  more, who shook censers, these emitting clouds of incense. These lads, I

  assumed, were novices, who had perhaps taken their first vows.

  “Praise the Priest-Kings!” said a man, fervently.

  “Praise the Priest-Kings!” said another.

  I thought that Misk, the Priest-King, my friend, might have been fascinated, if

  puzzled, by this behavior.

  An adult Initiate, in his flowing white robe, carried the staff surmounted with

  the golden circle, a figure with neither beginning nor end, the symbol of

  Priest-Kings. He was followed by some ten or so Initiates, in double file. It

  was these who were chanting.

  A free woman drew back her robes, hastily, frightened, lest they touch an

  Initiate. It is forbidden for Initiates to touch women, and, of course, for

  women to touch them. Initiates also avoid meat and beans. A good deal of time, I

  gather, is devoted to sacrifices, services, chants, prayers, and the perusal of

  mystic lore. By means of the study of mathematics they attempt to purify

  themselves.

  “Save Ar!” wept a man, as they passed.

  “Save us, oh intercessors with Priest-Kings!” cried a man.

  “I will bring ten pieces of gold to the temple!” promised another.

  (pg. 18) “I will bring ten verr, full-grown verr, with gilded horns,” promised

  another.

  But the Initiates took no note of these not inconsiderable pledges. Of what

  concern could be such things to them?

  “Keep your head down,” I muttered to Marcus.

  “Very well,” he growled. Phoebe was behind us, on her stomach, shuddering,

  covering her head with her hands. I did not envy her, a naked slave, caught

  inadvertently in such a place.

  In a few moments the procession had passed and we rose to our feet. The crowd

  had dissipated about us.

  “You are safe now,” I said to Phoebe, “or at least as safe as is ever a female

  slave.”

  She knelt timidly at the feet of Marcus, holding to his leg.

  “We cannot resist Cos,” said a man, a few feet from us.

  “We must place our trust in the Priest-Kings,” said another.

  Across from us, about seven feet away, on the other side of the narrow street,

  was the free woman who had secured her robes, that they might not touch an

  Initiate. She rose to her feet, looking after the procession. We could still

  hear the bells. The smell of incense hung in the air. Near the free woman was a

  female slave, in a short gray tunic. She, too, had been caught, like Phoebe, in

  the path of the procession. She had knelt with her head down to the street, the

  palms of her hands on the stones, making herself small, in a common position of

  obeisance. The free woman looked down at her. As the girl saw she was under the

  scrutiny of a free person she remained on her knees. “You sluts have nothing to

  fear,” said the free woman to her, bitterly, “It is such as I who must fear.”

  The girl did not answer. There was something in what the free woman had said,

  though in the frenzy of a sacking, the blood of the victors racing, flames

  about, and such, few occupations of a fallen city. I supposed, either free or

  slave, were altogether safe. “It will only be a different collar for you,” said

  the free woman. The girl looked up at her. She was a lovely slave I thought, a

  red-haired one. She kept her knees tightly together before the free woman. had

  she knelt before a man she would probably have had to keep them open, even if

  they were brutally kicked apart, a lesson to her, to be more sensitive as to

  before whom she knelt. “Only a different collar for you!” cried the free woman,

  angrily. The girl winced, but dared not respond. To be (pg. 19) sure, I

  suspected, all things considered, that the free woman was right. Slave girls, as

  they are domestic animals, are, like other domestic animals, of obvious value to

  victors. It is unlikely that they would be killed, any more than tharlarion or

  kaiila. They would be simply chained together, for later distribution or sale.

  Then the free woman, in fury, with her small gloved hand, lashed the face of the

  slave girl, back and forth, some three or four times. She, the free woman, a

  free person, might be trampled by tharlarion, or be run through, or have her

  throat cut, by victors. Such things were certainly possible. On the other hand,

  the free women of a conquered city, or at least the fairest among them, are

  often reckoned by besiegers as counting within the yield of prospective loot.

  Many is the free female in such a city who has torn away her robes before

  enemies, confessed her natural slavery, disavowed her previous masquerade as a

  free woman, and begged for the rightfulness of the brand and collar. This is ar />
  scene which many free woman have enacted in their imagination. Such things

  figure, too, in the dreams of woman, those doors to the secret truths of their

  being. The free woman stood there, the breeze in the street, as evening

  approached, ruffling the hems of her robes. The free woman put her fingers to

  her throat, over the robes and veil. She looked at the slave, who did not dare

  to meet her eyes.

  “What is it like to be a slave?” she asked.

  “Mistress?” asked the girl, frightened.

  “What is it like, to be a slave?” asked the free woman, again.

  “Much depends on the master, beautiful Mistress,” said the girl. The slave could

  not see the face of the free woman, if course, but such locutions, “beautiful

  Mistress,” and such, on the part of slave girls addressing free women, are

  common. They are rather analogous to such things as “noble Master,” and so on.

  They have little meaning beyond being familiar epithets of respect.

  “The master” said the free woman, shuddering.

  “Yes, Mistress,” said the girl.

  “You must do what he says, and obey him in all things?” asked the free woman.

  “Of course, Mistress!” said the girl, and leaped to her feet, scurrying away.

  “You may go,” said the free woman.

  “Thank you, Mistress!” said the girl, and leaped to her feet, scurrying away.

  The free woman looked after the slave. Then she looked across at us, and at

  Phoebe, who lowered her eyes, quickly. Then, shuddering, she turned about and

  went down the street, to our left, in the direction from whence the Initiates

  had come.

  (pg. 21) “The people of Ar are frightened,” said Marcus.

  “Yes,” I said.

  We saw a fellow walk by, mumbling prayers. He was keeping track of these prayers

  by means of a prayer ring. This ring, which had several tiny knobs on it, was

  worn on the first finger of his right hand. He moved the ring on the finger by

  means of the knobs, keeping track of the prayers that way, comes to the circular

  knob, rather like a golden circle at the termination of the Initiate’s staff,

  one knows one had completed one cycle of prayers. One may then stop, or begin

  again.

  “Where do you suppose the Initiates were bound?” I asked Marcus.