Norman, John - Gor 10 - Tribesmen of Gor.txt

Home > Other > Norman, John - Gor 10 - Tribesmen of Gor.txt > Page 45
Norman, John - Gor 10 - Tribesmen of Gor.txt Page 45

by Tribesmen of Gor [lit]


  changed his garments. He no longer wore the white of the high Pasha of the

  Kavars but simpler garments, those which might have befitted Hassan, the outlaw

  of the Tahari.

  “Lift your head Beauty,” said I, gently putting the point of the scimitar

  beneath her chin, lifting it.

  She looked at Hassan, incredibly beautiful, her cheeks stained with tears.

  “This is Tarna,” I said.

  “So beautiful?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “The capture is yours,” said Hassan. “Put a rope on her neck.

  Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars, and Suleiman, high Pasha of the Aretai, are

  eager to see her.”

  I smiled. From within my sash I found a length of prisoner rope. It was coarse

  rope.

  “Doubtless,” said Hassan, “Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars, and Suleiman, high

  Pasha of the Aretai, will pay a high reward to the man who brings Tarna before

  them.”

  “Doubtless,” I said.

  “I have heard them crying out for her,” said Hassan.

  I knotted the rope about the beauty’s neck. She was mine.

  Hassan looked down upon the stripped, tethered beauty.

  “I do not want to die,” she suddenly cried. “I do not want to die!”

  She put her head down, in her hands. She wept.

  “The punishment for breaking a well,” said Hassan, “is not light.”

  Tarna, shuddering, wept, her head to the floor, my rope on her neck.

  “Come, Female,” I said. I jerked her head up, by the rope. “We must go to see

  the Pashas.”

  “Is there no escape?” she wept.

  “There is no escape for you,” I said. “You have been taken.”

  “Yes,” she said, numbly, “I have been taken.”

  “Are you thinking, Hassan,” I asked, “what I am? That there might be one hope

  for her life?”

  “Perhaps,” grinned Hassan.

  “What?” cried Tama. “What!”

  “No,” I said. “It is too horrifying.”

  “What!” she cried.

  “Forget it,” I said.

  “Forget it,” agreed Hassan. “You would never approve. You are too proud, too

  noble and fine.”

  I jerked on the rope, as though to draw Tarna to her feet, in order to lead her

  to the presence of the Pashas.

  “What!” she cried.

  “Better torture and impalement on the walls of the kasbah at Nine Wells,” said

  Hassan.

  “What?” wept Tarna.

  “It is too horrifying, too terrible, too utterly degrading, too sensual,” I

  said.

  “What?” wept the tethered beauty. “Oh, what?”

  “On the lower levels,” said Hassan, “I understand that slave girls are kept.”

  “Yes,” said Tarna “for the pleasures of my men.”

  “You no longer have men,” I reminded her.

  “I see!” cried Tarna. “I might be slipped among them!”

  “It is a chance,” admitted Hassan.

  “But I am not branded!” wept Tarna.

  “That can be arranged,” said Hassan.

  She looked at him with horror. “But then,” she said, “I would truly be a slave.”

  “I knew you would not approve,” said Hassan.

  I jerked at the rope on the beauty’s neck. Her chin was pulled up. The knot was

  under her jaw on the right, turning her head to the left. “No,” she said. “No!”

  We looked at her.

  “Make Me a slave,” she whispered. “Please! Please!”

  “There will be much risk,” said Hassan. “If Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars,

  should hear of this, he might skin me alive.”

  “Please!” wept Tama.

  “It will not be easy,” I said.

  “Please, Please!” she wept.

  “How should we go about this?” I asked.

  “One thing,” said Hassan, “prisoner rope is not appropriate. She must be put on

  a wrist tether.”

  “I see little problem in this,” I said.

  “A more serious problem,” be said, “will occur in leading her through the

  halls.”

  “I can walk with my head down, as a slave,” said Tarna.

  “Most female slaves,” said Hassan, “walk very proudly. They are proud of their

  slavery, and their mastery by men, They have learned their womanhood. It has

  been taught to them. In their way, though imbonded, totally, I suppose they are

  the truest and freest of women. They are closest, perhaps, to the essentials of

  the female, those of subservience to the masculine will, obedience, service and

  pleasure. In being most themselves, utter slave, they are most free. This is

  paradoxical, to be sure. Most girls, verbally, will object to slavery, but this

  half-hearted, pouting, ineffectual rhetoric is belied by the joy of their

  behavior. No girl who has not been a slave can understand the joy of it, the

  profundity and freedom. The objections of girls to slavery, I have noted, are

  usually not objections to the institution which, in the sweet heat of their

  bodies, they love dearly, and fear only to lose, but to a given master. Given

  the proper master they are quite content, in the proper collar a woman is serene

  and joyful.”

  “Are slave girls truly proud?” asked Tama.

  “Most,” said Hassan. “You may think only of have dominated, or seraglio

  mistresses, presiding over weaklings. But have you seen girls, truly, before

  men?”

  “In a cafe, once,” she said, “I saw a girl dance before men. She was scandalous!

  And the girls, too, who served in the cafe! Shameful! Scandalous!”

  “Speak with care,” said Hassan, “Girl, for someday you, too, may so dance and

  serve.”

  Tarna turned white.

  “Did the girls seem proud?” asked Hassan.

  “Yes,” said Tarna, sullenly. “But why should they have been proud?”

  “They were proud of their bodies, their feelings, their desirability,” said

  Hassan, “and proud, too, of their masters, who had the will and power to put

  them in a collar and keep them there, because it pleased him to do so.”

  “How strong such men must be,” whispered Tarna.

  “Too,” said Hassan, “undeniable females, secure in their sexuality, it was

  difficult not for them to be proud. Too, joy can make girls proud.”

  “But why, why,” wept Tarna, “should they be proud?”

  Hassan shrugged. “Because they knew themselves to be the most perfect and

  profound of women,” he said. “That is why they are proud.” Hassan laughed.

  “Sometimes,” he said, “girls grow so proud it is necessary to whip them, to

  remind them that they are only slaves.”

  “I can walk proudly,” said Tarna. “Lead me through the halls.” She rose to her

  feet, and stood before us.

  “There is a difference,” laughed Hassan, “between the pride of a free woman and

  the pride of the slave girl, The pride of a free woman is the pride of a woman

  who feels herself to be the equal of a man. The pride of the slave girl is the

  pride of the girl who knows that no other woman is the equal of herself.”

  Tarna suddenly shuddered, inadvertently, with pleasure. I could see that this

  insight had thrilled her to the quick.

  “You are no longer competing with men,” said Hassan. “You are now something

  different.”

 
; “Yes, yes!” suddenly whispered Tarna. “I see! I am different! I am not the

  same!” She looked at us. “Suddenly. “ she said, “for the first time I love the

  thought of not being the same. “

  “It is a start,” said Hassan.

  “Do you think she is fit to be led through the halls?” I asked. I could hear men

  shouting outside. There was singing, the sounds of carousing.

  “She cannot yet walk like, or truly seem a slave girl,” said Hassan, “for she is

  not yet a slave girl, but if little attention is paid, we may have a chance.” He

  turned to the captive. “How do you look upon men, Wench?” he asked. “How do you

  meet their eyes?”

  Tarna gazed upon him.

  Hassan moaned. “We shall lose our heads,” he said.

  I dragged Tarna by the rope to her vast couch, and flung her to the yellow

  cushions. At the head of the couch I tied the rope which was knotted on her

  neck. She could not rise more than a foot from the cushions. She twisted on the

  cushions, turning to look at me. “What are you going to do with me?” she asked,

  horrified.

  Hassan grinned. “She is your capture,” he said. “First capture rights are

  yours.”

  Tarna cried out with misery.

  In a short time, we led Tarna through the balls of the kasbah. We had taken the

  prisoner rope from her neck, to conceal the fact that she was a free prisoner. I

  led her by a wrist tether, her wrists crossed and bound, and the tether running

  to my hand. Sometimes I pulled her abruptly, making her stumble, or run or fall.

  I did this for three reasons; it concealed her awkwardness; I was in a hurry;

  and it pleased me. The wrist tether was from the cords holding the hangings in

  her room. The cords were not such that they could be easily identified.

  “Are these cords such that they are unique to your quarters?” I had asked her.

  “No,” she had said. “No.” I had then bound her with them.

  “Is she not much too clean?” asked Hassan.

  I looked at the bound girl. “Yes,” I said. Then I said to the girl, “Down, down

  on the floor, on your belly and back, roll.”

  She looked at us angrily, but then complied. When she stood again before us,

  Hassan took soot from one of the tharlarion-oil lamps and rubbed it, here and

  there, on her body. He then took some tharlarion-oil and, as she shuddered,

  poured and rubbed it on her left shoulder.

  “Of great danger to us now,” said Hassan, “is her lack of a brand.”

  “Unless you have an iron with you,” I said, “there is not much helping that at

  the moment.”

  Still the problem was serious. Girls are branded prominently, usually on the

  left or right thigh. The brand on a slave girl is not something for which, when

  the wench is stripped, one must hunt. If it were noted, in our journey to the

  lower levels, that the woman we led was unmarked, it would be assumed that she

  was free. This would excite curiosity, and would be sure to be later recalled.

  Tarna, of course, would be unmarked. Indeed, she would be likely to be the only

  unmarked female in the kasbah.

  I tore down one of the hangings, a yellow one, and ripped a narrow strip from

  it. I wound this about the girl’s thighs, low, to reveal her navel. It is called

  the slave belly. On Gor it is only slave girls who expose, their navels. But the

  cloth would cover the area, on either hip, which be the likely site of the

  incised slave mark.

  “It might be better,” said Hassan, studying the beauty, “if she were completely

  stripped.”

  “Not without a brand,” I said.

  “You are right,” said Hassan. “We cannot risk it.”

  “Let them assume,” I suggested, “that we are leading her to someone to whom we

  are giving her, and that we wish to tear off her last veil, to her horror, only

  before her new master.”

  “Excellent,” said Hassan. “It is at least plausible.”

  “It will have to do,” I said.

  “Please,” said Tarna. “Lift the cloth to cover my navel.”

  I thrust the cloth down, another inch on her hips. She shook with anger, but was

  silent. She did not much approve either when Hassan cleaned his hands on the

  cloth about her hips. This dirtied the cloth, making it more fitting to be worn

  about the hips of a slave; too, of course, it removed the soot from his hands,

  from the tharlarion-oil lamp.

  As we had led her through carousing soldiers, many of them reached for the girl,

  whom they assumed, as we had intended, was slave. “Oh,” she cried. “Oh!” She

  found herself much caressed, with the rude familiarity with which a slave girl

  is handled.

  “Hurry, Slave,” I barked at her. She did not even know enough to say, “Yes,

  Master.” I did not lead her gently. At last, to my relief, we reached the door

  leading to the lower levels.

  “Did you see them look at me?” she asked. “Is this what it is to be a slave

  girl?”

  We did not respond to her. Hassan threw back the heavy door. I removed the bonds

  from the girl, and threw them aside. I took her by the arm and, Hassan preceding

  us, I conducted her down the curving, narrow, worn stairs, deep below the

  kasbah.

  We had brought her safely through the halls. This pleased me.

  I have little doubt that our success in this matter was largely to be attributed

  to what Tarna, stripped and roped back by the neck, had learned on her own

  couch. There is a great deal of difference in the way that various sorts of

  women relate to men and look upon them. These differences tend often to be

  functions of what their experiences have been with men. For example, do they

  regard themselves as the equals of men, or their superiors? Or, have they been

  taught, forcibly and clearly, that they are not the dominant organism? Have they

  been put, helpless, beneath the Will of a male? Have they learned their

  delicious vulnerability, that they are the male’s victim and prey, his pleasure

  and delight? And have they learned, to their helpless horror and joy, the

  fantastic things he can do to their body?

  “How do you look upon men, Wench?” Hassan had asked. “How do you meet their

  eyes?” he had asked.

  And Tarna had gazed upon him.

  He had moaned. “We shall lose our heads,” he had said.

  I had then dragged her by the neck to her own couch, that swift instruction be

  administered to her.

  She had thousands of pasangs to go, but we had made a start with her, enough to

  get her through the halls.

  I had seen her react as we had dragged her through the soldiers. She was not

  then the Tarna of old. She was a woman who had been taught what men could do

  with her.

  I heard singing, shouting, from below, too. We descended four levels, until we

  reached the bottom level. Tarna looked sick.

  “The smell,” she said. A drunken soldier, carrying a bottle, brushed against us.

  I let her throw up, twice, in the hall. Then I pushed her ahead of me, holding

  her by the arm, stumbling through the straw and slime down the corridor. She

  cried out, miserably, as an urt scurried past, brushing her ankle. We looked

  through one cell door, swung open
. It led into a large, long, narrow room.

  Against the far wall, chained by the neck, on straw, were more than a hundred

  slave girls. Soldiers, many drunken, sported with them. Some, holding the slaves

  in their left arm, forced wine from bottles down their throats. Some of the

  girls squirmed, eagerly, their hands on the bottles. Others, at the end of their

  chain and collar, on their knees, held out their hands. “Wine, Master, please!”

  they cried. They did not bargain, as might have a desperate free woman,

  “Anything for a sip of wine, Noble Sir!” for they were slave girls. Anything

  could, and would, be demanded of them, and for nothing. They were slave.

  “How horrid men are,” moaned Tarna.

  “Speak with care,” warned Hassan, “for soon, as much as any slut at the wall,

  you will belong to them.”

  Tarna threw back her head, and moaned.

  “It is here,” said Hassan. He moved back the heavy iron door and we entered the

  room. I looked about, at the chains and devices. Tarna shrank back. She could

  not run, for my hand was on her arm. She seemed faint. I steadied her. It was

  dark in the room, except for a small tharlarion-oil lamp on a chain in one

  corner, and a brazier, glowing, near the branding rack. Hassan stirred the coals

  in the brazier. In a large kasbah irons are kept always hot. The slaves know

  this.

  I ripped the bit of cloth away from her hips and threw her against the rack. I

  swung shut the two heavy bands and with the two twist handles, tightened them on

  her thigh. She turned; trying to pound at the metal that held her. I took her

  wrists and pulled them forward, to the two posts, some six inches apart, part of

  the branding rack, putting them in the snap bracelets, which dangled there, one

  from each post. These are simple mechanisms. It is quite easy to open and shut

  them, and it may be done with a snap of the finger, one for each bracelet. As

  the bracelets are situated, some inches apart, of course, and as the snap is on

  each bracelet itself, at the wrist, the girl herself cannot get her finger, of

  either hand, on the mechanism. Others may open them easily; she, on the other

  hand, is perfectly held. I took again the twist handles. I turned them extremely

  tightly. “Oh, oh,” she cried. She pulled futilely at the snap bracelets. Then I

  again turned the twist handles. “Please!” she cried. “Be quiet,” I told her. She

 

‹ Prev