Renegades of Gor coc-23

by John Norman

  "They will do anything for free women!" said the second woman.

  I laughed, and they shuddered in their chains, against the wall. It was still raining, but the force of the storm had muchly subsided. I released my grip under the chin of the first woman.

  "Do not laugh!" begged the first woman. "In short," I said, "you entered the inn, and remained here, in spite of the fact you had not the wherewithal to meet your obligations, expecting perhaps you might somehow do so with impunity, that your bills would perhaps be simply overlooked, or dismissed by the inn in futile anger, or that eager men could be found to pay them, doubtless vying for the privilege of being of service to lofty free women."

  "Would you have had us spend the night on the road, like peasants?" demanded the third woman.

  "But these are hard times," I said, "and not all men are fools." The third woman cried out with anger, shaking her shackles. She was well curved, and diet and exercise could much improve her. I thought she might bring as much as sixty copper tarsks in a market. If that were so, and the inn sold her for that much, they would have made then, as I recalled, some twenty-five copper tarsks on her.

  "When you discovered you had not the price of the inn's services," I said, "you might have asked if you might earn your keep for the night."

  "We are not inn girls!" cried the second woman.

  "It is interesting that you should think immediately in such terms," I said. "I had in mind other sorts of things, such as laundering and cleaning."

  "Such tasks are for slaves!" said the fifth woman.

  "Many free women do them," I said.

  "Those tasks are for low free women," she said, "not for high free women such as we!"

  "Yet you are now at the wall, in shackles," I said, "and have upon you not so much as a veil."

  "Nonetheless," said the second woman, "we are high free women, and women such as we do not earn our keep."

  "Perhaps women such as you," I speculated, "will soon, at last, find yourself doing so."

  "What do you mean?" she cried.

  "Are there others like you inside?" I asked the first woman, the Lady Amina of Venna.

  "Only one," she said, "she who owed the most. She was kept inside. There was not a shackle ring for her here."

  "Why should she who owed he most be kept inside, and we, who owe less, be shamefully chained here, in plain view, and exposed to the elements?" asked the fifth woman.

  "Perhaps she who is inside has already begun to earn her keep," I said. The fifth woman shrank back against the logs.

  "My arms ache," said the second woman.

  "Have other free women entered the court, since you have been fastened here?" I asked the first woman, the Lady Amina of Venna.

  "Yes," she said, "and have seen us here. Some of them then, after visiting the keeper's desk, doubtless those with insufficient funds, left the inn." "There seems a point then in having you chained here," I said, "aside, of course, from such things as having you brought to the attention of fellows who might redeem you and making clear the inn's disapproval of attempted fraud, namely, that you might serve as a warning to other free women, women who might otherwise have been tempted try similar tricks."

  "If we are not redeemed, what will be done with us?" wailed the fourth girl. "Surely you can guess," I said.

  "No! No! No!" she cried, in misery.

  "Redeem me!" begged the fifth girl. "I will make it worth your while, handsome fellow."

  "Slave!" cried the first woman, angrily, to the fifth woman.

  "Slave! Slave!" said, too, the second woman to the fifth.

  "Come now," I said to the first and second woman, "she is not a slavea€”yet. "Yet!" cried the fourth woman.

  Too, I was amused that the first and second woman seemed to think that slaves might bargain. They had a typical free woman's misconception of what was involved in total female slavery. The slave is owned. She does not bargain. She owes all to the master, and gives all to the master. She strives to be fully pleasing, in all ways, and hopes desperately that she will prove so. Perhaps they would learn that sometime.

  "I am not like these other women," said the first woman, suddenly. "Redeem me! Some women, such as these, doubtless, have made a way of life of what you refer to as tricks. I have not! This is the first time I have ever had recourse to such fraud!"

  The other women cried out angrily in their chains.

  "Once is enough," I told the first woman.

  "It costs only forty tarsks to redeem me!" she said.

  "You would probably bring more than that in a slave market," I said. "Please!" she wept.

  "I would cost only twenty-seven tarsks to redeem!" called the fourth girl. "Redeem me," said the second woman. "I am of high caste. Consider the glory of redeeming a woman of high caste!"

  "The slave," I said, "has no caste, no more than a verr or tarsk." The woman cried out in misery, helpless in the shackles.

  "I am shapely, and blond," said the third woman, suddenly. "Redeem me!" "Slave!" chided the fifth woman.

  "Slave!" retorted the third.

  "I do not want to be a slave!" cried the first woman.

  "Obviously you are not a slave," I said, "for you have no wish to be pleasing." "I have slave needs, I confess it!" cried the fifth woman.

  "I find that of interest," I said.

  "I, too, have slave needs!" cried the fourth woman.

  I had not doubted that. There was something about her body, which seemed lusciously slavelike.

  "I, too!" suddenly wept the third woman. I regarded her. I thought she would indeed move well in a man's bonds.

  "But I do want to be pleasing!" said the first woman.

  I looked at her.

  "Do not consider her," said the second woman. "Redeem me! I, too, have slave needs! I confess it! I have slave needs!"

  "I, too, have slave needs!" suddenly cried the first woman.

  "You?" I asked, as though skeptically.

  "Yes!" she wept. "Yes!"

  The first time I had laid eyes on her, of course, I had seen that she was born for silk. "Let me kiss you!" cried the fifth woman.

  The others gasped in astonishment, in anger, in protest, in indignation, in outrage, at her boldness.

  "Taste me," called the fifth woman, enticingly.

  "Slut! Slut!" cried the other women.

  It had been a slave's invitation. I wondered where the free woman had heard it. Not all free women are as ignorant as many men believe. There had been many indications that the fifth woman's slavery was very close to the surface. To be sure, she may have often fought it. I did not know.

  "The eager lips of a free woman await you," called the fifth woman. I went to stand before the fifth woman and she, pulling at her chains, leaning forward, tried to reach me. I stood there for a moment, she straining toward me, I regarding her, thinking. She looked at me. I now let her wonder, now that she had made her bold overture, if I would choose to accept it. Perhaps, now, to her shame, to her humiliation, before her sisters in custody, her revelatory, astonishing, compromising advance would be rejected. Perhaps, even, she might be cuffed, or mocked. I saw fear in her eyes. So I took her in my arms and put my lips to hers. It began as a free woman's kiss but, as I held her, and pressed her to me, and she then pressed herself to me, it ended as a kiss which, though doubtless still that of a free woman, hinted at unmistakable latencies within her, that she might, under suitable conditions of helplessness and submission, and perhaps proper training, be capable of at least the nearest reaches of the kisses of slaves.

  I released her, and she looked at me, shaken. She grasped the chains above the manacles tightly. Then she recovered herself. She released the chains above the manacles and her small hands now appeared as they had before, the clasping iron of the upper part of the shackles close below the fleshy part of her palms, below the thumbs, and at the sides of the hands. She squirmed a little. "Redeem me," she said, slyly.

  "Taste me!" said the lovely, slighter girl, who wa
s fourth, who had seemed perhaps the quieter of the five. I thought she might go the gentlest, and the most willingly, and the most gratefully, to her chains.

  "Slut!" cried the third woman. I then kissed her.

  I saw that she would make a superb slave.

  "Do you not wish to be redeemed?" I asked her.

  "Yes!" she said suddenly. "Yes, of course!" But I saw she would never be truly happy, except where she belonged, in a collar.

  "Me!" said the third woman, suddenly. "Kiss me, too! Taste me, too!" I gathered that she, too, did not wish to be left out in these competitions. She did not wish to miss her opportunity to see if she might, by the bestowal of her favors, and the promise of such favors, as well, please me, and, by enticement or trickery, inveigle me into purchasing her redemption. I also saw, from her behavior and attitude, that she regarded herself as the most beautiful of the five, and the most likely to succeed in any such contest. Accordingly I gave her little time but merely took her in my arms and unilaterally, forcibly, briefly, crushed her lips beneath mine, and then flung her back against the logs. She looked at me wildly, disbelievingly. Was she not blond? But she would have to learn to please men.

  I then stood back, and regarded the three women.

  "You have not tasted me," said the second woman. I think she feared I was pondering a choice among the other there.

  I kissed her. I would have to admit it, women kiss well in shackles, even free women. She looked at me. Then, she, too, recovered herself. "Though I am of high caste," she said, "I have permitted you to kiss me, and not merely upon a sleeve or gloved hand, but wholly upon my lips, and not even through a veil, no, upon my exposed and naked lips themselves, unveiled, almost as though I might be a slave! Therefore, in return for this inestimable gift, it is I whom you must now in honor redeem."

  "You are a female," I said, "and such are made for the kisses of men." "I am of high caste!" she said.

  "Perhapsa€”now," I said. Slaves, of course, are casteless, as are other animals. No longer is one woman divided from another by artificial distinctions. In this sense there is a democracy of slaves. They all begin the same, regardless of previous distinctions, such as position or wealth. They all begin at the same point, as naked women, branded and collared, who must then strive with one another to see who can be most pleasing to masters.

  She looked at me in fury.

  "Unfortunately," I said, " I do not have a slave whip with me." "You would beat me?" she asked.

  "Of course," I said.

  She shrank back against the logs.

  I thought she would look well, in her curves, crawling at the feet of men, reduced to the centrality of her womanhood, the female slave.

  I then regarded the four women whose lips I had tasted. Each had, in a sense, though free, prostituted herself to me, that she might thereby influence me to rescue her from her clear and obvious plight, that of a debtor slut. Each was willing to bestow her favors in order to obtain her redemption. These were women, I had gathered, who had made a practice of relying upon the generosity and nobility of men, or of some men, to obtain their way in life, in a sense resorting frequently to types of female fraud, regularly exploiting and, in a sense, making dupes of men. Doubtless they had, at least until now, congratulated themselves on their success in such matters. Now, however, they were chained to a log wall in an inn's court. Frightened now, it seemed that they, even though free, were ready to escalate the level of their artifices. Perhaps in more normal times, perhaps even while they were still fully clothed, and veiled, they might have found eager fellows to make good their bills, perhaps at the first sign of distress, even the moistening of an eye. These, however, were not normal times. I considered the four women. They had requested to be tastes, as slaves. One had even begged explicitly, as I had seen to it she would, she who reputed herself to be of high caste. That had amused me. Only the first woman had not so demeaned herself. She, of all of them, was different. I heard the small sound of her shackle chains on the ring. "I beg to be tasted," she said.

  I looked upon her.

  I saw that she was beautiful, and not different from the rest. She, too, was only a slave.

  "I beg it," she said. I regarded her.

  "Are you disappointed in me?" she asked.

  "If you were a free woman, perhaps," I said, "but not if you are a slave." Even in the apparently freest of women, of course, there is a slave who waits for her master. There is a Gorean saying to the effect that among women there are only slaves who have masters and slaves who do not have masters. Some men fear the slave in a woman; others provide it with the mastering it longs for, and needs.

  "Please," she said.

  "Who begs to be tasted?" I asked.

  "The Lady Amina of Venna begs to be tasted," she said.

  Her sisters at the wall gasped at her boldness, that she should use her own name in this fashion, rather as might a slave.

  She looked at me.

  She could not pull far from the wall because of her shackles. If she were to be kissed, it would be at my discretion.

  "Lady Amina begs it," she said.

  She was a free woman. Yet I saw that she was well curved, and would nestle well within the arms of a master.

  "Please," she said.

  I went to her and took her in my arms. I drew her toward me, from the wall. The shackle chain moved in the ring. Because of the chaining she was bent back. I looked upon her. Though she was free she, like the others, was neither clothed nor veiled. Thus, though she was a free woman, her lips were open to me, naked to me, exposed, in the manner of the slave. She looked up at me, those lovely, vulnerable lips parted. She felt slave good in my arms. I kissed her.

  "Oh!" she said, softly, as I drew back.

  I had made the determination in which I was interested. She belonged in a collar.

  I against considered them. They were all beautiful, stripped, and shackled close to the wall. They had all, it seemed, more or less recently, chosen to live dangerously. But perhaps they had chosen to live a little too dangerously. I thought they might all look well on a slave block.

  But I proceeded under the overhang to the open space between the two parts of the inn, the covered way there, with its high roof, that which it shared with the two parts of the inn, and then across it, to the right portion of the inn, in which the porter had informed me was the keeper's desk. In this covered way, too, it might be mentioned, passengers, with some protection from the weather, may board and alight from fee carts, and such. It was late. It was not raining much now. The night had turned chilly, however. I was looking forward to a hot bath, a place to dry my clothes, some food, some drink, a warm bed. "Please!" I heard the first woman calling after me. "Please!" But I left them behind me, at the wall, stripped and shackled, and tasted.

  3 The Inn

  I struck the keeper's desk twice.

  Behind the desk, on the wall, there was posted a list of prices. They were quite high. I did not think that those were normal prices. If they were, I did not see how the inn could manage to be competitive.

  I struck the keeper's desk twice more.

  There was a tharlarion oil lamp hanging on three chains from the ceiling, to my right, above the desk.

  Sample items from the list were as follows:

  Bread and paga...2 C.T.

  Other food....3 - 5 C.T.

  Lodging......1 °C.T.

  Blanket(s)....2 C.T.

  Bath...1 C.T.

  Bath girl...…2 C.T.

  Sponge, oil and strigil...…1 C.T.

  Girl for the night...…5 C.T.

  T., Greens and Stable...…2 C.T.

  T., Meat and Cot...…5 C.T.

  A comment, or two, might be in order on this list of prices. First, it will be noted that they are not typical. In many inns, depending on the season, to be sure, and the readiness of the keeper to negotiate, one can stay for as little as two or three copper tarsks a day, everything included, within reason, of course, subject to some
restraint with respect to page, and such. Also, the bath girl, and the sponge, oil and strigil, in most establishments, come with the price of the bath itself. The prices on the list on the wall seemed excessive, perhaps to a factor of five or more. The prices, of course, were in terms of copper tarsks.

  For purposes of comparison, in many paga taverns, one may have paga and food, and a girl for the alcove, if one wants, for a single copper tarsk. Dancers, to be sure, sometimes cost two. I did not know what the "other food" might be. One always inquires. It would vary seasonally, depend on the local suppliers, and, in some cases, even on the luck of local hunters and fishermen. In most inns the fare is simple and hearty. If one is particular about one's food, one sometimes brings it with one, and instructs the keeper how it is to be prepared. Some rich men bring their own cooks. After all, one cannot always count on a keeper's man knowing how to prepare Turian vulo or Kassau parsit. The references to «greens» and «meat», and such, were pertinent to draft tharlarion and tarns, and so, too, the references to stabling and cots, respectively.

  It might be of interest to note that when I had come to Gor, some years ago, domestic tarns, like wild tarns, almost always made their own kills. They may still do so, of course, but now many have been trained to accept prepared, even preserved, meat. Ideally, they are taught to do this from the time of hatchlings, it being thrust into their mouths, given to them much as their mother bird would do in the wild. Tongs are used. With older birds, on the other hand, captured wild tarns, for example, the training usually takes the form of tying fresh meat on live animals, and then, when the tarn is accustomed to eating both, effecting the transition to the prepared meat. Needless to say, a hunting tarn is extremely dangerous, and although its favorite prey may be tabuk, or wild tarsk, they can attack human beings. This training innovation, interestingly enough, and perhaps predictably, was not primarily the result of an attempt to increase the safety of human beings, particularly those in rural areas, but was rather largely the result of attempting to achieve military objectives, in particular those having to do with the logistical support of the tarn cavalry. Because of it, for the first time, large tarn cavalries, numbering in the hundreds of men, became practical.