The sacks into which the girls had been inserted, naked and bound, were slave sacks. They are extremely stout, heavy sacks and heavily, and doubly, sewn. The intent of this is to make them sturdy leather prisons, containers from which a girl cannot escape and in which she is absolutely helpless. A consequence of the thickness of the material and the sturdiness of the construction, of course, is that the sack, almost inadvertently, affords the girl a great deal of protection. Neither Iwoso nor Bloketu would sustain skin or body damage as a result of what was being done to them. And certainly we would not have wanted them marked. Most men prefer soft, smooth slaves. Indeed, in the cities, some slaves are even shaved or depilated.
I turned the kaiila about, again, at the far end of the thoroughfare or promenade, that long, dusty avenue between the Yellow-Knife lodges, and began to make my way back, once more, along its length.
I looked back. Dust, from the paws of the kaiila, was billowing behind me. Let the girls fight for breath. I grinned. I wished that I were within the coup system. Surely some sort of high coup would be involved, dragging a high lady of the Yellow Knives, one of their own proud free women, in a sack, up and down, back and forth in their own promenade lane, like a common slave girl. Surely that would be worth at least a feather or some sort of marking on a feather.
I increased my speed.
I wondered if Iwoso had speculated on why their heads had been left uncovered, or why we had not enclosed one girl completely and left the head of the other free, why we had treated the slave and the free woman identically. Slave girls, when being transported in sacks, for example, on wagons or on the shoulders of men, are usually completely within the sack, it being tied shut over their head. This helps keep the girl in ignorance as to her whereabouts and what is going on about her. This is thought suitable for slaves. She is also, after having been in a sack for a time, likely to be extremely grateful to he who releases her and very fearful that he might, if displeased with her, return her to it. Also, of course, many sorts of commodities on Gor are transported in this fashion. In the cities, of course, when inserting girls within sack bonds, it is common to observe a difference, where it exists, between a slave and a free woman. Commonly a slave would be enclosed completely in the sack and a free woman, if no risk were involved in doing it, would be bound in the sack only from the neck down. This kind of difference in binding, or shackling, in which the free woman wears easier or more comfortable bonds than the slave, is in deference to the status of the free woman. When she, too, is enslaved, then, of course, she and the slave will be likely to wear identical bonds. To be sure, much depends on context.
For example, if the two sacks were to be dragged in the dust behind tharlarion then it might be the case that the free woman, for her greater comfort, would be enclosed completely in the leather confinement and the slave would be bound only from the neck down, this once again, and again to the detriment of the slave, observing the distinctions in bindings between them. Iwoso, of course, would presumably not be familiar with binding distinctions in the cities. Had she, thus, been bound more leniently than Bloketu, particularly since she was being bound by Hci, who seemed to bear her great hatred, she might have become suspicious. Thus we left the heads of both of the girls uncovered. This fitted in well, incidentally, with common practices among the red savages in dragging slaves about for, say, punishment or sport.
The heads of the slaves are usually left free. Similarly they are seldom gagged. In these ways they provide greater amusement for the spectators. Their expressions may be the more easily seen and their cries for mercy, or promises of better service, or assurances of reformed behavior, or even of perfect behavior, may be the more clearly heard. Sometimes the young men organize races in which slave girls are dragged behind the kaiila. When the young men set themselves to the development of such plans small slave girls in a camp, particularly white ones, tend to become afraid, for they know that they are not much weight for a kaiila to pull.
I turned the kaiila in a wide circle at the end of the promenade, the bags, like swift, twin plows, taut on their ropes, throwing up two trails of dust.
By now it seemed to me that Iwoso would have had time to expel her gag.
I hoped that I had loosened it sufficiently.
I looked back. The bags and ropes were covered with dust. I slowed my speed a little.
Suddenly there was a wild screaming from behind me, and a wild crying out, in what I assumed must be Yellow Knife.
I stopped the kaiila for a moment. It had certainly taken her long enough to get the gag out of her mouth.
Iwoso was sitting up in her sack, her head between its handles. She leaned forward, screaming. Such noise, I was confident, would soon rouse much of the camp.
I then, in order to be near the far end of the promenade, that nearest the open prairie, moved the kaiila appropriately down the long track between the lodges. By the tension on the rope attached to the handles of her sack Iwoso was then jerked backwards and again, almost horizontal, was being dragged behind me in the dust. This time, however, she was screaming wildly. I thought it well to hasten the kaiila, to convince her that I might be alarmed. I saw more than one Yellow-Knife warrior emerging from a lodge. They, I noted, like warriors of the Kaiila, and of the red savages generally, apparently slept naked. The slaves of such warriors, too, are often slept naked, particularly when they are within arm's reach of their masters.
At the end of the promenade, by the last few lodges, I again stopped the kaiila.
From this point I could easily escape into the night.
"Please be silent, Lady Iwoso!" I called to the Yellow-Knife maiden.
She saw fit, however, as I had conjectured, to ignore my suggestion, well-intended though it might have been.
I could now see more than one man running after us. I was more worried about those I could not see, who might be busy unhobbling kaiila behind their lodges.
Some men and women, too, stood near the nearby lodges, as though trying to grasp what might be taking place.
I permitted Iwoso, for a few moments more, to sit there behind me in the dust, tied in her sack, crying out. I was pleased to note that she was uttering a complexity of verbiage and, thus, was presumably not merely attempting to summon help. She seemed to be intent upon communicating something of consequence to the Yellow Knives. I did not speak Yellow Knife but I was reasonably confident as to what the main content of her message would be. This was a message, too, which I was confident she would wish to deliver for, in delivering it, she would be attempting to lay the groundwork for her eventual, if not immediate, rescue.
"That will be sufficient, Lady Iwoso," I told her, in Kaiila, and then, with perhaps an overly dramatic gesture, but one whose effect was not lost on the Yellow Knives, I threw aside the robe I had worn. It landed, happily, on a Yellow Knife who was charging from the side, causing him to lose his balance and fall. I kicked back into the flanks of the kaiila and the animal bolted forward. Iwoso was again jerked to the near-horizontal, that position approved for females being dragged in a slave sack, and was, in an instant, speeding cooperatively behind me. A Yellow-Knife warrior lunged wildly for the sack but fell short, sprawling in the dust. I had timed it rather well, I thought. A few yards out into the prairie I did stop again. I looked back. The camp was well astir. I heard shouts of rage. Men were running about. Then I again urged my kaiila into the night, drawing the two sacks behind me in the grass. I did not have time to dally. I had two women to deliver, one to Cuwignaka and one to Hci.
I must make it to a certain flat, barren rock. The mode of their delivery we had rehearsed several times, under similar conditions, with Mira. I could not hope, of course, in the ordinary run of things, to outdistance pursuing Yellow-Knife kaiila, certainly not with so short a start and drawing the weight of two such deliciously packed slave sacks. We did not want to cut the sacks free, of course. We wanted what was in them.
I heard cries behind me.
Pursuit was closer t
han I liked.
In a few Ehn I arrived at the rock, urging my kaiila up its sloping face. It scrambled, slipping, but then caught its footing, and attained its summit, some forty feet above the level of the plain.
The three moons were full, and beautiful.
I dismounted and pulled the two slave sacks across the stone to my feet. I removed the rope by means of which the two sacks had been drawn from the pommel of my saddle. I then removed the rope's ends from the large, closed, high handles of the sacks.
Across the prairie I could see riders approaching, some four or five in the lead, and others, drawn out, behind them.
I cut the rope apart in the center. I then threaded one length of the rope through the handles on Bloketu's sack and tied the two ends together, drawing it up from the handles in such a way as to make a long, double loop, the two high portions of the loop well above the handles and adjacent to one another; I then, with the other length of the rope, did the same thing with Iwoso's sack.
The lead riders, then, had stopped. They seemed confused about the trail. Perhaps it had crossed another trail. Certainly it did not seem likely that it would lead to this upjutting, flat-topped, weathered rock. Other riders, then, from the village, caught up with them.
I scanned the skies. There was no sign of Cuwignaka or Hci.
I looked down at Iwoso, laced securely, helplessly in her sack. "You seem to be missing your gag," I said.
She remained absolutely quiet. Had she not tricked me into the loosening of her gag, in the lodge, giving her an opportunity to cry out and raise the alarm, an opportunity which she had well exploited? It was little wonder she was quiet. Doubtless now, so fully at my mercy, she must be wary of my wrath. I glanced at Bloketu. Her gag was still fixed as firmly, as perfectly, in her mouth, as the first moment it had been put there.
The riders were now again approaching.
Slave sacks, as you may have gathered, are known not only among the red savages but also among the men of the cities. Given their obvious utility, among men who own and master women, they may have arisen independently in both places. Their appearance in diverse loci, for example, need not imply borrowing. Such sacks, however, do have a utility among the men of the tower cities which they are not likely to have, or would seldom have, among the bold savages of the Barrens. To understand this utility it is well to understand that on Gor slaving, like marketing and farming, is a business. One of the problems which often arises in this business is that of getting the capture from, say, her own bedroom to your pens where she may be properly branded and collared, and taught to kiss and obey, later to be retailed naked from a suitable outlet, into her new life as a slave.
I heard cries below me. The riders below had seen the approach of the tarn almost as soon as I had.
Cuwignaka would be in the lead. The large wooden hook dangled from the girth rope of his tarn.
"There are the sounds of pursuers," said Iwoso. "They will soon be here. Free me. You cannot escape."
I lifted Bloketu to her feet, holding her with my left arm, the double loop in my right hand.
"What are you doing?" asked Iwoso.
I kept my eye on the approaching tarn.
"Free me," said Iwoso. "You cannot escape."
Cuwignaka's tarn seemed suddenly upon us. It was moving at great speed. The wooden hook was no more than four or five feet from the surface of the rock. Iwoso, startled, at my feet, screamed. I flung the double loop over the hook. Bloketu, at what must have been a breathtaking acceleration, was jerked upward and away.
"No, no!" screamed Iwoso.
I lifted her to her feet. She squirmed in the sack, her eyes wild with terror.
"Please, no!" whispered Iwoso. Then I had flung the double loop on her sack over the hook on Hci's tarn and she, her scream fading in the distance, was lofted away into the night.
The Yellow Knives, below, looked upward in consternation. I trusted that Canka, on one of the tarns we had purloined from the Kinyanpi, would soon make his appearance.
One of the Yellow Knives pointed to me. I was still on the rock. Two or three of them, suddenly, began to urge their kaiila toward me.
I turned about. Canka's tarn swept by. My own tarn, on a long tether, held by Canka, was only yards behind. I heard the scratching of kaiila claws on the rock face. I extended my hands and thrust my arms through the rope netting, it dangling from the girth rope of my tarn, and whipping and snapping, too, at the surface of the rock it skimmed. I seized then the netting with my hands and felt myself drawn up and away from the rock. After I had caught my breath I climbed by the netting and girth rope to the back of my tarn and took my place there. Canka, with a cry of congratulations, hurled me the tether and I coiled it and put it beneath the girth rope. The tarns of Cuwignaka and Hci, with their lovely cargoes, were now far in the distance. I circled once, broadly, looking back. Several of the Yellow Knives, on their kaiila, were now on the large, flat surface of the rock.
I then turned my tarn to follow the tarns of my friends.
To be sure, we had given up one kaiila, but that, perhaps, was not too much considering that we had obtained Iwoso. It was the first time, I supposed, that the Yellow-Knife beauty had been, in effect, exchanged for a kaiila. I did not know whether or not it would be the last.
I looked up at the glorious sky, with its moons and clouds. I began to sing, a warrior song, one from Ko-ro-ba.
After a time, looking back, I became aware of another shape in the sky. It was two or three hundred yards behind me, above me and to my right. It was a great, black tarn. I turned my tarn to meet it. We looped about. Then I took my tarn down to the prairie. The other tarn, too, then, alit near me, on the grass.
"Greetings, old friend," I said. "It has been a long time."
44
Yellow Knives Come to Council Rock
"Oh!" said Iwoso, wincing, as I pulled tight the knots on her wrists, fastening them back and on each side of the stout post.
"How dare you treat me like this?" asked Iwoso.
"Rejoice," I told her, "that you are not being bound in whipping position."
"Whipping position?" she said. "But I am a free woman!"
"It is not only slaves who may be whipped when their captors please," I told her.
She shrank back, her back against the post. To be sure, she was not tied with her belly against the post and her hands over her head, out of the way of the lash, or kneeling, her hands tied in front of her, about the post, common whipping positions.
I then crouched down and roped her ankles, closely, to the post.
"I am a free woman," she said. "It is undignified for me to be tied to a post."
"Hci has decided it," I said.
"Hci!" she cried. "What right has he to decide such things?"
"He is your captor," I said.
"Oh," she said, frightened. I suspect that there were few things which the sly, clever Iwoso feared in this world, but, high among them, I had little doubt, were the scarred face and fierce heart of Hci, of the Isbu Kaiila.
I then stood up and unlooped some more rope.
There were two posts. They were wedged deeply in a fissure in the surface of Council Rock, near the brink of the escarpment. From the position of the posts one could see the prairie, hundreds of feet below, for pasangs about, particularly to the west. The posts, too, because of their position near the edge of the escarpment, commanded a fine view of the main, sloping trail leading up to the summit.
I then, looping rope about Iwoso's belly, twice, snugly, pulled her back against the post, roping her closely to it. There was a deep notch in the back of the post, into which the rope fitted, to prevent slippage.
"You might have permitted us clothing," said Iwoso.
"No," I said. Bloketu, naked, was already bound to the first post.
Not only would the girls command an excellent view of the prairie, especially to the west, and of the main trail to the summit, but those who might approach from this direction or ascend
the trail should, similarly, be able to entertain an excellent view of the girls.
They were prominently displayed.
"As a free woman," said Iwoso, "I am not used to being exhibited naked."
"It has already been decided," I said.
"By Hci, of course?" she said.
"Yes," I said.
"Of course," she said, bitterly.
I then unlooped some more rope.
"It is an excellent view," commented Iwoso, lightly.
"Yes," I said.
"To what do we owe this extraordinary privilege," she asked, "that we are permitted this view, this fresh air, that we have been relieved of our hoods and our bonds in the prison lodge?"
I looped the rope twice about her neck and then three times more under her chin and about the post, slipping it deeply into the notch in the back of the post which, like the lower notch, serves to prevent slippage.
"Today," I said, "you are to be judged."
"Judged!" she cried.
"Yes," I said. I then jerked tight the knot, the rope secure in its notch, behind the post. Iwoso's head, like Bloketu's, was then roped back helplessly against the post.
"But I am an animal," cried Bloketu. "I am only a slave!"
"You will be freed prior to your judgment," I told her. "You may then, in the full accountability, helplessness and vulnerability of the free woman, face justice."
Bloketu moaned in misery.
Iwoso began to squirm madly in the ropes. I regarded her. "Struggle, free woman," I said. "It will do you no good."
Iwoso, irrationally, frenziedly, fought the ropes. Then, regarding me in misery and terror, she ceased her struggles. She was held, of course, as helplessly as before.
"Bring me a kaiila," she whispered. "Help me to escape. I will make you rich among the Yellow Knives!"
"What of her?" I asked, indicating Bloketu.
"She is only a slave," said Iwoso. "Leave her. Let her face justice."
Bloketu regarded her, piteously.
"Do not even dare to speak, Slave," said Iwoso.
Blood Brothers of Gor Page 48