by John Norman
“More paga,” said the stranger to the girl, extending the damp, empty goblet to her.
She took the vessel and rose up, backing away, head down, then turning and hurrying to the paga vat.
In a few moments the stranger had renewed his paga, and looked about himself.
“Begin,” said the taverner.
But his eyes were upon the girl.
She, perhaps from the silence, perhaps sensing his gaze, lifted her head, but, seeing his eyes upon her, quickly put down her head, again. Some masters do not permit their girls to look into their eyes, but that is rare. Most wish to relish the beauty of the eyes of their slaves, and enjoy reading in them the most delicate nuances of expression, apprehension, fear, hope, desire, expectation, questioning, readiness, eagerness, supplication, love, and such things.
“What lovely hair she has,” said the stranger.
It was long, dark, and glossy. Yes, the little beast was nicely pelted. As she had allegedly not been long in the collar, I gathered that it must have been much that way even in her former life. I thought it interesting that a girl who must have once been free would have had such hair. Such hair is much favored in female slaves. It was such as might have been grown to enhance the beauty of a slave, grown to increase her slave beauty, grown to interest men, grown to make her more attractive to masters. I wondered if, in some corner of her mind, she had not, even when free, longed for masters. And she now, perhaps to her consternation, and terror, knelt before them, nude and collared.
“That is, in part, why I purchased her,” said the taverner, “in the sales barn at Market of Semris.”
Market of Semris is in the vicinity of Brundisium.
“You have sweet thighs,” said the stranger to the girl.
“I am pleased, if master is pleased,” she said.
He looked at her.
“Forgive me, Master,” she said. “A slave is pleased, if master is pleased.”
“Do not arouse the slave,” whispered the taverner. He then said to the girl, “Keep the palms of your hands down on your thighs.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
Sometimes a slave in nadu begs, turning her hands about, placing the back of the hands on the thighs, this exposing the soft, delicate, sensitive palms of her hands to the master. It is a way of supplicating a caress. To be sure, there are many silent ways in which this may be done. The bondage knot, for example, might be looped loosely in her hair. Too, it is a simple matter for the girl to kneel, or belly, and lick and kiss the master’s feet, daring to look up now and again in mute petition. Verbally, of course, the master’s attention might be variously solicited, from tiny need noises to explicit phrases, such as “I would be reminded of my collar,” “I would kiss the whip of my master,” “Chain me,” “Am I not to be bound tonight, Master,” “A slave begs to be caressed,” and such. And, of course, certain movements, postures, and such, sometimes subtle, are commonly enough to bring the master to her, rope in hand.
I recalled that the taverner had said that fires had begun to burn in her belly. Those, of course, would be slave fires. Perhaps it seems cruel to light such fires in a woman’s belly, which will eventually make her their helpless prisoner, but it is not. First, how can a woman be a true woman whose belly is not periodically, irresistibly, needfully, helplessly aflame, begging for a man’s touch. Second, this is not done with free women, of course, but only with slaves, as they are mere beasts, domestic animals, and it much improves them. Who would want a slave in whose belly slave fires did not burn? Such are the stoutest of chains.
“I do not know what we may hear,” said a man.
“True,” said another.
“Curiosity,” said another fellow, quietly, “is not becoming in a kajira.”
“True,” said the taverner. “She need know nothing of these things. I will have her returned to her cage.”
“Please, no, Master!” whispered the girl. Then she said, quickly, frightened, “Forgive me, Master.”
She had spoken without permission.
“Let her stay,” said the stranger.”
The lapse was slight, and obviously inadvertent, and had been immediately, fearfully, penitently, corrected. Masters use judgment, and common sense. The breach, so natural and trivial, did not require discipline. It was not as though boldness, or intention, had been involved. The punishment of slaves, as that of other animals, kaiila and such, is used sparingly, and seldom without clear justification. Gratuitous cruelty is frowned upon, and seldom occurs on Gor. To be sure, the whip exists, and the slave knows it will be used upon her if she is not pleasing, and fully pleasing. She is, after all, a slave.
The girl looked up, gratefully. How alive, and inquisitive, the little brutes are in their collars. They want to know everything.
Too, she may have wished, nude and collared, to remain in the presence of the stranger. Certainly, the second time, in delivering paga, she had licked and kissed the cup, before lowering her head and extending it to him, with all the fervor and forward lasciviousness of a helplessly aroused kajira, begging to be found worthy of an alcoving. Too, she may have read something in the eyes of the stranger, when he had looked upon her, which shook her to the core. It may have been something simple, such as “I am a master. You are a slave.”
“As you wish,” said the taverner.
“Of course,” said the stranger, “she is to be bound, hand and foot.”
The taverner gestured to his man, and he took up the looped binding fiber which the slave had placed on the yellow, carefully folded camisk. In moments, her small wrists, crossed, had been bound behind her and her ankles, crossed, had been fastened together.
Briefly the slave squirmed a little, trying the fiber, and found herself, as she would have expected, the wholly helpless prisoner of its snug coils.
At a gesture from the stranger to the taverner’s man the slave, nude, bound, and kneeling, was thrust back a little, a foot or two, rather outside the pool of light, rather into the shadowed darkness, presumably that her presence might be less obtrusive, and that she would better know herself for what she was, a woman and a slave.
“Speak,” urged the taverner.
“Speak,” said more than one man.
“I sailed on the great ship,” said the stranger. “Yea, the ship of Tersites.”
Chapter Two
This Occurred Betwixt Cos and Tyros
It was an awesome sight.
One feared it was a ship of no mortal creation, but rather a vessel of Priest-Kings, come from the clouds over the Sardar, gone on air. Yet, as our patrol craft had approached it, and we could more discern its make, it was seen to be clearly formed of wood, carvel-built, six-masted, single-ruddered, massively so, square-sailed.
We detected it first, by the glass of the Builders, from the stem castle, far off, through the fog, not clear, seemingly risen from the sea as might a mountain, as the islands that Thassa sometimes lifts from her bosom, in southern waters, with a roiling of waves, a casting of stones, and smoke and fire, when she pleases.
“It is a fortress, a city!” exclaimed the left helmsman.
“There can be nothing here,” said the captain. “These are open waters. Familiar waters. We know them well.”
“Take the glass, captain,” said the lookout.
“It is an illusion,” said the captain, “a lie whispered by the fog, the sea and wind.”
“The glass, captain,” insisted the lookout.
We were two days out from the port of Telnus, terraced Cos’s southern window to the sea, our mother, mighty Thassa, on routine patrol.
We had heard no report, no rumors. Another day, and a junction with the long ships of Tyros, and we would return to Telnus.
No ship, no vessel, might ply these waters without papers, bearing the seal of either Tyros or Cos.
Thus are the farther islands sheltered, protected from illicit trade, and the wealth of Cos and Tyros conserved.
“It is no illusion,”
said the captain, his eye to the glass.
“What then?” asked his second officer, peering into the fog. The season was nearly over, the time when ships were taken from the water for their wintering, the time when rational mariners withdrew wisely from lashing, gleaming Thassa, leaving her, the mother, to her moods of violence, to her towering, rushing, lifting waves, higher than the masts of round ships, to her bitter storms and cruel ice.
We at the oars, free men all, for our vessel was a long ship, low in the water, knifelike, fit for war, were looking forward to our winter leave, and the paga and girls of the taverns, The Silver Chain, the Beaded Whip, the Pleasure Garden, the Chatka and Curla, the Ubar’s Choice, and others.
“It is moving,” said the captain. “It is no island, no mountain. It is afloat, moving, slowly, but moving.”
“Can we overtake it?” asked the second officer.
“Yes,” said the captain.
“Is it wise to do so?” said the second officer.
“I do not know,” said the captain.
“There is a chill wind,” said the second officer, gathering his cloak about himself.
We, two at an oar, above decks, wore gloves, for the wood was cold.
“Lower the mast,” called the captain.
The single yard was lowered, and the storm sail furled. The mast and yard, with its furled sail, were then lashed down, parallel to the deck. On such ships, as you may know, there are various sails, whose use depends on the weather. The mast is lowered when the ship prepares for action. We were lateen-rigged, as is common, this allowing one to sail closer to the wind. In Torvaldsland, and to the north, it is common to use a single rudder, and a single sail, square-rigged.
The captain pointed toward the object in the distance, indistinct in the fog.
The two helmsmen brought us about.
Another gesture from the captain, this to the keleustes, increased the beat.
As the mast went down our fellows at the springals lit the bucketed fires in which the oil-soaked wrappings on javelin heads might be ignited.
On the long ship, as opposed to some round ships, one does not stand at the oar. And from the thwart, of course, one cannot, while at the oar, see much over the bulwarks. That is just as well, of course, for the bulwarks provide some protection from arrow fire, certainly from most long ships, which, like us, unlike many round ships, are low in the water. Even galleys with rowing frames have comparable shieldings. In any event, without standing, I could see very little, and one does not stand while at the oar, not on the long ship.
While I was at the oar, it would be well for you to understand, and I would have it understood, that I was not an oarsman, not by choice, not by calling, not by rating. One takes what fee one can when needful. I, once a spear of Cos, even a first spear, leader of nine men, with hundreds of others, after the trouble in Ar, scattered, separated from our commands and units, withdrew to Torcadino, and thence, bribing and spending, and then by recourse to brigandage and banditry, made our way by long marches to the sea, to the small coastal outposts and trading stations maintained by Tabor and Teletus, south of Brundisium, from which, with our last bit of silver, even to the surrender of accouterments and weapons, dispirited, hungry, and ruined, we obtained passage, mostly on fishing craft, little more than refugees, some to Tyros, most to Cos. I went first to Jad, city of my birth, city of great Lurius, our Ubar, where I had been enlisted and trained, but swords were plentiful there, and I was scorned, for my blade, with helmet and gear, was gone, having been bartered, in part, together with my last tarsk, for passage, for life, from the continent, and great Lurius, too, given the cessation of the draining of Ar’s wealth, the drying up of that flowing stream of gold, was muchly displeased with the recent events on the continent, and ill-disposed to receive those whom he had once sent to the ships with stirring music and brave banners. Impoverished, weaponless, defeated, despised, and disgraced, those such as I would not be welcomed. We were an embarrassment, visible tokens of a state’s shame. I sought fee then in Selnar, and Temos, but was no more fortunate. The defeat in the south, and the indignity of our retreat marked us, clinging to us as a stain. I became an itinerant laborer, concealing that I had once held rank amongst the spears of Cos. I lived as I could, earning what I might, in one town or another, a tarsk here, a tarsk there, and then it came to my attention, from a peddler come north, encountered in a tavern, that openings for oarsmen were being advertised in Telnus. The patrol fleet was being expanded, that the waters between Tyros and Cos might be better secured, better protected against unregulated shipping, this posing an unwelcome, yea, unacceptable, threat to the welfare and profits of our merchantry. And so it came about that I, who had been a spear of Cos, even a first spear, a leader of nine, who had served in the occupation of Ar, who had served even in the Central Cylinder itself, whose wallet had once been heavy with gold, who had walked proudly, who had been feared in the streets, whom none would dare accost, ventured to Telnus, hungry and destitute, seeking so modest a place as one on the thwarts of a patrol ship. Even so, many were the applicants for a single oar. Things were well in Cos for some, but less so for many. Where coin had been abundant, it was now scarce.
“We cannot use you,” said the examiner.
“Whom might you use better?” I inquired.
“He,” said the examiner, “and he,” indicating two fellows.
“I think not,” I said.
“Contest?” he asked.
“Yea,” I said.
I grappled with each, one after the other, and was twice thrown, and bloodied. I had lost. I lay then on the ground, beaten, in pain, in the bloody mud.
But I heard some men about, striking their left shoulders.
I looked about. I did not see my opponents, who had seemed good fellows, vigorous and brawny, needful of a place, too. They must have gone to the table, to sign the articles, or make their marks upon them.
“You did not do badly,” said a voice, by his insignia that of a harbor marshal.
I struggled to my feet.
“You are strong,” he said. “When have you last eaten?”
“Two days ago,” I said.
“Give him a place,” said the marshal.
We plied our levers, at a ten-beat, which strong men can maintain for as much as an Ahn, and continued this beat for something like twenty Ehn, and then the keleustes, warned to silence, put aside his hammers. The ship drifted forward a bit, noiselessly, through the fog. Then it rocked in place. One could hear the water lapping against the hull.
There was no command to bring the oars inboard.
The beat need not be rung, of course, but may be called softly, from amidships, if appropriate.
But there was only silence.
Then there was a rift in the fog, like the sudden, whispering drawing aside of a curtain, but briefly.
“Aiii!” cried a man.
We stood then, at the thwarts, and first beheld her.
Then the fog again closed in. I did not think we were more than seventy-five yards from her.
It seemed we were a chip, floating on the sea, off the coast of some ponderous, drifting immensity.
“What is it?” asked a man.
“A ship,” said a fellow. “A ship.”
“Oars!” called the captain, and we resumed our position.
“Back oar,” said the second officer, shuddering.
“No,” said the captain. “Stroke!”
“Withdraw,” urged the second officer.
“Stroke,” called the captain.
We did not know if he were curious, courageous, or mad. I think he was a good officer.
The ship moved a little forward, but there was murmuring behind me and to the side, consternation, and I do not think that every oar was drawn. Had we been a round ship I think the lash would have fallen amongst us.
“If you must,” said the second officer, “go closer, look, and then flee, but it is pointless, and none will believe your report.�
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“Stroke,” called the captain.
It is rumored that there were gigantic dragons of the sea, prodigious monsters, lurking beyond the farther islands, aquatic prodigies guarding the end of the world, set there by Priest-Kings, as one might post guard sleen about the perimeter of a camp, but this thing, in the glimpse we had had, was no water-shedding, surfacing monster, toothed and scaled, nothing alive, as least we commonly thought of life, nothing curious, jealous, and predatory.
“Your command will be taken,” said the second officer.
“Stroke,” called the captain, softly, peering into the fog.
“Desist, Captain, I beg of you,” said the second officer.
The captain then was silent, listening.
The patrol ship was not large. She was a light galley, and she, though fitted with ram and shearing blades, was built more for speed and reconnaissance than fencing at sea, the ship the weapon itself. She was only some fifty foot Gorean from stem to stern, some ten feet in her beam. Such ships are less likely to engage a medium- or heavy-class galley than support such larger sisters in their altercations, perhaps hovering about, like a small sleen, awaiting an auspicious moment to take advantage of an otherwise distracted foe. We had only five oars to a side, and a rowing crew of twenty, two to each oar. Our common concern, or prey, were small boats, with a crew of four or five, tiny merchantmen, or smugglers, if you like, hoping to run the blockade to the farther islands. Larger galleys, rogues from the coastal ports, not signatory to the imposed treaties, or, more dangerously, pirates or merchantmen from Port Kar, our enemy, detected, would be reported to Telnus, in theory to be intercepted, if possible, on their return to their home ports. To be sure, interceptions were rare, and it was suspected that this had more to do with understandings and secret fees than faulty intelligence. Many high captains of both Tyros and Cos were wealthy men.
“There,” whispered the lookout, suddenly, pointing.
“Ah!” breathed the captain.
The fog had parted, again, and we could see the monstrous structure, now some fifty yards abeam.