by John Norman
But all in all I do not know if the brand is used primarily for its psychological effect or not. Perhaps it is merely a device for merchants who must have some such means for tracing runaway slaves, which would otherwise constitute a costly hazard to their trade. Sometimes I think the iron is simply an anachronistic survival from a more technologically backward age.
One thing was clear. The poor creature before me did not wish the iron.
I felt sorry for her.
The minion of the slaver withdrew another iron from the fire. His one eye regarded it appraisingly. It was white hot. He was satisfied.
The girl shrank against the tree, her back against its white, rough bark. Her wrists and ankles pulled at the chains that fastened them behind the tree. Her breathing was spasmodic; she trembled. There was terror in her blue eyes. She whimpered. Any other sound she might have uttered was stifled by the gag of hair.
The slaver's minion locked his left arm about her left thigh, holding it motionless. "Don't wiggle, Sweet Wench," he said, not without kindness. "You might spoil the brand." He spoke to the girl soothingly, as if to calm her. "You want a clean, pretty brand, don't you? It will improve your price and you'll get a better master."
The iron was now poised for the sudden, firm imprint.
I noted that some of the delicate golden hair on her thigh, from the very proximity of the iron, curled and blackened.
She closed her eyes and tensed herself for the sudden, inevitable, searing flash of pain.
"Don't brand her," I said.
The man looked up, puzzled.
The terror-filled eyes of the girl opened, regarded me questioningly.
"Why not?" asked the man.
"I'll buy her," I said.
The minion of the slaver stood up and regarded me curiously. He turned to the domed tents. "Targo!" he called. Then he thrust the iron back into the brazier. The girl's body sagged in the chains. She had fainted.
From among the domed tents, wearing a swirling robe of broadly striped blue and yellow silk, with a headband of the same material, there approached a short, fat man, Targo the Slaver, he who was master of this small caravan. Targo wore purple sandals, the straps of which were set with pearls. His thick fingers were covered with rings, which glittered as he moved his hands. About his neck, in the manner of a steward, he wore a set of pierced coins threaded on a silver wire. From the lobe of each small, round ear there hung an enormous earring, a sapphire pendant on a golden stalk. His body had been recently oiled, and I gathered he may have been washed in his tent but moments ago, a pleasure of which caravan masters are fond at the end of a day's hot, dusty trek. His hair, long and black beneath the band of blue and yellow silk, was combed and glossy. It reminded me of the groomed, shining pelt of a pet urt.
"Good day, Master," smiled Targo, bowing as well as he could from the waist, hastily taking account of the unlikely stranger who stood before him. Then he turned to the man who watched the irons. His voice was now sharp and unpleasant. "What's going on here?"
The grizzled fellow pointed to me. "He doesn't want me to mark the girl," he said.
Targo looked at me, not quite understanding. "But why?" he asked.
I felt foolish. What could I tell this merchant, this specialist in the traffic of flesh, this businessman who stood well within the ancient traditions and practices of his trade? Could I tell him that I did not wish the girl to be hurt? He would have thought me a mad man. Yet what other reason was there?
Feeling stupid, I told him the truth. "I do not wish to see her hurt."
Targo and the grizzled master of the irons exchanged glances.
"But she is only a slave," said Targo.
"I know," I said.
The grizzled man spoke up. "He said he'd buy her."
"Ah!" said Targo, and his tiny eyes gleamed. "That's different." Then an expression of great sadness transformed his fat ball of a face. "But it is sad that she is so expensive."
"I have no money," I said.
Targo stared at me, uncomprehendingly. His fat small body contracted like a pudgy fist. He was angry. He turned to the grizzled man, and looked no more at me. "Brand the girl," he said.
The grizzled man knelt to pull one of the irons from the brazier.
My sword pushed a quarter of an inch into the belly of the merchant.
"Don't brand the girl," said Targo.
Obediently the man thrust the iron back into the fire. He noted that my sword was at the belly of his master, but did not seem unduly disturbed. "Shall I call the guardsmen?" he asked.
"I doubt they could arrive in time," I said evenly.
"Don't call the guardsmen," said Targo, who was now sweating.
"I have no money," I said, "but I have this scabbard."
Targo's eyes darted to the scabbard and moved from one emerald to the other. His lips moved silently. Six of them he counted.
"Perhaps," said Targo, "we can make an arrangement."
I resheathed the sword.
Targo spoke sharply to the grizzled man. "Awaken the slave."
Grumbling, the man went to fetch a leather bucket of water from the small stream near the camp. Targo and I regarded one another until the man returned, the leather bucket hung over his shoulder by its straps.
He hurled the bucket of cold water, from the melted snow in the Sardar, on the chained girl, who, sputtering and shivering, opened her eyes.
Targo, with his short, rolling steps, went to the girl and placed one thumb, wearing a large ruby ring, under her chin, pushing her head up.
"A true beauty," said Targo. "And perfectly trained for months in the slave pens of Ar."
Behind Targo I could see the grizzled man shaking his head negatively.
"And," said Targo, "she is eager to please."
Behind him the man winked his sightless eye and stifled a snort.
"As gentle as a dove, as docile as a kitten," continued Targo.
I slipped the blade of my sword between the girl's cheek and the hair that was bound across her mouth. I moved it, and the hair, as lightly as though it had been air, floated from the blade.
The girl fixed her eyes on Targo. "You fat, filthy urt!" she hissed.
"Quiet, She-Tharlarion!" he said.
"I don't think she's worth very much," I said.
"Oh, Master," cried Targo, swirling his robes in disbelief that I could have uttered such a thought. "I paid a hundred silver tarn disks for her myself!"
Behind Targo the grizzled man quickly held up his fingers, opening and closing them five times.
"I doubt," I said to Targo, "that she is worth more than fifty."
Targo seemed stunned. He looked at me with a new respect. Perhaps I had once been in the trade? Actually, fifty silver tarn disks was an extremely high price, and indicated the girl was probably of high caste as well as extremely beautiful. An ordinary girl, of low caste, comely but untrained, might, depending on the market, sell for as little as five or as many as thirty tarn disks.
"I will give you two of the stones from this scabbard for her," I said. Actually I had no idea of the value of the stones, and didn't know if the offer was a sensible one or not. In annoyance, looking over the rings of Targo and the sapphires which hung from his ears, I knew he would be a much better judge of their value than I.
"Preposterous!" said Targo, shaking his head vehemently.
I gathered that he was not bluffing, for how could he have known that I did not know the true value of the stones? How could he know that I had not purchased them and had them set in the scabbard myself?
"You drive a hard bargain," I said. "Four—"
"May I see the scabbard, Warrior?" he asked.
"Surely," I said, and removed it from the belt and handed it to him. The sword itself I retained, knotting the scabbard straps and thrusting the blade into them.
Targo gazed at the stones appreciatively. "Not bad," said he, "but not enough—"
I pretended to impatience. "Then show me your other
girls," I said.
I could see that this did not please Targo, for apparently he wished to rid his chain of the blond girl. Perhaps she was a troublemaker, or was dangerous to retain for some other reason.
"Show him the others," said the grizzled man. "This one will not even say 'Buy Me, Master.'"
Targo threw a violent look at the grizzled man, who, smiling to himself, knelt to supervise the irons in the brazier.
Angrily Targo led the way to the grassy clearing among the trees.
He clapped his hands sharply twice, and there was a scurrying and tumbling of bodies and the sound of the long chain slipping through the ankle rings. The girls now knelt, each in the position of the Pleasure Slave, in their camisks on the grass, in a line between the two trees to which their chain was fastened. As I passed each she boldly raised her eyes to mine and said, "Buy Me, Master."
Many of them were beauties, and I thought that the chain, though small, was a rich one, and that almost any man might find thereon a woman to his taste. They were vital, splendid creatures, many of them undoubtedly exquisitely trained to delight the senses of a master. And many of the cities of Gor were represented on that chain, sometimes spoken of as the Slaver's Necklace—there was a blond girl from lofty Thentis, a dark-skinned girl with black hair that fell to her ankles from the desert city of Tor, girls from the miserable streets of Port Kar in the delta of the Vosk, girls even from the high cylinders of Great Ar itself. I wondered how many of them were bred slaves, and how many had once been free.
And as I paused before each beauty in that chain and met her eyes and heard her words, "Buy Me, Master," I asked myself why I should not buy her, why I should not free her instead of the other girl. Were these marvelous creatures, each of whom already wore the graceful brand of the slave girl, any the less worthy than she?
"No," I said to Targo. "I will not buy any of these."
To my surprise a sigh of disappointment, even of keen frustration, coursed down the chain. Two of the girls, she from Tor and one of the girls from Ar wept, their heads buried in their hands. I wished I had not looked at them.
Upon reflection it seemed clear to me that the chain must, in the end, be a lonely place for a girl, filled with life, knowing that her brand has destined her for love, that each of them must long for a man to care enough for them to buy them, that each must long to follow a man home to his compartments, wearing his collar and chains, where they will learn his strength and his heart and will be taught the delights of submission. Better the arms of a master than the cold steel of the ankle ring.
When they had said to me, "Buy Me, Master," it had not been simply a ritual phrase. They had wanted to be sold to me—or, I supposed, to any man who would take them from the hated chain of Targo.
Targo seemed relieved. Clutching me by the elbow, he guided me back to the tree where the blond girl knelt chained.
As I looked at her I asked myself why she, and why not another, or why any? What would it matter if her thigh, too, should wear that graceful brand? I supposed it was mostly the institution of slavery I objected to, and that that institution was not altered if I should, as an act of foolish sentiment, free one girl. She could not go with me into the Sardar, of course, and when I abandoned her, she, alone and unprotected, would soon fall prey to a beast or find herself on yet another slaver's chain. Yes, I told myself, it was foolish.
"I have decided not to buy her," I said.
Then, strangely, the girl's head lifted and she looked into my eyes. She tried to smile. The words were soft, but clearly and unmistakably spoken, "Buy me, Master."
"Ai!" cried the grizzled man, and even Targo the Slaver looked baffled.
It had been the first time the girl had uttered the ritual phrase.
I looked upon her, and saw that she was indeed beautiful, but mostly I saw that her eyes pleaded with mine. As I saw that, my rational resolve to abandon her dissipated, and I yielded, as I sometimes had in the past, to an act of sentiment.
"Take the scabbard," I said to Targo. "I will buy her."
"And the helmet!" said Targo.
"Agreed," I said.
He seized the scabbard and the delight with which he clutched it told me that I had been, in his mind, sorely bested in the bargaining. Almost as an afterthought, he plucked the helmet from my grasp. Both he and I knew it was almost worthless. I smiled ruefully to myself. I was not much good in such matters, I supposed. But perhaps if I had better known the value of the stones?
The girl's eyes looked into mine, perhaps trying to read in my eyes what would be her fate, for her fate was now in my hands, for I was her master.
Strange and cruel are the ways of Gor, I thought, where six small green stones, weighing perhaps scarcely two ounces, and a damaged helmet, could purchase a human being.
Targo and the grizzled man had gone to the domed tent to fetch the keys to the girl's chains.
"What is your name?" I asked the girl.
"A slave has no name," she said. "You may give me one if you wish."
On Gor a slave, not being legally a person, does not have a name in his own right, just as, on earth, our domestic animals, not being persons before the law, do not have names. Indeed, from the Gorean's point of view, one of the most fearful things about slavery is that one loses one's name. That name which he has had from birth, by which he has called himself and knows himself, that name which is so much a part of his own conception of himself, of his own true and most intimate identity, is suddenly gone.
"I gather you are not a bred slave," I said.
She smiled and shook her head. "No," she said.
"I am content," I said, "to call you by the name you bore when you were free."
"You are kind," she said.
"What was your name when you were free?" I asked.
"Lara," she said.
"Lara?" I asked.
"Yes, Warrior," she said. "Do you not recognize me? I was Tatrix of Tharna."
22
Yellow Cords
When the girl had been unchained I lifted her in my arms and carried her into one of the domed tents that had been indicated to me.
There we would wait until her collar had been engraved.
The floor of the tent was covered with thick, colorful rugs, and the inside was decorated with numerous silken hangings. The light was furnished by a brass tharlarion-oil lamp which swung on three chains. Cushions were scattered about on the rugs. On one side of the tent there stood, with its straps, a Pleasure Rack.
I set the girl gently down.
She looked at the rack.
"First," she said, "you will use me, will you not?"
"No," I said.
Then she knelt at my feet and put her head to the rug, throwing her hair over her head, exposing her neck.
"Strike," she said.
I lifted her to her feet.
"Didn't you buy me to destroy me?" she asked, bewildered.
"No," I said. "Is that why you said to me, 'Buy Me, Master'?"
"I think so," she said. "I think I wanted you to kill me." Then she looked at me. "But I am not sure."
"Why did you want to die?" I asked.
"I who was Tatrix of Tharna," she said, her eyes downcast, "did not wish to live as a slave."
"I will not kill you," I said.
"Give me your sword, Warrior," said she, "and I will throw myself upon it."
"No," I said.
"Ah, yes," she said, "a warrior is unwilling to have the blood of a woman on his sword."
"You are young," I said, "—beautiful and much alive. Put the Cities of Dust from your mind."
She laughed bitterly.
"Why did you buy me?" she asked. "Surely you wish to exact your vengeance? Have you forgotten it was I who put you in a yoke, who whipped you, who condemned you to the Amusements, who would have given you to the tarn? That it was I who betrayed you and sent you to the Mines of Tharna?"
"No," I said, my eyes hard. "I have not forgotten."
; "Nor have I," she said proudly, making it clear that she would ask me for nothing, and expect nothing of me, not even her life.
She stood bravely before me, yet so helpless, so much at my mercy. She might have stood thus before a larl in the Voltai. It was important to her to die well. I admired her for this, and found her in her hopelessness and defiance very beautiful. Her lower lip trembled, ever so slightly. Almost imperceptibly she bit it to control its movement, lest I should see. I found her magnificent. There was a tiny drop of blood on her lips. I shook my head to drive away the thought that I wanted with my tongue to taste the blood on her lips, to kiss it from her mouth.
I said simply, "I do not wish to harm you."
She looked at me, not comprehending.
"Why did you buy me?" she asked.
"I bought you to free you," I said.
"You did not then know I was Tatrix of Tharna," she sneered.
"No," I said.
"Now that you know," she asked, "what will you do with me? Will it be the oil of tharlarions? Will you throw me to leech plants? Will you stake me out for your tarn, use me to bait a sleen trap?"
I laughed, and she looked at me, bewildered.
"Well?" she demanded.
"You have given me much to think about," I admitted.
"What will you do with me?" she demanded.
"I will free you," I said.
She stepped back in disbelief. Her blue eyes seemed filled with wonder, and then they glistened with tears. Her shoulders shook with sobs.
I put my arms around her slender shoulders and to my amazement she who had worn the golden mask of Tharna, she who had been Tatrix of that gray city, put her head upon my chest and wept. "No," she said, "I am worthy only of being a slave."
"That is not true," I said. "Remember once you told a man not to beat me. Remember once you said it was hard to be first in Tharna. Remember that once you looked upon a field of talenders and I was too dull and foolish to speak to you."