by John Norman
“As you will,” I said.
The dark eyes of the slave, Adraste, flashed with fury. Her body seethed with rage.
“I wish you well, dear friend,” said Lord Nishida.
“I wish you well, dear friend,” I said.
We exchanged bows.
He then turned, and left, followed by the two Ashigaru.
“So I am abandoned,” she said, “cast aside, discarded!”
“You are no longer of importance,” I said.
“To no one?” she said.
“To no one,” I said.
She shook her hands behind her back, angrily, and I heard the tiny sound of metal. So she was back braceleted.
“Your wrists are fastened,” I said. “I would not struggle, if I were you. You are helpless, whether you realize it or not, whether you like it or not. If I were you, I would not risk marking your wrists. That might, to some degree, lower your price.”
“Price!” she cried.
“Yes,” I said, “price.”
“I am beyond price!” she said.
“Only free women are beyond price,” I said. “On the block, every woman has her price.”
“You despicable tarsk!” she said.
“In the siege,” I said, “most slaves, all but you, as I understand it, were bartered, most for a fukuro of rice, some for two.”
“So?” she said, angrily.
“Had you not been of interest, politically,” I said, “I wonder what you would have gone for.”
“For ten thousand fukuros of rice!” she said.
“I would think, a single fukuro,” I said.
“I am the daughter of a Ubar!” she cried.
“It is true,” I said, “that that might raise the price of even a homely girl.”
“Beast!” she said.
“But here,” I said, “at the World’s End, you are only another pretty slave, prettier than many, and not so pretty as others.”
She looked away, angrily.
“You are helpless,” I said. “Beware of marking your wrists.”
“Tarsk!”
“The key to your bracelets, I take it,” I said, “is on a string around your neck.” This was common in such situations, the delivery of a braceleted slave to a new house, or master.
“Yes!” she said.
“The third gong has sounded,” I said. “The ship will soon depart.” I turned away.
“Wait!” she cried. “Tarl! Tarl!”
“Did you dare,” I asked, not turning, “place the name of a free man, so, on your lips, those of a slave?”
“You cannot abandon me!” she said.
“Why not?” I asked, refusing to look upon her.
“You could leave me here, alone, braceleted, helpless, on a wharf, at the World’s End?”
“Why not?” I asked.
“I am Talena, the daughter of Marlenus of Ar!” she cried.
I turned about, to face her.
“Once,” I said, “then no longer.”
Surely she understood she had been disowned, and was then no longer the daughter of the great Marlenus; surely she understood that she was now an item of livestock, of slave stock, and had no name but what masters might put on her, should they choose to name her.
To be sure, she was a beautiful object, a lovely article of merchandise. Similarly, there are beautiful kaiila, some with sleeker lines than others.
“You will not leave me here!”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because I own you,” she said. “You are mine. You are caught in the toils of my net!”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“Love!” she said. “You love me! You are mine! You are helplessly in love with me!”
“No,” I said.
“‘No’?” she said.
“No,” I said. “Once, perhaps, but no more. I know you now.”
“Beast!” she hissed.
“As you wish,” I said.
“Even so,” she said, “you will not leave me here!”
“Why not?” I said.
“I am beautiful!” she said.
I surveyed the greenish cast in those flashing eyes, the olive skin, the loose, black hair, rich and abundant about her shoulders, the delicacy of her features, so deliciously and exquisitely feminine, so exciting, the hint of a marketable figure beneath those clumsy robes of concealment. It was hard to believe that something so lovely, and slavelike, could be of the blood of Marlenus of Ar. She might, on the block, I thought, bring as much as two silver tarsks, sold, of course, as a girl, only as a girl, as nothing but a girl, not as an item of perhaps political interest.
“Comely, surely,” I said.
“Commander!” said a mariner, having descended the gangplank, which few now climbed, and pattered toward me, his sandals slapping on the warm, broad planks of the wharf. “We must cast off! Hurry! Hurry!”
“I am with you,” I said, turning, to follow him.
“Wait! Wait!” she cried.
I continued on, striding away.
I heard the rustle of the cumbersome garments, and the sound of her small, bared feet, as she hurried behind me. As before, she had not been allowed sandals, or slippers. Dramatic was the contrast between the rich, abundant, colorful robes of concealment, suitable for a free woman of a high city on the continent, and her feet, as bared as those of a low slave.
“Wait, wait!” she wept.
I turned about, abruptly, impatiently.
She stopped, instantly.
“Do not abandon me!” she said. “Do not leave me here!”
She read my angry gaze, and knelt.
Was she not a slave?
It was pleasant to have her on her knees before me. What man does not want a beautiful woman on her knees before him?
Too, she was a slave.
Slaves are selected for their beauty.
What man does not desire to own a beautiful slave?
I then turned away, again.
“Wait, Master!” cried the voice, behind me, wildly, pleadingly. “Do not abandon Adraste! Do not leave Adraste behind! Please, wait, Master! Adraste dares not rise from her knees without permission! Adraste begs Master to take her with him.”
I turned about, once more.
“Hurry!” urged the mariner.
She was on her knees, some feet behind, broken, shuddering, conquered, lips trembling. “Do not leave Adraste here!” she wept. “Take her with you! She begs your collar, your chains, whatever marking you would put on her! Do not refuse her, again. Once more she is prostrate before you, a piteous supplicant! Have her trained, have her taught the kisses and caresses of the slave, have her taught the lascivious dances of the slave, the movements of the slave! She is before you, begging to be yours, wholly and without compromise! Put her to your feet, despise her and abuse her, if you wish, as the worthless, meaningless slave she is!”
“Better to leave you here,” I said, “to be put to what purposes might please the Pani.”
“Love me!” she cried.
“Do not speak foolishly,” I said. “You are a slave. One does not love slaves; one owns them, one lusts for them, one masters them, and teaches them their sex.”
There is a Gorean saying that a woman learns her sex only in a collar.
“All women,” she said, “desire to be lusted for, and mastered!”
“The slave exists,” I said, “to please the master, wholly, and in every way.”
“I know,” she said.
“She is not her own,” I said. “She is the master’s.”
“I want to be my master’s,” she said. “I want to be the object of his lust, of his unbridled and unequivocal lust!”
“Then you are a slave,” I said.
“Yes!” she said. “I am a slave! Lust for me, own me, master me! Do you think I want the diffidence, the timidity, the respectful, shy, timorous handling endured by a free woman? I want a master! I have dreamed of a master! I long for a master!”
“Liar,” I said.
“Please,” she said. “It is true, Master! Do you not know this from as long ago as the tents of Mintar?”
“Clever she-sleen,” I said.
“No!” she said.
“Perhaps,” I said, “I will convey you to Ar, to the mercy of Marlenus, and that of the court torturers.”
She regarded me wildly, miserably.
“Death by public torture can take a month,” I said. “Doubtless thousands from Ar, and her environs, for a thousand pasangs about, will come to see you, to witness the fate of a traitor and false Ubara, to insult her, to jeer her, to mock and curse her, to spit upon her, to add their flaming twig or tiny splinter to her torments.”
“No, no!” she wept.
“It will be holiday,” I said.
“You would sell me for the ten thousand golden tarns of double weight!” she said.
“It would be more than I could get for you on the block,” I said.
“Beast!” she wept.
“My needs are simple, and my means sufficient,” I said. “I could scatter the wealth to multitudes in the street. It would be a splendid gesture, and would mean holiday, indeed.”
“But you will not do so,” she said.
“No,” I said.
“Because you are a man of Earth,” she said.
“No,” I said, “because I have no wish to subject a helpless, vulnerable animal to so fearful a fate. It is ugly. It seems to me not fitting.”
“An animal?” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“You see me as an animal?” she said.
“It is what you are,” I said. Surely she knew that though not all animals were slaves, all slaves were animals.
I pointed to my feet.
She rose hurriedly to her feet, hurried to me, and knelt before me, her head down.
Her lips pressed against my sea boots, her wrists braceleted behind her, and I saw the moist imprints on the leather, again and again, and the moist streaks on them, from the caresses of her tongue.
“You are far from the throne of Ar,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Hurry, hurry, Commander!” cried the mariner.
I drew the slave forcibly to her feet, and thrust her, stumbling, into the keeping of the mariner.
“Bring her aboard,” I said.
The slave cried out with joy.
“This woman is a high slave, is she not?” asked the mariner.
“No,” I said. “She is a low slave, a common slave.”
“What shall be done with her?”
“Once she is on board,” I said, “remove her clothing, completely, and then chain her below, with other low slaves, in the foulest of your slave holds.”
“Yes, Commander!” said the mariner.
“You cannot have that done to me,” she said. “You are a man of Earth!”
“I have learned Gor,” I said. “I am of Gor.”
“No!” she said.
“What is a man of Earth?” I asked.
“A pathetic weakling,” she said, “shallow, manipulable, and eager to please, the puppet of a pathological, unnatural culture, a patriot of self-betrayal, one who prides himself on treason to his own blood, the creature of what he is told, one who will not think, one who will not raise his eyes to the stars, nor listen to the beating of his own heart.”
“Perhaps it is not so,” I said.
“There are no Goreans on Earth!” she said.
“You are mistaken,” I said. “There are many. Indeed, in the heart of every male, there is a Gorean, even if only a secret, concealed Gorean. Do you think men are so willing to relinquish manhood, or so stupid as to submit like dumb animals to their impoverishment, belling, and slaughter? Even the mighty larl can be brought down by a swarm of squealing urts, but this does not prove the superiority of the urt to the larl, to the lonely, proud hunter, content in his mountain vastnesses, prowling about, alert and soft-footed, in remote wildernesses.”
She looked behind herself, wildly, as the mariner, his hand on her upper right arm, half dragged her to the gangplank.
I thought of Cecily, waiting in my cabin. When she heard my footstep she would place the switch, crosswise, between her teeth, and await my entry.
One could grow fond of Cecily.
I would then gently remove the switch from between her teeth, and lay it aside.
To be sure, the slave, however much desired and cherished, grateful for the kindness of the master, that she will be kept, as she wishes, in helpless bondage, and joyful in her submission, is not to be allowed to forget that she is a slave, and only that. Accordingly the bindings, blindfoldings, gaggings, occasional strokes, and such, which remind her of her condition, that she is a female and owned, that she is a woman, and her master’s slave. These things, for she is a slave, and desires to be a slave, confirms her bondage, and reassures her, that she is truly what she is, and desires to be, her master’s slave.
I looked up to the rail of the River Dragon. Licinius Lysias was at the rail, looking down. He lifted the small box of bones and shells and shook it, and then pointed to the slave, being half dragged up the gangplank. “I see you, too, have a souvenir of the World’s End,” he said.
I waved to him, and hurried to the gangplank.
I had no sooner crossed it than the mariners drew it inboard.
The ropes were cast off from the mooring cleats by docksmen, and were being drawn aboard the River Dragon by mariners.
I saw the wharf, water risen almost to the planks, begin to slip to the side.
Looking up, I saw the battened sails being raised, and opened to the wind.
The slave, still in the grip of the mariner, had not yet been conducted below.
“What are you going to do with me?” she said.
“Sell you in Brundisium,” I said.
“No!” she said.
“With other slaves,” I said.
“No, no!” she said.
“If I were you,” I said, “I would be reticent about revealing my antecedents, or former history.”
“You cannot sell me!” she said.
“Do not fear,” I said. “Given your veiling, and half-veiling, in your rare public appearances, few will know the former Ubara of Ar by sight. Further, I do not think it is likely that anyone is likely to recognize the former Ubara of Ar in one girl amongst others, vended one after another, in a cheap market in Brundisium.”
“A cheap market?” she said.
“Yes,” I said, “that pleases me. But, too, in such a market you would be less likely to be recognized.”
“But low men,” she said, “patronize such markets.”
“Rejoice,” I said, “in such a market you might prove a genuine bargain.”
“Beast!” she said.
“Perhaps you would prefer the Curulean, in Ar,” I said.
“But who will buy me?” she said.
“He who bids the highest,” I said.
“In such markets,” she said, “girls go for copper!”
“I know,” I said.
“You are amused!” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Tarsk!” she said.
“Doubtless, in time,” I said, “you will have dozens of sales, dozens of collars, and dozens of masters.”
“I hate you,” she said.
I turned to the mariner in whose charge was the slave. “Strip her,” I said, “and see that she is chained with other slaves, in the foulest of the slave holds.”
“She is a low slave then, truly,” said the mariner.
“Yes,” I said, “a low slave, a very low slave.”
The slave then, looking behind her, over her shoulder, her small wrists braceleted behind her, was dragged from my sight.
It occurred to me that she had been, from time to time, insufficiently respectful of a free man, but I effected nothing critical. She would soon learn slave deference, and her new lot in lif
e.
I turned back to the rail. The wharf was slipping sway. I could hear the sails moving in the wind. I looked up from the wharf to the lofty holding of the shogun, Lord Temmu. Clouds were about the graceful roof of the castle. I saw a tarn aflight. I then turned my attention to the east, and the vast, swelling billows of Thassa, extending before me to the horizon.
I thought of astute, patient, brilliant Lord Nishida, of swaying, ponderous Lord Okimoto, poet, and master of calligraphy, and Lord Temmu, his narrow, covetous eyes to the south, and the dominions of Lord Yamada. Haruki would be tending his garden. I thought, too, of bold, young Tajima, so bright, and earnest, and of a slave, Nezumi. And I thought, too, of a short, thickly bodied, homely man, in whose hands a sword could sing, and part a grain of rice on a human forehead.
Thassa lay ahead, and, far off, the continent.
The World’s End was now behind me.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine