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

Norman, John - Gor 25 - Magicians of Gor.txt Page 43

by Magicians of Gor [lit]

  “Ai!” said Marcus, slapping at his belt.

  “Supposedly its contents are unrifled, or at least intact.”

  “It was wafted away by magic,” said Marcus.

  “Sometimes I believe him to be more light-fingered than is in his own best

  interest,” I said.

  “No,” said Marcus. “I felt nothing. It was magic. He is a true magician!”

  “Perhaps he is a bit vain of his tricks,” I said.

  I could well imagine many Goreans leaping upon him with a knife under such

  circumstances, or, at any rate, looking him up later with that in mind, having

  discovered their loss in the meantime.

  “Perhaps we should exchange him to use magic in his attempt on the Home Stone,”

  said Marcus. “I would not wish him to be torn to shreds on the rack.”

  “His mind is made up,” I said. “He would not hear of it.”

  “Such courage!” said Marcus.

  “Do you know who he is?” I asked.

  “Renato, the Great,” said Marcus.

  “That is not his real name,” I said.

  “What is his real name?” I said.

  “In an instant you would know it, if I told it to you,” I said. “You would be

  astonished that such a fellow has deigned to help us. He is known far and wide

  on Gor. He is famous. His fame is spread throughout a thousand cities and a

  hundred lands. He is known from the steaming jungles of Schendi to the ice packs

  of the north, from the pebbly shores of Thassa to the vast, dry barrens east of

  the Thentis range!”

  “What is his name?” inquired Marcus, eagerly.

  “Boots Tarsk-Bit!” I said.

  “Who?” asked Marcus.

  “Put your wallet away,” I said.

  “Very well,” he said.

  I also checked my own wallet, again. It was in place, and its contents were in

  order.

  19 The Field Slave

  (pg. 289) “That is she,” I whispered to Marcus.

  We were astride rented tharlarion, high tharlarion, bipedalian tharlarion.

  Although our mounts were such, they are not to be confused with the high

  tharlarion commonly used by Gorean shock cavalry, swift, enormous beasts the

  charge of which can be so devastating to unformed infantry. If one may use

  terminology reminiscent of the sea, these were medium-class tharlarion,

  comparatively light beasts, at least compared to their brethren of the contact

  cavalries, such cavalries being opposed to the sorts commonly employed in

  missions such as foraging, scouting, skirmishing and screening troop movements.

  Rather our mounts were typical of the breeds from which are extracted racing

  tharlarion, of the sort used, for example, in the Vennan races. To be sure, it

  is only select varieties of such breeds, such as the Venetzia, Torarii and

  Thalonian, which are commonly used for the racers. As one might suppose, the

  blood lines of the racers are carefully kept and registered, as are,

  incidentally, those of many other sorts of expensive bred animals, such as

  tarsks, sleen and verr. This remark also holds for certain varieties of

  expensive bred slaves, the prize crops of the slave farms. Venna, a wealthy town

  north of Ar, is known for its diversions, in particular, its tharlarion races.

  Many of Ar’s more affluent citizens kept houses in Venna, at least prior to the

  Cosian war. To date, Venna, though improving her walls and girding herself for

  defense, had not been touched in the Cosian war. This is perhaps because it is

  not only the rich of Ar who kept properties within her walls, but those of many

  other cities, as well, perhaps even of Kasra and Tentium, in Tyros, and of

  Telnus, Selnar, Temos, and Jad, in Cos. We were some pasangs outside Ar. We wore

  wind scarves. Dust rose up for feet about us. The season was dry. Where our

  beasts trod the prints of their feet, and claws remained evident in the dust. In

  places the earth cracked under their step.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I saw her only once before,” he said, “on a fellow’s shoulder, in Ar, in our

  district, carried in slave fashion, her upper body wrapped closely in the toils

  of a net.”

  (pg. 291) “Helpless,” I said.

  “Utterly,” he said.

  “She had been taken,” I said, “only moments before.”

  “You are sure it is she?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Her head was completely enclosed in a slave hood, buckled shut,” he said.

  “It is she,” I said. “I saw her before, in the room. I recognize her.”

  “I am not sure I understand your plan,” he said.

  “Let us approach,” I said.

  We had left Ar early in the morning, and had circled the remains of her walls to

  the west and then took smaller roads into the hills to the northeast. We then,

  after noting the travelers on the road, particularly on the more isolated roads

  to the northeast, running through the villa districts, doubled back. In this

  fashion one tends almost automatically to cancel through the large numbers of

  coincidental travelers and detect those whose relationship with you is likely to

  be more purposeful, those who are following you. The likelihood of a given

  individual following you in both directions is small. Similarly, there is small

  likelihood of having someone or other constantly behind you on isolated roads.

  This helps to compensate for the possibility that the trackers might be acting

  in relays or shifts, one picking up where another turns aside.

  We turned the tharlarion towards the fields where the girl was filling a vessel

  with water.

  Her figure, extremely female, exquisitely curved, was rather like the figure of

  another girl we had encountered earlier in the morning, some pasangs to the

  northeast of the city, on one of the isolated roads winding through the hills,

  among which, nestled back, almost out of sight, were set a number of small,

  white-washed villas. Apparently she had come from some stream or rivulet, or

  public place, where she had been laundering, for she had had in her possession a

  basket filled with dampened clothes. Her hair, too, which she had apparently

  recently washed, was wet. This sort of thing would normally be done at a

  cemented pool within the walls of the villa, to the back, but, I had gathered,

  given the dryness of the season, the villa reservoir might be being reserved for

  drinking water.

  We had come upon her as she was about to turn into the path leading toward one

  of the small villas.

  “A pretty one,” commented Marcus.

  “Hola,” had called I, “slave!”

  (pg. 292) She immediately stopped and put down the basket, and hurried to the

  side of the road where we waited.

  “Yes,” I said. “She is indeed a pretty one.”

  She did not dally in kneeling. I noted with approval the position of her knees.

  “Quite pretty,” I said.

  She looked up. Perhaps free men wished to inquire di
rections of her? Then she

  looked down. I saw that she would be quite lively in a man’s hands. She had a

  common band collar, flat, close-fitting. She wore a brief tunic of white

  rep-cloth. She was barefoot.

  “You are a girl of this house?” I asked, indicating the villa behind her.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “You have the look of a woman who is well and muchly mastered,” I said.

  She smiled suddenly, charmingly, gratefully, in embarrassment.

  “It seems you have been laundering,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “I see that the water source is not far away,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Your tunic is damp,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, shyly.

  “And it seems you are a careless laundress,” I said.

  “Master?” she said.

  “The tunic is quite wet,” I said.

  She lifted her right hand a bit from her thigh, as though she might cover

  herself, but quickly returned it to position.

  “The wet tunic sets you off well,” I commented.

  “Forgive me, Master,” she said, frightened.

  “Perhaps your master will notice it,” I said, “as you return flushed from your

  labors, delighted, your hair washed, your body freshened.”

  She put down her head, quickly.

  “But doubtless it is not the calculated act of a scheming slave girl, one

  cleverly aware of what she is doing,” I said. “Doubtless it is a mere

  inadvertence, a merely accidental calling to your master’s attention of your

  beauty, a totally unintentional, never-dreamed-of reminder of him of the promise

  of its delights.”

  She would not raise her head.

  “What a clever little slut she is,” said Marcus.

  “But she did not plan on meeting two strange fellows on the road,” I said. “Did

  you, slave?” I asked.

  “No, Master!” she said.

  “Do you fear our armbands?” I asked.

  (pg. 293) “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Do not do so,” I said.

  “Thank you, Master,” she whispered. Some apprehension on her part was not

  irrational. Those of Cos, and in the pay of Cos, could do much as they pleased

  in Ar and its environs, and particularly in the case of slaves. Who would have

  the courage, or foolishness, to gainsay them the use of such an object, to

  challenge the employments to which they might put such a mere fair article of

  property? Too, she was barefoot and slave clad. And in the garmenture of female

  slaves, even in spite of its customary scandalous brevity, nether shielding is

  almost never provided. In this way the girl is kept aware of her vulnerability

  and is immediately available to the attentions of the master. Also, out here, in

  the vicinity of the villa of her master, I doubted that she was in the iron

  belt. Also I did not detect, beneath her dampened tunic, any signs of the

  close-fitting apparatus, no sign of either its horizontal component, usually a

  bar or metal strap tightly encircling the waist, nor of its vertical component,

  usually hinged to the horizontal component in front and swung up, then, between

  the girl’s legs, to the back, where the whole is usually fastened together,

  there, at the small of the back, with a padlock. She blushed, perhaps sensing

  the current purport of my scrutiny. She was lovely, and much at our mercy. Her

  apprehension was not irrational, as I have mentioned. It would not have been

  difficult to have her and then, with a few horts of binding fiber, leave her

  behind in the ditch, bound hand and foot, at the roadside. More alarmingly, we

  might have confiscated her, in the name of reparations, or such, bound her and

  put a rope on her neck and led her off, at my stirrup. In the last few months

  that sort of thing had happened to hundreds of slaves in Ar who had happened to

  catch the eye of one fellow or another. Too, if one tired of them, they could

  always be sold afterwards.

  “Do you think I would object,” I said, “to a slave girl’s desire to please her

  master, to call herself to his attention, to signify to him her desire, to

  request his touch, to beg him for her mastering?”

  “I think not, Master,” she said, shyly.

  “It is not the same as the wearing of the bondage knot in the hair, the offering

  of fruit, the serving of wine, the moaning, the prostrations, the obeisances,

  the gently, supplicatory licking of the feet?”

  “Yes, Master!” she said.

  “What is your master’s name?” I asked

  “Teibar,” she said, “of Ar.”

  (pg. 294) “And what are you called?” I asked.

  “Tuka,” she said, “if it pleases master.”

  “I have seen you before,” I said, “months ago, outside the walls, at the camp of

  refugees.”

  She looked up at me.

  “You dance well, slave girl,” I said.

  “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  “You dance better than many women I have seen in taverns,” I said.

  “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  “But perhaps you, too,” I said, “once so danced.” I could well imagine her in

  such a place, in a bit of silk, belled, with bangles, pleasing men.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said. “Once I so danced.”

  “And do you now so dance?” I asked.

  “When my master chooses to put me forth,” she said.

  “Doubtless upon occasion,” I said, “you dance privately for your master?”

  “It is my hope that I please him,” she said.

  “And if you did not please him?” I asked.

  “He would whip me,” she said.

  “He is strong?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “You love to dance?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “But as a slave?” I asked.

  “I am what I am, Master,” she said, looking up at me.

  “I see,” I said.

  “Surely all women desire to appear before me as a slave, and to so move, and so

  serve, and to dance for them, to please them.”

  “Do you suggest that all women are slaves?” I asked.

  “It is what I am,” she said. “I do not presume to speak for all women.”

  “You have an accent,” I said.

  “Forgive me, Master,” she said.

  “Where do you come from?” I asked.

  “From far away, Master,” she said.

  “What is your native language?’ I asked.

  “I do not know if Master has heard of it,” she said.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “English,” she said.

  “I have heard of it,” I said.

  “Perhaps Master has owned girls such as I?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  (pg. 295) “From Earth?”

&
nbsp; “Yes,” I said.

  “I have heard of it,” said Marcus. “It is far away.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “It is an excellent source of female slaves,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Thank you, Masters,” she said.

  “What is your name on Earth?” I asked.

  “Doreen,” she said. “Doreen Williamson.”

  “Doreen,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Is that a slave name?” I asked.

  “It was the name of a slave,” she smiled. “Though at that time I was not yet

  collared and branded.”

  “So you are from Earth?” I said. I had, of course, noted her vaccination mark at

  the camp outside Ar months before. By such tiny signs may an Earth female be

  recognized among other Gorean slaves.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “What are you now?” I asked.

  “Only a Gorean slave girl,” she said.

  I regarded her. It was true.

  “Master,” she said, timidly, looking up at me from where she knelt by the

  roadside, to where I was high above her, in the saddle of the tharlarion.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Forgive a girl who does not wish to be punished,” she said, “but I suspect that

  Master may not be native to this world either.”

  “He is from the place called “Earth”, too,” said Marcus. Marcus, of high caste,

  was familiar with various tenets of the second knowledge, such things as the

  roundness of his world, its movement in space, and the existence of other

  planets. On the other hand he remained skeptical of many of these tenets as he

  found them offensive to common sense. He was particularly suspicious of the

  claim that the human species had an extraterrestrial origin, namely, that it did

  not originate on his own world, Gor. It was not that he denied there was a place

  called “Earth” but he thought it must be somewhere on Gor, perhaps east of the

  Voltai Range or south of the Tahari. Marcus and I had agreed not to discuss the

  issue. I had no ready response, incidentally, to his suggestion that the human

  race might have originated on Gor and then some of these folks, perhaps

  transported by Priest-Kings, had been settled on Earth. Indeed, although I

  regarded this as quite unlikely, it seemed an empirical (pg. 296) possibility.

 

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