by John Norman
What!" cried Klio.
I had redeemed her, by means of Ephialtes, at the Crooked Tarn, for thirty-five copper tarsks, the cost of her bill, but I had sold her for forty, a modest, almost irresistible price, considering the value of women here, at least prior to the city's fall. A squad had chipped in and bought her. She would serve them all. Later they would probably play stones, or roll dice, for her. I had conveyed to the men, as though by inadvertence, that I suspected she might have little value as she had had her head shaved. I had suggested, too, I think, that I might be in need of money. As I was I made a profit on her which, when I had left the Crooked Tarn, I had never really counted upon, nor even anticipated. To me she had not been so much a property on which to make a profit as an instrumentality in my plans. Still, in her way, she was a property, and, accordingly, I was not displeased to be able not only to utilize her in my plans but also make some money on her.
Her blond hair would in time grow out again and the soldiers would discover that she had an additional loveliness. Eventually I had no doubt she would bring a high price. Auburn hair is generally thought to be the most prized hair on Gor, but I myself generally prefer brunets. This is not to deny that blonde, suitably enslaved, and desperate to please, are not without interest. Blondes sometimes bring higher prices as their hair color is rarer, but once they are home, in the collar, they are, of course, no more than any other slave. In the end, in my opinion, the crucial factor is the individual girl. Everything depends on the individual slave.
"Yes, sold," I said, answering Klio's look of disbelief. There was laughter from the men.
"And before I sold her," I said, "she performed well."
"No, please!" said Klio.
I had, as though looking for a good price first on Elene, made my way through the network of trenches toward the walls of Ar's Station. A trench back, one of the siege trenches, I had sold her. Some of the fellows from this trench, the forward trench, had come back to watch. There had been no difficulty in moving through the trenches in my guise as a mercenary with one or two women to sell. I had followed them back, at their own behest, through one of the connecting trenches, to the lead trench. We had herded Klio before us, under the sheet, on all fours, encouraging her occasionally with a foot or the blow of the looped slave leash, not yet on her at that time.
"Did you already sell the best one?" asked on the men.
"You might think so, or not," I said. "I do not know. I think, from my own point of view, that I would prefer this one."
Klio looked back at me, frightened.
"I think I would prefer this one, too," said one of the fellows who had come back with me.
"She is a well-shaped beauty," said one of the men.
"Sirs!" protested Klio.
"We should have the best," said a fellow, "as we are the closest to the enemy." "Keep a lookout," said one of the men to another, one standing on a low wooden platform, at the forward edge of the trench.
"I think I would prefer her, too," said another.
"Yes," said another.
Klio looked about, I could see she was pleased to be so approved of, in her basic elements, as a naked female, but, too, she was alarmed, having some inkling as to what might be the entailments of such preferences.
"Have her perform," said one of the men.
I shook the slave leash, now on her. This movement was transmitted through the leather, until it jerked and snapped at the ring, on the leash collar.
"No," said Klio, "please!"
"What?" I asked, puzzled.
"Sirs," cried Klio, "soldiers of Cos, warriors for truth and justice, redressers of wrongs, kinsmen from across the sea, I am Lady Klio, of Telnus, of Cos! I am a free woman! I beg your kindness, your indulgence, your protection! Rescue me from this barbarian. Clothe and honor me! Return me in dignity to freedom!" "Many of these fellow," I said, "are not of Cos, but are mercenaries in the service of Cos."
She looked about the faces, frightened. On many faces there was amusement. "I am of Telnus," said a fellow.
"I, too," said another.
"Free me!" she cried. "I demand it!"
They smiled.
"Some of these fellows have not had a female in a long time," I said. "Had?" she stammered.
"Yes," I said.
These men were front-trench fighters, most of them. Probably in defense, and in support of assaults, and in assaults themselves, they had been muchly employed and risked. The siege had been long and bitter. Those who were not of Cos, and were mercenaries, fighting only for their fees, and some loot, perhaps a female or two, and gold, would presumably not be much moved by appeals to Cosian heritages or patriotism. Their loyalties would be less to Cos than to their captains and comrades. In some cases, they might be loyal, as well, to their word, to their oaths and pledges, and, if they understood what they were marking at the recruitment tables, their contracts. And the fellows from Cos itself, and from Tyros, and their close allies, were surely by now, if they had not been before, hardened veterans, men unlikely to be swayed by the self-serving appeals of beautiful women, men accustomed to seeing such women, of whatever city, in terms of the collar and chain.
"Why are you not in Telnus?" asked a fellow.
Klio was silent, in consternation.
"She lived from men, following them and exploiting them," I said.:She was a debtor slut. I paid her bills and thus came into her de facto ownership, through the redemption laws."
"But he did not free me then!" she cried.
"No," I said.
"Where did you pick her up?" asked a fellow.
"South, on the Vosk Road," I said, "at the Crooked Tarn."
"I know that place!" said one of the men.
"I, too," said another.
"I was once well taken at the Crooked Tarn," said the first man, "by a wench whose redemption cost me three silver tarsks, plus travel money, supposedly to get her back to Cos. For all this I received not so much as a kiss, she informing me that that would demean our relationship, putting it on a physical basis. She only laughed at me, from a fee cart, moving rapidly away, with my purse, waving the redemption papers, signed for freedom, in her hand. I was a fool. Often since I have dreamed of her in my power, naked and in a collar, my slave! I would use her well! Her name was Liomache."
I was interested to hear this. Had I known it I would have brought Liomache along. It seemed to me quite possible that the Liomache I had on the chain of Ephialtes might be the same woman. if so, she would be doubtless delighted to renew her acquaintance with the soldier. Certainly he, at any rate, would be delighted. Even if she were not the same woman, she had been making her living in the same way, and had had the same name. That might well have been enough to interest him in buying her. If she were the same woman, I did not think I would envy her, to find herself in the possession of her former dupe. She might too, I supposed, discover that their relationship might have, indeed, something of a physical aspect. Indeed, it would then be a totalistic relationship, the most totalistic relationship possible between a man and a woman, that in which she is total slave, and he absolute master. "This woman, in effect," I said, "made her living in the same way as your Liomache."
"Kill her," said a man.
"Do not kill me, please!" said Klio.
The eyes of many of the men were hard upon her.
"She exploited men," said a fellow.
"I will not do it again!" cried Klio.
She looked from face to face, but found little to comfort her in those countenances.
Too, besides their anger, these men were Goreans, and many of them regarded women in terms of the perfection of the collar. Too, many had been frustrated by free women, and free women in their own city. It was a rare fellow who did not, from time to time, regard the women of his own city as quite as suitable for collaring as those of other cities. Were they not all women? Many Goreans, for example, rejoiced in the situation in Tharna, where almost every female is a slave.
"I will not
do it again!" whispered Klio.
"You may attempt to do it, as you please, in the future," I said, "but I think you will do it within the limits of the collar."
"Oh, please, no!" she wept.
"I have shaken the leash, once," I said. "You did not then perform. Fortunate it was for you then that you were a free woman, and not a slave. Even so, I was not pleased. Do you understand?"
"Yes!" she said.
"Now, when I shake it again, you will perform."
She put her head down, trembling.
"Do you understand?" I asked.
"Yes," she whispered.
"You must remember, gentlemen," I said, "she is only a free woman." I shook the leash and Lady Klio, naked, attempted to perform.
Some of the men laughed.
"Surely you can do better than that," I said.
She sank to her stomach, in the dirt, at the bottom of the trench, weeping. "Whip her," said a tall fellow, watching her, with his arms folded. She looked up at him, frightened.
His eyes suddenly glinted. I had not seen what passed between them but I suspect that he had seen in her eyes something swift, some flash of sudden fear and recognition, that she had seen him as her master.
Then she put down her head again and there, in the dirt, shuddered.
"On your knees," I said. "Now,"
She cried out, and rose quickly to her knees.
"Knees spread," I said.
She knelt there, her knees spread. She blushed crimson. It seemed she could not take her eyes off the tall fellow.
"Perform," I encouraged her. "Move. Call attention to your charms." Again the Lady Klio began to perform, as she could.
"It may not be much, gentlemen," I informed them, holding the leash, "but surely for such a woman it is an unusual activity. I suspect that she is not accustomed to doing it. Perhaps in the future she will be better at it. Look, gentlemen. Little as it may be, I suspect this is far more than was provided for the many chaps who paid for her meals, her lodging, her wardrobe, her transportation, her luxuries, her claimed needs, her numerous bills."
"Continue to perform," I said. "You may leave your knees, but do not rise to your feet."
She regarded me, in wild protest.
"Yes?" I said.
"Do not make me do these things," she begged. "Do not make me dance and writhe so. I am a free woman!"
"Your freedom will soon be a matter of the past," I told her. "How well you do now could influence the quality of your life in the future."
"Do not fear," I said. "I know you are truly a slave. I learned it in your kiss, when you were shackled at the wall at the Crooked Tarn. I think that perhaps, in the same kiss, you learned it."
The men laughed. She sneaked a glance at the tall fellow, and then, hastily, put down her head. He smiled.
"Lady Elene, of Tyros, your friend, whom you remember from the Crooked Tarn, and the coffle," I said, "is even now in a slave collar. " It had been put on her within moments of her sale.
Klio looked back at me.
"In her performance," I said, "the slave, unrestrained, emerged quickly and in moments the woman discovered that it was she. It pleased the men abundantly. It brought a good price. It is now collared."
Klio sobbed.
"Frankly," I said, "I had not expected you to be inferior to her." She looked at me, angrily.
"But perhaps the women of Tyros," I said, "are superior to those of Cos?" "I think not," said a man, rather angrily.
There was laughter from the others. I supposed he must be Cosian, natively. "But then," I said, "it is said, I have heard, that those of Port Kar prize Cosians as slaves."
"Show us what a Cosian can do," said a man.
"Thus," I said, "it seems that it is not, really, that the women of Tyros are superior to the women of Cos, but merely that, in your particular case, you are inferior to the Lady Elene.
She looked at me, again, angrily.
"But that is only to be expected, upon occasion, I suppose," I said, "that some woman of Tyros would be superior to some woman of Cos. Too, it is no disgrace to be inferior to the Lady Elene, who is quite attractive and, in time, might even make a dancer."
"I am not inferior to Elene," she said, angrily.
The men laughed at her vehemence.
She looked at the tall fellow.
I quickly then, that she would feel the authoritative signal of the leash and collar rings while she was looking at the tall fellow, shook the leash. "Ah!" said a fellow.
I was quite pleased then with Klio.
My expectation, I then felt, that she would prove to be the most exciting and desirable of the two, was borne out. That was why I had saved her for last, of course, for use in the trench closest to Ar's Station. To be sure, I might have been somewhat prejudiced, for I remembered Klio's lovely dark hair, and I tend to be partial to brunets. Who, eventually, would prove to be the best slave I did not know. Let such women compete desperately with one another, and with other slaves, each striving to be the best.
One of the men cried out with pleasure.
That had been an excellent leash move, to be sure. Klio displayed herself brilliantly on the leash. Such things seem very natural for a woman. perhaps they are, to some extent, like slave dance, instinctive, the biological template, or genetic dispositions for them, having been selected for thousands of years ago, the most pleasing of captive women, perhaps, those squirming best on their tethers, or in their bonds, tending to be utilized for sexual conquest. Perhaps, however, they are associated, in their way, with something even deeper, something clearly selected for, the biological need of a woman to belong, to be approved of and to love.
"Superb!" said a fellow.
I wondered if Klio, sensing these deep, dark, wonderful, frightening things within her, the rightfulness of the destiny of submission to men for her, and such, had not, perhaps in the privacy of her own chambers, before her mirror, put the leash on herself. Perhaps she had then, there, before the mirror, in the privacy of her own quarters, moved similarly. It is not unusual for women to do this sort of thing, alone, often in bonds and chains, expressing plaintively therein their longing for a master.
"Superb! Superb!"
Klio, I recalled, had chosen a dangerous way of life, one which she must surely have realized, on one level or another, might lead to the collar.
"'Klio'," I said to the men, "might be an excellent name for a slave, do you not think so?"
"Yes!" said more than one.
Klio flushed with pleasure. Somehow it seemed she became even more sinuous, more sensuous, then.
I saw that she was paying a bit too much attention to the tall fellow.
"On your belly," I said to Klio. "There, that fellow," I said, indicating a grizzled sapper to one side, his tools near him, "address yourself to him, about the feet and legs." He grinned.
"No!" said the tall fellow.
I had thought this move on my part might bring him into action.
Klio stopped, and turned, from her knees, to regard him.
"I will buy her!" he said.
"She is not cheap," I said. It seemed to me I might as well get what I could for Klio. I fear I must admit occasionally to a streak of opportunistic greediness. "A silver tarsk!" he cried.
"Done!" I said. I had not really expected anything like that. Klio, redeemed through Ephialtes, had only cost me thirty copper tarsks. Perhaps I should have held out for more, seeing the eagerness of the fellow, but, after all, I was taken by surprise by the splendid offer, and even opportunistic greediness has its limits, particularly when surprised.
"On all fours," I said to Klio.
Immediately she went to all fours.
"A silver tarsk," I said.
It was placed in my palm and I put it in my pouch. I then removed my leash and collar from her neck. I had not even returned the leash and collar to my pouch before I heard a decisive click and a small cry from Klio. She looked up, collared, a slave, at her master.
> "She dances the leash dance well, does she not?" I asked.
"I will improve her in it," said he, grimly.
Klio quickly bend her head, unbidden, to his feet, and kissed them.
"Share her," said a fellow.
"Let her dance again," said another, "not in the leash."
"Proffer her to the arms of each of us," said another, "in turn." "She is mine," said the fellow.
"We are your comrade in arms," said another.
"True!" said another.
"Have no fear," said the tall fellow. "I will share the slave, and my good fortune, with you, but do not forget that in the end it is I alone to whom she belongs, that it is mine alone whose slave she is."
The men had crowded about Klio now, and I could hardly see her among them. Even the fellow from the low wooden platform, which gave him a vantage over the top of the trench, had joined them.
I backed away, unnoticed, toward the nearest sapling trench. In a moment I had then turned and was making my way rapidly toward the walls. In places the sapping trench was covered with planking, which might protect workers, or soldiers in their advance. In an Ehn or so I had come to its end, some twenty yards or so from the wall. Boulders lay about there, probably rolled from the height of the wall. Some were lodged at the trench, having crushed in the timber cover. The trench had not been taken around these obstacles. My heart was beating rapidly. I emerged from the trench, and waving a piece of white cloth, which on Gor is a truce cloth, as it is on Earth, climbed, slipping up, up the rather steep incline toward the base of the walls.
"Ho!" I said. "Do not fire! I am a friend. I have come here at great risk! I have a message for Aemilianus from Gnieus Lelius, Regent of Ar! Admit me!" There was silence from the height of the wall.
There were no posterns here, and the great gate was hundreds of yards away. Too, in such a time, it would surely not be open for one man.
I waved the white cloth vigorously.
That such a cloth may be used upon Gor as a truce cloth may have a direct historical connection with the similar device on Earth. Certainly many Gorean institutions and practices would seem to have Earth origins. On the other hand, in relationship to the Earth device may be merely a coincidental one, a white cloth, in effect, a blank flag, seeming to be a reasonably natural device to signify neutrality. Blank standards, too, or, more commonly, standards draped with white cloth, sometimes serve similar purposes. There are other devices, too, pertinent to such matters, particularly in formal contexts, such as the symbolic laying aside of arms, but I was certainly not, in this context, about to lay aside any arms.