by John Norman
I was much pleased.
Subconsciously now, from day to day, my body began to reveal me truly as a slave girl. I was no longer even aware of it. There are dozens of subtle movements, tiny things, almost discernible, but which one notices, almost without noticing, about the movements of a slave girl, things which, cumulatively, distinguish, and very obviously, her movements from those of a free woman.
I now no longer moved as a free woman, even a beautiful one, of Earth. I now moved, and naturally, as what I was, uninhibited and shameless, taunting, catlike, insolent, a Gorean slave girl.
Once, when I got to my feet in the cage and walked across the straw, Inge, who was kneeling nearby, said, unexpectedly, suddenly, "You are a slave, El-in-or!" I leaped at her and slapped her. Tears sprang to her eyes. "Slave! she screamed. I seized her by the hair and kicked her. Then, scratching and cursing, we began to roll and fight in the straw. Lana laughed. "Do not quarrel!" suddenly it felt like the top of my head was being yanked off and I heard Inge scream with pain.
A guard was now in the cage and had each of us, separated, bend over, held by the hair.
Inge and I then did not move so much as a muscle.
I was suddenly afraid that I would be beaten. I had been beaten only once, when first enslaved by Lana, with straps, at the side of the slave wagon. Never had a man beaten me. I was terrified of having the full five-strap Gorean slave lash, wielded with the full strength of a man, used on me. I was too sensitive to pain. The other girls, common girls, might be beaten, but not I. It would hurt me too much. They could not understand how it would feel to me, how much it would hurt!
"She started it!" I cried out.
"She slapped me!" cried Inge. Inge was frightened, too. She was only of the scribes, and, too, feared the lash. Bur she would not have felt it as cruelly as I would have, for she was more common than I, less sensitive, less delicate. "She started it!" I cried. "She slapped me first!"
Ute gasped.
"Don't beat me," I wept. "She started it! She slapped me first!"
"Liar!" screamed Inge.
"Liar!" I screamed at her.
Ute was looking at me with disappointment. Lana was laughing.
"The guard outside," said Lana. "He saw!"
Held by the hair, bend over, my heart sank. I was a slave girl who had been caught in a lie. I trembled.
But neither I, nor Inge, was beaten.
The guard grinned.
It had not surprised him, as it apparently had Ute, that I was a lying slave girl. He had, apparently, to my irritation, not expected anything else of me. I realized that how I was regarded in the pens.
I was angry.
Our hands were tied behind our backs. The guard, then, pulling me by the hair, dragged me to one side of the cage, and took my hair and knotted it about one of the crossbars of the cage, about a foot above my head. He then took Inge to the opposite side of the cage, put her standing against the walls of the bars there, facing me, and similarly fastened her in place. She winced.
The guard than left the cage, locking the gate behind him. "Sleep well, Slaves," he said.
Lana rolled luxuriously on the straw. "Good-night, Master," she called. "Good-night, Wench," said he.
He looked at Ute. Ute lay down on the straw. "Good-night, Master," she whispered.
He nodded. Then he looked at me. "Good-night, Master," I said.
When he looked at Inge, she, too, responded so.
Then he left.
Some hours later, some hours before dawn, Inge looked at me, hatred in her eyes. "You are a liar, El-in-or," she said.
"You are a fool," I said.
The next morning, when the guard unbound our hair from the crossbars, Inge and I collapsed to the steel plating that floored our cage. In our misery we scarcely noticed that he had unbound our wrists. I lay in the straw, my face pressed into it, feeling the obdurate steel beneath it.
Then, after some time, I crawled to Inge. "I am sorry," I said, "Inge." Inge looked at me, her eyes hard. Her body, too, was in pain, from the miseries of the night.
"Forgive me, Inge," I asked.
Inge looked away.
"El-in-or is sorry, Inge," said Ute. I was grateful to Ute.
Inge did not look upon me.
"El-in-or was weak," said Ute. "She was afraid."
"El-in-or is a liar," said Inge. Then she looked at me, directly, with hatred. "El-in-or is a slave," said Inge.
"We are all slaves," said Ute.
Inge put her head down on her knees.
Tears came to my eyes. Ute put her arms about me. "Do not weep, El-in-or," she said.
I pulled away from Ute, suddenly angry. Ute went to her own portion of the cage. What Inge had said was true. I was a slave.
I rolled over on my back in the straw and stared at the ceiling, more steel plating, the flooring of the cage in the tier above us.
But, unlike Inge, I was a superb, and exciting, slave!
I heard the sandals of the guard approaching, outside, on the grating before the tier of cages. I leapt to my feet and pressed against the bars.
"Master!" I called.
He stopped.
I thrust my hand through the bars, toward him.
He took a hard candy from his pouch, and held it, outside of my reach. I struggled to reach the candy. I could not. Then he handed it to me. "Thank you, Master," I said. I put the candy in my mouth. I had known his step. Few of the guards carried candies. I was pleased with myself. I did not think Inge would have succeeded in winning a candy from him.
I sat in the straw and sucked the candy.
"I forgive you, El-in-or," said Inge. Her voice sounded weary.
I did not answer her, for I feared she might want to taste the candy, that it would be a trick on her part.
I heard Lana approach. She thrust out her hand. "Give it to me," she said. "It's mine," I said.
"Give it to Lana," said Lana. "I am first in the cage." She was stronger than I.
I gave her the candy and she put it in her mouth.
I crawled to Inge. "Do you really forgive me, Inge?" I asked.
"Yes," said Inge.
I crawled away from Inge, and lay down on my belly in the straw.
What Inge had said was true. I was a slave.
I rolled over on my back in the straw and again stared at the ceiling, that obdurate steel plating, the flooring of the cage in the tier above us. I lay there naked in the straw feeling the steel plating beneath my back. "Yes, I was a slave. "Yes," I said to myself, "you are a slave, Elinor." The panther girls taught you that, and the man in the hut. You are a natural slave. I lifted one knee. But you are a beautiful slave, and a clever slave, I told myself. I rolled onto my belly in the straw and picked up a bit of straw and poked at the floor with it.
Odd, I thought, how Elinor Brinton, she who had been so rich, so elegant, so arrogant, she who had been of Park Avenue, she who had owned the Maserati, was now, on a distant world, only this, a common slave, naked, on her belly in straw, steel plating beneath it, behind heavy bars, caged, merchandise. I had no hope of returning to Earth. The men in the silver ship had doubtless been of another world, not this one. I had seen no ships, nor men, such as they, on this world. Besides, for all I knew, they might be even more terrible, and fierce, than those of the black ship. I had no desire to meet them. I was also frightened by the memory of the huge golden creature who had accompanied them. Such men, and such a creature, I was sure, would not be likely to return me to Earth. I had seen their power, when they had destroyed the black ship. I was frightened. And, I mused, the men of the black, disklike ship, who had brought me here, were not such that I would expect them, even if they should find me, which I regarded as unlikely, to return me to Earth. I had learned I could not bargain with them. In the hut I had learned what I was to them, only the most abject of female slaves, a girl fit only to kneel at their feet and beg to be commanded. And even if I should serve them, might I not then, that I might not fall into the
hands of their enemies, or reveal their plans and plotting, be slain? And even if I did serve them, and they, in their lenience, spared me, I knew that I would be kept by them only as a girl, another slave, to be sold or disposed of as they saw fit. I was pleased that I had escaped in the forest. They would have little hope of finding me again. The chances that I might have found my way back to Targo's chain, or be returned to him, were not high. Indeed, it would have been probable that I, naked and bound, alone, defenseless in the forest, would have died of exposure or fallen prey to panthers or sleen.
My thoughts strayed back to that terrible night, when I fled from the hut, into the darkness, leaving the beast feeding on the carcass of the destroyed, bloodied sleen.
I shuddered.
I had run madly away, through the dark trees, stumbling, falling, rolling, getting up and running again. Sometimes I ran between the great Tur trees, on the carpeting of leaves between them, sometimes I made my way through more thickset trees, sometimes through wild, moonlit tangles of brush and vines. I even found myself, once, when passing through the high Tur trees, at the circle, where the panther girls had danced. I saw the slave post to one side, where I had been tied. The circle was deserted. I fled again. At times I would stop and listen for pursuit, but there was none. The man, too, fearing the beast in its feeding frenzy, had fled. I most was afraid that the beast itself might follow me. But I was sure that it would not soon do so. I do not think it was even aware I had fled the hut. I expected it to feed until it was gorged, and then perhaps it would sleep. Once I nearly stumbled on a sleen, bending over a slain Tabuk, a slender, graceful, single-horned antelopelike creature of the thickets and forests. The sleen lifted its long, triangular jaws and hissed. I saw the moonlight on the three rows of white, needlelike teeth. I screamed and turned and fled away. The sleen returned to its kill. As I fled I sometimes startled small animals, and once a herd of Tabuk. I tried, in the moonlight, to run in the same direction, to find my way from the forest, somehow. I feared I would run in circles. The prevailing northern winds, carrying rain and moisture, had coated the northern sides of the high trees with vertical belts of moss, extending some twenty or thirty feet up the trunk. By means of this device I continued, generally, to run southward. I hoped I might find a stream, and follow it to the Laurius. As I ran through the darkness, I suddenly saw, before me, some fifty or sixty yards away, four pairs of blazing eyes, a pride of forest panthers. I pretended not to see them and, heart pounding, turned to one side, walking through the trees. At this time, at night, I knew they would be hunting. Our eyes had not met. I had the strange feeling that they had seen me, and knew that I had seen them, as I had seen them, and sensed that they had seen me. But our eyes had not directly met. We had not, so to speak, signaled to one another that we were aware of one another. The forest panther is a proud beast, but, too, he does not care to be distracted in his hunting. We had not confronted one another. I only hoped that I might not be what they were hunting. I was not. They turned aside into the darkness, padding away. I nearly fainted. I felt so helpless. I pulled at my bound wrists, but they were uncompromisingly secured behind my back.
Then, to my joy, I felt a drop of rain on my naked body, and then another. And then, suddenly, with the abruptness of the storms of the Gorean north, the cold rains, in icy sheets, began to pelt downwards. In the forest, tied, bound, in the icy rain, I threw back my head and laughed. I was overjoyed. The rain would wipe out my trail! I might escape the beast! I doubted that even a sleen, Gor's most perfect hunter, could follow my trail after such a downpour. I laughed, and laughed, and then, crouching, hid in some brush, trying to protect myself from the rain.
After some two hours the rain stopped and I crawled out from the brush and again continued my way southward.
I no longer feared pursuit, but I was now more aware that I had been of my predicament in the forest itself. I tried to run through the binding fiber that held my wrists, rubbing it against the trunk of a fallen tree, but I could not loosed it, or rub through it. Gorean binding fiber is not made to be so easily removed from a girl's wrists. After an hour I was bound as securely as before.
I decided I had better keep moving.
I felt helpless, vulnerable and futile. I was like an animal without hands, a four-footed animal, save that I had no hide to protect me, but only the softness of my flesh, and I did not have the delicate senses, the smell and the hearing of such animals to protect me, and I did not have their swiftness, the fleetness of their flight. I was ripe quarry.
I pulled at my wrists, helplessly.
I fled southward.
I was hungry.
At bushes I stopped and nibbled at berries.
Then, shortly before noon, I stumbled onto a small stream, which could only be a tributary of the Laurius.
I flung myself down on the pebbles of its shore and lapped the fresh water, slaking my thirst.
Then, rising, I entered the stream, feeling its cold waters on my ankles, and waded downstream. I wished to take this further precaution against leaving a trail behind me, a stain of odor on a twig, a dampness of perspiration on a leaf.
I followed the stream for an Ahn, sometimes stopping to lift my head to overhanging branches, to nibble at hanging fruit.
Then the stream joined a larger stream, and I followed that further. I had little doubt that this larger stream would join the Laurius.
As I waded in the water, bound, I asked myself if I should try to make my way to the Laurius, and thence to Laura. There I would be fed. There, too, I would be re-enslaved. I asked myself if I should not rather try to find a hut in the forest, where there might be a slave girl, who would unbind me, and give me food. She surely would not want her master to see me, for I was beautiful. Then I was frightened, for what if the girl would slay me, or sell me herself secretly, to hunters, or give me to panther girls, who would make me their slave, or sell me. They might even return me to the man and the beast in the hut, for more arrowpoints!
I did not know what to do. I was in misery.
Also, recalling that I had been sold for only one hundred arrowpoints, for some reason, irritated me. It made me furious. Surely I was worth much more. As girls went, I was valuable. I should have brought pieces of gold! Not arrowpoints! In my anger I did not notice the man, standing back in the brush, near the shore of the stream.
Suddenly a leather loop fell about my neck. I was startled, and turned. It drew tight. I was snared.
Bound, naked, helpless as a Tabuk, I was snared.
He drew me toward him.
I was pulled from the edge of the stream, where I had waded. I felt the pebbles of the shore under my feet, and then grass, and then, whether from hunger, or exhaustion, or fear, everything went black, and I fainted.
I awakened sometime later. I was being carried in a man's arms. I wore his shirt. It was longer than a common female slave tunic. The sleeves were rolled back. It was warm. My hands were no longer cruelly bound behind my back. A loop of binding fiber had been tied about my belly and knotted in back. My hands were confined in front of me by slave bracelets. The binding fiber, in its center, had been knotted about the chain of the bracelets, so that my hands were held close to my belly. The loose ends of the binding fiber had then been knotted together behind my back, so that I could not reach the knot. The bracelets were not tight, but I could not slip them. I did not care.
"You are awake, El-in-or," he said.
It was one of Targo's guards, he who had guarded me at the physician's. "Yes, Master," I said.
"We though that we had lost you."
"I was stolen by panther girls," I said. "They sold me to a man. There was a beast. He fled. I escaped." I was conscious of the strength of his arms. They frightened me. "I am still white silk," I told him.
"I know," he said.
I reddened.
"Fortunately for you," he said.
I looked down.
Suddenly he dropped me.
"You are awake," he said.
"You can walk."
Sitting on the grass, in pain, displeased, I looked up at him.
"No, I cannot walk, I said. "I cannot even stand."
He tied up the shirt in the back, sticking it into the binding fiber. He then went and cut a switch.
When he returned I was on my feet.
"Good," he said. He pulled down the shirt and threw away the switch. I walked before him.
"Targo had already left Laura," he said. "We will join him across the river, at the night's camp."
We walked on.
"If you had left Laura with Targo," he said, "you might have seen Marlenus of Ar."
I gasped. I had heard of the great Ubar.
"In Laura?" I asked.
"Sometimes he comes north, with some hundred tarnsmen, for the hunting in the forests," said the guard.
"What does he hunt?" I asked.