Kurik then went to the proprietor’s counter, where he released me, and I knelt beside him. A paga girl, carrying a tray, regarded me. No, I was not a paga girl. I pretended I did not notice. Meanwhile, Kurik, by means of a coin or two, was making certain arrangements.
I was not clear on the nature of these arrangements.
He then turned about, and leaning his back against the counter, his elbows on it, looked about the dimly lit, but well-occupied, tavern.
I saw, centrally, a circle of sand, which, I supposed, was dancing sand. There were cushions to the side, probably for musicians. The accompaniment for a dancer can vary considerably, from as little as a single flute, often the case with a street dancer, to several individuals and a variety of instruments. A typical group would consist of a czehar player, usually the leader, one or two flautists, one or two players of the kalika, and a taborist.
It was clear to me that Kurik, to my annoyance, while waiting for his specifications, whatever they might have been, to be effectuated, was considering the paga girls, two or three of whom were only too well aware of his regard, and little loath, I fear, to bring him paga.
“Master,” I said, “at the far table two men play kaissa. Why is a slave lying beside them, on the floor, bound?”
I was curious, but, too, I thought it not amiss to distract him from his observations and, doubtless, speculations.
“She is for the winner,” he said. “The loser will pay the proprietor for her use.”
He then returned his attention to the subject matter of his former purview.
Need they move like that, I wondered. Could they not take a more circuitous, a more remote route, to the paga vat?
Shortly thereafter the arrangements, whatever they might have been, seemed to have been completed. In any event, Kurik then indicated an opening in the wall, one of several such, and I, at his gesture, approached it. It was then, as I hesitated, that he had thrust me through the opening, and then turned to buckle shut the leather curtain.
He had then turned, again, and, sitting cross-legged, had faced me, and I had knelt.
I was now before him, kneeling, unclothed, slave naked, namely, naked as a slave is naked, naked, but collared.
I could see the leather curtain behind him, buckled shut.
I looked about, uneasily. Here and there, mostly fixed to rings, were collars, chains, and shackles. To one side, at hand, I saw strips of cloth, by means of which one might be bound, or from which might be fashioned gags and blindfolds. I saw, too, on their pegs, a long, supple switch and a whip, a slave whip, with its five broad blades.
The only light was from the small tharlarion-oil lamp.
My knees were half buried in the furs on which I knelt.
“What manner of place is this?” I asked, again.
“An alcove,” he said.
“I have heard of such places,” I said.
“You are now in one,” he said.
“To such a place as this paga girls are brought?” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“To be put to use,” I said, “for the sport and pleasure of masters.”
“Yes,” he said.
“I am not a paga girl,” I said, angrily.
“You will do,” he said.
“Surely I am not to be put to use,” I said, indignantly.
“We shall see,” he said.
“Oh?” I said.
“Do not look disappointed,” he said.
I turned away, angrily.
“As I recall, from Victoria,” he said, “you had the incipiency of collar readiness. By now, doubtless, slave fires have been kindled in your small, shapely belly.”
“I cannot help what men have made me,” I said.
“Amusing,” he said.
“‘Amusing’?” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“A slave is pleased,” I said, bitterly, “that she has amused Master.”
“You are now a slave of your needs, wholly so, as men wish their slaves to be,” he said.
“I see,” I said, angrily. How true that was! How helpless I was! What choice had I been given? They do with us what they please, they make us what they want!
“But it is not just that,” he said. “It is the whole thing, all of it.”
“Oh?” I said.
“Yes,” he said, “surely, from what I knew of you, and your personality and character, on your former world, you should not be surprised that I find it amusing to see you as you are now, kneeling before me, naked, a collared, Gorean slave girl.”
“It was you who brought me to the collar!” I charged.
“Where you belonged,” he said.
“Beware of Tyrtaios, of the black caste!” I said.
“I shall be,” he said.
“I may escape,” I said. “I may inform on you. I may betray you, as I did before!”
“You could not help yourself,” he said. “It was the trick of the guide stick. You did not wish to betray me. That was clear. Your agonized expression informed me of as much.”
“Perhaps I would now enjoy betraying you,” I said.
“You are not now likely to receive the opportunity to do so,” he said.
“I see,” I said.
He glanced to the side, to the dangling whip.
I was uneasy.
“You are going to hold me,” I said, “until the nineteenth Ahn, tomorrow?”
“Or have you held,” he said, “on a chain somewhere.”
“You are not going to keep me,” I said.
“Who would want you?” he said.
“I see,” I said, angrily.
“To be sure,” he said, “it would be judicious to keep you until we have made our visit to the house of Flavius Minor.”
“Perhaps I would cry out,” I said.
“There is the slave bit,” he said.
“I do not wish to be bitted,” I said.
“One could scarcely blame you for that,” he said. “Still, a woman looks well in a slave bit.”
“I am missing from the slave ring,” I said. “Guardsmen may be alerted.”
“The yellow tunic,” he said, “is too striking, surely too easy to recognize. We shall have to find you another, shorter, but less conspicuous, as a tunic.”
“Surely,” I said, “the yellow tunic is short enough.”
“Not for my taste,” he said. “Also, you have excellent legs.”
“Surely I would be more conspicuous,” I said.
“But not for the tunic,” he said. “Guardsmen will be looking for a yellow tunic. One sight of you, and they may be distracted from thoughts of a tunic.”
“Apparently I have some value,” I said.
“Far more now,” he said, “than when you were on your former world, clad in its cumbersome, barbarous garments. They do not know how to clothe a slave.”
“I have a collar,” I said.
“What does it say?” he asked.
“I do not know,” I said. “I cannot read.”
“You have not been taught,” he said.
“No,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “I want you illiterate.”
“So I am even more a slave!” I said.
“Of course,” he said. “Was the collar never read to you?”
“No,” I said. “But its legend is deceptive. It would have me returned to one address, not obviously connected to the black court, from which address I would then be remanded to the black court.”
“Clever,” he said. “But no matter. Collars may be easily changed.”
“I cannot do so,” I said.
“No,” he said.
“This tavern,” I said, “is not the Sea Sleen.”
“No,” he said. “Obviously
not. This is a larger, better tavern, more respectably situated, the Tavern of the Slave Whip. I expect that your Tyrtaios, and his colleagues, would not expect me to conceal myself in a public tavern, and surely not in one as prominent as this. Thus, they are not likely to look for me here.”
“Doubtless Master thinks himself clever,” I said.
“Apparently you think me stupid,” he said.
“Master?” I said, uneasily.
“On the street,” he said, “when you had inadvertently identified me for your Tyrtaios, you tried, by your expressions, to warn me of my danger.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Thus,” he said, “you thought me so stupid as not to be aware of my danger.”
“I did not think you were aware,” I said.
“And thus thought me stupid,” he said. “Did you not realize that I would instantly be aware of the anomaly of a former possession of mine suddenly appearing in Brundisium, who might be used in identifying me, and did you think I would be unaware that your supposedly blind master had the body of a human panther, and limbs and hands shaped by the practice of arms, limbs and hands that might have been expected in an arena fighter, a warrior—or Assassin?”
“Apparently Master thinks me stupid,” I said.
“Naive, ignorant, unreflective, not thinking, perhaps,” he said, “but not stupid. We do not bring stupid women to Gor. What would they be good for? Who would buy them? They do not sell well. We want something worthwhile, stripped on the block. We look for women who are highly intelligent, and highly sexed, women who are healthy and vital, women with profound physical and emotional needs, women who desire to be women, desire to submit and surrender, who long for the collar, who desire to love and serve, who find themselves and their fulfillment in their subjugation, who understand and become themselves only in a man’s chains.”
“And perhaps beauty is a consideration?” I said.
“Certainly,” he said. “They are to be marketed.”
“I am not stupid,” I said.
“I trust not,” he said.
“I am not stupid,” I said, again, angrily.
“And it is my hope that neither am I,” he said.
“May I speak frankly?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, “of course. At least until I forbid you to speak.”
“Speaking of stupidity,” I said.
“Or of naivety, or of a lack of reflection,” he suggested.
“Yes,” I said.
“Continue,” he said.
“Tyrtaios, of the black caste,” I said, “regards you as a fool.”
“Good,” said Kurik, of Victoria.
“‘Good’?” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“He thinks you were unaware of your danger,” I said.
“Excellent,” he said.
“He mocks you, that you chose the name ‘Tenrik of Siba’ as a concealing name,” I said, “for it is foolishly and clearly close to that of ‘Kurik’, and he finds it pathetically inept that you should have claimed to be from Siba, for that is merely another town on the Vosk, as is your true town, Victoria, thinks that you should have chosen a more judicious name and claimed to come from a farther place, one remote from the great Vosk.”
“That such inferences be drawn was my hope,” he said. “One strives to be underestimated by one’s enemy.”
At that point, a girl’s voice spoke softly, from the other side of the buckled-shut leather curtain. “Provender, and drink, Master,” she said.
Kurik turned to the curtain, but remained a bit to the side. “Speak,” he said.
“Victoria is the ruby of the Vosk,” she said.
He then unbuckled the curtain, and took from the girl, a paga girl, a large tray, containing two bowls, a trencher, and a bottle. This he placed on the floor of the alcove, while the girl, her head lowered, backed away. He then rebuckled the leather curtain. I gathered that this business had been included amongst the arrangements he had made with the proprietor.
“As I recall,” he said, “you were very much hungry.”
“Very much so,” I said, “Master.”
Of the two bowls on the tray, one contained gruel, and the other, I conjectured, water. I did not know the contents of the bottle, but, I supposed, it would contain either ka-la-na or paga, most likely paga. As it was bottled, it was presumably not vat paga, but some selection from a more reserved, or private, stock, doubtless more expensive. The contents of the trencher still steamed. It was amply laden, with strips of roast bosk, suls hot with butter, a salad of tur-pah and nuts, slices of tospit, and two large wedges of fresh bread. Naturally I regarded these treasures with unfeigned interest. To the side were a flat spatulalike spoon, and a pointed stick, a northern analog to the Turian eating, or dining, prong.
“It seems,” I said, “Master dines well.”
He looked at me, narrowly.
He broke off a piece of the bread and held it out to me. I leaned forward, eagerly, and stretched out my hands, but then, wary, I drew back, quickly.
He smiled.
I looked at him, angrily.
“I dare not feed,” I said. “Master has not yet fed or begun to feed.”
“See,” he said, “you are not stupid, or not altogether stupid.”
“Thank you,” I said, “Master.”
“You look well in a collar,” he said.
“I am pleased that Master is pleased,” I said.
What a monster he was! It had been a test. I dared not conjecture what might have occurred had I failed such a test, so simple a test! He was a monster, and I was in his power, and I knew that I could not resist his touch, even had I been permitted to attempt to do so.
“I see I have again amused Master,” I said.
“You are insolent,” he said. “That is not permitted.”
“I am from Earth,” I said.
“Earth is now behind you,” he said. “You are now of Gor.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
That was true.
“A Gorean animal,” he said.
“Master?” I said.
“A slave,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
In Gorean law the slave is an animal. I was a domestic animal, a slave.
“You were worthless on Earth,” he said, “utterly worthless, but now, here at least, you have some value, a modicum of value, the pittance that would take you off a slave block.”
“May I partake of the contents of the trencher?” I asked.
“You are presumptuous,” he said.
I regarded the heaped trencher, avidly. “Surely there is more there than Master requires,” I said.
“Can it be,” he said, “that after months on Gor, you still do not know what you are?”
I knew well what I was, and wanted to be. But, as much as I knew I was a slave, and wanted to be such, as much as I was helplessly drawn to this Gorean brute, as much as I wanted to belong to him, as much as I wanted to be his property, as much as a brush, a buckle, a comb, a sandal, I was furious with him, as well. Had he not claimed I was not worth keeping, had he not sold me, had he not rid himself of me?
Looking at me, he put the bit of bread he had pretended to offer me in his mouth, and finished it.
“I am very hungry,” I said. “And Master has begun to feed.”
“But has not yet finished,” he said.
I knelt back, and waited, for several Ehn, until Kurik had finished with the contents of the trencher. He then finished his dinner with several swigs from the bottle, the contents of which proved to be, judging by the apparent fire of its taste, and the apparently satisfactory burning in his mouth, some special paga. He then recorked the bottle, put it aside, and looked at me.
“Master is finished,” I sai
d, archly.
He rose up, went to the wall to my right, as I knelt, and removed the slave whip from its peg.
He shook out the five broad blades. It is designed to punish, and terribly, but not to mark. One does not wish to lower the value of merchandise.
“I merely observed that Master was finished,” I said, frightened.
He looked down at me, both hands on the handle of the whip. I had never felt the Gorean slave whip, even in training, and had no wish to do so, certainly not now, and in this situation.
“Forgive me, Master,” I said. As is well-known what is said, however innocent the words might seem in themselves, may be said in a way, or a tone, or with an expression, that transforms and parts the veil of benignity, that moves it to the side, and conveys a message of quite dissimilar import.
He replaced the whip on its peg, to my relief, and then sat down, cross-legged, before the leather curtain, his back to it, the tray at hand.
“Approach, slave,” he said.
I crawled to him on all fours.
“You are hungry?” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He then took me by the hair, and forced my head down, holding it over the bowl of gruel, now little more than cold mush.
“Please, no,” I whispered.
My face was then thrust down into the bowl, deeply. I shut my eyes, the gruel was all about my face, to my ears and hair. I could not breathe. I feared I might drown, so held.
“Feed, slave,” he said.
I moved my head, as I could, to clear mush to the sides, to open up crevices and passages into which air might penetrate, and began to bite and swill at the mush, desperately, filling my mouth, and struggling to swallow down great gluts, as best I could, again and again. Then he wiped the inside of the bowl with my face, and bade me, with my tongue, to waste no gruel. Then, still holding me by the hair, he thrust my head down into the other bowl, that of water, and, my hands on the floor, on either side of the bowl, I drank, lapping the water, as I could, being shown the beast, and slave, that I was.
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