by John Norman
"There are some guardsmen from Ar's Station in Victoria," I said.
"What are they doing here?" she asked.
"Have you heard of the topaz?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "I heard people in the market speaking of it."
"It is a pledge symbol," I said, "apparently used among pirates on the river, when combining for massive assaults."
"The men of Ar's Station are searching for the topaz?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"They fear that their post will be subjected to attack."
"Yes," I said, drying my face with a towel. "And if Ar's Station should be destroyed, the eastern river, between Tafa and Lara, would lie much at the mercy of the raiders."
"Then Port Cos would be next?" she asked.
"That is the speculation," I said, putting aside the towel.
"Did the guardsmen of Ar's Station find the topaz?" she asked.
"Not to my knowledge," I said. "They stopped me, and others, outside the tavern of Cleanthes. Later they searched all in the tavern, save those whom they remembered from outside, as having been previously examined."
"You were not searched a second time then?" she asked.
"No," I said. "It was the same men who were conducting the search."
"If the topaz should reach the stronghold of Policrates," she said, "the way would be clear for the uniting of the raider forces of both the east and west."
"It has perhaps already reached the stronghold of Policrates," I said.
"Surely routes to such a citadel have been invested," she said.
"They cannot be adequately invested," I said, "without considerable forces. I do not think a careful courier would have difficulty reaching the citadel."
"What hope, then, have those who would wish to keep the topaz from reaching Policrates?"
"The hope is to apprehend the courier before he can reach the citadel," I said.
"A slim hope," she said.
"I agree," I said.
"I would not wish to be who carries the topaz," she said.
"Nor I," I said, smiling.
"You kenneled me last night," she said.
"That is not unknown to me," I said.
"I will no longer try to keep a door locked between us," she said.
"That is advisable," I said.
She came then and stood near me. I restrained myself from seizing her in my arms and throwing her to the floor of the hall.
"Jason," she said.
"Yes," I said.
She drew her robe down, slightly, from her shoulders.
"Yes?" I said.
"I am ready to earn my keep," she said.
"You speak like a slave girl," I scorned her.
"Slave girls do not earn their keep," she said. "They do what they are told."
"If you were a slave girl, would you do what you were told?" I asked.
"Of course," she said. "I would have to."
"That is true," I said. She looked into my eyes and saw that it was indeed true, absolutely.
"I wonder if you would make a good slave," I said.
"Enslave me," she said, "and see."
"You are a woman of Earth," I said.
"On this world," she said, "many women of Earth are kept as the total slaves of their masters."
I looked at her.
Suddenly she knelt before me. "Enslave me," she begged. "I will make you a good slave."
"Get on your feet," I said, confused. "You are a woman of Earth. Must I teach you, of all people, a little feminist, how to be a true person?"
"This is Gor," she said, "not Earth. Such things are behind me now. I have learned too much."
"Get up," I said.
"On Gor," she said, "I do not need to pretend any longer. Here I do not need to be a political puppet. Here I am free at last to be a woman."
"Get up!" I cried.
"Fulfill my needs, please!" she begged.
"No!" I cried. Then I said, again, "Get up, quickly. You shame me."
She rose to her feet, tears in her eyes. She drew her robe tightly about her. "It is I who have been shamed," she said.
"You have shamed yourself," I said, angrily.
"No," she said, "that is not true, Jason. I have been honest to myself. It is you who have shamed me, punishing me for permitting myself this careless honesty. It is my fault, in a sense. You are a man of Earth, still. I should have known better."
"You should not have such needs," I told her.
"I have them," she said.
"Change them," I said.
"I cannot," she said.
"Surely you desire to do so," I said.
"No," she said, "no longer, I love them. They are the deepest part of me."
"You must then, at the least," I said, "pretend that you do not have them."
"Why?" she asked.
"I do not know," I said, "perhaps because they do not conform to the values of the glandularly deficient and sexually inert."
"This is not Earth," she said. "Why should I conform to such values?"
"I do not know," I said. "I do not know!"
"Such men and women," she said, "must make virtues of their deficiencies. Otherwise, to their humiliation, they would confess themselves less than others."
"Perhaps," I said. "I do not know."
"Why do you let others, the petty and resentful, the fearful and inadequate, legislate for you in this sphere?"
"I do not know," I said.
"What are their credentials?" she asked. "Where are their proofs?"
"I do not know," I said.
"Heeding their advice produces misery and frustration, impairments, physical and mental, anxiety, pain, sickness and self-torture. It can even shorten lives. Do these sorts of things seem to you the manifestations of a correct moral position?"
"I do not know," I said.
"Is it only the stupid, and the mutilated and crippled, who are to be accounted healthy?"
"I do not know," I said. "I do not know!"
"I am sorry if I have embarrassed you," she said.
"Go to your room," I said.
"You have refused me as a woman," she said.
"Go to your room, Miss Henderson," I said.
"Of course, Keeper," she said. She turned away from me. She went toward the stairs. At the foot of the stairs, she turned, again, to face me. "I am still prepared to earn my keep," she said.
"You are a woman of Earth," I said. "It is not necessary for a woman of Earth to earn her keep."
"Take me to the market, and sell me," she said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Perhaps a man will buy me," she said.
"I do not deny you your freedom," I said.
"You are refusing me my slavery," she said.
"You are displeasing me," I said.
"Then beat me and rape me," she said, "and put me under discipline."
"Go to your room, Miss Henderson," I warned her.
"And shall I strip and await your pleasure?" she asked.
"No," I told her.
"Clearly," she said, "a girl is safe with you."
I said nothing.
"Do you behave in this fashion with the sluts in the paga taverns?" she asked.
"They are different," I said. "They are slaves." And I added, not pleasantly, "And only slaves."
"I see," she said. "I envy the miserable creatures."
"Do not," I said. "You do not know what it is to be a slave."
"I have been a slave," she said.
"You were only a display slave," I said. "You were not a full slave. You do not have the least idea of what it would be to be a full slave."
"Collar me, and teach me," she said.
"You are a woman of Earth," I said. "I have no intention of abusing you."
"I am grateful, Keeper," she said, acidly.
I bent, angrily, to my pouch. I would find some money which I would insert in the lining of my tunic, a common thing among manual laborers on Gor.
"What is wrong?" she asked, from the stairs.
"This was not here before," I said. I drew the object from the pouch.
"What is it?" she asked.
I turned the object slowly in my hand. It was a fragment of polished stone, a fragment of what appeared to have once been a beveled, rectangular solid. It was about the size of a fist. It was a yellowish stone, with an intricate and unusual brownish discoloration at the point where it had apparently been broken from a larger stone.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I am not sure," I said. "I think it is a topaz."
14
Lola
I went back outside and brought in the other materials which I had purchased here and there in Victoria. I then closed, and bolted, the door.
"Who is there?" called down Miss Henderson, from upstairs.
"It is Jason," I said. The slave did not count.
"Who is she?" asked Miss Henderson, from the head of the stairs.
"Is it not obvious?" I asked. "It is a female slave. I am calling her Lola." This seemed to me appropriate, as it was the name which she had worn in the House of Andronicus.
"Who is she?" asked Lola. I smiled to myself. She would not have dared to speak so peremptorily before another male on Gor.
Miss Henderson stood aghast at the top of the stairs, that a slave should have so spoken.
"She is pretty, and in your house," said Lola to me, "and yet she is not in a collar. I see that you have not changed since the House of Andronicus, Jason."
"Insolent slave!" cried Miss Henderson. She had not worn a house veil since the night I had kenneled her.
I noted that Lola had used my name. That would cost her, I decided, an additional five strokes.
"There is shopping to be done," I told Miss Henderson. "Attend to it."
"I do not wish to," she said.
"Attend to it," I told her.
"Yes, Jason," she said, angrily. She descended the stairs, took some coins from the kitchen, unbolted the door, and left. I rebolted the door, after her.
Lola looked at me. "At least I shall have an easy slavery," she said.
I had found her this morning, near noon, when I had been on my luncheon break. At such times, for my amusement and interest, I occasionally frequented some of the dock markets, where, though cheap girls tend to be sold there, one may occasionally see a real beauty being vended. It is pleasant, of course, to see women being sold, particularly if they are beautiful.
She was kneeling, back on her heels, naked, on the hot boards of a slaver's platform. The boards were rough and splintery, and there were tiny droplets of tar on them. She was shackled by the wrists, on a short chain, to an iron ring, heavy, whose plate was bolted into the boards.
"Lola," I had said, my mouth full, chewing on the meat I had bought on the wharves.
She had jerked back, seeing me. The sales had not yet begun.
"What do you want for her?" I asked the slaver on the platform, carrying his keys and whip.
"Ten copper tarsks," he said.
"Done!" I said.
"No!" she cried.
"Be silent, Wench," he ordered her.
I removed a ten-tarsk piece from the lining of my tunic. Workers do not commonly carry pouches at their work.
"Do not sell me to him," begged the girl, "please!"
But he kicked her brutally to silence.
I paid him and he unshackled her. He also removed his collar from her throat.
"Come along," I told her. She descended from the platform and, naked and miserable, heeled me as I threaded my way slowly from the place. She did not try to escape. She knew there was no escape for her. She was a Gorean slave girl.
I stopped at the warehouse where I had been working and collected a half day's wages. My employer did not object, for he could see that I had purchased something of interest. Doubtless I was eager to get her home. "Continue working, Jason," called one of the fellows. "Leave her here in the warehouse. We will see that no harm comes to her!" There was much laughter. I waved to them as I left the warehouse. "Have her once for me!" called one of my fellow workers after me.
"Little do they know you," she said, bitterly.
On the way home I stopped in the market to buy a few things, some articles for which I thought I might find a use.
"Why are you buying a slave whip?" she asked me.
"Be patient," I told her. "Perhaps you will learn."
I also bought some chains, and binding fiber, and other things. Interestingly, for no reason I clearly understood, I bought two sets of certain articles.
Also on the way home I purchased her a slave tunic and stopped at the shop of a metal worker, where I had her measured and purchased a collar for her. I had the collar inscribed according to my specifications. I put it in my sack, with its two keys, tied to it with a string.
* * * *
I snapped my fingers, and the girl, to the side, rose from her knees and lightly hurried to the table, beside which she again knelt, head down.
"You may clear, Lola," I told her.
"Yes, Master," she said, and began to remove the dishes from the table.
"A deferential slut," said Miss Henderson, who knelt across the table from me.
Lola kept her head down.
"Rather different than when you brought her into the house this afternoon," she said. "What did you do to her?"
"Reminded her she was a slave," I said.
"I see," said Miss Henderson.
Lola rose to her feet and padded softly, barefoot, carrying the dishes, to the kitchen.
"Her tunic is sleeveless, and too short," said Miss Henderson.
"It pleases me," I said.
"Of course," said Miss Henderson. "She is yours."
* * * *
"Why have you tied me like this?" had asked Lola.
I had tied her wrists together before her body, before the opened door of the house, leaving a dangling, loose strap of about a foot in length.
I then swept her from her feet and carried her across the threshold and put her down, on her feet, near the side wall to the left.
"Why have you carried me into the house as a capture, and a slave?" she asked.
I had rebolted the door, after Miss Henderson, sent on her shopping errands by myself, had exited.
I had then turned again to face Lola. We were alone in the house.
She looked at me. "At least I shall have an easy slavery," she said.
"Stand here," I told her, positioning her about five feet from the wall, facing it, to the left of the door as you enter, beneath a stout beam.
"I shall make you a poor slave," she said.
I went to the side of the room and, loosening the chain, lowered the chain. Attached to the end of the chain, on the other side of the beam ring, now descending, was a wide circle of steel, a steel ring, some six inches in diameter. I stopped the chain when the steel ring dangled at her belly.
"You know what that is?" I asked her.
"I am a slave girl," she said.
"Speak it," I said.
"It is a whipping ring," she said.
I tied her tethered wrists, by the free end of the strap, to the ring.
"Why have you tied me to the whipping ring?" she asked.
"Why do you think?" I asked.
"You're bluffing," she said.
I went back to the wall and pulled the chain again through the beam ring. Then her hands were held well over her head.
"I will make you a poor slave," she said. "Oh!" she said.
"Perhaps, not," I said.
"Release me," she said, tensely. She stood now, painfully, on the tips of her toes.
I hooked a link of the chain on the holding hook, lifting her a quarter of an inch higher, securing her in place.
"Let me go," she said.
I walked about her, and then faced her, looking upon her.
"You are luscious," I told her. "I think you may make an excellent slave."
"Let me go!" she said, squirming in the leather.
"Yes, an excellent slave," I said. Then I went behind her.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"What do you think?" I asked her.
"You cannot frighten me," she said. "I know you cannot strike me. You are too weak to whip me, and make me obey you. You are a man of Earth!"
"Long ago you had me beaten in the House of Andronicus," I said. "In your role as a free woman in the slave training you deliberately spilled wine and blamed me, and ordered me whipped. The whipping was very painful. Do you recall?"
She said nothing.
"You have never adequately paid for that," I said.
"Paid?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Do not forget you are a man of Earth," she said.
"Oh, yes," I said, "the men of Earth never make a woman pay for anything. She may even humiliate them and destroy them as men and with total impunity. Is that right?"
"Yes, yes!" said the girl.
"Not always," I said.
"Master?" she asked.
"And this is not Earth," I said.
"Master?" she asked.
And then, suddenly, she screamed, caught fully, helplessly, in the blurred, whistling slash of the five-stranded Gorean slave whip.
Ten strokes did I give her.
Then she hung weeping, shuddering, at the ring. "How can you whip me?" she asked. "You are a man of Earth."
I went to her and, by the hair, jerked back her head, and she cried out with pain. "Is this the touch of a man of Earth?" I asked.
"No," she said, frightened.
"Too," I said, whispering in her ear, "you are a new slave who has been brought recently to my house."
"No," she begged. "No!"
Sometimes a girl is whipped when she is first brought into a new house. It is regarded, in some cities, including Victoria, as a way of making clear to her that the house in which she now finds herself is a house in which she is a slave.
Ten strokes more then did I administer to the fair beauty.
"Too," I said, "earlier you dared to speak my name."
"Forgive me, Master," she sobbed.
"That has earned you five extra strokes," I informed her.
She moaned, and then was shaken five times, encircled in the burning lashes, being repaid for her insolence.
When I lowered the whip she sagged in the leather, fastened at the ring, and slipped from consciousness. I went before her and slapped her awake. She looked at me, startled, awakened, in pain, terrified. "And one more stroke," I told her, "to remind you that you are a slave."