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

Norman, John - Gor 25 - Magicians of Gor.txt Page 63

by Magicians of Gor [lit]

  fields. Now she had been discovered naked in his arms.

  “How could you have done this to me?” wailed Appanius.

  Lavinia’s nipples were still erected. They were very lovely.

  “How could you do this to me?” begged Appanius.

  The male slave did not respond to these questions.

  I thought that Lavinia was exquisite, naked, collared, in the net. I had once

  told her she could make a rock sizzle. Surely that was true.

  “How! How!” demanded Appanius.

  Lavinia was very exciting in the net. I felt like pulling her out and using her

  myself.

  “Surely it is not hard to understand,” said Marcus. “She is very pretty.”

  I did not think that this was a judicious remark on his part, but then who am I

  to judge?

  (pg. 424) “Master, no, Master!” cried the male slave.

  Appanius then, with a cry of rage, seizing his staff with both hands, struck

  down with it, smiting the male slave on the shoulder. He then, again and again,

  struck him, about the back and shoulders.

  The female slave began to sob and it seemed she would try, within the net, to

  put her body between that of the male slave and the lashing staff, but he turned

  her forcibly, away from the staff, holding himself over her, sheltering her. I

  found this of interest. Seven or eight times the slave received heavy blows from

  the staff. In a moment there were long, dark welts on his body. There were the

  only marks on his body. I gathered he might have been a pampered slave. Appanius

  then seemed to realize that he was sheltering the girl and, angered by this, he

  rushed about, to strike, too, at her, but, again, the fellow turned, in the net,

  sheltering her. “No!” he said. As Appanius, crying out again with rage, again

  attempted to circle about, so that he could strike the girl, the fellow became

  tangled in the net and could no longer protect her. “It is my fault!” he cried.

  “I am to blame!” he cried. “Do not strike her!” he begged. Appanius then, in

  fury, jabbed at Lavinia, and she cried out, hurt. “No!” wept the fellow. “Do not

  hurt her!” Appanius drew back the staff again to thrust at Lavinia, but then I

  managed to get my hands on it, and held it back, away from the slaves. Appanius

  could not wrest it from my hands. He sobbed with frustration. His retainers

  neither used their staffs to punish the two slaves nor came to the assistance of

  their employer. I think this might have been because of their sensing the mood

  of Marcus, that he was more than ready to spill blood. Indeed, although they

  would not know this, it was even his plan to leave the city this evening. “You

  see,” I said to Appanius. “I was right.”

  “She seduced him!” screamed Appanius.

  “Nonsense,” I said, though to be sure a candid observer might have admitted that

  there might be some sense to Appanius’ asservation.

  “Appanius!” said the male slave.

  “Do nor dare speak my name to me,” he wept, “slave!”

  “Forgive me, Master!” said the slave.

  I released the staff of Appanius, as the slave had dared to address the master

  by the master’s name. To be sure, he might have become accustomed to doing so in

  the past but that was no excuse for permitting such boldness in the future. It

  was time the slave learned his condition, and was taken in hand.

  Five times then the master struck the slave, and tears pressed from between the

  eyelids of the punished slave.

  (pg. 425) “Please, Master,” wept Lavinia, “do not let him so strike him!”

  “Did you not hear?” I asked. “He used the master’s name to him. He is to be

  beaten as an errant slave.”

  “Mater!” she wept.

  “Be silent, slave girl,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she wept.

  Twice more the staff fell on the male slave, who now shuddered in the net.

  Appanius, too, interestingly, was weeping. He then raised his staff against

  Lavinia.

  I held the staff. “No,” I said. “Her discipline is mine.”

  “I should have sent her out of the city on the first night I owned her,” he

  said, “after having cut off her ears and nose.”

  Lavinia shuddered in the arms of the male slave.

  “She is not yours,” I said. “She is mine.”

  “Seductrix!” he said to her.

  She made herself as small as she could, in the net.

  “If you had listened carefully,” I said, “you would have heard your slave admit

  his guilt in this matter. Clearly he turned the head of my little Lavinia.”

  “Look at her!” cried Appanius. “See the sleek, curvaceous little thing, naked,

  in her collar! Do you truly think she is guiltless in this matter?”

  “Perhaps she is a little to blame, or, at any rate, her wanton, owned slave

  curves.”

  “Look there,” said Appanius. “See the wine, the sweets, on the table, there,

  beside the couch? Do you doubt that this has been arranged?”

  “That is an interesting point,” I said.

  “Slut!” said Appanius.

  “Yes, Master!” she said.

  “These things,” he said, “or the moneys with which they were purchased, did they

  come from the resources of your master?”

  “Yes, Master,” whispered Lavinia.

  “See!” said Appanius.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Forgive me, Master!” said Lavinia to me.

  “Do you doubt her guilt now?” asked Appanius.

  “No,” I said.

  “It is I who am wholly guilty,” said the male slave.

  “He spoke without permission,” I said. “Also, in the light of your point, he has

  lied.”

  Appanius then, as Lavinia wept, struck the male slave twice (pg. 426) more with

  his staff for speaking without permission, and twice again, for lying.

  He moaned in the net, beaten.

  “Get him out of the net,” said Appanius, angrily, “and chain him.”

  In a moment the male slave lay on his stomach on the furs, chained, hand and

  foot. A heavy collar, too, was locked on his neck. To this was attached a chain

  leash. He was then drawn from the couch and put on his knees, at the feet of his

  master. Lavinia, still under the net, knelt to one side on the couch. I went to

  her and extricated her from the net, dropping it to the side. She then,

  frightened, wide-eyed, knelt near me.

  “Master?” she asked, looking up.

  “Be silent,” I said.

  “My Milo, my Milo!” wept Appanius, looking down at the much-beaten slave. “The

  most beautiful slave in Ar! My beloved slave! My beloved Milo!”

  “He has betrayed you,” said one of the retainers.

  “How could you do it?” asked Appanius. “Have I not been good to you? Have I not

  been kind? Have you wanted for anything? Have I not given you everything?”

  The slave
kept his head down. I think he was sick, and I did not much blame him.

  He had taken a fearful beating. His back and shoulders were covered with welts.

  I did not think that anything had been broken. I wondered if he had ever been

  beaten before. Perhaps not. I myself have doubtless been responsible for a few

  of those blows, but then they had been appropriately administered. His behavior,

  after all, had contained errors.

  “He is an ungrateful slave,” said another of the retainers.

  “Send him to the fields,” said one of the retainers.

  “Sell him,” said another.

  “Make him an example to others,” said the first retainer.

  “We can fine you a better, Appanius,” said another.

  “One even more beautiful,” said one.

  “And one with appropriate dispositions,” said another.

  “And he, too, if you wish, can be trained as an actor and performer,” said

  another.

  Marcus looked at me, puzzled. He did not really follow this conversation. I did

  not react to his look.

  “What shall I do with him?” asked Appanius.

  “Let all your slaves learn that they are your slaves,” said one of the

  retainers.

  “Speak clearly,” said Appanius.

  “Rid yourself of him,” whispered the fellow.

  (pg. 427) “Yes,” said another.

  Appanius looked down at the chained slave.

  I now had some understanding of the jealousy of the retainers for the slave. The

  slave had doubtless enjoyed too much power in the house, too much favor with the

  master. They were eager to bring him down.

  “How?” asked Appanius.

  “He has been unfaithful to you,” said a retainer.

  “He had made a fool of you, with a woman,” said another.

  This remark seemed to have its effect with Appanius.

  “If this gets out, you will be a laughing stock in Ar,” said another.

  I doubted this. It is natural enough for a male slave to have an eye for female

  slaves, and it is not unusual for a female slave to occasionally, say, find

  herself taken advantage of by such a fellow. To be sure, it is much more

  dangerous for a male slave to accost a female slave than for a free man to do

  so. Unauthorized uses of female slaves are almost always by free men. They have

  little, or nothing, to fear, for the girls are only slaves. The masters, if they

  are concerned about such things, may put the girls in the iron belt,

  particularly if they are sending them on late errands, or into disreputable

  neighborhoods.

  Appanius seemed to be becoming angry.

  I looked at the slave. His hands were manacled closely behind his back. The

  chains on his ankles would hardly permit him to walk. The chain leash dangled to

  the floor, where it lay in a rough coil.

  “So, Milo,” said Appanius, “you would make of me a laughing stock?”

  “No, Master,” said the slave.

  “One can well imagine him laughing about how he betrayed you with a woman,” said

  one of the retainers.

  “It will be the whip, and close chains for you, Milo!” said Appanius.

  “No,” said one of the retainers. “Let him serve as an example to all such slaves

  as he!”

  “Yes!” said another retainer.

  “Let it be the eels!” said another.

  “Yes!” said the fourth.

  “No!” screamed Lavinia. “No!” She leaped to her feet and ran to Milo, to kneel

  beside him, holding him, weeping. She turned to Appanius. “No, no, please!” she

  wept. “No! Please!”

  I took her by the hair and threw her back, away from Milo, to the floor, where

  she scrambled to her knees and, tears in her eyes, frantic, regarded us.

  (pg. 428) Many estates, particularly country homes, have pools in which fish are

  kept. Some of these pools contains voracious eels, of various sorts, river eels,

  black eels, the spotted eel, and such, which are Gorean delicacies. Needless to

  say a bound slave, cast into such a pool, will be eaten alive.

  I looked closely at Appanius. He was white-faced. As I had suspected, he was not

  enthusiastic about this proposal.

  “It must be the eels,” said the first retainer.

  “Nothing less will expunge the blot upon your honor,” said another.

  “What blot?” said Appanius, suddenly, lightly.

  The retainers regarded him, speechless.

  “What is it to my honor,” asked Appanius, “if I have been betrayed by an

  ungrateful, worthless slave? It is scarcely worth noting.”

  “Appanius!” said the first retainer.

  “Do you wish to buy a slave?” asked Appanius of me, as though lightly. But I saw

  that he was desperate in this matter. Indeed, I was touched. His problem was a

  difficult one. He wanted to save both his honor and the life of the slave. As

  outraged as he might be, as angry, as terribly hurt as he was, even as sensitive

  of his honor as I supposed he might be, he was trying to save the slave. I was

  startled by this. Indeed, it seemed he might care for him, truly. That

  development I had not anticipated. I had thought that things would have worked

  out much more simply. I had expected him to be outraged with Milo and be ready,

  in effect, to kill him, at which point I was prepared to intervene, with a

  princely offer. If he were rational, and the offer was attractive enough, as it

  could be, as I had a fortune in gold with me, I could obtain the slave. That is

  the way I had anticipated things would proceed. If Appanius would not sell Milo,

  then I could simply keep Appanius, and the others, with the exception of Milo,

  bound and gagged somewhere, say, in the pantry in the back, and use Milo, still

  the slave of Appanius, to achieve my objective in a slightly different fashion,

  one then merely involving two steps rather than one. If he would not sell Milo,

  certainly he would be willing to sell another, one who might, for a time at

  least, be too dangerous to acknowledge, too dangerous to free, too dangerous to

  keep.

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  “I have one for sale,” said Appanius.

  “No, Appanius!” said the first retainer.

  “He is cheap,” said Appanius, bitterly.

  “How much?” I asked.

  (pg. 429) “He is the cheapest of the cheap,” said Appanius, bitterly.

  “Do not sell him, Appanius!” said the first retainer.

  “He is the most valuable slave in all Ar!” said another.

  “To me,” said Appanius, “he is worth less than the lowest pot girl.”

  “How much do you want,” I asked, warily. I had some forty-five pieces of gold

  with me.

  “He is worthless,” said Appanius. “He should be cast away.”

  “Throw him to the eels, Appanius,” whispered the first retainer.

  “No,” said Appanius, “rather let him know my estimate of his worth.”

  “How much do you want?” I asked.

  “A tarsk bit,” said Appa
nius.

  The retainers cried out with horror. The slave looked up, startled, trembling.

  Lavinia gasped.

  “A tarsk bit,” repeated Appanius.

  The slave wept in shame, and jerked at the manacles in frustration. But he could

  not free himself. Well were his hands confined behind him.

  “I think I can afford that,” I said.

  “That is the most valuable slave in Ar!” said one of the retainers.

  “No,” said Appanius. “It is the most worthless slave in Ar.”

  I removed a tarsk bit from my wallet and gave it to Appanius.

  “He is yours,” said Appanius.

  The tarsk bit is the smallest denomination coin in common circulation in most

  Gorean cities.

  “You do not mind filling out certain pertinent papers, do you?’ I asked. I had

  brought some sets of such papers with me.

  “Common slave papers?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “It is not necessary,” said one of the retainers.

  “Not at all,” said Appanius. “You do not have an appropriate collar at hand, I

  gather.”

  “No,” I said.

  “If I am not mistaken,” said Marcus, “ink and a pen are in the back.”

  “Interesting,” I said. To be sure, they had been here when he had scouted the

  compartments. Doubtless they had been used before, in the course of Appanius’

  acquiring new slaves. Slave papers, too, were in the back, although I had

  brought my own. Hoods, gags, ropes, and such, were in the back, too.

  “Give me the papers,” said Appanius.

  I handed him a set.

  (pg. 430) “I will fill these out in the back, and you, Lucian, will witness

  them.”

  “Yes, Appanius,” said one of the retainers, dismally.

  “You will wish to bind him,” said Appanius.

  “No,” I said. “If he attempts to escape, his throat will be cut.”

  “Remove his slave bracelet, and his chains,” said Appanius.

  “Yes, Appanius,” said the fellow.

  “I foolishly neglected to have him branded,” said Appanius.

  “I have noted it,” I said.

  “As he is a cheap and common slave,” said Appanius, “I would have him put under

  the iron before nightfall.”

  “I shall consider the suggestion,” I said.

 

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