But does a girl not hope for a given master, to buy her, to put his collar on her, the master of her dreams?
“Oh!” I cried, struck by a free woman’s switch, as I hurried past her.
Twice was I hooted at, and twice pinched.
Would my master not defend me against such abuse? But it seemed he did not care to do so. I gathered such things, at least in a common slave, were beneath notice.
After perhaps some thirty minutes he stopped before a heavy wooden door, chained shut. He undid the locks, and swung it open. It was dark within.
“Turn your back to me,” he said.
I did so, and he removed the bracelets, and then turned me about, so that I faced him, but inches away.
I very much felt his presence, and, I was sure, he, a man, must feel mine.
“There are stairs,” he said, “leading down to the basement. Be careful of the stairs.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He then took me in his arms, suddenly, without warning, and I felt his lips, and the roughness of his beard, and I was kissed, fiercely, with command and authority, as a slave.
I recalled how, on my former world, various young men had asked if they might kiss me, which permission I granted or refused, as the whim took me.
But here he did with me what he wanted, when he wanted.
I was a slave.
Then he thrust me from him.
He looked down at me.
How my body felt him! Would he not do more with me? I was ready, slave ready.
But it seems he was merely trying me, to see how I might do in his arms.
I gathered he had found out.
Perhaps I had been lacking.
“Down the stairs,” he said.
I clutched the crude board within the threshold, the board to my left, serving as a banister, and took a step downward, into the darkness.
I heard a voice, plaintive, from below. “May I speak, Master?” it inquired.
“Yes,” he called down, into the darkness.
“May we not be clothed?” it asked.
“Wait until you are bought,” he called down, into the darkness. “Ask your buyers. Perhaps they will throw you a rag.”
“Master!” pleaded the voice.
“You are all pot girls,” he said.
“Master!” wailed the voice.
“Where are we to be sold?” begged another voice, arising from the darkness.
“Here and there,” he said, “in diverse markets. I have purchased some of you to fill orders.”
“For work slaves?” asked a voice.
“Yes,” he said.
I heard sobs, and cries of lament, from below.
It was not pleasant, I gathered, to be a work slave.
“Please, no, Master!” wept a voice, from below.
“Be silent,” he said.
No sound then emanated from the darkness.
Holding tightly to the banister, half turned, with two hands, I descended the steep stairs, one at a time.
The door closed behind me, above me. All was then in darkness. I heard the chains, the rattle of the placings of the locks.
I felt my way to a wall, to my left, and sat there, my back against the wall, my knees drawn up.
The floor was of wooden planking.
I could not see the others.
“You are the twenty-second,” said a girl’s voice, not far from me.
“When are we leaving?” inquired another voice.
“I heard tomorrow,” I said, “tomorrow morning.”
“Where are we going?” asked another voice, in the darkness.
I gathered I was the bearer of news. Did they not know that curiosity was not becoming in a kajira?
“I think,” I said, “Torcadino.”
“Ah!” said more than one girl.
I knew little more of Torcadino than the name. I had gathered it was south of the river, and overland.
“You have an accent,” said a girl’s voice.
“So do you,” I said, hazarding the remark. To be sure, there was a flavor in her voice that was surely unlike that of the instructresses, at least.
“That is true,” laughed another girl, in the darkness.
I would learn later she was from Anango.
For a long time I remembered the imperious, assaultive kiss to which I had been unilaterally subjected.
I had wanted to respond, with a slave’s tenderness, hope, eagerness, and gratitude, but I had been given no opportunity to do so.
I was uneasy.
I feared I might be on the brink of slave fires. I tried to think of things as though I might be a free woman, but I was unsuccessful.
“Tell us about yourself,” said a voice from the darkness.
“There is nothing to tell,” I said.
They need not know I was a barbarian. Doubtless they would find out soon enough.
Barbarians tend to be unpopular with other slaves. They sometimes bring higher prices.
Chapter Eleven
I leaned against the heavy horizontal pole, chest high, inserted through the large, conical stone. It, like its two similar poles, passed through the stone and emerged on the other side. This produced, given the penetrations, the effect of six poles, against which weight might be pressed, this turning the heavy stone. The miller’s man, at intervals, from his ladder, would pour the grain, sa-tarna, the “life daughter,” into the opening on the top of the stone, and the stone, when turning, would press down upon it, and grind it, the resultant flour, by means of three descending troughs, being gathered in waiting sacks.
I had not been soon sold from the wharf.
Doubtless that had lowered my price.
As cages were emptied new occupants were procured. The cage to my right that had been emptied earlier now housed a red-headed slave. She was lovely. Her thigh, too, wore the Kef. I did not doubt that men would like her. I had seen her brought in, roped.
“May I speak, Master?” I had petitioned one or another of the two dealer’s men, from time to time. It is common for a slave to request permission to speak. Indeed, as she is not a free woman, she is expected to do so. I did not wish to request permission to speak from passers-by, or customers, fearing that this might be displeasing, but, following the example of some of the other girls, I did lodge this humble petition, now and then, with one of the dealer’s men. When not busy, they had no objection to conversing with us. They were men, and we were women, and women doubtless selected, at least in part, for their desirability and beauty, and, being men, they, no more than the males of Earth, objected to chatting with desirable and beautiful women, though, in this case, we were slaves, naked, and looking up at them, caged at their feet. Few men of Earth, I supposed, had had such an experience. Had they had such an experience, they might have had, I conjectured, a better sense of their manhood, and the difference between men and women.
How it pleases a man to have a slave at his feet, and how it pleases a slave to be at the feet of a master!
I used such occasions to deepen and broaden my knowledge of Gor, of its castes, customs, terrains and cities, governances, Ubarates, clans, beliefs, plants, fruits and vegetables, trees and flowers, animals, and such. Though I had never seen sleen, tarsks, verr, tharlarion, kaiila, tarns, or such, I did learn something of their nature, habits, and appearances.
I had also had it confirmed that the snakelike visitants that had so frightened and discomfited me in my tenure in the mostly submerged cage were not water snakes, which tend to favor still water, but eels, in all probability Vosk eels, a form of river eel. Such eels, as other eels, are omnivorous, but, free swimming, are accustomed to feed on small fish and plants. They are unlikely to attack human beings, unlike pool eels, unless their nests are threatened. They are found in fresh wat
er, but return, through the delta of the Vosk, to the salt water of vast, turbulent Thassa to spawn. I had also learned that the prodding at the cage, its strikings, twice, by some large body in the dark water, unseen by me, had most likely been a result of the curiosity of a river shark. Such fish, nine-gilled, and slender, sometimes reaching a length of nine to twelve feet, do pose a threat to anything in the water. They were, however, rare in the vicinity of Victoria. They were more common in the delta. Similar fish were found, I was told, in the Cartius and Laurius, the Cartius to the south, the Laurius to the north. Gorean sharks, in their several varieties, of course, are much more common in the waters of Thassa herself, particularly near the shallower banks, where sunlight encourages the growth of plants, and the plants attract several varieties of smaller fish, the parsit and others, on which the sharks feed. The bars of the cage, of course, had protected me from it. That which kept me within had kept it without. The bars of the cage had not been bent, but only prodded, which suggested the fish had been more curious than driven with the frenzy of hunger. One of the dealer’s men told of occasions in which a cage had required considerable repair following the onslaught of one or more such fish. In each case, however, the slave, within the battered device, safe within the bars, had escaped harm. Such things, I gathered, presented their greatest danger to captured free women, from enemy cities. Uneasily, I heard recounted occasions, in one venue, or another, of the harrows that might face such women who, being beyond price, are accordingly worthless. At least one has a sense of what a slave will bring. A free woman, stripped and bound, watches the water, and then, when the large, narrow, triangular, dorsal fins of the sharks cleave the water, men lift her, to cast her into the sea; on other occasions, she might, suspended by the wrists, be lowered, bit by bit, into a pit of starving urts who will feed on her, inch by inch; other unpleasant fates involve the fangs of sleen and the wicked hollow thorns of well-rooted, matted, leech plants. In such straits it seemed that the free women often discovered that they were actually slaves, professed themselves such, and begged the collar. Free women of the enemy make lovely slaves, it seems, but what else are they good for? I had learned that it was far safer to be a slave, or a verr or kaiila, than a free woman in the hands of the enemy.
I closed my eyes. I, and the others, were covered with sweat. We welcomed the moments when new grain was poured into the feeding aperture atop the stone. Too, sometimes a pole would snap. This, too, meant a surcease of effort. The stone was large, and heavy. It ground coarsely. There were, about the yard, smaller stones, as well, some of which could be turned by a single girl, kneeling near it. In this way our basic mill produced flour that could be reworked, if one wished, to different varieties of fineness, which would then be priced differently, being addressed to different markets. If we take the three penetrant poles spoken of, and count them as six poles, or spokes, by means of which to turn the stone, there were four girls to each of the six poles, or spokes, so twenty-four of us were used at a time in the work. The mill owner owned some thirty draft slaves, and those not chained in place to their pole, would usually be chained to the side, in the shade, where they might rest. He owned other girls, as well, of course, who had their different employments about the mill, turning the smaller stones, grading and sacking flour, sewing and marking sacks, loading carts, accompanying the drivers, when they made deliveries, and so on. I gathered that those accompanying the drivers, as they were silked, were supposed to be attractive advertisements in their way, for their master’s goods. Surely I was familiar with this sort of thing from Earth. What male is not likely to be favorably inclined toward a product that he associates with a beautiful woman? I thought myself obviously superior to them. It seemed to me madness that they should be silked, and I was chained to a pole. For the most part, however, sa-tarna, harvested and threshed, was brought in by peasants, milled, and carried away by peasants. The fee for the milling was in tarsk-bits, but, most commonly, it was taken in kind, a portion of the flour going to the miller, who might then market it as his own. From where we worked I could see the lofty aqueduct by means of which water was brought to Torcadino from the distant Voltai range, hundreds of pasangs away. Once, I had heard, enemy forces had entered the city by means of that aqueduct. The pitch in the aqueduct, supposedly, was less than a hort every twenty pasangs. We, the draft slaves, were camisked. The camisk is a strip of cloth, a brief, narrow rectangle with a circular opening at its center. It is drawn over the head, poncholike, pulled down, and belted with cord, or binding fiber. If possible, it leaves even less of the slave to the imagination than the tunic or ta-teera, the “slave rag.” Indeed, I was told that it is outlawed on the streets of some cities. But it was, of course, happily, clothing. Indeed, given our labors, we were perhaps fortunate to be clothed at all. Often, on Gor, I had learned, slaves, and even free workmen engaged in heavy tasks on hot days, might work nude. Male nudity, particularly in the fields, quarries, and such, is not unusual. Little is thought of it. Female nudity, on the other hand, is less common and, if it occurs, it would commonly be limited to slaves, or, one supposes, female captures. Even a free woman is likely to become much more aware of her womanhood, and her difference from men, when she is stripped and bound. The feeling of free women toward tunics and such seems to be ambivalent. They seem to favor them in order to humiliate and degrade the slave, and emphasize the difference between themselves, the free, and the slaves, while, at the same time, they seem to resent the attention and pleasure with which men regard slaves so clad. Surely, in a tunic, it is clear what the slave is for. We were apparently camisked because the gate of the mill yard was usually open in daylight hours, and free women might pass by. Too, sometimes peasant women, accompanying their companions, brought grain to the mill. My two wrists were chained to the pole. I put my head down, upon it. My body ached. “Why are not men, male slaves, or beasts, bosk or tharlarion, used to turn the mill?” I had asked one of my chain sisters. “Male slaves are dangerous,” she said. “Few are permitted within a city’s walls, save for male silk slaves, the pets of free women, and they make poor draft beasts, and we are cheaper than bosk and tharlarion.” I was not popular with the other girls, even more so than is common with “barbarians,” I feared, doubtless because of my obvious superiority to them, in both beauty and intelligence. On the other hand, to my amazement, and indignation, I soon realized they did not regard themselves as my inferiors. They seemed to think themselves as beautiful, and as intelligent, as I, and even, in several instances, as more so. I found this incomprehensible. Too, they, though obvious barbarians, natives of this rude, barbarous sphere, had the effrontery to regard me, of Earth, as the barbarian! I saw the miller’s man approaching, with his basket of grain, followed by the dark-haired flute girl. He set his ladder against the stone, climbed the ladder, and poured the grain into the cavity within the stone. He then withdrew, setting the ladder aside, and disappeared, with his basket, returning to the receiving house, where grain was brought and weighed, and records kept. The flute girl then climbed to her perch, or platform, on the side, and sat upon it, her legs dangling over the edge. She, too, was camisked, and wore the mill collar. Shortly thereafter the switch slave, a large, strong woman, similarly camisked, arrived, her switch in hand. About her forehead was bound a broad, yellow fillet, from the wool of the bounding hurt. This held back her hair, of course, but its significance, in her case, was considerable. It was a talmit, indicative of rank. She was first girl in the mill yard. The flute girl began to play, and we dug in our feet and pressed our weight against the spokelike poles by means of which the stone was turned. With a heavy, grinding, sound, one we knew well, the heavy, conical stone began to rotate slowly on the thick, flat, circular, platelike stone from which the troughs descended. It was not unusual on this world, incidentally, for many activities to be accompanied by music which, on my former world, would not be likely to be so accompanied. Needless to say, I found this surprising. Warriors might perform martial exercises to music, in
the manner of Pyrrhic dances, advancing, withdrawing, wheeling about, and such, brandishing weaponry; athletes might train to music; sa-tarna might be harvested to music; grain might be threshed to music, galleys might be rowed to music, and so on. Similarly, work songs are common in the fields. Warriors might sing battle hymns while moving to engage the enemy. Girls may sing at the looms, and at the potting wheels.
Once, I had heard, the walls of a great city, Ar, defeated in war, had been dismantled, to the music of flute girls.
Doubtless music has many practical applications. It might serve to coordinate activities; it might serve to hearten; to inspirit, and lift hearts; it might be intended to seemingly shorten hours and lighten labors, and so on. The tunes played by our flute girl were not lively, of course, for one does not turn a stone with grace and sprightliness, but were measured to our tread, as we thrust against the poles. Sometimes, when we were resting, leaning on the poles, she would play as she wished. She was quite skilled. I wanted to tear her hair out.
“Ai!” I cried, struck by the switch of the first girl, on the back of the thighs, four times, below the narrow, tiny camisk. “Do not malinger, barbarian,” she said. “Feel my switch, you laggard! Others are not to do your work.”
I thrust then, again, with a rattle of chains, harder, against the pole.
My pole sisters laughed.
I did not dare think of pulling out the hair of the first girl. She was large, and strong. I was afraid of her.
As I made the circuit, in the well-worn circular path, one of four, concentric about the mill, thrusting, I looked again at the flute girl, as I passed, in her camisk, her legs crossed, dangling over the platform. “She has slim ankles,” I thought to myself. “They are not unlike mine. What is wrong with slim ankles? Are they not attractive? Would men not bid well for such a girl?” And then I recalled she was only another slave in a mill yard.
Goreans tend to be fond of the arts, at least as they understand them. There are public readings of literary works, recitals of poetry, contests of dancing, musical contests, with various instruments, contests of choral singing, contests of plays, both comedic and dramatic, and so on. The participants in these municipal contests, too, are almost always common citizens, volunteers, for on Gor the common citizen is as likely to be a participant as a spectator. It has not occurred to Goreans that the joys of performance should be limited to a small minority, a professional elite. The arts are too precious for that.
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