Hunters of Gor

by John Norman

  "Very well," said Marlenus. "Then we shall not, now, play."

  I held forth my cup, for wine. The slave girl filled it.

  "When will you fare forth to an exchange point?" I asked.

  Marlenus had now been in his camp for five days, hunting. He had made no effort to reach the exchange point, or its vicinity, where Talena was held slave. It would lie through the forests to the west, above Lydius, on the coast of Thassa.

  "I have not yet finished hunting," said Marlenus. He was in no hurry to free Talena.

  "A citizen of Ar," I said, "lies slave."

  "I have little interest," said Marlenus, "in slaves."

  "She is a citizen of Ar," I said.

  Marlenus looked down into his cup, swirling the liquid. "Once, perhaps," said Marlenus, "she was a citizen of Ar."

  I looked at him.

  "She is no longer a citizen of Ar," said Marlenus. "She is a slave."

  In the eyes of Goreans, and Gorean law, the slave is an animal. She is not a person, but an animal. She has no name, saving what her master might choose to call her. She is without caste. She is without citizenship. She is simply an object, to be bartered, or bought or sold. She is simply an article of property, completely, nothing more.

  "She is Talena," I said.

  "I know of no person by that name," said Marlenus.

  "Surely," I said, "you will have pity on a slave, however unworthy, who was once a citizen of Ar?"

  "I shall free her, or have her freed," said Marlenus. He looked down. Then he looked up at me. "I will send men to free her, while I return to Ar," he said.

  "I see," I said.

  "But," said Marlenus, "I think I will have a few days hunting first."

  I shrugged. "I see," I said, "Ubar."

  Marlenus snapped his fingers, pointing to his cup on the table.

  The slave girl came forward, from where she knelt to one side, and, kneeling, from a two-handled vessel, filled it. She was very beautiful.

  "I, too, shall have wine," I said.

  She filled my cup. Our eyes met. She looked down. She was barefoot. Her one garment was a brief slip of diaphanous yellow silk. Her brand was clearly visible beneath it, high on the left thigh. On her throat, half concealed by her long blond hair, was a collar of steel, the steel of Ar.

  "Leave us, Slave," said Marlenus.

  She did so.

  The girl had been beaten earlier in the afternoon. She had run away. Marlenus, with two huntsmen, had taken her within the Ahn. Marlenus, who had hunted in the forests since his boyhood, was a master of woodcraft. She had been unable to elude him. Dazed, shocked, she had been swiftly caught and returned to camp. Marlenus had then handed her over to a huntsman. She had been stripped and, hands tied over her head to a post, had been given ten lashes. Marlenus, and most of those about the camp, had not bothered to watch. It was simply a slave girl being punished. The punishment was so light because it was the first time the girl had attempted to run away. Also, she was new to the collar, and did not yet fully understand the futility of her condition. During her beating, and afterward, Marlenus and I had been engaged in playing the game. He had beaten me once, and I had drawn twice. After her beating, she had been left bound to the post for two Ahn. When Marlenus ordered her freed from the post, he stood nearby. "Do not attempt to run away again," he told her, and then turned away.

  Verna made a beautiful slave girl. She was exquisitely bodied, extremely intelligent and extremely proud.

  Marlenus treated her no differently than any other new girl.

  This infuriated Verna. She had been one of the most famed outlaw women on Gor.

  In the camp of Marlenus she was only another girl.

  Long ago, more than a year ago, when he had first captured Verna on a hunting expedition, prior to her escape and acquisition of Talena, and her return to the forests, he had intended to bring her to Ar in triumph and there, in the great square before Ar's central cylinder, publicly enslave her. This time, he had put the iron to her, and her girls, the first night he had arrived in his camp north of Laura, as though they might have been the meanest of captures. She had been branded eleventh, casually and insolently, in her turn, for that had been her place in the slave coffle when the camp had been reached. With a similar lack of ceremony Marlenus had fastened her collar on her.

  But in some respects Marlenus had treated her differently from the others, as more of a slave, more of a common girl. The others were treated, for the time, more as panther girls. She was to be treated more as a common wench, who might have been any slave girl.

  The panther girls, in Marlenus' camp, though they were kept chained, were permitted to wear the skins of panthers.

  Verna had stood before him, waiting to be given the skins of panthers. Instead, she had been thrown slave silk.

  "Put it on," had said Marlenus.

  She had done so.

  I noted, and I do not doubt but that it was detected, too, by Marlenus, that her body, as she drew the brief, exotic, degrading silk about her, subtly and unmistakably, was shaken by an involuntary tremor of sensuality. Then she was again Verna. I suppose it was the first time her body had felt silk. I have often wondered at the excitement generated in women by the simple feel of silk on their bodies. I gather that it is a sensuous experience. Surely it would be difficult for a woman to wear silk and not, by that much more, be aware of her womanhood. But perhaps Verna's response was not simply to silk. Indeed, that would hardly account for the totality of her involuntary response, her body's betrayal. It was not ordinary silk Marlenus had thrown to her. It was not ordinary silk which she then, for the first time, felt on her body. It was the softest and finest of diaphanous silks, clinging and betraying. It had been milled to reveal a woman most exquisitely and beautifully to a master. It was brief, exotic, humiliating, degrading. It was, of course, slave silk. I wondered if Verna had ever dreamed of herself in such silk. She now stood before Marlenus, so clad. She tried to stand as a panther girl, but he had laughed at her. Her girls, too, had jeered her. One cannot stand as a panther girl in such silk. She turned away, and fled to the wall of the stockade, weeping.

  It seemed important to Marlenus to separate her girls from her.

  That was perhaps part of his plan. That was perhaps one reason for putting her in slave silk. Another reason, of course, was that it pleased him, her master, to see her so.

  Once, she so clad, her hands braceleted before her, her arm held by a guard, she was led past her girls, in their skins, chained by one of the stockade walls.

  "Pretty slave!" they had jeered at her.

  She had tried to kick at them and fall upon them but her guard, controlling her easily, for she was only a woman, dragged her away. The girls had jeered after her.

  She was taken to the kitchen tent, where she was given lessons, as a slave girl, in the preparation and serving of food. She would also, of course, be taught to sew, and to wash and iron clothing. When Marlenus took his meals in his tent, or wished refreshments or wine, Verna, the new girl, served him.

  * * * *

  "Have you used her yet?" I asked Marlenus.

  The girl poured us our wine. One may speak freely before slaves.

  "That is enough," said Marlenus, and the girl withdrew to one side, to wait until she must serve again.

  Marlenus turned and looked at her. "No," he said. "She is a raw girl, ignorant."

  Verna, from where she knelt, looked at him, angrily, holding the two-handled wine vessel. At her throat was his collar, in her thigh, burned, his brand, on her body his silk. She looked away.

  "If you will observe," said Marlenus, who had studied thousands of women, "she seems ready, even marvelous, but yet there is a subtle unreadiness, a subtle stiffness in her body. Note the shoulders, the wrists, the diaphragm."

  The girl's fists clenched on the twin handles of the wine vessel.

  "Remove your clothing, and stand," said Marlenus.

  The slave did so.

  "You see?
" asked Marlenus.

  I studied her. The girl looked away. She was incredibly beautiful yet there did seem something subtly different about her, something which separated her softness, proud and vulnerable in the tent of her master, from the incomparable, delicious yielded softness, eager, tender, at times pleading, of a girl such as Cara.

  Perhaps it was partly a stiffness in the shoulders. Perhaps it was something about the wrists. The backs of her hands faced us. The normal fall of a girl's hands places her palms at her thighs.

  "Place your palms on your thighs," said Marlenus.

  "Beast," she hissed. She did so. She felt her brand.

  I also noted a tenseness about her diaphragm, doubtless that which Marlenus had wished to indicate. It was tight, not vital and expectant.

  "Turn about," said Marlenus. She did so. I noted the exquisite curvatures of her.

  "She is beautiful," I said. Her fists were clenched.

  "Yes," said Marlenus. "But note how she stands."

  "I see," I said.

  It was indeed interesting. She stood very proudly, very angrily. Her head was high, her fists were clenched. Her weight was equally on the balls of her feet. I could see the hamstrings, the beautiful, resilient tendons behind her knees, now like tight, proud cords, holding her erect.

  "Disregard," said Marlenus, "the obvious things, her pride, her anger, the clenched fists."

  "Yes," I said.

  I tried to imagine how Cara might have stood, had she been in the place of Verna.

  She would have turned quietly, obediently, gracefully. She would have known that she, a slave, was arousing free men, masters, and this would have excited her, and this excitement would have been revealed in her body.

  She would not know what their next command would be. And this waiting, not facing us, would have been revealed beautifully in her body.

  Commonly the slave girl, when not facing her master, if she is right handed, as are most girls, will have her weight on the ball of her left foot. Her left leg will be slightly, subtly, flexed, and her right leg will be substantially flexed. Her head will be turned slightly to the right, as though she would look over her right shoulder. Her hamstrings will not be tight. They will be merely beautifully resilient, heady to turn her eagerly, at his command, to face him.

  We observed Verna.

  "You see," said Marlenus.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Face us," said Marlenus.

  Verna, seething, did so.

  "You see then in this woman," said Marlenus, "though she is beautiful, an unreadiness."

  "Yes," I said.

  "You may clothe yourself," said Marlenus.

  Verna, in fury, reached down and snatched up the bit of slave silk. She jerked it about her body. She then stood there, facing us.

  "Look upon her," said Marlenus.

  I did.

  "Raw and ignorant," he said.

  He then indicated that she should again kneel to one side, and take up the two-handled wine vessel, that she be ready, when we wished, to serve us once more.

  Marlenus did not take his eyes from the beautiful slave.

  She looked away.

  "In her, as yet," said Marlenus, "there is a coldness, an arrogance, a loftiness, a stubborn defiance, a pride, an ice."

  "In the eleventh passage hand," I said, "many rivers are frozen."

  She looked at Marlenus, in fury.

  "But in En'Kara," I said, "again the rivers flow free."

  "Serve us wine," said Marlenus, "and then leave."

  The girl did so.

  When she had left, Marlenus looked at me. "I do not permit ice in the bodies of my slave girls," he said.

  I smiled. "In time," I said, "she will doubtless learn that she has been branded. She will doubtless learn her silk and her collar." I took a sip of wine. "In En'Kara," I said, "perhaps the rivers will flow free."

  Marlenus laughed.

  I looked at him.

  "I am a Ubar," he said.

  "I do not understand," I said.

  "What is it to me," he asked, "if she should, in months, of her own accord, come to understand her brand, her silk and her collar. What is it to me, if she should, in months, of her own accord, choose to fasten a talender in her hair?"

  I regarded him.

  "Do you truly think," he asked, "that I, Marlenus of Ar, will wait for En'Kara?"

  "I suppose not," I said.

  "Other men," said Marlenus, "might be content to wait for the breezes of En'Kara to loosen the ice, to soften it and let the river run unimprisoned."

  I looked into his eyes.

  "In owning a woman," said Marlenus, "as in the game, one must seize the initiative. One must force through an attack that is overwhelming and shattering. She must be crushed, devastated."

  "Mastered?" I asked.

  "Utterly," he said.

  Marlenus played a savage game. I did not envy Verna. She was totally unsuspecting.

  There was a shallow bowl of flowers, scarlet, large-budded, five-petaled flaminiums, on the small, low table between us.

  He reached out with his large hand and took one of the flowers.

  He held it in the palm of his hand. His hand began to close.

  "If you were this flower," asked Marlenus, "and you could speak, what would you do?"

  "I suppose," I said, "if I were such a flower, I would beg for mercy."

  "Yes," said Marlenus.

  "Verna," I said, "is strong willed. She is extremely proud, extremely intelligent."

  "Excellent," said Marlenus.

  His hand closed more on the flower.

  "Such women," said Marlenus, "once conquered, make the most abject and superb slaves."

  "I have heard this," I said.

  Incidentally, brilliant and imaginative women, particularly if beautiful and high-born, are avidly sought in Gorean slave markets. High intelligence and imagination, perhaps interestingly from the point of view of a man of Earth, are highly prized in women by Gorean men. Indeed, a woman who is known to be intelligent and imaginative will bring a much higher price than some duller, but more beautiful, sister in bondage. Goreans, unlike many men of Earth, have very little interest in stupid women. The ideal candidate for the Gorean slaver's snare is a highly intelligent, beautiful, imaginative woman, one who is strong willed, proud and free. It is such women that Goreans enjoy making slaves.

  Perhaps surprisingly, once conquered, once they have learned their brand, once they have learned their collar and silk, they make the most helpless, the most incredibly delicious slaves.

  "Suppose," I said to Marlenus, "the flower does not beg for mercy."

  "Then," said he, beginning to close his fist on the flower, "it is destroyed."

  "You play a savage game," said I, "Marlenus."

  He dropped the flower back into the shallow bowl, among other, unthreatened, buds.

  "I am a Ubar," he said.

  Marlenus would not wait for the ice in the river to melt. He was a Ubar. He would shatter it.

  Verna was totally unsuspecting.

  "I will tell her," said Marlenus, "when to put a talender in her hair."

  I nodded. Verna's conquest would be total. She would be made his, utterly.

  "When does your game begin?" I asked Marlenus.

  "It has already begun," said Marlenus.

  "How is that?" I asked.

  "She will attempt to escape tonight," said Marlenus.

  I regarded him, puzzled.

  "Surely, together," he smiled, "we have motivated such an attempt?"

  It was true. I doubted that Verna, unless conquered, would willingly endure another examination of the sort to which we had casually subjected her this evening, the rather detailed appraisal of a slave girl by masters.

  "Did you note," asked Marlenus, "how deferentially she served us the last cup of wine?"

  I smiled. "Yes," I said. "It was served almost as if a slave girl served it."

  "It was her attempt," said Marlenus, "
to pretend to be a slave. She served it as she thinks slave girls serve." He smiled. "Later," he said, "when she knows herself owned, she will serve, and naturally, as a slave girl serves."

  I supposed it was true. The true slave girl knows that she is owned. This makes a difference in how she performs many tasks. Her body, in almost all of its movements, will betray her bondage. It is difficult for a free woman to imitate the actions of a slave girl. She does not know truly what it is to be slave. She has never been taught. She has not been slave. Similarly it is difficult for a slave girl to imitate the actions of a free woman. Knowing that she is, in actuality, owned, it is very difficult for her to act as though she were free. She is frightened to do so. Sometimes slavers use these differences to separate the two categories of Gorean female. Sometimes, when a city is being sacked, high-born free women, fearful of falling into the hands of chieftains of the enemy, have themselves branded and collared, and don slave tunics, and mix with their own slave girls, to prevent their identity from being known. Such high-born women may, by a practiced eye, be detected among true slave girls. They are then handed over to chieftains, for use in the public humiliation ceremonies to be inflicted upon the conquered city, for public rebranding and recollaring, and subsequent public distribution to high officers. The test may be as simple as removing a girl's tunic and telling her to walk across a room. It may be as simple as telling her to present her lips to those of a warrior. Similarly, slave girls, attempting to escape, can be separated out from free women, even when all are veiled and wear the robes of concealment. Again, the tests may be simple. Once, in Ko-ro-ba, I saw a slaver, before a magistrate, distinguish such a girl, not even one of his own, from eleven free women. Each, in turn, was asked to pour him a cup of wine, and then withdraw, nothing more. At the end, the slaver rose to his feet and pointed to one of the women. "No!" she had cried. "I am free!" Officers of the court, by order of the magistrate, removed her garments. If she were free, the slaver would be impaled. When her last garment had been torn away, there was applause in the court. The girl stood there. On her thigh was the brand. She was braceleted and leashed, and given to the slaver. He led her, weeping, away to his slave chain.