by John Norman
It might be mentioned in passing that raids to obtain females, "woman raids," or "slave strikes," are not uncommon amongst Gorean cities. The women of one city tend on the whole to be regarded by the men of other cities as attractive candidates for the collar, as potential "slave meat." They are regarded as game, much as tabuk or wild verr might count as game, only in this instance as "slave game," and the men of one city, particularly those of the caste of warriors, often delight in the pleasure of "woman hunt," trying, as it is said, their "chain luck."
Whereas there are bred slaves on Gor, and houses that specialize in such, almost all female slaves have begun their lives as free women. Once enslaved, almost absolutely, they are likely to remain slaves. Who would free them? Indeed, it is said that only a fool frees a slave girl. Those who have owned one find little difficulty in understanding this saying. The woman freed is troublesome and dangerous, the woman enslaved is perfection. The slave girl is delicious and precious. What property can compare with her? She fulfills manhood, and is a joy to own. Too, it might be noted that the slaves on the whole come to love their collars and thrive in bondage. It is the way they want to be, the absolute way they want to live. Indeed, it is regarded as a grievous insult to a girl, and a terrible humiliation, for her to be freed. It is like saying that she is no longer interesting enough, or desirable enough, to be kept in her collar. I suppose this might be difficult for some to understand how this could be, but then, one supposes, their culture is other than the Gorean culture. One merely reports facts. One leaves it to others who are wiser to explain them. One thing seems clear to me, which is that the Gorean culture, for all its perils and occasional cruelties, is much closer to nature than certain other cultures. Those who do not fear nature will perhaps best understand the Gorean culture, and its viability, stability, and fulfilling aspects.
"How is it that you know me?" she asked.
"From Vonda," I said. "You were assistant to the Lady Tima of Vonda, a slaver of that city, of the house of Tima."
"But you do not know me from the house, surely," she said.
"It is from the house, precisely," I said, "that I do know you."
"Who are you?" she asked, frightened.
I drew away the mask.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Do you not recall me?" I asked. "I was once a silk slave. My name is Jason."
Slowly recognition crept into her eyes. "No," she whispered. "No!" Then, struggling wildly, she tore at the ropes. "No," she screamed. "No!" Then again she lay before me, tied as helplessly and perfectly as before. "No," she whispered. "No, no."
"Yes," I whispered to her. "Yes."
* * * *
The Lady Tendite now lay on the slave mat, where I had put her later in the morning.
"You will help me get this hated collar off, won't you?" she purred, lifting her arms and putting them about my neck, lifting her lips to mine.
"Does Darlene beg it?" I asked.
"Darlene!" she said, lying back, angrily.
"Is that not the name on the collar?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "it is."
"Does Darlene beg it?" I asked.
"Yes," she purred, again lifting her arms and putting them about my neck. "Yes," she whispered. "Darlene begs it." Then we kissed.
"The request of Darlene is refused," I told her.
Angrily she scrambled to her knees and pulled at the collar. She looked at me in fury. "You sleen!" she said.
I smiled.
"Sleen! Sleen!" she said.
The Ta-Teera had been half torn from her. She had squirmed well.
"Sleen! Sleen!" she wept.
She was soft, and luscious and curved. It was easy to see why men make women slaves.
"Be silent!" I said to her, suddenly.
She looked at me, frightened.
"Do not leave the mat," I told her, getting up. I went to one of the narrow, barred windows in the inn. I saw five armed men running down the street.
"River pirates," I said. "I think they must be."
She moaned, and foolishly tried to cover her beauty. I looked back at her. "Do you think they would permit you modesty in their shackles?" I asked. Then I returned to her side. "They are not coming here," I said. "I think they have decided it is time to leave Lara."
"Why?" she asked.
"Yet I do not smell smoke," I said. "It is interesting."
"What is going on?" she asked.
"Can you not guess?" I asked.
"No," she said. "No!"
I then took her by the arms and threw her to her back on the slave mat beneath me.
"My dear Lady Tendite, or 'Darlene,' as I may choose to call you," I said, "I do not think we have a great deal more time to tarry in this place."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"And you must leave it somewhat earlier than I," I said.
"I do not understand," she said. "Oh," she said, entered and held. She tried to press me away, but could not do so. Then she clutched at me.
"Excellent, Darlene," I said.
"What are you making me do?" she whispered.
"Can you not guess?" I asked her.
* * * *
"You have won, Jason," she whispered to me, lying on her side beside me, her head on her arm. "You have made me yield to you, irreservedly, helplessly, and as a slave."
"As a free woman," I said, "you cannot yet begin to understand the fullness, the helplessness, of true slave yieldings."
"I sense what they might be," she whispered, "being fully owned, being fully and legally at the mercy of a master."
"Do the thoughts intrigue you?" I asked.
"I must put them from my mind," she said. "I must not even dare to think them."
"Why?" I asked.
"They are too profoundly feminine," she said.
"And thus not fit for a proud free woman?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"But suitable perhaps for a collared slave?" I said.
"Yes," she smiled. "Such a woman is permitted to be true to herself."
"I suspect," I said, "she is given no choice but to be true to herself."
"Yes," said the girl. "She is given no choice. She must be true to herself. If she should be reluctant the master and the whip will see to it."
"You seem to speak enviously of the miserable women in bondage."
"Perhaps," she said.
"You yourself wear a collar," I said.
"But I am a free woman," she said.
"For the time, perhaps," I said.
"What do you mean?" she said.
"Get up," I told her. We got up.
She faced me. "You are not going to help me get the collar off, are you?" she asked. She touched me about the shoulder with her finger.
"No," I said.
"You fill me with strange feelings, Jason," she said.
"Oh?" I asked.
"I am accustomed," she said, "to having men do what I wish."
"I suggest, Lady Tendite," I said, "that you begin to accustom yourself to doing what men wish."
"What are you doing?" she asked. I had heard men nearby, the sound of weapons. I dragged her toward the door of the inn. I slid back the panel and looked out. The street, as far as I could tell, was clear. I then shut the panel, and swung up the heavy bars on the door. I opened the door and looked out. The street was clear. I held the Lady Tendite firmly by her left upper arm. She was barefoot, in the torn Ta-Teera and collar. I then flung her down the wide, shallow steps and some fifteen feet into the street beyond. She fell to her hands and knees in the street, and suddenly scrambled up, wildly, looking about herself. I then shut the door, dropping the two heavy beams into place. She ran to the door and began to pound on it. "Let me in!" she cried. "Let me in!"
Within the inn I left the main room and went up to the second floor where, from one of the room's windows, I might command a better view of the street. I could still hear her pounding on the door below. "Let me in, Jason!" she sobbed.
"Let me in!" Again and again she struck with her small fists against the door. "I will be your slave, Master!" she cried. "Have mercy on me, Master! Please have mercy on me, Master!"
Then, from the window, I saw her run to the center of the street. She turned from the left to the right, uncertainly. She was sobbing.
"Hold, Slave!" I heard. Men had entered the street. I saw they wore, as I had thought, the uniforms of Ar.
The girl turned wildly in the street and started to run from the men. But she had gone only a step or two when she saw some five other men at the end of the street, also approaching her. She stopped, uncertainly, confused, in the street. The men, not hurrying, then surrounded her.
"I am not what I seem!" she cried. "I am not a slave!"
One of the men seized her by the hair and bent back her head. "Her name is 'Darlene'," he said.
"No!" she said. "I am the Lady Tendite, a free woman of Vonda!"
One of the men then was drawing her hands behind her back. He snapped her wrists in slave bracelets.
"I'm not a slave!" she said.
"'Darlene' is an excellent slave name," said one of the men. "I am hot for her already."
"Wait until we have her in the camp," said their leader.
"A nice catch," said another.
Another man was snapping a leash on her collar.
"Are you an Earth wench?" asked one of the men.
"No," she said, "no!"
"Nonetheless I wager you will whip as well," said another.
"I am not a slave!" "See," she cried, moving her hip to throw back the shreds of the ripped Ta-Teera, "I am not branded!"
"Only a slave would so expose her hip to free men," said one of the men.
"She is not branded," observed another.
"That technicality can be swiftly remedied by a metal worker," said one of the men.
"Why are you not branded, Darlene?" asked a man.
"I am not a slave!" she said. "And my name is not 'Darlene'!"
"You speak much, Darlene," she was told.
"Bring her along," said the leader. "We must finish our patrol."
The Lady Tendite felt the leash grow taut at her collar. She hung back.
"I am not a slave," she said. "My name is not 'Darlene'. I am the Lady Tendite of Vonda!"
"Do all the women of Vonda run about the streets half naked, clad in the rag of a slave, wearing collars?" asked the leader.
"No," she said, "of course not. I was caught and abused, tied even upon a table and forced to give pleasure as a slave. Other things, too, were done to me. I was forced, even, to yield to my captor, as though I might have been a slave and he my master."
"Splendid," laughed one of the men.
She glared angrily at the fellow.
"I bet I, too, can make her yield," said one of the men.
"Later, at the camp," said the leader. Then he again turned his attention to the Lady Tendite. He bowed low before her, in mock courtesy. "I invite you, if you wish, Lady Tendite, to accompany us," he said. "We shall be returning to our loot camp shortly, which is east of Vonda. There you will discover that the women of Vonda are not entirely unknown to us. Many of them have already kindly consented to give us their thighs for branding, their throats for collaring. We trust you will be no less generous."
"She will look well on the slave block," said one of the men.
"True," said another.
"And, Lady Tendite," said the leader, "until you are properly and legally enslaved you will be known by the capture name of 'Darlene'. Say it!" he snapped.
"Darlene!" she cried. "My capture name is Darlene."
"And," said the leader, "in virtue of your collar, and in anticipation of your impending enslavement, you will address us and behave towards us as a slave towards free men."
"Yes," she said.
Then she was struck across the back with the haft of a spear, cruelly.
"Yes, Master!" she cried.
The patrol then continued on its way. I watched the Lady Tendite, her hands braceleted behind her, on her leash, dragged behind the men. She turned once, after about twenty yards, to look back. She saw me. Then she was turned about by the leash and was again dragged, stumbling, down the street.
5
I Continue my Search for Miss Beverly Henderson
The proprietor of the tavern took the red-haired dancing girl by the arm, she crying out, and thrust her in her costume, ten slender silver chains, five before and five behind, depending from her collar, from the sand. She fell at the side of the sand and, crouching, turned about, looking back.
"This is Jason!" called the proprietor, indicating me. "He wagers ten copper tarsks he can best any man in the house!"
"It is true," I called, stepping to the sand, pulling off the tunic.
"I wager he cannot!" called a large fellow, a peasant, from north of the river.
The proprietor's man, an attendant in the tavern, held the coins.
Bets were taken by the fellows in the tavern.
Men crowded about. Among them, naked, in collars, were paga slaves, with their bronze vessels on leather straps.
The big fellow lunged toward me. I let him strike me. Yet I drew back with his punch in such a way that its impact was largely dissipated. I reacted, however, as though I might have been sorely struck. The men cried out with pleasure. Jabbing, moving, I kept him away from me.
"He fights well," said one of the men.
I then, recovering myself, seized the fellow, that he might not have the free use of his hands. It was not appropriate that I appear too accustomed to this form of sport. I had made that mistake once before, in Tancred's Landing, and there had then been no more eager respondents to my raucous challenge. Rather guardsmen had encouraged me to leave the town with alacrity. I had, as a consequence, picked up only ten copper tarsks at Tancred's Landing.
"Fight!" cried more than one man.
"Clumsy!" cried another.
"Coward!" cried another.
"Coward!" said the peasant.
This irritated me. I relinquished my previous determinations with respect to the manner of handling him. Caught in a swift combination he buckled to the sand. I pretended that I was exhausted, dazed, scarcely able to stand.
"What lucky blows!" cried more than one man.
I looked down at the big fellow who, groggy, was sitting in the sand. I tried to appear as though incredulous that he was down, as though I could not believe that I had somehow struck him from his feet.
"Get up!" cried more than one man.
By the arms he was pulled to the side.
"Ten tarsks," cried another peasant, "that I can best you!"
"Can you fight further, Jason!" anxiously asked the proprietor. Such brawls, supervised, were good for the business of his tavern.
"I will try," I said.
The second fellow, tearing off his tunic, rushed to the sand and then, scarcely hesitating, rushed upon me, fists pummeling. I think he was startled that he managed to strike home so seldom. Soon his arms were sore. I carried him longer than the first fellow. Then, when some interest seemed to lag in the contest, I finished it. He was dragged by his heels from the sand.
"I do not see how one so clumsy, and who fights so poorly, can win so often," said a fellow near the sand.
"He has not yet met Haskoon," said someone confidently.
"I am Haskoon," said a bargeman, stepping to the sand. Haskoon carried his hands too high.
The next fellow, after Haskoon, was more of a wrestler than one who fights with the fists. But I did not break his back.
The fifth fellow was an oarsman on a grain galley. He was strong, but, like the others, was not trained. That his jaw was broken was an accident.
"Jason is surely now exhausted," said the proprietor cheerily. "Who will next step upon the sand?"
But none more, as I had expected, ventured forth to meet me.
I lifted my hands and then drew on my tunic. I was not breathing heavily. I was in a
good mood. I bought paga for the five fellows who had helped me earn passage money downriver to the next town. This seemed to assuage their disgruntlement. My financial resources, the ten silver tarsks, obtained from the sale of my former Mistress, the Lady Florence of Vonda, to the slaver, Tenalion of Ar, had been severely depleted. Normally such a sum would last a man months on Gor. In these times, however, given my requirements and the prices, particularly those in Lara, I had been forced to have recourse to alternative sources of income.
"You are no common brawler," said the first fellow to me, the large peasant. "Do not speak it too loudly," I begged of him. "Very well," he said. "I have not felt like this," said one of the other fellows, "since I was trampled by five bosk."