Rebels of Gor

by John Norman

  A few moments later the slave emerged from the gloom, the white gown clutched in her hands.

  She now stood before us, in the sleeveless, brief rag of a field slave.

  “Ah,” said Haruki.

  “Excellent,” said Tajima.

  “Remember your posture,” I cautioned her.

  “Beasts!” she said.

  Haruki no longer suggested doing away with the captive. Tajima was clearly pleased, which reaction, I suspected, did not displease the captive. Yes, I thought to myself, a good price, certainly.

  “Put the gown there,” said Tajima, indicating the coils of hair he had shorn from her.

  She complied, and then stepped back, more into the gloom, again.

  “I will take these things out and burn them,” said Haruki.

  “My thanks, gardener san,” said Tajima.

  I thought it a shame to waste the hair, as woman’s hair, given its tensility and weather-resistance, makes excellent catapult cordage, much better than hemp and common cordage. It is prized by artillery men on the continent. On the other hand, it was clearly important that such evidence be destroyed, as it might link us, or the village, with a shogun’s daughter.

  “Step forward, slave,” said Tajima.

  “I am not a slave,” she said.

  “Stand here,” he said, “before me, in the full light of the lamp. I would look more fully on my property.”

  “I am not your property,” she said. “I am a free woman.”

  “You are not a bad looking slave,” he said.

  “Tarsk!” she said.

  “I am pleased to own you,” he said.

  “Tarsk, tarsk!” she said.

  “Beware,” I said.

  Haruki soon returned to the hut. I gathered he had disposed of the hair and gown in one of the night fires. He also, interestingly, held in one hand some loops of knotted rope.

  “Here,” said Tajima to the slave, pointing to the floor of the hut, at his feet, “here, before me, go to all fours, and keep your head down.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “What am I going to do, what?” he asked.

  “What are you going to do—Master,” she whispered.

  How careless she had been on the outer parapet, in casting an object to the valley below. How was it that she had failed to exercise a greater caution? How anomalous an action that had been for a woman of her obvious intelligence. Did she not recognize the jeopardy, the risks, involved? She had doubtless, of course, felt herself secure, alone and unobserved. That was understood. That must be the case. Had she not communicated with a confederate or confederates below, similarly, on several occasions? But how had it been that on that occasion she had, apparently, shut out the very possibility of detection? What was different on that night?

  Might she not be observed?

  Could she have been unaware that Tajima might have drifted near her, as he, to her contempt and amusement, had so often done in the past?

  How was it that it had not even occurred to her that he, or another, might have been about? How could such a possibility be forgotten? Why should it be forgotten? What could explain such a lapse? Had she closed a gate, which she refused to open?

  I had never understood the passion of that contempt, the intense cruelty of that amusement, lavished on the hapless Tajima.

  She had not even accorded him the respect prescribed for a female with respect to a male in the Pani culture, let alone that of a supposed contract woman with respect to a free male.

  Why should she have treated him so, so derided and hated him?

  Should she not, at least, have been flattered by his interest?

  Would it not have been enough to ignore him or avoid him?

  Is civility so costly?

  “Remain as you are,” he said.

  Tajima then left the hut. The loops of knotted rope dangled from Haruki’s hand. I saw them. I do not think the slave did.

  In a few moments Tajima had returned to the hut. In his hands, cupped, I saw, in the light of the lamp, he held what seemed to be a quantity of dirt, of ash, of soot.

  “No,” begged the slave.

  “Keep your head down,” he said.

  He then, judiciously, applied these materials, some dirt, some ash and soot, to the slave and her small garment.

  “Now,” I said, “one could not tell her from a field slave.”

  “She is less than a field slave,” said Tajima. “She is a pleasure slave.”

  “No!” wept the girl.

  “Head down,” said Tajima.

  “Disguised as a field slave,” I suggested.

  “Precisely, Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” said Tajima.

  “You would use the daughter of the shogun for pleasure?” asked Haruki.

  “Certainly,” said Tajima.

  “I am a virgin!” said the slave.

  “Not for long, dirty little slave,” said Tajima.

  “You will soon learn to jump, squirm, and beg,” I informed her.

  “Keep your head down,” said Tajima.

  “Is a detail not missing?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said, and reached, again, into the sack he had brought into the hut.

  I heard, again, a slight sound of metal, possibly something impinging on slave bracelets or shackles.

  We noted the object withdrawn from the sack.

  “What is that?” she said, frightened.

  “Would it not encircle your neck, nicely?” asked Haruki.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “Perhaps the daughter of the shogun is stupid,” said Tajima.

  “I am not stupid!” she said.

  “Surely you know what it is,” I said.

  “It cannot be!” she said.

  “It is,” said Haruki, “it is a collar, a slave collar, a collar for a slave.”

  “No!” said the girl.

  “Yes,” said Tajima.

  “A lock collar,” I said.

  “Of course,” said Tajima.

  “Do not put it on me!” she said.

  “Keep your head down,” said Tajima.

  “Do not collar me!” she begged.

  “Head down,” said Tajima.

  “I trust that it is not engraved,” I said.

  “Not yet,” said Tajima.

  “All slaves need not be collared,” she said, intensely.

  “On the continent,” I said, “it is prescribed by Merchant Law.”

  “Do not collar me!” she begged. “If I am collared, everyone will see me as a slave, know me as a slave, and treat me as a slave!”

  “You are a slave,” said Tajima. “Let it be proclaimed to the world.”

  “That is proper,” I said.

  “Have mercy,” she said. “No!”

  There was a snap and the device, encircling her throat, was closed.

  She sobbed, tears falling to the floor of the hut.

  She who had been the unpleasant, difficult, lofty, haughty Sumomo was now on all fours, collared.

  “On the continent,” I said, “slaves are slaves, and are clearly to be identified as such.” How beautiful a woman is in a collar, and how meaningful is the collar on her neck!

  “You will have to hold her tightly,” said Haruki.

  “How so?” said Tajima.

  “It must not be blurred or spoiled,” said Haruki.

  “I do not understand,” said the girl.

  “I thought we must wait,” said Tajima, “to the holding of Temmu, or to the encampment of tarns.”

  “What are you speaking of?” asked the slave.

  “As soon as I learned of your presence here,” said Haruki, “given the possible eventuations involved, I instructed the village metal worker to have an iron ready.”

  “An iron?” said the girl.

  “You are a man of excellent forethought,” said Tajima.

  “I shall fetch the brazier,” said Haruki. “We will attend to the matter privately. The less that t
he village knows the better. You had best bind her and hold her mouth.”

  “What are you going to do?” said the girl.

  “Mark you, of course,” said Tajima.

  “Mark?” she said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “No!” she cried.

  My hand stifled what might have been a scream on the part of the slave. Her eyes were wide, and wild, over my hand.

  Tajima attended to her binding.

  In a bit, Haruki returned, bearing, on its carrying ring, insulated with folds of cloth, a brazier, from which two handles protruded.

  The girl’s thigh was washed and dried, and the matter was expeditiously attended to.

  After an Ehn or so, I removed my hand from her mouth.

  I did not know the brand, but, I gathered, in Pani script, it unambiguously identified her as a slave.

  “I am marked, marked!” she said.

  “Yes,” I said, “marked as what you are, a slave.”

  “No,” she wept. “No!”

  “Rejoice,” I said. “It is possible, now, that your father would not even regard you as worthy to be fed to his eels.”

  “More likely,” said Haruki, “as a branded little beast, he would merely throw you to them naked.”

  “It has been done to me,” she said. “I wear the slave mark.”

  “It is a lovely brand,” I said. “Like the tunic, the collar, and such, it is designed not merely to identify you as a slave but to enhance your beauty, as well.”

  “Is it pretty?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said, “it might be the envy of many free women.”

  “But its meaning!” she said.

  “True,” I said. “Its meaning is clear, and indisputable.”

  Her bonds, applied to assist in controlling her movements during the application of the iron, were removed, and she was again placed on all fours before her master, Tajima, he of the tarn cavalry.

  “Let us beat her,” said Haruki, the cluster of knotted ropes once more dangling from his hand.

  “Please do not beat me, Master,” said the slave.

  “But you recognize you are subject to the whip?” said Tajima.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  Tajima took the ropes and said to the slave, “I shall toss these ropes to the side of the hut. You will fetch them on all fours, lift them in your teeth, and then return before me, on all fours. You will then lift them in your mouth to me, and, when I accept them, you will kneel, and await my pleasure.”

  She looked up at him, wonderingly, frightened.

  He flung the ropes to the side of the hut.

  In the dim light of the small lamp we watched her make her way to the ropes, pick them up in her teeth, and then return to her place before Tajima. She lifted her head to her master, timidly, the ropes dangling from her mouth. Tajima took them from her, gently.

  “Kneel,” he said.

  He then looked into her awed, uplifted eyes.

  I knew that expression on a woman’s face. It is not unusual when the woman is kneeling before her master.

  “Kiss my feet,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she whispered, bending forward, and putting down her head.

  Had I detected a thrill of submission in those simple words?

  Had the radical sexual dimorphism of the human species suddenly become real to her?

  Did she understand it at last?

  Did she sense the possible fulfillments, and liberation, of the collar, the joy of a sensed, unalloyed, apprehended truth, a truth which it would now seem to her pointless, even absurd, to deny or dispute, a truth in the light of which she, now a slave, would, to her joy, have no choice but to live?

  We watched, for several Ihn, while she addressed herself to the performance of her simple task, so replete with its symbolism of acknowledged social chasms, the difference between slave and master.

  “Look up,” said Tajima.

  The slave complied.

  “You lick and kiss the feet of a master well,” said Tajima. “You are clearly a slave, and belong on your knees before a man.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  It is a common Gorean view that all women are slaves, only that some are collared and some are not yet collared.

  I have often been puzzled as to why free women commonly hate and despise slaves. Do they see the slave as a rival? Do they resent the preference of men for the slave? Do they envy the slave? Do they fear the slave in themselves? Do they object to the slave’s openness and freedom, to the liberation of her femininity, to her desire to selflessly love and serve, to her happiness, to her passion, to her sexual fulfillments, to her categorical ownership by a master whom she must serve, who will have, and without qualification, whatever he wishes from her? In any event, the relationship between the free woman and the slave is scarcely symmetrical. The free woman is free, and the slave is a slave. Whereas the free woman may hate and despise the slave, and treat her with all the cruelty, harshness, and contempt she pleases, the slave may not reciprocate in the least. It could be her death to do so. The slaves, in their vulnerability and weakness, so unguarded and defenseless, subject to sale, to the chain and whip, live in terror of free women.

  “As I recall, from the supper,” said Tajima to the prisoner, the knotted ropes dangling from his hand, “you believed slaves should be whipped.”

  “I was not then marked, not then in a collar, Master,” she said.

  “You have changed your view?” he said.

  “It is my hope that Master will not whip me,” she said.

  “But you are now subject to the whip, are you not?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she said. “I am now subject to the whip.”

  He then held the loops of knotted rope to her face.

  “Kiss the whip,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  We watched while the slave tenderly pressed her lips to the ropes, and then looked up, into the eyes of her master.

  It was a beautiful, and touching, ceremony, enacted in the dim light of the lamp, in a small hut on the outskirts of a Yamada village.

  “You have now returned the rope, and deferred to it,” said Tajima. “You may now beg to be beaten if you are not fully pleasing.”

  “I beg to be beaten,” she said, “if I am not fully pleasing.”

  “You realize it will be done to you,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “You may now retire to the corner,” he said, indicating a dark corner of the hut, to which the dim lamplight scarcely penetrated, “and kneel there, grasping your ankles with your hands, until summoned forth.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “And you will keep your head down,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  I saw that Tajima, despite his Earth origin, knew how to treat a slave. She is to be kept with perfect discipline. Perhaps he had learned this in Tarncamp, or Shipcamp. Surely there had been enough slaves there, for work, and the pleasure of men.

  “Master,” she said.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Am I Sumomo?” she asked, timidly.

  “Not unless I have it so,” said Tajima. “And if I should have it so, it will be a slave name, put on you by my pleasure.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  The slave drew back.

  “What will you name her?” I asked.

  “What do you think of ‘Sumomo’?” he said.

  “I scarcely think that the most judicious of choices,” I said.

  “Nor I,” he said.

  “Forgive me,” I said.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “She is a beautiful slave,” I said.

  “Her hair is wretched,” he said, “and her body filthy.”

  “Doubtless there is a comb, and slave tub somewhere,” I said.

  “Doubtless,” he said.

  “There are many beautiful names,” I said.
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  “Has she earned a beautiful name?” he asked.

  “Perhaps not yet,” he said. “Slave,” he called.

  “Master?” she said, from the half darkness.

  “Are you kneeling, your ankles grasped in your hands, your head down?” he inquired.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “You are ‘Nezumi’,” he said.

  I heard sobs, from the darkness.

  “What is your name?” he inquired.

  “‘Nezumi’, Master,” she said.

  “I do not know the name,” I said.

  “It is an old word for an urt,” he said.

  “I see,” I said.

  “I shall return the brazier and irons,” said Haruki. “In the meantime, prepare to depart. Few know we are here, and it is dangerous.”

  Chapter Thirty

  We Have Paused at an Inn to Gather Intelligence

  “Sake, more sake!” said the Ashigaru, striking the low table with the metal cup.

  “Nezumi!” called Tajima.

  Nezumi hurried to the table bearing the earthen vessel.

  “That is a sorry slave,” said the Ashigaru. His two fellows laughed.

  “How so?” asked Tajima.

  “The hair,” said one of the Ashigaru.

  “True,” said Tajima.

  Nezumi was actually far more presentable than earlier. Her body and hair were now washed, and her garment. She was still barefoot, of course, and the garment was still the tiny rag of a field slave. Tajima had tried, with his knife, to shape her hair a bit. It would, of course, in time, grow out.

  “She is cheap, and all I could afford,” said Tajima. “How fares the march north?”

  “The pace is leisurely,” said the Ashigaru. “The shogun moves with deliberation.”

  “It spares the men,” said one of the Ashigaru.

  “You are rice thieves,” said the innkeeper.

  “Requisitions must be made,” said their leader.

  I did not think the innkeeper would have spoken as he had if a warrior had been present. It might have meant his head. The Ashigaru, like most, were of the peasants, and took no umbrage at the annoyance of the innkeeper.

  Near the door of the inn, inside, were several sacks of rice, while, outside, a handcart waited.

  I was to one side, behind a silken screen, sitting cross-legged with Haruki, before another table. Such screens may afford privacy, for example, dividing a larger space into semi-secluded, individual dining areas. The screen, on the house side, so to speak, was decorated with a fanciful image, that of a large, winged, fearsome beast. “It is a dragon,” had said Haruki. Such images were not infrequently encountered in the islands, but, more commonly, one encountered images of a gentler, more tranquil nature, snow-capped mountains, forests, winding streams, placid villages, and such. There seemed to me many contrasts, if not paradoxes, in the Pani culture. Perhaps where life may be short, and jeopardy is often afoot, when the morning may not guarantee the evening, one is more likely to see and appreciate beauty, and fix it, as one can, for a moment of contemplation. It was a culture with a place for both the blossom and the glaive, a culture where one might, a sword within reach, unroll a painting and, bit by bit, meditate upon its elements, where a warrior might attend sensitively to the delicacy of his calligraphy and a general might compose poetry on the eve of battle.