Could I have been so ignorant, so lacking in understanding?
Did I not know that our only hope of survival lay in the blades of certain men, who might prize us as the goods we were?
I was muchly uneasy.
“Stupid fool,” said a slave.
“She is doubtless a barbarian,” said another, scornfully.
“I was commanded!” I retorted.
“Give her sandals,” said another.
“Better, put her in the Robes of Concealment,” said another. “She is not well covered.”
“Surely she is a free woman,” said another.
“But there is a collar on her neck,” said another.
“Then she is a slave,” said another.
“But a stupid slave,” said another.
“Assuredly,” said another.
Paula was in the group, near to Drusus Andronicus, but had not spoken. I saw tears in her eyes. She regarded me sympathetically, tenderly. She would know I had not left the group of my own free will, that I had not deserted it, that I had not tried to save myself, leaving the others to their fate. She would know that the abuse heaped upon me was not warranted. I had not tried to escape. I had not rushed stupidly, hysterically away. She was my friend. Happily she did not suspect how I had betrayed her. I felt guilt, keenly. I had so wronged her! Lyris was near Surtak, crouched behind him. I understood her to be an unusually beautiful female Kur, and yet that was lost upon me. What but another beast, gross and ruthless, agile and powerful, could find her so? The former Lady Alexina, blond-haired and blue-eyed, now collared, and doubtless marked, wholly stripped, as were we all, knelt toward the center of our group. It is not unusual for slaves to be kept naked; it helps to remind them, like the collar on their necks and the mark on their thigh, that they are slaves. Surely I knew well the joy of being kept naked before my master. I saw Tyrtaios, standing easily, his sword unsheathed, who had not stirred from his earlier position to the side, regard her. She trembled in terror, and put her head down, and tried to hide herself amongst the others, others whom yesterday she might have despised, but from whom she was now no different, merely another kajira.
I looked up at my master. The slave is well accustomed to looking up at free persons from her knees. How right it seems, after a time, that we should kneel before the free. Indeed, we can be terribly uneasy if not permitted to kneel, even terrified not to kneel. I recalled when, on my former world, in the office, he whom I would come to know as Kurik of Victoria, had inquired why I was standing before him. “You should be on your knees,” he had said. How puzzled, disconcerted, and then infuriated, I had been. I had not known then that I was a slave and he a master. How swiftly then, had I known these things, I would have hastened to my knees before the will, might, and glory of such a male, so different from the men I knew. How piteously I would have trembled and hoped to please him! Surely one such as he might find some use for one such as I! Had nature not designed us for ones such as he, to kneel naked before them, our necks in their collars, our heads down, our lips to their feet?
“Forgive me, Master,” I said, looking up. “I failed.”
“I did not expect you to succeed,” he said.
“I tried,” I said.
“One can do no more,” he said.
“Master is kind,” I said.
“How so?” he said.
“You hoped,” I said, “that I might have saved myself.”
“I had hoped,” he said, “that we both, and Grendel, and perhaps others, might have been saved.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“That you might have reached the wagon, and returned.”
“The wagon was empty,” I said.
“Then,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“But perhaps not now,” he said.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“We are lost,” said Drusus Andronicus. “Reinforcements have come from the wagons, some tens of guards.”
“I feared so,” said Kurik.
There were cries of dismay, wails of misery from the kajirae.
“Your foes are there!” cried Decius Albus from the box, pointing toward Surtak, Drusus Andronicus, Kurik, and Lord Grendel. “Deploy! Ready yourselves. Attack upon my signal.” He then turned to Lucilius, intent and monstrous, beside him in the box. “Fear not, noble High One,” he said, “the festivities will shortly continue, and with appetites yet better whetted!”
Surtak, clutching his ax, looking about, called out to Lucilius, wildly, desperately, his Kur picked up by Lord Grendel’s translator. “You are within the rings,” he cried. “I pronounce you so! Descend and meet with me.”
“I think not,” returned Lucilius. “The matter is done. Test the might of your single ax against twenty spears, from twenty sides!”
I saw men encircling us.
“We are armed,” said Drusus Andronicus to Kurik. “Now none can deny us the right to die well.”
I looked about.
About the edges of the field several soldiers maintained their position. Discipline seemed frayed. Isolated men, backing away from one another, were in the field. Some had fallen, bloodied in the grass. One Kur lay some yards from us, unmoving. Kurii drew back toward the stands. The field seemed strangely quiet. We, the small group at the stake, Surtak, Drusus Andronicus, Kurik, and Lord Grendel, who had no weapon save claws and fangs, and the larger group, the kajirae, were encircled. I saw the eyes of the soldiers about us, but feet away, eyes narrowed, watchful, alit within the apertures of those fierce-seeming helmets, the openings so like a “Y” in shape, the lowered spears, the points threatening us, moving slightly, like the heads of a ring of osts. It was like a trap of steel, a trap from which there was no escape, a trap not yet sprung. I felt sick, perhaps as a tabuk might, with nowhere to run, a tabuk ringed with sleen.
Decius Albus raised his hand.
But then he lowered his hand, looking past us, toward the perimeter of the field, opposite the stands.
Two figures were approaching, that of a small free woman, and, one might suppose, her pet.
The free woman was clad in the full regalia of the Robes of Concealment, and yet, surely to the shock and dismay of some of the soldiers, and the awe or delight of others, had disdained veiling. Who would care to conceal such beauty?
“One side, oafs!” she cried. “Dare not obstruct the path of a free woman, not so much as brushing her sleeve, lest I summon the guardsmen of Ar and have you remanded to the nearest pole of impalement! Aside, all of you, now! I have business here! Stand aside, aside!”
Men moved aside, even officers, lest her robes be touched. And others shrank even farther back, that they not interfere with the large, pelted thing that followed her, light-footed, docile in her wake, which thing bore a large, flat box.
“Do not impede the progress of my pet,” said the free woman. “She is high strung, and impatient, and you may lose a hand.”
This caution seemed to me unnecessary, as I detected not the least bit of interest amongst the men with respect to blocking the passage of her companion. Aside from the danger that might be involved, I was sure they took the beast for a Kur, which it muchly resembled. The men were naturally wary of the Kurii, not only because of the nature of the form of life, which would be justification enough, but because several were supposedly allies, somehow enleagued with Decius Albus.
“Back, back!” chided the free woman, robes, yellow, red, and purple, flowing serenely between the lines of soldiers, and approaching us across the field.
She also carried a bright, yellow parasol, which I was sure I recognized.
For those unfamiliar with Gorean culture, particularly that of the “High Cities,” I think a note of explanation might not be without point. On my former world, where almost all women are “free,” there is a sense in whic
h almost no woman is free. For most practical purposes, where all women are free no woman is free, or, indeed, not free. There is no distinction, no important differences, between one woman and another. They are the same. For example, if all women were green or blue, or such, then the distinction between green and not green, or blue and not blue, would be of little practical interest or importance. There would be a conceptual difference, of course, or a logically possible difference, but it would be of little practical moment. Analogously, if everything happened to be, say, red, we might not know that anything was red. Presumably, we would not have a word for “red,” or even be aware that other colors might exist. Consider now a culture in which there is a clear, sharp, important, even momentous, distinction between the free and the not free. On such a world, where not all are free, freedom becomes quite important. It is no longer meaningless or immaterial. Associated with freedom is standing, respect, dignity, prestige, status, privileges, and power, and acknowledged claims and rights. One is a person, and, in favored cases, a citizen, and may even possess a Home Stone. The Gorean free woman has a place in society that is far above that of the “free woman” of Earth. She is the pride and treasure of a city, to be elevated and honored, to be exalted and revered, to be defended to the death, unless she should fall slave, in that case, of course, she is then only another animal, to be bought and sold as the stock she then is. Naturally free women, in most cities, in their frustration, as would be expected, make the most of their prestige, caste rights, intelligence, beauty, and such, exploiting such things ruthlessly to consolidate and improve their position in society. Not at the feet of men, and perhaps resentful of that fact, they surround themselves with a mystique of preciousness and power designed to awe, subordinate, reduce, and tame men, perhaps to punish men for denying them the rights and hopes of their frustrated womanhood. In any event, these things are complicated and, I suspect, scarcely understood, as the currents involved are deep and not always easily detected. To be sure, the glory, might, and power, so to speak, of these fine ladies does tend to annoy men, who, upon occasion, perhaps, would like to collar the lot of them and put them to slave use. I understand something like this did take place in one of the “High Cities,” Tharna, where every woman except the ruler, a Tatrix, is enslaved. Even free women visiting Tharna must be licensed and put in the custody of a male until they leave the city. Men of Tharna, when outside the city, are recognized by the wearing, in the belt, of two yellow cords, some eighteen inches or so in length. Some women, gazing upon these cords, feel weak, and strangely stirred. Some women follow men of Tharna beyond their own city’s gates, begging to be taken to Tharna. Two things might be noted about the “cords of Tharna.” First, they symbolize Tharna. That is obvious and important. Secondly they are of a suitable length, and would serve nicely, to bind the wrists and ankles of a woman.
The soldiers doubtless took it for granted that the small, graceful figure passing through their ranks was that of a compatriot, a woman of Ar, one with whom they shared a Home Stone. If they had thought her of a foreign city she might not have made it past the capture straps of the first man at arms. The awe with which the free woman of one’s own city is regarded, reinforced by habit, training, custom, and tradition, does not at all apply to the free women of another city, unless perhaps a close ally, nor, indeed, does it even apply to a woman of one’s own city, should she have been reduced to bondage. A spurned suitor occasionally has the pleasure of buying a woman who once refused him, for chaining naked to his slave ring. The awe with which the free woman was regarded, approaching, was doubtless not only enhanced by the sumptuousness of her robes, but by her very presence, for, as it might be recalled, no free women were present at the “festivities.” What was she doing here, at all, and, in particular, advancing so assuredly amongst them? Too, there is no doubt that her alleged “pet,” or companion, so large, and Kurlike, contributed not a little to their apprehension, and astonishment.
They made their way forward, literally piercing the ring of soldiers about us, who drew aside, and continued on, now passing though the other side of that small formation that had encircled us, the men of which, too, parted, that her passage not be arrested.
Free women commonly go, and do, wherever they wish, and whatever they wish.
Decius Albus himself seemed nonplused.
“Ho!” cried the small figure, stopping before the stands, looking up toward the box. “Have I the honor of addressing the noble Decius Albus, trade advisor to Marlenus, Ubar of Ar?”
“Current Ubar of Ar,” said Decius Albus. “I am he, Decius Albus.”
“I thought you might be,” she said, twirling the umbrella. “I had heard he is a heavy-jowled, coarsely featured fellow.”
“You are not veiled,” said Decius Albus, less than pleased.
“You are perceptive,” she observed.
Her alleged pet, bearing the large, flat box, had not followed her to the foot of the stands, but had lingered behind, and was rather close to the stake, near which Surtak, Drusus Andronicus, Kurik, and Lord Grendel had taken their stand.
“Your face is as naked as that of a slave,” said Decius Albus.
“And yours is as ugly as that of a tharlarion,” she said.
A man somewhere laughed. Decius Albus looked sharply about, failed to note any likely source of the aforementioned mirth, and then returned his attention to the small figure before him.
“Dear Lady,” he said, “I do not recall inviting any free women to our gathering.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Perhaps the matter was overlooked,” he said.
“That was careless,” she said.
“Doubtless,” he said.
At this point, Lucilius, his translator slung about his neck, growled.
“Keep your pet quiet,” she said.
Lucilius roared in fury.
“Steady, steady,” cautioned Decius Albus.
“He is a noisy one,” she said.
I feared, for a moment, that Lucilius was going to vault down from the box. But he restrained himself. Perhaps he was not eager to approach Surtak more closely.
“This is no pet with whom I share the box of honor,” said Decius Albus, “but a friend, and an esteemed colleague, a rational creature, of a sort with which you may be unfamiliar.”
“Do not confuse him with a High One,” she said. “I have bitten lice out of the fur of a dozen such beasts who would not permit him to do so much as polish their claws.”
Lucilius, shaking with rage, struggled to contain himself. I saw a flush of saliva at the right side of his jaws. He opened his mouth, exposing the forest of fangs within.
“He must be an adolescent,” she said, “his fangs are so short.”
I myself thought they might snap a stout branch in two. They might have easily bitten an arm from a body.
Lucilius was large and formidable, even for a Kur.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, looking about. “I see slaves. Are you short of tunics? They are not overly dressed, limited to their collars. I suspect you are up to man business. I would not doubt it. Men are such lustful brutes. Throw a sleen a bone, throw a man a slave. But what are the verr, and parts of verr, doing here? One would think this was a slaughter yard.”
“Go!” said Decius Albus.
“Shortly, gladly,” she said.
“You were not invited,” said Decius Albus.
“On the contrary,” she said.
“Who invited you?” he asked.
“I invited myself,” she said. “That is a free woman’s privilege.”
“You are a bold little she-sleen,” he said.
“Perhaps you think I might look well on a chain,” she said.
“Perhaps,” he said.
“Beware how you address a free woman,” she said.
“Forgive me, Lady,” he said.
“May I inquire as to what we owe the honor of your visit?”
“Certainly,” she said. “Inquiry is the privilege of a free man.”
“I so inquire,” he said.
“I bring gifts,” she said.
She looked back, to where the Kurlike thing that had accompanied her to the field waited, bearing the large, flat box.
“From whom?” asked Decius Albus, warily.
“Perhaps you have heard of a High One,” she said, “by name, Agamemnon.”
“Lord Agamemnon,” cried Decius Albus, “Eleventh Face of the Nameless One! Forgive me, dear, noble lady! I did not know! Forgive me! Welcome! How thoughtful of the noble lord to remember his unworthy servants, and how like him to transmit his gift, or gifts, by means of so wise and beauteous a messenger!”
“Well,” she said, “the gifts are not from him.”
“But—” said Decius Albus.
“I was merely curious to know if you had heard of such a fellow,” she said.
“How is it,” asked Decius Albus, narrowly, “that you have heard of Lord Agamemnon?”
“Surely you are interested in the gifts I have brought,” she said.
“Of course,” said Decius Albus.
“They are not for you,” she said.
“For whom then?” he asked.
“Others,” she said.
“I trust,” said Decius Albus, clutching the railing of the box, “your Home Stone is that of Glorious Ar.”
“No,” she said.
“Of our ally, Venna?” he said.
“No,” she said.
“What, then, is your Home Stone?” he asked.
“I have no Home Stone,” she said.
“Kill her!” cried Decius Albus, and one of the Kurii at the foot of the stands lunged toward the small figure, who brought up her parasol between them, and the Kur crashed into it, shook his head, seized it in one hand, or paw, and tore part of the silk away, and then crouched down, jaws opened, fangs wet with saliva, and took a step toward the small figure, its last step as it turned out, for, a moment later it rolled in the grass, writhing, whimpering and choking, flailing about, apparently in great pain, biting at its own body, and then, in a matter of Ihn, it was inert. Its body was contorted, and rigid. The one eye, which it had not torn out in its frenzy, was of a single hue, a sightless wad of dark leather half emerged from the face.
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