by John Norman
I would never forget the face, nor the touch, of Rask of Treve, nor the long walks, and the speakings, and touchings beyond the palisade.
"Will they be sold in the Curulean? asked a nearby warrior.
"Yes," said the man.
Two of the girls, bound helplessly in the basket, squealed with pleasure. In the beginning, following my total conquer by Rask of Treve, I had been summoned night after night to his tent. I had served him in a delicious variety of ways, to our mutual pleasure, for I had been well trained. I had feared only that my imagination might fall short of the invention of new and exciting ways to please him. Sometimes to my fury, he had tried to put me from him, and had summoned other women to his tent, but often he would send them away again, and it would be I, El-in-or, who would again be commanded to the tent of scarlet canvas, red-silk lined, on its eight poles.
"Did master summon me?" I would ask.
"El-in-or," he would say, opening his arms, and I would run to him. And then he no longer summoned other women to his tent. Then it was only El-in-or, whom he summoned. And then I, to the anger of some of the other girls, was the acknowledged favorite of Rask of Treve, his preferred slave. A heavy, long strap thrust through the wicker, behind me and to the left. It was passed several times about my throat and then drawn through the wicker behind me and to my right. I felt my throat jerked back against the wicker by the strap. The same strap, passing in and out of the wicker, similarly fastened the other girls in place.
Inge and Rena were not in the basket with me. They had been given to the huntsmen, Raf and Pron. In the fashion of Gorean huntsmen, both girls had then been freed and give a head start of four Ahn, that they might escape, if it were in their power. After four Ahn, Raf and Pron, running lightly, carrying snare rope, left the camp. The next morning they had returned, leading Inge and Rena. The thighs of both girls had been bloodied. Their wrists were bound behind their backs with snare rope. Their slave leashes, too, were formed of a loop of snare rope.
"I see you have caught two pretty birds," had laughed Rask of Treve. About the throats of the girls were locked new collars, again of inflexible steel, but now those of huntsmen, vine engraved and bearing the names of their masters.
No scribe it seemed would own Inge, but she would belong to a brutal and powerful huntsman, the handsome Raf of Treve' and Rena's captain of Tyros, he who had contracted for her capture, must now surely be disappointed, and his gold lost, for his lovely prize had been taken by another, at whose feet she kneels joyfully, the handsome and splendid Pron, skilled huntsman of lofty Treve. The next day they left the camp, taking their girls with them. We kissed one another good-bye. "I love you, El-in-or," had said Inge. "I love you, too, Inge," I had wept. "I love you, El-in-or," had said Rena. "I, too, love you," I had said. "I wish you all well."
They then, in the brief green tunics of the slaves of huntsmen, shouldered their burdens and followed their masters through the double gate of the palisade. Their lives would be hard, but I did not think them dismayed, nor unhappy. The huntsman lives a free and open life, as wild and swift, and secret as the beasts he hunts, and his slaves, whom he insists on accompanying him, must, too, learn the ways of the forests, the flowers and the animals, the leaves and wind. I do not know where Raf and Pron may now be, but I know them well served by two wenches, the slave girl, Inge, and the slave girl, Rena, who were well trained in the pens of Ko-ro-ba, and who loves them.
I looked up.
The heavy lid of wicker was now being placed on the tarn basket. Immediately, on the body of the girl across from me, there was a reticulated pattern of shadows. I could not free myself.
The lid was tied down.
The man who would fly the tarn then went to the kitchen shed, to have his lunch. I had sought to please Rask of Treve in many ways, and found, to my astonishment, that I was eager to do so, and took great pleasure in doing so. I wanted to be many women to him, and yet the same, always El-in-or. A man is a strange beast I think, for he both desires one woman and many women, and perhaps most he desires one woman who will be to him many women, others, delicious others, and yet always, too, herself. I became many women to Rask of Treve, fresh females, yet again El-in-or. Sometimes I would be a new girl, frightened, young, much fearing him, as Techne might have been; sometimes I would be as though of the scribes, much as Inge might have been, refined, dismayed at her fate' sometimes as a fine lady, of wealth and position, of high caste, as Rena had been, who now must find herself to be humbled as a mere, rightless, collared wench' and sometimes I would be a lonely slave, or a drunken slave, or a defiant girl, determined to resist, or a cruel red-silk slave, determined herself to conquer, and in all this, always, his El-in-or.
But, too, sometimes Rask of Treve, after touching me, would hold me, and kiss me, for long hours. I did not truly understand him in these hours, but in his arms lay content and fulfilled. And then one night, when the fires were low, for no reason I clearly understood, I begged that I might be permitted to know him. "Speak to me of yourself," he said. I told him of my childhood, my girlhood, and my parents, and the pet my mother had poisoned, and of New York, and my world, and my capture, and my life before it had begun, before he had seen me naked in the cell of the Ko-ro-ban pens. And, too, in various nights, he had spoken to me of himself, and of the death of his parents, and of his training as a boy in Treve, and his learning of the ways of tarns and of the steel of weapons. He had cared for flowers, but had not dared to reveal this. It seemed so strange, he, such a man, caring for flowers. I kissed him. But I feared, that he had told me this. I do not think there was another to whom he had ever spoken this small and delicate thing.
We had begun to take long walks beyond the palisade, hand in hand. We had much spoken, and much loved, and much spoken. It was as though I might not have been his slave. It was then that I had begun to fear that he would sell me. Oh when his need was upon him he would sometimes use me as a slave girl, with harsh authority, sometimes even making me suffer under his domination, and, too, sometimes when my need was upon me I would beg him for chains and cords, that I might be fully owned, or would present myself to him as a contemptuous, untamed girl, who must be conquered, provoking him to my utter conquest, but, too, now, we would sometimes love tenderly, and at sweet length. It depended much upon our moods. Sometimes we were master and slave, and sometimes we were something else, that I dare not speak, but I feared now, much, that he would sell me. For what place could there be for this other thing in the war camp of Rask of Treve.
But mostly we sported and pleasured, hiding from ourselves this other thing, both of us perhaps not wishing to speak it. In one week I had even begged him to place in my nose the tiny golden ring of a Tuchuk slave girl, and in that week I had served him as such, clad even in the Kalmak, Chatka and Curla, my hair bound back with the red Koora. In another week, I had, the nose ring removed, served him as a Torian girl, and in another as a simple wench of Laura, and in another as an exquisite pleasure slave of Ar.
Then one day we had done little but speak to one another, at great length, with much gentleness and intimacy, and in the night, after our lovings, had spoken together, long, lying before the fire. He had held me, sadly. I had known then that he would sell me.
In the morning, after I had returned to the shed, he again summoned me to his tent.
"Kneel," he had said.
I did so, his slave.
"I am tired of you," he told me, suddenly, angrily.
I put down my head.
"I am going to sell you," he said.
"I know," I said, "master."
"Leave, Slave," he said.
"Yes, Maser," I said.
I did not weep until I returned to the shed.
I felt the knots of my wrists being checked, and I winced, as they were tightened. Then my throat, by the straps, was drawn back tighter against the wicker, and this bond, too, was tightened. The other girls, too, winced in protest, some crying out.
I had asked one thing
of Rask of Treve, before, stripped, I had entered the tarn basket.
"Free Ute," I had asked him.
He had looked at me strangely. Then he had said. "I will."
Ute, freed, might then do what she wished. she might go to Rarir, or Teletus, I supposed. But I knew that she would seek out one named Barus, of the Leather Workers, whose name she had often moaned in her sleep. I did not even know his city.
"Into the basket," had said the man who would fly the tarn.
"Yes, Master," I had said to him. I was no longer the slave of Rask of Treve. I now belonged to this stranger, to whom I, and the others, had submitted ourselves. It was he, now, who held absolute power over my life and body. There was now a fresh, but locked, steel collar on my throat.
The man now was checking the knots at the lid of the basket. It was tight. Our ankles were bound together at the center of the basket; our wrists were bound behind our back, to the wicker; our throats were independently secured, the knots outside, keeping us in place. He had finished his lunch. We were stripped, helpless slave girls, his.
I had been sold for nine pieces of gold.
The man mounted to the saddle of the tarn. The tarn screamed and began to beat its wings. Then the basket jerked forward, on its leather runners, and skidded across the clearing, and then, swung below the tarn.
I was on my way to the market.
* * *
I was sold from the great block of the Curulean, in Ar, for twelve pieces of gold, purchased by the master of a paga tavern, who thought his patrons might enjoy amusing themselves with me, a girl who wore penalty brands.
I served for months in the paga tavern. Among those I served were guards, formerly of the caravan of Targo. They were kind to me. One was the fellow whom I had fought, by the fire, but to whom I must now completely yield. Another was the guard who had escorted me to the house of the physician, whom I had once provoked. Another was the one who had caught me, when I had fled from the hut in the forest, and returned me to Targo. And there, too, were others, even he who had driven the slave wagon in which I had been often confined; even he who had first harnessed me to the tongue of Targo's one wagon, when I had first been captured by him. after serving them completely I would press them with questions of Targo, and the other guards, and their slaves. They told me much. Targo had recovered many girls, and was now rich. He was intending another trip northward, though not to do business with Haakon of Skjern. The men I served, Targo's men, and others, who might have me for the price of a cup of paga, I gave much pleasure, and from them, too, I received much pleasure. But none of them were Rask of Treve. That master had won the heart of the slave girl who was Elinor Brinton. She could not forget him.
Then one night I heard, "I will buy her," and I stood transfixed with fear. I could scarcely pour the paga into his cup. The bells on my ankles and wrists rustled. I felt his hand on the bit of diaphanous yellow silk I wore in the tavern. "I will buy her," he said. It was the small man, who had touched me intimately when I had lain bound in my own bed on Earth, the small man who had threatened me in the hut in the northern forests, who had been the mountebank, the master, I had thought, of the strange beast, the terrible beast. It was the man who had wanted me to poison someone. I knew not who.
His hand was now locked on my wrist. I had not escaped him. "I will buy her," he said. "I will buy her."
* * *
The small man bought me for fourteen pieces of gold. I was taken, on tarnback, braceleted and hooded, to the city of Port Kar, in the delta of the mighty Vosk. In a warehouse, near the piers, I knelt, head down, at their feet.
"I will not serve you," I said.
The small man was there, and the beast, squatting, shaggy, regarding me, and, too, to my surprise, Haakon of Skjern.
"I have felt the iron," I said. "I have felt the whip. I will not kill for you. You may kill me, but I will not kill for you."
They did not beat me, nor threaten me.
They lifted me by the arm, and dragged me to a side room. I screamed. There, his wrists bound by ropes to rings, stood a bloodied man, head down, stripped to the waist.
"Eleven men died," said Haakon of Skjern," but we have him."
The man lifted his head, and shook it, clearing his vision. "El-in-or? he said. "Master!" I wept.
I pressed myself to him.
He regarded them. Then he said to me, "I am of Treve. Do not stain my honor." By the hair I was dragged from the presence of Rask of Treve, and his head, again, fell forward on his chest.
The door closed.
"In time," said the small man, "you will receive a packet of poison." I nodded, numbly. Rask of Treve must not die! He must not die!
"You will be placed in the house of Bosk, a merchant of Port Kar," he said. "You will be placed in the kitchen of that house, and you will be used to serve his table."
"I can't," I wept. "I cannot kill!"
"Then Rask of Treve dies," said the small man. Haakon of Skjern laughed. The small man held up a tiny packet. "This," he said, "is the poison, a powder prepared from the venom of the ost."
I shuddered. Death by ost venom is among the most hideous of deaths. I wondered how it was that they could so hate this man, he called Bosk of Port Kar.
"You will comply?" asked the small man.
I nodded my head.
* * *
"Wine, El-in-or!" cried Publius, master of the kitchen of Bosk of Port Kar. "Take wine to the table!"
Numbly, shaking, I took the vessel of wine. I went to the door of the kitchen, and went through the hallway, and stopped before the back entrance to the hall. It had not been as hard as I had feared to be entered into the house. I was sold, for fifteen pieces of gold, to the house of Samos, a slaver of Port Kar. Samos himself was abroad upon Thassa, in ventures of piracy and enslavement, and it was through a subordinate that I was purchased. Publius, the kitchen master of the house of Bosk, drunken, in a dicing match, in a paga tavern of Port Kar, had learned that there was an interesting girl, newly brought to the house of Samos, one who had been trained in the pens of Ko-ro-ba, one who wore the brand of Treve. It was also said that she was beautiful. Publius, who would, upon occasion, need new girls in the kitchen, as others were given away or sold, was intrigued. I suspect he seldom had the opportunity to chain trained pleasure slaves to the wall of his kitchen after the completion of the evening's work.
The subordinate, though in the absence of Samos, thinking to please him, sold me to Publius for only fifteen pieces of gold, which price he had paid. I was thus, in effect, in part, a gift to the house of Bosk from the house of Samos. The house of Bosk and the house of Samos, it seemed, stood on good terms, the one with the other. Both Samos and Bosk, it seems, were members of the Council of Captains, the sovereign power in Port Kar.
I liked the house of Bosk, which was much fortified, spacious and clean. I was not badly treated, though I was forced to do my work perfectly. My master, Bosk, a large man, very strong, did not use me. His woman was the striking, beautiful Telima, from the marshes, a true Gorean beauty, before whom I felt myself only an Earth woman and a slave. There were other beauties in the house; slender, dark-haired Midice, the woman of a captain, Tab; large, blond-haired Thura, the woman of the great peasant, master of the bow, Thurnock; and short, dark-eyed Ula, woman of silent, strong Clitus, once a fisherman of the isle of Cos. Too, there was a slender, strong youth, a seaman, whose name was Henrius, said to be a master of the sword. There was too a free dancing girl, a beauty with high cheekbones, named Sandra, who much pleased herself with the men of Bosk, and earned much moneys in the doing of it. She had been taught to read by another girl, also free, of the Scribes, a thin, brilliant girl, whose name was Luma, who handled much of the intricate business of the great house. And, too, of course, there were many lovely slaves. I was somewhat uneasy. Only too obviously Bosk had an eye for beauty. But he did not use me. His affections, and his touch, were for Telima. How superb she must have been, to have held him among such girls. A Go
rean girl, who has a first-rate man, and wishes to keep him, fights for him. There are generally girls, collared girls, only too eager to take her place.
"Hurry with the wine!" cried Publius, from the kitchen, looking after me. Then he disappeared in the kitchen.
I took the packet of poison from my rep-cloth kitchen tunic, and dissolved it in the wine. I had been told there was enough there to bring a hundred men to an excruciating death. I swirled the wine, and discarded the packet.
It was ready.
"Wine!" I heard from the hall.
I hurried forward, running toward the table. I would serve none but Bosk, he first and he alone. I did not wish more blood on my head.
I stopped halfway to the table. The feasters were watching me.
Rask of Treve must live!
I had recalled how Haakon of Skjern had laughed over his captive.
I asked myself, would he, Haakon, such a mortal enemy, release Rask of Treve, even if I keep my bargain.
I feared he would not, and yet what choice had I. I must trust them. I had no choice.
I did not wish to poison anyone. I knew nothing of such work. I had not been a good person, but I was not a murderess. Yet I must kill.
I remembered, briefly, irrelevantly, that my mother had once poisoned my small dog, which had ruined one of her slippers. I had loved that tiny animal, which had played with me, and had given me the affection, the love, which my parents had denied me, or had been too busy to bestow. It had died in the basement, in the darkness behind the furnace, where it had fled, howling and whimpering, biting at me when I, a hysterical, weeping child, had tried to touch it and hold it. Tears sprang to my eyes.
"Elinor," said Bosk, at the head of the table. "I want wine. He was one of the few men, or women, on Gor who spoke my name as it had been spoken on Earth. I slowly approached him.
"Wine!" called Thurnock.
I did not go to the peasant.
"Wine!" cried Tab, the captain.
I did not go to him.
I went to Bosk, of Port Kar. I would pour the wine. Then I would be seized, and, doubtless by nightfall, tortured and impaled.