by John Norman
"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 is 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 party 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 a 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 sort 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 beach.
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, so, 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, intermunicipal 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 wear 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 thonged 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 garm
ents 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 has 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 a throbbing, kicking, helpless delight in the furs, or blankets.
It might be noted, in passing, that when a woman has been embonded she is then understood as, and taken as, unmitigatedly, a slave. That is what she then is. For example, let us suppose that several women of a given city, say, A, are now slaves in a given city, say, B. Let us then further suppose that these women are recovered, so to speak, in a raid perhaps, or perhaps in war, perhaps in B's having fallen. The women will not now be freed. They will be kept as slaves, for that is what they now are. Did they not permit themselves to be captured? Well, then, let them remain in bondage! That is where they belong, and should be! And furthermore, given the irritations and embarrassments involved, they are likely to be considered the lowest of slaves, and treated with great severity and harshness. What a mistake it was that they had been permitted to be free, ever! Usually they are only too eager to be sold from their former city, and serve gratefully in a less hostile, less bitter, less rancorous environment, where they will be simply accepted as the slaves they now are. Similarly, if a fellow captures a woman and carries her out of the city, and enslaves her, he may return with her to the city, she now his unquestioned slave.
Let us now return to our captured free woman, before the "committee of peers." Let us suppose, as will usually be the case, that she is adjudged satisfactory, if only minimally so, as will be made clear to her, to wear a collar in her captor's city. The tarnsman then, and his companions, those who failed to draw the winning lot in the hunting game, are feasted, with their officers, at the table of the very ubar or administrator himself. This is a great honor. The feast is served, of course, by slave girls. One of them, a rather new slave girl, is, as you may suppose, permitted no clothing. She wears only her collar. At the height of the feast she is put through her paces, between the tables. She is then returned to her serving, but you may imagine the difference now in her serving, as she now comprehends what she had to do, and how she is now seen. She will also, later, be expected to dance. She hesitates? The whip cracks. She dances. And after this she is again returned to her serving, simply as might be another dancer, no more and no less. And again, as you may well imagine, there is again a difference, one anew, in her serving, for she has now been forced to dance, a nude slave, subject to the whip, before masters. She touches her collar. She cannot remove it. She now has some sense as to what it means.
After the feast the tarnsman takes her home in his bracelets. She takes her place at his slave ring. The chain is locked on her. She looks up at him. She is his. She serves.
Some free women seek the collar, having come to understand that only in it can they find their fulfillment and happiness, and, paradoxically, at last, strangely perhaps, their most profound freedom.
Sometimes, in a foreign city, a free woman will elude her guards and thrust her way into the precincts of a paga tavern, precincts within which free women are seldom, if ever, found. She picks out a man, perhaps one she has noted earlier, and perhaps even followed, and finds irresistible, and kneels before his low table, unwinding her veils and parting her robes. He considers her. Is she acceptable, is she of interest? Would he have any objection to owning her? Tears form in her eyes. Her eyes plead. She offers him her most precious gift, herself. Will he accept it? "Collar!" he calls to the proprietor. One is brought. He locks it on the neck of the supplicant and conducts her to one of the alcoves, often dragging her, bent over, by the hair, that she may have some understanding as to how her life has now changed. In the alcove then, within moments of the closing of the collar, her training, to her joy, has begun.
* * * *
The free woman knelt very straight. She craned her neck. "I can see very little from my knees," she said.
"You are as a slave," I said. "No one cares whether you can see very much or not."
This was the first time the free woman had been this modestly garbed, such as it was, on one of our jaunts above. I had usually managed to gratify myself by having her slave-garbed in a way far more revealing than I was. I had enjoyed doing this to her, as she was a free woman, and I only a slave. But, instead of being distressed by this, she had always seemed to welcome it. The scantier and more revealing the garb in which I placed her the more she seemed to love it. I did not understand her. But then the notion of being "modestly garbed" is surely a relative one. On Earth, the garb in which we found ourselves, its brevity, its neckline, its lack of a nether closure, and such, would presumably have been regarded as scandalous, particularly in busy, public places. Indeed, even in certain Gorean cities, it might have counted as such. But it was not so here. Men in this city, whatever city it was, whereas they might have regarded our tunics as "appealing," would certainly not have regarded them as scandalous; if anything, for this city, they might have seemed a bit decorous; indeed, many men in this city, I had noted, seemed to enjoy displaying their slaves with a particularly exotic brazenness, often to the mere belly string and slave strip. The girl dare not object, for she is a slave. She knows that it will be done with her as the Master pleases. Too, I had seen more than one nude slave on her leash; that, however, is rare, and is usually done as a punishment. Sometimes, however, after an enemy city has fallen, her women, now enslaved, are denied clothing for some six months; at the end of that time they are inordinately grateful, should the least of tunics be cast to them; supposedly we are not permitted modesty, but we are, of course, sensitive to such things. Indeed, one of the most effective controls our masters have over us is with respect to our clothing, its nature, and, of course, even if we are to be permitted any. In some cities, as I understand it, the state involves itself in such matters; for example, in some cities it is a matter of public ordinance that slave tunics may not be longer than a certain amount; this ordinance is presumably motivated not only by a desire to draw a clear distinction between the free woman and the slave, but to distract the attention of the roving tarnsman, the slaver, the commercial girl jobber, and such, from the glorious free woman, directing it to the meaningless slave, whose charms are more easily discerned.
Whatever be the case here, it is a matter of fact that "slave strikes" more frequently target slaves than free women.
I know this now, but did not realize it at the time. Indeed, I was shortly to be apprised of an exception to this rule, though, at the time, I did not understand that it was an exception.
And, in its way, I suppose the exception, as it is said, "proved the rule." In any event, in contrast to the rule, its anomalous character drew a great deal of attention to the very rule it violated.
Or would, for those who understood such things.
I knew so little of this world!
When I did understand it I became aware, more seriously than hitherto, of the nature of the men in this city—of their skill, ferocity and pride, and their sense of honor.
The men of Gor, our masters, tend to take honor very seriously.
I would learn more of this later.
The slave, incidentally, wants to be owned by a man of honor. We want to be proud of our mas
ters. Too, we are safer with such a man. The man of honor, of course, and perhaps in part because of his sense of honor, holds us in uncompromising, perfect bondage. But that is what we want, for we are slaves.
This, the generally preferred targeting of slaves in raids, and such, I would suppose, has less to do with ordinances, and such, as other things, such as the relative inaccessibility of free women. But I would like to think, too, that it is primarily because we are far more attractive than free women.
If free women were really beautiful, why would they not be already in collars?
To be sure, most slaves were once free women. I would have to grant that. On Earth, I myself, though a natural and rightful slave, had been legally free. That changed, of course, once I had arrived on this world. I did have to admit, however, that my charge, the free woman, the Lady Constanzia of Besnit, was an extraordinarily beautiful female. She would be a prize for any chain. And she was free, of course. But the nets and ropes of the hunters, I note, most frequently close on the muchly exposed, startled bodies of kajirae, and I would like to think that the reason for this is simple, that we are just, statistically, much more desirable, much better catches. Oh, I suppose there is some pleasure for a brute in unwrapping a free woman, so to speak, like a present, the suspense, the anticipation, and such, hoping to be pleasantly surprised, and so on, but what if he isn't? Then what? Perhaps he can get a few coins on her, as a laundress, or perhaps he might sell her to a woman as a serving slave. But they usually like pretty women as serving slaves.
A word might be devoted to that.
Taste is doubtless involved, as the pretty woman dresses up the compartments of the free woman, much as does exquisite furniture, attractive appointments, and such. But I think, too, free women enjoy ruling women who are superior to themselves in beauty. In the wars between free women and slave girls woe to the slave girl who is the serving slave of the free woman! On such a woman the free woman may to her heart's content indulge her vanity, her arrogance, and her pettiness, and may inflict on her her animosity, and, indeed, her hatred, and her frustration, ventilating these things abundantly and richly, and with impunity, upon the unfortunate, innocent one who is taken as standing proxy for her kind, that kind of which the free woman is so resentful and jealous, a kind of much greater interest and attractiveness to men, the female slave. The serving slave of a free woman is often lashed mercilessly if she so much as looks at a man. Some claim that the keeping of pretty serving slaves by free women is to guard against their own abduction. Should a tarnsman, say, with slave noose in hand, invade their quarters he may choose the slave over the mistress. To be sure, if he prefers the slave he is certain to do so, and she is such that she will rush eagerly to his bracelets, joyful in her femininity and collar to now have the opportunity to serve her natural master, a male. But obviously, if the fellow is interested, he will take both. If he takes one, he will bind her belly up over his saddle, usually that she may be casually and conveniently caressed in flight, that she may be writhing in helpless, raging heat by the time he reaches his camp. If he takes two he will simply chain them one on each side of the saddle, to the booty rings, and thus have a balanced load. If this is done they may be bound in the camp and aroused at his leisure. In the case of taking both the mistress and the slave, the slave, of course, having been longer in the collar, will be "first girl" over her erstwhile mistress. Naturally this is a situation to which she, switch in hand, does not object.