by John Norman
* * * *
"Why are you bound for Schendi?" asked Ulafi of me. It was late evening now. I stood again by the rail.
"I have never been there," I said.
"You are not of the metal workers," he said.
"Oh?" I asked.
"Perhaps you know Chungu," said he.
"The hand on watch," I said.
"He," said Ulafi.
"By sight," I said. I did remember him quite well. He was the fellow who had passed me on the northern walkway of the Rim canal, when I had been on my way to the pier of the Red Urt. I had seen him, too, later, in the vicinity of the desk of the wharf praetor.
"Before the general alarm was permitted to sound in Port Kar, in the matter of apprising the wharves of the news of an escaped slave," said Ulafi, "we, naturally, conducted a search for her ourselves. We expected to pick her up without difficulty in a few minutes, you understand."
"Of course," I said.
"She was naked, and a barbarian," said Ulafi. "Where could she go? What could she do?"
"Of course," I said.
"Yet she was clever," said Ulafi.
"Yes," I said. She had stolen a garment and concealed herself, unmarked and uncollared, among she-urts. I had no doubt that she was a highly intelligent girl. That intelligence could now be applied, now that she was a slave, to the pleasing of masters.
"We did not wish to annoy the praetor," said Ulafi.
"It would be embarrassing, too, I suspect," I said, "for one of Schendi, and one who was a captain, too, to call public attention to the fact that he had lost a girl."
"Would you like to be thrown overboard?" asked Ulafi.
"No," I said, "I would not like that."
"Would this not have been embarrassing for anyone?" asked Ulafi.
"Of course," I said. "Forgive me, Captain."
"When we decided to enlist the aid of guardsmen, and inquire into the reports of citizens," said Ulafi, "we had the general alarm rung. One of my men, Chungu, was hunting for the girl in the vicinity of the Rim canal. In that area he saw two assailants, a man and his female accomplice, subdued by one who wore the garb of the metal workers. Further, this deed was apparently performed with dispatch, a dispatch scarcely to be expected of one who was of the metal workers. Soon the fellow who wore the garb of the metal workers had left. He had paused little longer than was necessary to awaken the girl to consciousness, rape her, and tie her to the man whose accomplice she had been."
"Oh," I said.
"When the alarm rang," said Ulafi, "Chungu returned to the ship."
"You were the fellow in the garb of the metal workers," said Ulafi.
"Yes," I said.
"When the assailants were brought to the praetor's desk, too," said he, "it was seen that their wrists had been bound with capture knots."
"I see," I said.
"Such knots are tied by a warrior," he said.
"Perhaps," I said.
"Why are you bound for Schendi?" asked Ulafi.
"If you knew me not of the metal workers," I asked, "why did you permit me to mark the blond-haired slave?"
"I wished to see what you would do," he said.
"You risked a badly marked thigh on the girl," I said.
"The mark was perfect," said Ulafi.
"Thus you see," said I, "that I am truly of the metal workers."
"No," said Ulafi. "I knew you were not of the metal workers. Thus I saw that you were truly of the warriors."
"Should I have blurred the brand?" I asked.
"That would have been a shame," said he, smiling.
"True," I grinned. All men like a well-marked girl.
"Too," said he, "that would have shown, had you done poorly, that you were not of the metal workers."
"Might I not have been a slaver, or one who did work with them?" I asked.
"Perhaps," said Ulafi, "but that would not have well fitted in with the dispatch with which the assailants were handled, or the knotting on their wrists, or, indeed, with your general mien, how you walk and sit, and look about yourself, your eyes, how you handle yourself."
I looked out to sea. The three moons were high abeam. The sea was sparkling.
"Was it important to you to leave Port Kar when you did?" asked Ulafi.
"I think so," I said.
"Why did you choose to voyage to Schendi?" he asked.
"Are there not fortunes to be made there?" I asked.
"In Schendi," said Ulafi, "there are fortunes and there are dangers."
"Dangers?" I asked.
"Yes," said Ulafi, "even from the interior, from the ubarate of Bila Huruma."
"Schendi is a free port, administered by merchants," I said.
"We hope that it will continue to be so," he said.
"As you have suspected," I said, "I am of the warriors."
Ulafi smiled.
"Perhaps there are some in Schendi," I said, "with whom I might take service."
"Steel can always command a price," said Ulafi. He made as though to turn away.
"Captain," I said.
"Yes," said he.
I indicated the blond-haired barbarian in her cage, a few yards forward of the mainmast. It was chained, at four points, to cleats in the deck, that it not shift its position overmuch in rough weather. A folded tarpaulin lay near it, with which it could be covered. Sasi's cage had similar appointments.
The girls relieved themselves during the day, when ordered to do so.
"I am curious about the blond-haired slave," I said. "On the wharf, the slaver, Vart, said that he had gotten a silver tarsk for her." I looked at Ulafi. "Surely such a girl, a wench of only average beauty, a tense, tight girl, awkward and clumsy, one untrained, new to the collar, one who can hardly speak Gorean, a barbarian, is worth, at best, only two or three copper tarsks."
"I can get two silver tarsks for her," said Ulafi.
"Her hair and coloring is rare in Schendi?" I asked.
"Such girls, and better, are cheap in Schendi," he said. "Do not forget that Schendi is the home port of the black slavers."
"How then will you get two silver tarsks for her?" I asked.
"She is on my conditional 'want' list," said Ulafi.
"I see," I said. That seemed to me intelligent on the part of Kur agents. They must have known that she would be sailing from Cos to Schendi. This trip, particularly because of the depredations of pirates from Port Kar, is a hazardous one. It then made sense that provisions would be made to retrieve her in a Port Kar market should she be taken and enslaved. Doubtless a similar arrangement had been made with some Schendi merchants in Tyros and perhaps in Lydius or Scagnar.
"Why are you giving her slave training?" I asked.
"She is a slave," said Ulafi. "Why should she not receive slave training?"
"True," I said. I smiled. "Who is your client?" I said.
"Is it worth a copper tarsk to you?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Uchafu," he said, "a slaver in Schendi."
I handed him the copper tarsk.
"Is Uchafu an important slaver?" I asked.
"No," said Ulafi. "He usually handles no more than two or three hundred slaves in an open market."
"Does it not seem strange to you," I asked, "that Uchafu should offer two tarsks for such a girl."
"Yes," he said. "Obviously he is conducting the transaction at the behest of another."
"Who?" I asked.
"I do not know," said Ulafi.
"I would pay a silver tarsk to know," I said.
"Ah," said Ulafi, "I see you have business in Schendi that you have hitherto concealed."
"A silver tarsk," I said.
"It pains me," said Ulafi, "but I must confess I do not know. I am sorry."
I looked at the girl. She was lying in the cage, on her side, turned away from us.
"She is pretty, isn't she?" asked Ulafi.
"Yes," I said.
We watched the girl. She lay there, quietly. She ra
n the index finger of her right hand idly, slowly, up and down, on one of the bars near her face. She seemed lost in thought.
"Yes, a pretty slave," said Ulafi.
"Look," I said.
The girl, very delicately, lifted her head a bit from the metal floor of the cage and, with her tongue, furtively, touched the bar. Then she again touched the bar, delicately, licking it, with her tongue.
"She is beginning to suspect that she may be truly a slave," said Ulafi.
"Yes," I said.
"She is beginning to learn her collar," he said.
"Yes," I said.
The girl then lay there quietly again, her head resting on her left arm, it lying, flat, elbow bent, beneath her on the sheet-metal floor of the cage. Her face, and lips, were near the bar. The small fingers of her right hand touched the bar, near its base.
"Have you not noticed the improvement in her," asked Ulafi, "since the beginning of the voyage?"
"Yes," I said. "Her movements have become less constricted. She is no longer as clumsy or tight as she was. She is becoming less inhibited. She is becoming more beautiful." These things were true. She was being taught her slavery.
"I wonder who it is who has placed her on order," he said.
"I do not know," I said. "I would like to know."
"I, too, am curious," he said.
Ulafi then turned away from me. He walked down the deck, toward the stern castle.
"I again looked out to sea. I sensed then that the girl, Sasi, was near me. She knelt lightly beside me, to my left. She put her head down. I felt her tongue, soft, at my ankle. She licked and kissed at my ankle and leg for a few Ehn.
"May I speak?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
She looked up at me. "I beg training, Master," she said.
"Crawl to my blankets," I told her. These were beside my sea bag, on the deck.
"Yes, Master," she said. Head down, she crawled to the blankets, and lay there.
The blond-haired girl now knelt in her cage. Her fists were on the bars. She was watching me.
I joined Sasi on the two blankets. She lay there, quietly, in her collar. But as soon as I touched her she lifted her lips to mine, and squirmed and sobbed.
I was pleased. The branded she of her was mine.
"You train well, little slave," I said.
"Please do not stop touching me, Master," she begged.
"Perhaps I should whip you," I said.
"No, no," she begged. "Please let me try to be more pleasing to you."
I smiled to myself. Already, only a few days in the collar, she was slave hot.
"Perhaps you are ready for the first of the full slave orgasms," I said.
"Master?" she said.
Then, after a few Ehn, she clutched me wildly, her fingernails cutting into my arms.
"It cannot be! It cannot be!" she said.
"Shall I stop?" I asked.
"No, no," she said, intensely.
"Perhaps I shall stop," I said.
"Your slave begs you not to stop," she said. "Oh, oh," she said. "It is coming. I sense it. It is coming!"
"What do you feel like?" I asked her.
"A slave! A slave!" she cried. "I must yield to you!" she said. "I am going to yield to you!" she cried.
"As what?" I asked.
"As a slave!" she cried. She threw back her head and, wildly, weeping, sobbing, cried out the submission of her bondage.
I kissed her.
She had not done badly. Her body was growing in vitality. She showed promise for a new slave. I was pleased.
She clutched me. "Please do not leave me," she said. "Continue to hold me, if only for a time." There were tears in her eyes. "I beg it, Master," she said.
"Very well," I said.
I held her, and kissed her, and caressed her, keeping her close and warm beside me.
"Thank you, Master," she said. She looked up at me, frightened. "I did not know it could be like that," she said. "I had no idea."
I kissed her, gently.
"As a free woman," she said, "sometimes, late at night, or in my dreams, I had dimly sensed what might be the sexuality of the slave girl, but I had never remotely understood it could be anything like that, anything so overwhelming, so helpless, so total."
"It was only a rudimentary slave orgasm," I said. It had been.
"Rudimentary?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"You jest with a poor slave," she said.
"No," I said.
"Truly?" she asked.
"Truly," I said.
"What then lies in store for me?" she whispered.
"Slavery," I told her.
"Yes, Master," she said.
She lay beside me then, on her back. She looked up, a slave, at the stars and moons. She touched her collar. Her body, in the moonlight, was white on the dark blankets.
"After a woman has felt anything like that," she said, "how could she ever go back to being free?"
"Not many would receive the opportunity," I told her.
She laughed. It was true. Gorean men, on the whole, do not free slaves. The freeing of a girl is almost unheard of. This makes sense. They are not free women. They are belongings, valuables, slaves, treasures. Who discards precious possessions, who surrenders treasures? If the slave girl were worth less perhaps she would be freed more. She is too marvelous to free; and if she is not marvelous, she can be slain. Too, what man who has known the glory and joy of a girl at his feet is likely to wish to exchange that for the inconvenience and bother of a free woman? No, slave girls, for all practical purposes, are not freed. They will remain in one collar or another. Men will have it that way.
"I am owned," she said, her fingers touching her collar. "You own me."
"Yes," I said.
"I do not want to be free," she said.
"Do not fear," I said. "You are too pretty to free."
She kissed me.
Sometimes when a woman is freed, for one reason or another, as can happen upon rare occasions, she becomes, sometimes after an initial elation, restless, and later, miserable. She often becomes unpleasant and irritable, consequences of her frustration. Often she attempts to inflict her dissatisfaction on others. Often she tries to dominate males in her vicinity, perhaps in an attempt to punish them for their inability or cruel refusal to understand or relieve her discomfort, perhaps, too, in an attempt to provoke them into an action which will restore her to her place in nature. She has once been in that place, and she cannot fail to recollect it. Perhaps it would have been better if she had never tasted nature. It is difficult, thereafter, to be satisfied with politics. Ignorance, as always, remains myth's sturdiest bulwark. Such women often, eventually, take to walking the high bridges or frequenting exposed areas, sometimes outside the city walls. They are courting capture and the collar. They wish to kneel again, slaves, before a man.
"I have been had many times when I was a she-urt," she said. "I have lain for paga attendants, hoping to be thrown a handful of garbage. I have been raped by vagabonds. Many times did I pleasure Turgus. Yet never did I feel anything like what you did to me."
"Of the three types of experiences you have mentioned," I said, "the nearest to what you recently felt occurred when you hoped to be thrown garbage by paga attendants."
She looked at me with wonder. "Yes," she said, "how did you know that?"
"Because in that experience you were most under the domination of a man, dependent on him even for food. Would he or would he not throw you a few scraps? Would you be sufficiently pleasing to win from him even a few shreds of garbage?"
"Yes," she said. "It is the woman in the position of submission and subordination."
"Doubtless sometimes they even ordered you to dance naked before them," I said.
"Yes," she said.
"What occurred later then," I asked, "when they had you?"
"I reached orgasm quickly," she said.
"Of course," I said. "But still you were fr
ee. If you wished you could starve for another day, or you could seek garbage elsewhere, or beg, or fish for scraps in the canals."
"Yes," she said.
"You see," I said, "you were not totally dependent on them. You were not totally helpless. You were not their slave."
"Are you going to let me eat tomorrow?" she asked, suddenly, apprehensively.
"Perhaps," I said. "I will make that decision in the morning."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Do you begin to see what I am saying to you?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she whispered. "I could not have earlier had the feelings you induced in me."
"Yes," I said.
"Master," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"The very nearest thing to what I recently felt occurred on the northern walkway of the Rim canal, when you, not a vagabond, but a strong, free man, who had subdued both Turgus and myself, simply took me and used me for your pleasure."
"I recall," I said. "Too, I recall that you responded well, considering that you were at that time only a free woman."
"You treated me as a slave," she chided.
"I saw the potential slave in you," I said. "Accordingly I handled you as I would have handled a slave."
"That is why I could not help responding to you as I did," she said.
"And yet," I said, "that did not compare with what you recently felt."
"No," she said.
"That is because before you were a free woman," I said. "You did not then truly belong to men."
"I do now," she said.
"Yes," I said. "Now you are a slave."
"That is the difference," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"The orgasm was rudimentary?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. "Just as you could not, as a free woman, attain to the heights of the rudimentary slave orgasm recently inflicted upon you so, too, you, as a new slave, cannot yet attain to the overwhelming and degrading ecstasies familiar to a girl longer in the collar."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"You have a long way to go in slavery, little Sasi," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"But in a year or two," I said, "I think you will be superb. And beyond that it is just a matter of continued growth."
"Does any woman ever learn her full slavery?" she asked.
"No," I said, "I think no woman ever learns the fullness of her slavery."
"I want to be a good slave," she said.