Plunder of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “Yes,” said the Lady Bina, “and certainly any faction loyal to that of the supplanted Lord Agamemnon, but there is little to be feared from him now as, I believe, he is currently without a body.”

  “You mean he is dead?” I said.

  “Not at all,” she said, and declined to explain this, apparently feeling a matter so obvious needed no explanation.

  “The gift was delivered to the house of Flavius Minor in the port city of Brundisium,” I said, “and was claimed by my master, Tenrik of Siba, as planned, but intruders, three beasts, intervened. The gift was seized by these beasts and spirited away, we know not where nor for what reason.”

  “These intruders,” said the Lady Bina, “were doubtless Kurii. You should not speak of Kurii, the high ones, as beasts.”

  “Forgive me, Mistress,” I said.

  “Kurii,” she said, “are not beasts. Sleen and tarsks are beasts, slaves, such as you, are beasts, Lord Grendel, who is not full Kur, fond as I am of him, is a beast, but Kurii, the august ones, the noble ones, the high ones, are not beasts.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said.

  “Do you understand?” she said.

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said.

  “Why would Lord Arcesilaus wish to give some malformed monstrosity to Lord Grendel?” she asked.

  “He doubtless thought Lord Grendel would be pleased,” I said.

  “Interesting,” she said. “I wonder why.”

  “I am sure no insult was intended,” I said.

  “I would suppose not,” she said.

  “I am told,” I said, “the gift was female, a female.”

  “What would be the point of that?” she asked.

  “Perhaps,” I said, “Lord Arcesilaus thought Lord Grendel would be pleased.”

  “To be given a monster?” she said. “Lord Grendel regards himself with misery, with loathing and horror. He avoids mirrors, and reflective surfaces, will not look into pools of still water. And Lord Arcesilaus would send him a mirror of his own misshapen form, a reminder of what is most repellant and repulsive to him, himself? Look at him! See the eyes, the paws!”

  “Surely he is much like a Kur, Mistress,” I said. I was not sure I could distinguish him from a Kur, a “high one.”

  “A counterfeit,” said Lady Bina. “It would be less abhorrent if he were not so close to a high one. Better to be an honest copper tarsk than a copper tarsk painted silver or gold, one pretending to be silver or gold.”

  “I am sure Lord Grendel pretends nothing,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “It is his body that pretends.”

  “Mistress informed a slave that the first message, that borne by my predecessor, another mere kajira, was conveyed on behalf of Lord Arcesilaus, a claim concerning which I dared to express doubt. The foundation for my skepticism will now be understood.”

  “Very much so,” said the Lady Bina.

  “May I now inquire the nature of the earlier message?” I asked.

  “I do not see why not,” she said. “A meeting was proposed, in which a message from Lord Arcesilaus to Lord Grendel was to be delivered, one pertaining to worlds.”

  “And what credentials were borne by my predecessor,” I asked, “she who bore this message, certifying its authenticity, that its source was Lord Arcesilaus?”

  “None,” said the Lady Bina.

  “I see,” I said.

  “And what credentials do you bear?” she inquired.

  “None,” I said.

  “I see,” she said.

  “I would not attend such a meeting,” I said. “I fear for the life of Lord Grendel.”

  “It is no wonder you are in a collar,” she said. “It is no wonder you are a man’s plaything. You are so stupid.”

  “Forgive me, Mistress,” I said, “but I am not stupid. I am quite intelligent.”

  “Perhaps, then,” said the Lady Bina, “you are merely unaccustomed to wandering in the byways of intrigue.”

  “I fear so, Mistress,” I said.

  What man would not wish to lock his collar on a highly intelligent woman, just as on a highly intelligent sleen or kaiila? We make the best collar meat! Too, it seemed clear that the average slave was far more intelligent than the average free woman, for a very simple reason. Slavers selected with high intelligence in mind, as well as beauty and passion. It is well known that high intelligence improves the price of slaves, and, similarly, of course, ignitable passions, which place us so much at the mercy of our masters. And how thrilling, and fulfilling, it is for us to find ourselves in our place in nature!

  “If enemies wished to kill Lord Grendel,” she said, “it would be easy for them to attempt to do so, in a hundred places, at a hundred times. Clearly their intent, if what you suggest should be true, is to make use of Lord Grendel, for one purpose or another.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said.

  “But for what purpose?” she asked.

  “I do not know, Mistress,” I said.

  “And how, I wonder,” she asked, “might they think to influence Lord Grendel, to encourage him to accede to their wishes?”

  “By means of the female, Mistress,” I said.

  “Absurd,” she said. “By your own testimony the female is a contrivance, a biological artifact, a monster, and is doubtless, in her own way, as hideous, as gross and repulsive, as my dear friend, Lord Grendel, himself. It is preposterous to suppose she could produce any effect in him other than loathing and dismay. Should these supposed enemies think otherwise they are as naive, and as unaccustomed to the byways of intrigue, as I suggested, as an ankle-roped slave. Surely Lord Grendel, a creature of sensibility and taste, would be more likely, in disgust and rage, to destroy such an affront to nature than spare it. He does not even regard his own image in reflective surfaces. The existence of such a thing is a veritable reproach to him. Who would dare to confront him with so painful a mockery? Would it not be most merciful to put such a horror out of its misery? Should it not beg to be terminated? What kindly fellow would deny it such a mercy? Should it not dash itself to pieces?”

  The beast crouched before the doorway to the kitchen had not moved.

  “Nonetheless, Mistress,” I said, “I am sure it is on Gor, was delivered with benign intent, and was seized with some end in view.”

  “The other messenger,” said the Lady Bina, “mentioned nothing of this sort.”

  “Slaves,” I said, “are seldom made privy to the plans of masters and mistresses.”

  “Poor Lord Grendel,” she said, “how hard this must be for him.”

  “A meeting was proposed,” I said.

  “To which we have acceded,” she said. “The time and place have been arranged.”

  “Beware,” I said.

  “I do not think there is danger,” she said. “The message was from Lord Arcesilaus, with whom we are on excellent terms.”

  “It was not from him, Mistress,” I said.

  “Your story,” she said, “is clearly a fabrication. What is unclear is its motive.”

  “I dare not lie, Mistress,” I said. “I am a slave!”

  “You were ordered by your master to lie,” she said.

  “No, Mistress!” I said.

  “It is plausible that Lord Arcesilaus might wish to communicate with Lord Grendel,” she said. “Plans abound, dark winds scurry about, secrets are in the streets. The most likely faction opposed to Lord Arcesilaus would be that of the deposed Lord Agamemnon, but his faction is inert as of late, indeed, perhaps dissolved, and, to the best of our knowledge, Lord Agamemnon, lacking a body, is little to be feared. Your story is absurd. Why would Lord Arcesilaus duplicate the experimental debacle that resulted in the formation of Lord Grendel? And if someone did, it would not be sent to Gor, and proffered as a present. More likely, if only to avoid offense, it would be
sequestered in some remote corner of a steel world. How insulting it would be to even let Lord Grendel know that such a monstrosity might exist. No, your story is grossly false, patently so, but what is not clear is what you or your master might have in mind. What is your purpose?”

  “I have spoken the truth, Mistress,” I said.

  “I do not believe you,” she said.

  “Forgive me, Mistress,” I said. “If Mistress will untie my ankles, I will return to my master.”

  The Lady Bina put back her head, and laughed, I thought rather merrily.

  “Mistress?” I asked, uneasily.

  “Surely you do not think this matter is so expeditiously settled,” she said, “that you are now going to leap up and rush off to your master, that you will be allowed to slip away with impunity?”

  “I do not understand,” I said.

  “You will remain here,” she said.

  “Surely not,” I said.

  “You will not escape,” she said.

  “‘Escape’?” I asked. “I do not understand,” I said.

  “You will accompany Lord Grendel to the meeting, where your lie will be confounded and exposed, and thence you may be used for sleen feed,” she said.

  I attempted, wildly, irrationally, in sudden panic, to spring to my feet, but, my ankles bound, I fell heavily to the flooring, before the door.

  “You see, dear Grendel,” she said, “binding a slave’s ankles is an excellent way to control her.”

  I turned about, sitting, my ankles now before me, and reached to undo the cords. Did I not know I had not been given permission to do so? Did I not know I was now a Gorean slave girl?

  “Are you going to run away?” she asked.

  “Please, Mistress!” I wept, quickly removing my hands from the cords.

  The Lady Bina seized me by the ankles and drew me across the floor, to the wall. There was a slave ring there, anchored in the floor. I glimpsed a collar and chain.

  “Mistress!” I protested.

  “On your belly, worthless, lying slut, worthless beast,” said the Lady Bina, “and put your wrists behind your back.”

  There were two decisive snaps and my wrists were fastened behind me, in slave bracelets.

  “Please, no, Mistress!” I wept.

  But then the collar was snapped about my neck, and by this, and its chain, I was fastened to the slave ring near the wall.

  I was still on my belly.

  “You look well as a chained slut,” she said. “Indeed, do not they all?”

  “Please free me!” I begged.

  “Surely, as a slave,” she said, “you are used to being on a chain, being helpless in bracelets, and such.”

  “Let me go,” I begged.

  “Surely you suspect you will remain here, my dear,” said the Lady Bina, “until you are so privileged as to be taken to a certain rendezvous, in the neighborhood of the Twentieth Ahn, at which time you will be turned over to an agent of Lord Arcesilaus.”

  I moaned.

  “I understand your apprehension,” she said. “Too, do not expect that your sex, your collar, and your beauty, such as it is, will protect you at such a meeting. You are not one of their own females, a high female, of Kur blood. As a lying, displeasing slave you may well be cast naked to leech plants or fed to sleen, or, more mercifully, perhaps, to save time, be simply, swiftly, bitten to death.”

  “I am a poor slave,” I said. “I know nothing of these things.”

  The Lady Bina then undid the knots of the cords wound about my ankles, and put the cords to the side.

  “While waiting,” she said, “perhaps you would care for a handful of slave pellets or a bowl of slave gruel?”

  “Mercy, Mistress,” I said.

  “It seems not,” she said, and turned away.

  The floor was hard.

  I turned on my side, and pulled futilely at the encirclements, fastened so snugly on my wrists.

  “Please, Mistress!” I begged.

  “Were you given permission to speak?” she asked.

  “No, Mistress,” I said.

  “Be silent,” she said.

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said.

  I felt the weight of the chain, dangling from the collar ring. I pulled again, at the bracelets.

  “You will be blindfolded, of course,” said the Lady Bina. “That will give them the option of sparing you, should they be so inclined. One supposes you might be worth something, off a slave block. In any event, you will learn what is to be done with you.”

  “Thank you, Mistress,” I whispered.

  I looked to the large beast, across the room, still crouched before the doorway. It was looking at me. I quickly lowered my head. One must be careful of looking into the eyes of the free.

  I hoped I might be spared.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  I heard the rubbing of stone on metal, long, firm, rhythmic, smooth strokes.

  I sat in the wagon, my back against the side of the wagon box, my legs drawn up. My wrists were still confined behind my back in the slave bracelets. I could feel the stones of the street as the wagon rumbled forward. I was blindfolded. The leash had been put on me before the blindfolding, in the apartment of the Lady Bina and Lord Grendel. The Lady Bina had remained in the apartment. I had been carried downstairs, and hoisted onto the wagon bed. I had heard canvas being drawn, so I supposed the wagon was a closed wagon.

  “Can you understand me?” asked the beast.

  I hesitated a moment, and then said, “Yes, Master.”

  I had understood him long ago, when I, with Lita, had watched him pass with she whom I now knew as the Lady Bina. Her name had been subsequently made clear to me by my master, and that he was a Lord Grendel. Too, I was now more alert to, and familiar with, the transformations or qualifications of Gorean phonemes that might occur with such a form of life given my interactions with the beast, Eve, in Brundisium.

  “Good,” he said. “The translator will not be needed.”

  The wagon was being drawn by a draft tharlarion. I could tell this from the sound of claws on the stones. I supposed it to be a small one, as such is the case with most fee wagons within the city.

  I continued to hear the rubbing of the stone on metal.

  I did not know the driver. It was, doubtless, a pay wagon, or fee wagon, such as might be hired about the city. The Lady Bina, I gathered, had arranged the conveyance, probably engaging the first that came to hand. I suspected it would be exited before we approached the rendezvous point.

  “You are Phyllis?” he asked.

  “A slave is named as masters please,” I said.

  “So, what is your name?” he asked.

  “Phyllis, Master,” I said.

  “You should be more prompt, slave,” he said.

  “Forgive me, Master,” I said.

  “I suspect,” he said, “you may have told the truth.”

  “I did!” I said, eagerly. “I did, Master!”

  “The Lady Bina,” he said, “is suspicious, and impetuous, and thinks little of slave girls.”

  “She is free,” I said.

  “I have often thought,” he said, “that she should best be stripped and collared herself.”

  “But she is free!” I said.

  “Were you not once free, somewhere?” he asked.

  “Once,” I said, “—legally.” Surely I had been legally free on Earth, but I had learned, on Gor, that even on Earth I had been a slave, a slave in the profoundest of senses, a natural slave, a bred slave, born to be fittingly collared. It was only that, on Earth, I had not met masters. On Gor there was no dearth of masters. How differently I viewed the men of Gor from how I had viewed those of Earth! How weak, helpless, moved, and thrilled, I felt, as a woman, to be amongst such men. Perhaps even the free women of G
or experienced such feelings. Were they not, too, women? But then they were not owned.

  “She would look well on her knees, in a collar,” he said.

  “It is where we belong, Master,” I said.

  “Her origin,” he said, “was a steel world. She was once the pet, a grooming pet, of Lord Arcesilaus.”

  “I do not understand,” I said.

  “Kurii, not unoften,” he said, “keep human females as pets. Their bodies can warm feet; their fine, small teeth are excellent for grooming, for ridding pelts of parasites.”

  “I did not know,” I said.

  “Most are not taught to speak, but only to recognize simple commands in Kur, much as a sleen might learn to respond to certain vocalizations in Gorean. Without speech, what is a human but another beast?”

  “She spoke well,” I said.

  “She is highly intelligent,” he said. “She learned much Gorean on the steel world, from some who could speak the language. Lady Delia, the companion of Epicrates, taught her to read Gorean. In many respects she is untutored and naive. She knows little of Gorean culture. She holds herself in high regard, deeming herself, as many lovely women, the fairest woman on Gor. Indeed, she once sent a slave to propose her companionship to Marlenus of Ar, that she would become thereby the Ubara of Ar. The poor slave, unfortunately, was much ridiculed, and well beaten. The Lady Bina found this rebuff of her suit surprising, and somewhat annoying. It took days for the slave to recover. In some respects she is imminently practical, and, in others, oblivious of practicalities which, to a normal person, suitably acculturated, would seem patent, practicalities of Home Stone, of family, of caste, of station, of power, and such. She is not, really, either moral or immoral. Similarly one would not expect a sleen, or a pet urt, to be either moral or immoral. They are merely what they are.”

  “Master is different,” I speculated.

  “Perhaps,” he said. “I have wondered, I have thought, I have had friends, I have felt the voice, the call, of honor.”

  “How is it,” I asked, “that Master is on this world?”

  “You looked upon me,” he said. “You have seen how hideous I am, neither Kur nor human, naught but a monstrosity. How could I endure to remain amongst the mighty and beautiful? Better to hide on this world, pretending to no higher office than that of a pet, or guard brute.”