by John Norman
I lifted myself again to my elbow. It was a chilly morning. Dew covered the grass and leaves. Everywhere drops glistened.
I again regarded Ilene. I read the need in her eyes. The bit of yellow pleasure silk, wet with dew, clung to her. Her hair was wet and straight, black, damp and matted back from her forehead, on both sides. Her face was damp. There was dew on her collar. Her legs were drawn up.
She crept to me and put her head to my waist. Then she lifted her head and looked at me. "Master," she whispered. I did not speak to her. She lay beside me and put her arms timidly about my neck. Delicately, timidly, she kissed me. "Please, Master," she said, "please." Her eyes were pleading.
"I do not have time for you now," I said.
"But I am ready," she said. "I am ready!"
I took her in my arms and turned her to her back, and touched her.
She tore the pleasure silk back that there be less between us.
I marveled. In the night it had taken a full Ahn to an Ahn and a half to bring her to the point of yielding. This morning she had crept to my side as a slave girl in need. To my slightest touch her body responded helplessly, spasmodically. Last night she had been an Earth woman who had had to be conquered, who had had to be taught her collar. This morning she was only a lovely Gorean slave girl, eager and moaning, begging piteously once again for her master's touch, begging to yield again, and again. On Earth a thousand men might have sued for her hand. On Gor she belonged to only one man, was an article of his property, and was only one slave girl among others.
Twice I used her.
There was little time.
"Please do not sell me, Master," she begged.
"You are a slave," I told her. "You will be sold."
I looked at her. I wondered what she would bring me on the block. Yesterday I would have regarded her as a four-gold-piece girl. But today lovely Ilene's value had considerably increased. I imagined her ascending the block, turning for the buyers, presenting her beauty for their consideration, responding to the deft guidance of the auctioneer's coiled whip. And then, when she was unready, when she did not expect it, he would, with the coiled whip, administer to her the slaver's caress. I could well conjecture, now, the response of her awakened body. The crowd would be much pleased. The movement would be startled, involuntary, sudden, wild, helpless, uncontrollable. Her womanhood would have been betrayed. How enraged, how tearful, she would be. The men would laugh. She had been forced, tricked, before her buyers, on the very block itself, into displaying publicly the ready womanhood of her.
I smiled to myself.
The bids, then, would swiftly increase. The auctioneer, in his skill, would have demonstrated undreampt-of latencies in the wench on sale, that her desirabilities were not merely placid and visual, but organic, reflexive and sensual, that she, properly handled, was the sort of woman who, as the Goreans say, could not help but kiss the whip that beats her. I smiled. Men would pay well for lovely Ilene. No longer would she be a mere four-gold-piece girl, standard merchandise on a Gorean slave block. The auctioneer, I expected, would close his fist on a price of ten gold pieces for her. I would then have taken a good profit on the Earth-girl slave. Indeed, she had cost me nothing. Last night, I congratulated myself, I had raised her value. I had brought her up by perhaps as much as six gold pieces. I had had a double profit from my work of last night, my pleasure in teaching her her collar and, commercially, the considerable improvement of my property, the considerable improvement of my investment.
"Do not sell Ilene in Port Kar," she whispered. "Sell another girl in Port Kar, not Ilene."
It was dawn.
The red-haired girl, first girl in the camp, she who held the switch, was now up, stretching like a she-panther, yawning like a she-larl. She, though a former paga slave, pulled the skins of panther girls about her body. I had torn the skins at her left thigh, that she might not forget she wore a brand. She was a strong, lithe girl. Ilene, I knew, feared her. And well she might, for she was first girl, and held the switch.
Slowly, stiff-legged, the red-haired girl walked across the wet grass to the dark, dew-stained tarpaulin, to pull the pegs.
It was dawn, time for the prisoners to arise, to be fed and watered, and then, when I wished, to take up their burdens.
"Do not sell Ilene in Port Kar," said Ilene, snuggling up against me. "Sell another girl in Port Kar," she whispered, "not Ilene."
"Do you see her?" I asked Ilene, indicating the red-haired girl.
"Yes," said Ilene, "she is an excellent choice for the block in Port Kar, Master."
"Do you really think so?" I asked.
"Yes," said Ilene.
"Do you ask that it be she who is sold in Port Kar?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," said Ilene. She kissed me, happily.
"Go to her," I said.
"Yes, Master," said Ilene.
"Speak to her," I said.
"I will," said Ilene. "I will!" She kissed me. "I will tell her that she is to be sold in Port Kar."
"No," I said.
She looked at me.
"You will go to her," I said. "You will then inform her that you asked me to sell her in Port Kar. You will then ask her to give you ten switches. You will then ask for your duties for the day."
Ilene looked at me, protest in her eyes. Then, fear and tears came into her eyes and she sprang up.
She ran to the girl.
"I asked for you to be sold in Port Kar," she said.
"Aren't you a pretty little slave with the master," said the red-haired girl.
Ilene trembled.
"And what did he say?" she asked.
"I am to ask for ten switches, and then for my duties for the day," said Ilene.
"I see," said the red-haired girl.
Ilene stood before her.
"Remove your garment, pretty little slave," said the red-haired girl.
Ilene did so.
"Go to that tree," said the red-haired girl, indicating a slender-trunked tree at the edge of the camp clearing. Ilene went to it. "Hold to that branch, pretty little slave," said the red-haired girl, indicating a branch over Ilene's head. Tears in her eyes Ilene grasped it.
There was the swift hiss of the switch and then the slap of its strike.
Ilene screamed with pain and fell, releasing the branch. She clutched the base of the tree's trunk. She looked over her shoulder at the red-haired girl. "Please," she wept.
"Hold the branch, pretty little slave," said the red-haired girl, not much pleased with her.
Ilene regarded her with horror.
I strode to the tree and, with two short lengths of binding fiber, tied Ilene's wrists to the branch.
She was weeping with pain.
"Let me beat her," said the blond girl, one of the panther girls, in her ankle ring.
The red-haired girl went swiftly to the girl who had spoken and struck her twice. The blond girl, tears in her eyes, shrank back in the coffle, shoulder stinging, and hid herself among the other girls.
The red-haired girl then strode to Ilene.
The Earth girl must now endure nine strokes. The red-haired girl was excellent with the switch. She knew well how to beat a slave.
Ilene would not soon forget her beating.
It took more than two Ehn to deliver the next five strokes. Ilene did not know when, or where on her body, they would fall. She would stand there, her wrists bound, over her head, apart, on the branch, waiting. Then suddenly there would be the hiss and, somewhere on her body, the swift, lashing fall of the switch.
The red-haired girl had handled the psychological dimension of the beating beautifully.
Even when she was not being struck Ilene would sometimes cry out, "No! Don't hit me!" Sometimes, waiting, unstruck, she would cry out as though she had been struck. She jerked, trying to free her wrists. She twisted helplessly, but could not free herself. Then, shaking her head, weeping, she began to writhe and beg incoherently for mercy. She, of course, as a slave girl, would receive none.
"Yes, Mistress," wept Ilene.
"You are only being switched," said the red-haired girl.
"Yes, Mistress," wept Ilene.
"Suppose," said the red-haired girl to the slave, "it was not a switch, but the five-strap Gorean slave whip?"
Ilene closed her eyes.
"Suppose," said the red-haired girl, "it was not I who disciplined you, but, with such a whip, a male."
"Yes, Mistress," wept Ilene, her head down.
"Rejoice," said the red-haired girl, "that you are only switched, and only by a woman."
"Yes, Mistress," whispered Ilene, her face stained with tears. The red-haired girl had thrown Ilene's long dark hair forward, that it not provide any shielding from the switch.
There were now six stripes on her body, from her ankles to the back of her neck. They were slender and red. Each was well placed. Spreading from each stripe there was a redness of pain. She clenched her fists in her bonds. Now her entire back burned scarlet.
The panther girls, in their chains, laughed. They enjoyed seeing the pretty Earth-girl slave beaten.
I nodded to the red-haired girl. Swiftly, across the back, in rapid succession, she delivered Ilene's last four stinging stripes.
I then unfastened her wrists from the branch.
She was bent over with pain. I picked up the bit of yellow silk and threw it to her. She caught it, and held it before her body.
"It is you," I told her, "who will be sold in Port Kar."
I then turned away from her.
I heard the red-haired girl addressing the panther women. "On your feet, Slaves," she said, slapping the switch in her hand.
They stood up.
"Get bowls," said the red-haired girl to Ilene. "And open a bag of slave meal. When the slaves pass you, give each half a bowl of meal."
"Yes, Mistress," said Ilene.
"Then gather fruit and nuts for them," said the red-haired girl.
"Yes, Mistress," said Ilene.
I went to the tree about which had been fastened the length of chain extending from the first girl's Harl ring, that tethering the girls to the tree. I unsnapped it and refastened it about the left wrist of the first girl on the chain, that she might carry it as she had the day before.
The red-haired girl, then, aided by the other two paga slaves, took the panther women to the nearby stream, that they might drink and get water to mix with their slave meal. I cut them pieces of meat.
The red-haired girl, to my satisfaction, but not asking me, took some of the silk we carried and cut it into strips, wrapping it in and around the ankle rings of her charges, and about the girls' ankles, that their ankles be protected in the march. She was a good first girl. "Thank you, Mistress," said one of the girls to her. "Be silent, Slave," responded the red-haired girl. "Yes, Mistress," responded the other. She was a good first girl. She, with her switch, maintained a harsh and perfect discipline among her charges, but she was not more cruel to them than it was customary to be with Gorean slaves. They were animals in her charge. She was, accordingly, solicitous for their welfare. From my point of view, of course, a girl with a scarred ankle is likely to bring a lower price than a perfect specimen. I thus approved of her action.
"What is your name?" I asked her.
"Whatever master wishes," she said.
"What have you been called that pleases you?" I asked.
"If it pleases Master," she said, "I should like to be called Vinca."
"You are Vinca," I said.
"Thank you, Master," she said.
I regarded Ilene.
"No!" she said. "Please do not take my name away!"
"You no longer have a name," I told her.
She looked at me with horror, and fell to her knees piteously before me. "Please," she begged. "Please, no!"
She looked up at me. She then realized that she was nameless. Her entire body, fresh from its switching, shook with the horror of it. Her identity, her very sense of self, from her earliest understandings had been fused with that name, inseparable from it. Now it was gone. Who was she? What could she be? She looked up at me, piteously. A she-verr, a tarsk sow, a tabuk doe had no more nor less name than she. The collared female animal, nameless, knelt at the feet of its owner.
"I will give you a name," I told her. "It will be more convenient."
There were tears in her eyes.
"I will call you Ilene," I said.
"Thank you, Master," she whispered.
"There is a difference, of course," I told her, "in the name Ilene you once wore, and in the name Ilene you now wear."
She nodded, miserably. Her old name, her old identity, had been taken from her forever. Her new name, though in sound the same, was not her old. Between them there was a difference of worlds, a gulf wider than that dividing planets. Her old name had been hers as a free person, publicly registered, legally certified, historically identified with her throughout her life, until her capture by slavers. It had been a proud, intimate possession, giving her pleasure and dignity. It had ennobled her. It had served, with other properties, to distinguish her as a precious person, a unique individual, among all others on the planet Earth. When asked who she was, it was with that name that she would answer. That was who she was. Then the name had been taken from her. She was then only an animal in bondage. In Gorean courts her testimony would normally be exacted only under torture. In such courts she could not, legally, be named, but would rather be described as, say, Ilene, the slave of Hesius of Laura, or Ilene, the slave of Bosk of Port Kar. Her name might be changed, or altered, as often as the master wished. Indeed, he need not even give her a name. Changing a girl's name, or taking it away, are common modes of Gorean slave discipline.
So I would call her Ilene.
But this was not her old name, though in sound it was the same. This was now a Gorean slave name. It carried no dignity nor civil significance. It might be changed; it might be taken away completely. She would be called Ilene, but she wore that name now, and she knew it, only by the whim of her master. That was the name to which he had decided she would answer. Thus, simply, by his will, it was her name. The first name, Ilene, had been a proud Earth name; the second name, Ilene, was only a Gorean slave name. It was the second name to which she would answer; it was the second name which she would now wear; it was the second name which was now, by my will, hers.
"You are Ilene," I told her.
"Yes, Master," she said. Then she put down her head and wept.
I turned to Vinca. "Have the slaves prepare to lift their burdens," I told her.
There was much work to be done today.
"Coffle!" cried Vinca, striking two of the girls. Swiftly they lined up beside their burdens. "Posture!" cried Vinca. "Stand straight!" She struck another girl. "Straight!" cried Vinca. "Remember that you are beautiful slaves!"
"We are not slaves!" cried one of the panther girls. "We are panther women!"
I went to one of the boxes, that which contained uninscribed slave collars.
As the girls stood straight in the coffle, looking directly ahead, fearing not to, I, from behind, one by one, moving their hair aside, snapped a slave collar on the throat of each.
I nodded to Vinca.
"Lift your burdens," she called.
In tears the panther girls lifted their burdens. "Excellent!" called Vinca. "Remember now, you are graceful and beautiful slaves!"
I strode from the clearing.
"March!" called Vinca. I heard the switch fall twice, and then heard, alternating with silence, the movement of the chain.
16
I Find Some Tunics of Tyros
Mira, who was the lieutenant of Hura, rolled to her side. She slept fitfully.
The march of the men of Tyros had become a rout. Even before I had come upon the column in the morning, I had found abandoned baggage strewn along the trail. I had found also the chains and leg irons that had been fastened on the left ankl
es of the male prisoners. They had been struck off that the column might move with greater speed. That meant that the male slaves now were fastened in their coffle only by their neck chains. Too, of course, their hands were manacled behind their back.
It had been necessary to slow the column down, so I had done so.
Eight men of Tyros I felled near the front of the column.
There had been no flankers, no points set. The panther girls were apparently now terrified to leave the column. And the men of Tyros were unwilling to do so.
I had heard fierce words being exchanged between them.
In my teeth I held two slender lengths of binding fiber. In my right hand I held a heavy wadding of fur. Looped loosely about my right wrist, so that it would fall when my hand was held downwards, was a thick, wide strip of panther skin, twisted in its center.
The arrows which had struck the men of Tyros had been those of panther girls, taken from my captures. The men of Tyros and the girls of Hura did not know the nature nor the number of their stalkers. The first man, felled at the conquest circle, had been felled with a pile arrow from the great bow. The others had fallen to the arrows of panther girls, of which I had acquired a great number.
Mira had first betrayed Verna. She had then betrayed Marlenus of Ar. Her treacheries were not yet completed.
I approached her with the stealth of a warrior. She lay in her own small shelter. Other girls lay about. I did not touch them in my passage.
After I had felled the eight men at the beginning of the column I had withdrawn to the forest, where I slept for an Ahn. Then, refreshed, I had returned to the column. It had begun to move again. I felled men much as I pleased, in particular those who would dare to hold the whips to encourage the slaves in speed. Soon none would hold the whips.
The men of Ar, led by Marlenus, began to sing in the coffle, a song of glorious Ar. They now marched, at their own pace, their heads high, with pride.
Angry the men of Tyros demanded that they stop, but they did not do so.
Even the panther girls in charge of the coffle of captive females struck them less now with the switch.
Verna now, in the coffle, walked well. Even though she wore slave silk, and lipstick and earrings, she walked well. There might not even have been slave bells on her ankle. I marveled at her. Her ears had been pierced. That is regarded, in Gorean eyes, as an almost ultimate degradation of a female. Yet her head was high, her gaze proud and fearless. The large, delicate golden rings in her ears were stunning. How beautiful a woman is in earrings! I could tell that she was no longer ashamed of them, but proud of them. Not only do earrings enhance a woman's beauty, but they speak openly to all, both men and women, regardless of social pressures and repercussions, of the pride and pleasure she takes in her womanhood. Verna was no longer a pretend man, or a pretend nothing. She was now full and perfect in what she was, in her own right, a human female, a woman. She walked well. She might have been a tatrix. Indeed, she was, though braceleted and collared, a tatrix of the forests.