Norman, John - Gor 10 - Tribesmen of Gor.txt
Page 11
other forms of training which have rather different manifest objectives. An
obvious example is the stimulation-chamber training, which is overtly, concerned
with honing a physical and psychological responsiveness to surface sensation,
this responsiveness, however, is reflected in the entire attitude, and
expressions, of the girl. One does not, so to speak, train the girl to “look
vital”; rather one makes her vital; she then, perhaps without even understanding
it, or thinking about it, looks vital.
The girl knelt before the desk of the slave master. I sat to one side, in a
curule chair. She knelt obediently, beautifully, as a pleasure slave. She was in
the presence of free men. I saw her eyes briefly close, relishing the feel of
the stone floor, as she knelt back on her heels, on her knees and the tops of
her toes; I saw her body straighten itself, exposing itself, drinking in the
atmosphere of the room. Her eyes were very much alive, very blue. She looked
irritated.
“What about such things,” I asked the slave master, “as giving pleasure to men.”
“We have shown her some simple things,” he said, “about all she is now capable
of.”
“Have you taught her to dance?” I asked.
“She is not yet ready to dance,” said the slave master.
I looked at the girl, to detect how much of the conversation, in Gorean, she
understood. Her grasp was imperfect. “Stand, Girl,” I said to her in Gorean.
Gracefully she stood. I observed her.
“Bracelets!” I said in Gorean, harshly.
The girl snapped to position, hands behind the small of her back, head lifted,
chin up, turned to the left. In such a posture she may be conveniently put in
bracelets, and leashed.
“Kneel,” I told her. Again she knelt, in the position of the pleasure slave.
To one side, her arms folded, the quirt in her hand, in leather strips and
halter, with collar and ring, with high-laced sandals, stood the large female
slave, who had originally conducted the girl from the room, and had brought her
back today. She smiled.
I pointed to the stones at my feet. “Crawl,” I said, in Gorean.
The girl slipped to her belly, and, as a slave girl, crawled to my feet. She put
her lips to my foot; I felt her hair over it. “Return,” I told her. On her
belly, head down, she returned to where she had knelt.
“Kneel,” I said.
Again she knelt in the position of the pleasure slave. Her eyes wire angry.
Excellent, I thought to myself.
“She has been diligent?” I asked the slave master.
“Yes,” he said.
I smiled. The girl had fallen into the rebellion of compliance. To avoid the
deprivation of food, the whip, she obeyed perfectly, but outwardly. She was
trying to retain an island in which she would be her own mistress. She thought
she was deceiving us. I did not see that it was mine to do, but doubtless, in
time, her master, when he wished, would shatter her, taking this island from
her, making her completely a slave. For now, I thought I would let her think she
was fooling us. Later, when a master wished, he would, when it pleased him, to
her horror, break her totally to his will.
I had little doubt that the lovely Alyena would one day, in the arms of a strong
man, for whom I was saving her; become a true slave, adoringly and vulnerably
the property of her master.
I glanced to the large female slave, with the quirt, standing near the silver
curtain.
“Why are you not in slave silk?” I asked her.
Her eyes flashed. Her hand clenched on the quirt.
“She is useful in the pens,” said the slave master. “She terrorizes feminine
girls.”
I turned to Alyena. “What do you think,” I asked, in English, “of the female
slave?”
“I fear her,” whispered small, lovely Alyena.
“Why,” I asked.
“She is so strong, so hard,” said Alyena.
“What you fear in her.” I said, “is masculinity, but it is not a true
masculinity; it is fraudulent.” I looked down at her. “The masculinity you must
learn to fear,” I told her, “is the masculinity of men.”
“She is a match for any man,” said Alyena. Her eyes shone with pride.
I turned to the slave master. “Fetch a male slave,” I said.
One was brought. He was not a large fellow. He was however, an inch or so taller
than the female slave.
“You certify to me,” said I to the slave master, “that this man is neither
clumsy nor stupid, nor drunk, nor an instructor in combat intent upon increasing
the confidence of his pupils.”
“It is so certified,” he smiled. “He is used in cleaning the pens. He is a
drover who falsified the quality-markings on spice crates.”
I placed a copper tarn disk on the desk of the slave master. “Fight,” I said to
the slaves.
“Fight,” said the slave master.
The man looked puzzled. With a cry of rage, shrill and vicious, the female slave
leapt toward him, slashing him across the face with the quirt. She struck him
twice before he, angry, took the quirt from her and threw it aside.
“Do not anger me,” he told her.
He turned and caught her kick on his left thigh. She leapt at him, fingers like
claws, to tear out his eyes. He seized her wrists. He turned her about. She
could not move. Then, with considerable force, as she cried out with misery, he
flung her, the length of her body, belly front, against the stone wall. He then
stepped back, jerked her ankles from under her and flung her to the stones, and
knelt across her back. She wept and struck the stones with her fists. Then her
halter was removed and her hands pulled behind her and bound with it. He
discarded her belt and the strips of leather. He removed her sandals. With one
of the long, straplike laces, he crossed and bound her ankles. Then, angrily, he
turned her collar, hurting her, with its ring, to the back. With the other
straplike lace, run through the ring and tied to the binding on her ankles, he
jerked her ankles up, high, fastening them there. Then he crouched over her and
she lay bound at his feet. He turned her head, looking over her right shoulder,
so that it faced him; he crouched so that she could not move; his right ankle
was against her left cheek. He poised his thumbs, held downward, over her eyes.
“I am a woman at your mercy,” she wept. “Please, Master, do not hurt me!”
He looked to the slave master. The slave master came to where the woman lay. He
looked down at her. He called two slaves from behind the silver curtain. They
looked down at the woman. Then the slave master said, “Put her in slave silk,
and give her to male slaves.”
She was freed of the cord binding her ankles to her collar ring.
She was jerked to her feet, and held there; she could not stand by herself for
her feet were still crossed and bound. “Who are the masters,” asked the slave
master of her.
The woman, hair before her face, held upright by men, looked at Alyena. The
woman trembled. “Men,” she whispered. “Men are the masters.” Alyena’s face
turned white.
The woman was carried from the room, to the pens. For a silver tarsk I purchased
the male slave, and freed him. “Stand,” I said to Alyena, who was trembling.
I put the walking chains on her, which I had purchased a few days ago in the
bazaar.
I looked down into her eyes. “Who are the masters?” I asked.
She looked up at me, angrily. Then she said, “Men--men are the masters.”
I then left the office of the slave master of Tor, followed by the slave girl.
On the back of the kaiila, on the road to the Oasis of Nine Wells, drowsily, I
listened to the kaiila bells.
It was in the late afternoon. We would stop in an Ahn or two for camp.
Fires would be lit. The kaiila would be put in circles, ten animals to the
circle, and fodder, by kaiila boys, would be thrown into the center of the
circle.
The tents would be pitched. The opening of the Tahari tent usually faces the
east, that the morning sun may warm it. Gor, like the Earth, rotates to the
east. The nights require, often, a heavy djellaba or an extra blanket. Many
nomads build a small kaiila-dung fire in the tent, to smolder during the night,
to warm their feet. I needed not do this, of course, for at my feet slept the
former Miss Priscilla Blake-Allen, the girl, Alyena.
At night the kaiila are hobbled. The slave girls, too, are hobbled. With the
kaiila a simple figure-eight twist of kaiilahair rope, above the spreading paws,
below the knees, is sufficient. A girl, of course, is chained. When finished
with her, I would cross Alyena’s ankles and, with the walking chain, suitably
shortened, chain them together. That way she could not stand. I would then throw
her brief djellaba against the desert cold, and order her to a position of
sleep. On the mat, toward morning, she would pull the hood over her face, fold
her arms and pull up her legs, knees bent; the djellaba came far up her thighs;
I would watch her sleeping, sometime, for she was quite beautiful. Once she
opened her eyes. “Master,” she said. “Sleep, Slave,” I told her. “Yes, Master,”
she said. In the morning I would unchain her early that she might, like the
other slave girls in camp, be about her duties. Once she stole a date. I did not
whip her. I chained her, arms over her head, back against the trunk, to a
flahdah tree. I permitted nomad children to discomfit her. They are fiendish
little beggars. They tickled her with the lanceolate leaves of the tree. They
put honey about her, to attract the tiny black sand flies, which infest such
water holes in the spring. When we would break camp, I would lift her to the
kurdah, placing her within.
I became aware of the pounding of kaiila pads on the dry surface. Suddenly I was
alert, awake.
I spun the kaiila, and stood in the stirrups.
A man was riding by, the length of the caravan, one of the points. “Riders!” he
cried. “Riders!”
I could see them now, more than a hundred of them,
sweeping toward us over the crest of one of the hills, to my left, the west.
Their burnooses whipped behind them as they mounted the crest of the hill and,
the animals half sliding, descended the other side, approaching us. Guards from
our caravan were hastening outward to meet them. I stood in the stirrups. I saw
no one approaching from other directions. There might be, of course, such
delayed charges. Reassured I was to see points riding out about the caravan,
outriders, to guard against such surprise. I saw Farouk, merchant and caravan
master, ride by, burnoose swirling behind him, lance in hand. With him were six
men. I saw drovers, holding the reins of their beasts, shading their eyes,
looking over the dust to the west. One of the kinsmen of Farouk went to the
kurdahs of slave girls, hobble chains at his saddle pommel; he would rein in
before a kurdah, throw the girl the hobble and order her, “Shackle yourself”; he
would wait the moment it took for the girl to snap the small ring about her
right wrist and, behind her body, the larger one about her left ankle; the rings
are separated by about six inches of chain; they are not sleeping hobbles, which
confine only the ankles; then he would rush to the next kurdah, fling a hobble
to the next girl, and repeat his command. I rode down the caravan until I came
to Alyena’s kurdah. She thrust her head out, veiled, her fists holding apart the
rep-cloth curtain.
“What is going on?” she cried.
“Be silent,” I told her. She looked frightened.
“Stay within the kurdah, Slave,” I warned her. “And do not peer out.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
I turned the kaiila, loosened the scimitar in the sheath.
“They are Aretai!” cried a man.
I thrust the scimitar back, deep, in the sheath.
I saw, some hundred yards from the caravan, the riders reined up. With them I
saw Farouk, conversing with their captain. The caravan guards, on nervous,
prancing kaiila, were behind him. Lances were high, butts in the stirrup sheath,
like needles against the hills.
I rode my kaiila out a few steps, toward the men, then returned it to the
caravan.
“They are Aretai,” said one of the drovers. The caravan, I knew, was bound for
the Oasis of Nine Wells. It was held by Suleiman, master of a thousand lances.
He was high pasha of the Aretai.
Several of the newcomers fanned out to flank the caravan, at large intervals. A
cluster of them rode toward its head, another cluster toward its rear. Some
twenty of them, with Farouk, and certain guards, began to work their way down
the caravan, beast by beast, checking the drovers and kaiila tenders.
“What are they doing?” I asked a nearby drover.
“They are looking for Kavars,” he said.
“What will they do with them if they find them?” I asked.
“Kill them,” said the man.
I watched the men, on their kaiila, accompanied by Farouk, the caravan master,
moving, man by man, towards us.
“They are the men of Suleiman,” said the drover, standing nearby, the rein of
his kaiila in his hand. “They have come to give us escort to the Oasis of Nine
Wells.”
Closer came the men, stopping, starting, moving from one man to the next, down
the long line. They were led by a captain, with a red-bordered burnoose. Several
of them held their scimitars, unsheathed, across the leather of their saddles.
“You are not a Kavar, are you?” asked the drover.
“No,” I said.
The riders were before us.
The drover threw back the hood of his burnoose, and pulled down the veil about
his face. Beneath the burnoose he wore a skullcap. The rep-cloth veil was red;
it had been soaked in a primitive dye, mixed from water and the mashed roots of
the telekint; when he perspired, it had run; his face was stained. He thrust
back the sleeve of his trail shirt.
The captain looked at me. “Sleeve,” he said. I thrust back the sleeve of my
shirt, revealing my left forearm. It did not bear the blue scimitar, tattooed on
the forearm of a Kavar boy at puberty.
“He is not Kavar,” said Farouk. He made as though to urge his mount further down
the line
.
The captain did not turn his mount. He continued to look at me. “Who are you?”
he asked.
“I am not a Kavar,” I told him.
“He calls himself Hakim, of Tor,” said Farouk.
“Near the north gate of Tor,” said the captain, “there is a well. What is its
name?”
“There is no well near the north gate of Tor,” I told him.
“What is the name of the well near the stalls of the saddlemakers?” asked the
captain.
“The well of the fourth passage hand,” I told him. Water, more than a century
ago, had been struck there, during the fourth passage hand, in the third year of
the Administrator Shiraz, then Bey of Tor.
I was pleased that I had spent some days in Tor, before engaging in the lessons
of the scimitar, learning the city. It is not wise to assume an identity which
one cannot cognitively substantiate.
“Your accent,” said the captain, “is not of Tor.
“I was not always of Tor,” I told him. “Originally I was from the north.”
“He is a Kavar spy,” said one of the lieutenants, at the side of the captain.
“Why are you bound for the Oasis of Nine Wells?” asked the captain.
“I have gems to sell Suleiman, your master,” said I, “for bricks of pressed
dates.”
“Let us kill him,” urged the lieutenant.
“Is this your kurdah?” asked the captain, gesturing to the kurdah on the nearby
kaiila.
“Yes,” I said.
In making their examination of the caravan they had, with their scimitars,
opened the curtains of the kurdahs, for there might have been Kavars concealed
therein. They had found, however, only girls, slaves, their right wrists and
left ankles locked in five-link slave hobbles.
“What is in it?” he asked.
“Only a slave girl,” I told him.
He pressed his kaiila to the kurdah, and, with the tip of his scimitar, prepared
to lift back the curtain to his right.
My scimitar, blade to blade, blocked his.
The men tensed. Fists clenched on the hilts of scimitars.
Lances were lowered.
“Perhaps you conceal within a Kavar?” asked the captain.
With my own scimitar tip I brushed back the curtain. In the kurdah, kneeling,
frightened, naked save for collar and veil, the girl shrank back.
“Thigh,” said the captain.
The girl turned her left thigh to him, showing her brand. “It is only a slave