Tribesmen of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “Stand!” said the merchant. “Head back! Hands behind head! Bend backwards! Farther! Farther!” He turned to us. “Acceptable,” he said. Then to the girl he issued orders, rapidly, harshly. I watched, with interest, as the girl, tears in her eyes, responded to his swiftly issued, abrupt commands. For more than four Ehn he put her through a swift, staccato regimen of movements, a set of slave paces, assessment paces, designed to exhibit, vulnerably, decisively and publicly, her beauty, in all of its major attitudes and positions. “Hands on hips! Be insolent! Hands behind back! Hands crossed before you, as though bound! Hands at throat, as though chained to collar, fingers before mouth! Fall to the floor! Kneel! Head down! Head up! Bend backwards! Farther! Roll to the floor, on your side, on your back, right leg high, now flexed, left leg high, now flexed, to your side, right leg extended, palms on floor, left leg extended, palms on floor! Appear angry! Appear frightened! Appear aroused! Smile!” He did this with the same swift, expert objectivity, and clinical detachment, that a physician might bring to a routine medical examination; this examination, of course, was a beauty examination, assessing the desirability of a female slave. The whip cracked again. She cried out in misery, shuddering.

  She looked up at him, in terror.

  “Hassan?” asked the merchant.

  “Very well,” said Hassan. He stepped to the edge of the circle.

  “Crawl to his feet,” ordered the merchant.

  The girl began to do so.

  “On your belly,” said the merchant.

  She did so. At his feet, unbidden, she pressed her lips to his slippers. “Keep me, Hassan,” she begged.

  “To my lips,” he said.

  She crept to her feet and lifted her lips to his. He tasted her well.

  “Keep me, Hassan!” she wept.

  He threw her back to the center of the marble circle. “What is she worth?” asked Hassan of the merchant.

  “I will give you a silver tarsk for her,” said he, “for she is only slave.”

  “Hassan!” cried the girl.

  “Done,” said Hassan, selling his slave.

  “No, Hassan!” she cried.

  “And two tarn disks of gold, of the mintage of Ar, for the free wench,” said the merchant.

  “Agreed,” said Hassan.

  “Hassan!” cried the slave girl.

  “Take this slave away,” said the merchant.

  A slave bracelet was locked about the left wrist of Zina and she was dragged to the wall, where she, on her knees, was put, facing the wall. The bracelet not locked about her left wrist was then put through the slave ring and, this done, her right wrist was locked in it, confining both her wrists at the ring, her belly facing the wall. She looked over her right shoulder at Hassan. “Hassan!” she cried.

  Hassan took the moneys from the merchant. “In the next room,” said the merchant, “we will deal for the other goods.”

  “Yes,” said Hassan.

  “Hassan!” cried the girl.

  He left the room. He did not speak to the traitress. He was of the Tahari.

  * * * *

  “More, Masters?” asked the girl, kneeling beside the low, tem-wood-inlaid table. She wore a high, red-silk vest, swelling, fastened with a single hook; diaphanous red-silk chalwar, low on her hips, gathered at the ankles; two golden bangles on her left ankle; collar.

  “No, Yiza, retire,” said the merchant.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  She lowered her eyes and, taking the tray with black wine and sugars, rose gracefully to her feet, backed away, turned, and left the room.

  She moved sweetly. She had been aroused from sleep, not permitted to veil herself, and instructed to prepare and serve black wine. This she had done. At the interior corners of her eyes had been the signs of sleep; she had yawned like a cat when kneeling to one side; her face, and her mouth, had revealed the heavy, sweet lassitude of the beautiful woman who is weary; when she had left, though she held herself erect, as an embonded girl must, there had been a slow, felicitous swing to her gait, graceful, languid, somnolent, subtly betraying the weariness of her beauty, awakened and forced so early to serve. Her haunches flowed beneath the silk, and then she had disappeared. I did not think it would take her long to remove her clothing, draw her warm kaiila-cloth blanket about her and, drawing her knees up, fall asleep on the straw of her cell, which, under pain of death, she would shut behind her, locking it.

  When she had left the room she had used the runner at the side of the room. Rooms in private dwellings, in the Tahari, if rich, usually are floored with costly rugs. The rooms are seldom crossed directly, in order to prevent undue wear on the rugs; long strips of ruglike material line the edges of the room; these are commonly used in moving from room to room; children, servants, slaves, women, commonly negotiate the rooms by keeping on the runners, near the walls. Men commonly do also, if guests are not present.

  “The breaking of a well,” said the merchant, “is an almost inconceivable criminal act.”

  Neither of us, Hassan, nor myself, responded to him. What he said was true. Earlier, though it had not been our original intention, following our commercial interaction, in which Hassan had exchanged his plunder, flesh and otherwise, for gold, we had been conducted by the merchant to the well, shattered, perhaps ruined. Under torches men had labored, removing stone and sand in leather buckets on long ropes. Hassan’s fists had clenched. We had then retired to the merchant’s house for black wine. It was two Ahn before dawn.

  The various prices and coins had totaled eleven tarn disks of Ar, and four of Turia. To his nine men, apiece, he had thrown a tarn disk of Ar. The rest he kept for himself. A gold tarn disk of Ar is more than many common laborers earn in a year. Many low-caste Goreans have never held one in their hand. His men, outside, waited, the reins of their kaiila in hand.

  “And strangest of all,” said the merchant, leaning forward, looking at us intently, “is the fact that the Aretai raiders were led by a woman!”

  “A woman?” asked Hassan.

  “Yes,” said the merchant.

  “And the war messengers have already been sent?” asked Hassan.

  “To all the oases of the Kavars and their vassal tribes,” said the merchant.

  “Has there been talk of truce, of discussion?” asked Hassan.

  “With those who have cost water?” asked the merchant. “Of course not!”

  “And what word,” asked Hassan, “has been heard from Haroun, high pasha of the Kavars?”

  “Who knows where Haroun is?” asked the merchant, spreading his hands.

  “And of his vizier, Baram, Sheik of Bezhad?”

  “The war messengers have been sent,” said the merchant.

  “I see,” said Hassan.

  “The tribes gather,” said the merchant. “The desert will flame.”

  “I am weary,” said Hassan. “And I do not think it wise to be too publicly in Two Scimitars by daylight.”

  “Hasaad Pasha knows that raiders come to Two Scimitars,” smiled the merchant. “It is useful to our economy. We are not on main trade routes.”

  “He does not know officially,” said Hassan, “and I do not wish him to have to dispatch a hundred soldiers to ride about in the desert searching for us, to satisfy outraged citizens. I do not feel like a hard ride now, and doubtless, too, neither do the soldiers. Besides, if we actually encountered one another, it would be quite embarrassing to both parties. What would we do?”

  “Ride past one another shouting wildly?” suggested the merchant.

  “Perhaps,” smiled Hassan.

  “You would probably have to kill one another,” said the merchant.

  “I suppose so,” said Hassan.

  “At night,” said the merchant, “you, and others, are always welcome in Two Scimitars.”

  “Welcomed by night, sought by day,” said Hassan. “I think that I shall never understand honest men.”

  “We are complicated,” admitted the merchant.

&nb
sp; “I wish that the men of other oases were so complicated,” said Hassan. “In many of them they would pay high to have my head on a lance.”

  “We of Two Scimitars,” said the merchant, “cannot be held accountable for the lack of sophistication in such simple rogues.”

  “But to whom do you sell the goods I bring you?” asked Hassan.

  “To such simple rogues,” smiled the merchant.

  “They know?” asked Hassan.

  “Of course,” said the merchant.

  “I see,” said Hassan. “Well, it will soon be light, and I must be going.”

  He rose to his feet, somewhat stiffly, for he had been sitting cross-legged for some time, and I joined him.

  “May your water bags be never empty. May you always have water,” said the merchant.

  “May your water bags be never empty,” we rejoined. “May you always have water.”

  Outside, shortly before dawn, when drops of moisture beaded on the rocks, Hassan and I, and his men, put our left feet into the stirrup of our saddles and mounted our swift beasts.

  “Hassan,” said I.

  “Yes,” said he.

  “The merchant told us that six days ago Aretai from Nine Wells raided the oasis of the Sand Sleen.”

  “Yes,” said Hassan.

  “Six days ago,” said I, “the soldiers at Nine Wells were in the vicinity of the oasis, hunting for a fugitive, escaped from their prison, who had been sentenced to the pits of Klima for an alleged attempt on the life of Suleiman Pasha.”

  “Did he escape?” asked Hassan, smiling.

  “It seems so,” I said.

  “That, too, is my intelligence,” said Hassan.

  “If the soldiers of Nine Wells were at their oasis six days ago,” said I, “they were not, too, at the oasis of the Sand Sleen.”

  “No,” said Hassan.

  “And it does not seem likely,” said I, “that, last night, Aretai from Nine Wells would be here.”

  “It would be hard riding,” said Hassan. “And this seems an obscure oasis, far from trade routes.”

  “Where would they have disposed of loot from the oasis of the Sand Sleen?” I asked.

  “It might have been hidden in the desert,” suggested Hassan.

  “Why Two Scimitars?” I asked. “It is a small oasis, not even Kavar.”

  “I do not know,” said Hassan.

  “Suleiman, Pasha at Nine Wells,” said I, “lies in his palace in critical condition. It seems an unusual time for his Aretai to rush raiding about the countryside.”

  “It would, indeed,” smiled Hassan.

  “Yet the raiders wore the garments of Aretai, the saddle markings, shouted ‘For Nine Wells and Suleiman!’”

  “You and I, too,” smiled Hassan, “might arrange such matters, and shout boldly.”

  I said nothing.

  “Odd,” said Hassan, “that they should shout ‘For Nine Wells and Suleiman!’”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “The names of leaders,” said Hassan, “do not figure in the war cries of Aretai, nor of most tribes. It is the tribe which is significant, not the man, the whole, not the part. The war cry of the Aretai, as I am familiar with it, is ‘Aretai victorious!’”

  “Interesting,” I said. “Do the Kavars have a similar cry?”

  “Yes,” said Hassan. “It is ‘Kavars supreme!’”

  “It seems reasonably clear, then,” said I, “that Aretai did not raid Two Scimitars.”

  “No,” said Hassan, “Aretai did not raid Two Scimitars.”

  “How can you be sure?” I asked.

  “A well was broken,” said Hassan. “The Aretai are sleen, but they must be respected as foes. They are good fighters, good men of the desert. They would not destroy a well. They are of the Tahari.”

  “Who, then,” I asked, “raided the oasis of the Sand Sleen, the oasis of Two Scimitars?”

  “I do not know,” said Hassan. “I would like to know. I am curious.”

  “I, too, am curious,” I said.

  “If war erupts, fully, in the desert,” said Hassan, “the desert, for all practical purposes, will be closed. Trade will be disrupted, armed men will roam, strangers will be more suspect than normally. Few chances will be taken. They will, presumably, be put to death.”

  His remark did not much cheer me.

  “Strange,” said Hassan, “that these matters should occur now.”

  “Why strange now?” I asked.

  “Doubtless it is only a coincidence,” said Hassan.

  “I do not understand you,” I said.

  “I was intending an expedition into the unexplored dune country,” said he.

  “I, too, am a traveler,” I said.

  “I thought so,” said he.

  “What do you expect to find there?” I asked.

  “What are you?” he asked.

  “A lowly gem merchant,” I said.

  “I saw you in Tor,” said he, “with the scimitar.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “I saw you again, noting your progress, at a watering place on the route to Nine Wells.”

  “It was there,” said I, “that you, in nomad’s guise, so abused my blond-haired, blue-eyed slave.”

  “She was insolent,” he said. “It was there that I determined I would have her for my own slave.”

  “After your touch, and abuse,” said I, “she begged to be taught the dances of a slave girl.”

  He smiled.

  “You took her boldly in the palace of Suleiman,” I said.

  He shrugged.

  “I have never seen a better whip-capture of a girl,” I said.

  He inclined his head, accepting my compliment.

  “It is thought, I understand,” he said, “that it was you, Hakim of Tor, who struck Suleiman.”

  “I did not do so,” I said.

  “Why would they think you would have done so,” he said.

  “It is thought,” I said, “I am a Kavar spy.”

  “Oh?” he smiled.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Is it known to you, Hakim of Tor,” asked he, “who it was who actually struck Suleiman?”

  “Yes,” I said, “it is known to me. It was Hamid, lieutenant to Shakar, captain of the Aretai.”

  “I find it of interest, that it should have been Hamid,” he said. Then he said, “I have wanted to meet you.”

  “Oh?” I asked.

  “I thought,” said he, “that when I stole your pretty little slave you would pursue me into the desert. I did not know, of course, that Hamid would strike Suleiman, and that you would be detained.”

  “You wish to speak to me?” I asked.

  “I am keeping the girl, of course,” he said. He looked at me. “Do you wish to do contest for her?” he asked.

  “I do not need to decide that at the moment, do I?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” said Hassan. “You are my guest.” He grinned. “You may use her at any time you wish, of course,” he said.

  “Hassan is generous,” I laughed.

  “From the first instant I put my hands on her,” he said, “I decided that I would have her for my own.”

  “Are you accustomed to taking what women you wish?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “If I had lost your trail,” I said, “how then would you have made contact with me?”

  “You would not have lost the trail,” he said.

  “But if so?” I asked.

  “Then you would have been informed where to find your—my—pretty Alyena in chains. We would then have met.”

  “But what if I attempt to slay you now?” I asked.

  “You will not, for you are my guest,” said Hassan. “Besides, why should you bring such a slave into the desert with you, a blond-haired, white-skinned, blue-eyed wench?”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Not as a simple slave,” he said. “You could buy and rent girls at any oasis. You brought her for a purpose. Y
ou wished to sell her, or give her, to someone, in exchange for something, for aid, for information, for something.”

  “You are astute,” I said.

  “I hope,” he said, “that the female slave will not complicate relations between us.”

  “How could a mere female slave, who is nothing, do that?” I asked.

  “True,” said Hassan.

  “She seems happy in your chains,” I said.

  “She is a slave,” he said.

  “It is unfortunate,” said I, “that she is white-skinned, blond-haired, blue-eyed.”

  “Why is that?” he asked.

  “Such women,” said I, “are cold.”

  “Not when collared,” he said.

  “Is she hot?” I asked.

  I knew that the metal collar of a female slave, that obdurate circlet of steel, locked, which she could not remove, so contrasting with her softness, so proclaiming its vulnerability and rightlessness, often transformed even an inhibited, hostile, cold wench, hating men, into an abandoned, yielding, man-vulnerable, passionate slave girl, loving to lie helpless at the mercy of their touch, that of masters.

  Hassan threw back his head and laughed. “She is the hottest thing I have ever held in my arms,” he said.

  I smiled. I wondered how scandalized, how embarrassed and shamed the former Miss Priscilla Blake-Allen would be to hear her needs and her performance so boldly and publicly spoken of. The poor thing, however, could not help herself in the arms of a master.

  “She loves you,” I told Hassan.

  “I have given her no choice,” he said.

  I supposed it true.

  I supposed, further, that the rare event had here taken place of a girl meeting her true master, and a man his true slave girl. The girl, one among thousands less fortunate, had encountered a male, surely, too, one among thousands, who could be, and was, to her and for her, her absolute and natural master, the ideal and perfect male for her, dominant and uncompromising, who could, and would, demand and get her full, yielding sexuality, which a woman can give only to a man who owns her totally, before whom, and to whom, she can be only an adoring slave. This happens almost never on Earth, where the normal male/female relationship is the result of a weak, pleasant male’s releasing of the female’s maternal instinct, rather than her usually frustrated instinct to submit herself fully to a truly dominant male as a held and owned, penetrated, submissive female; it does occur, however, with some frequency on Gor, where girls, slaves, are more frequently traded and exchanged. One tries different girls until one finds her, or those, who are the most exquisite, the most pleasing; one tends then, to keep them; this tends, too, to work out to the advantage of the women, the female slaves, but few, except themselves, are concerned with them, or their feelings; men, it is clear, have a need to dominate; few deny this; none deny it who are informed; in the Gorean culture, as it is not on Earth, institutions exist for the satisfaction of this need, rather than its systematic suppression and frustration; the major Gorean institution satisfying this need is the widespread enslavement of human females; the master/slave relationship is the deepest, clearest recognition of, and concession to, this masculine need, felt by all truly vital, sexual males; but, in the Gorean theory, this masculine need to dominate, which, thwarted, leads to misery, sickness, and petty, vicious, meaningless aggressions, is not an aberration, nor an uncomplemented biological singularity in males, but has its full complementary, correspondent need in the human female, which is the need, seldom satisfied, to be overwhelmed and mastered; in primitive mate competitions, in which intelligence and cunning, and physical and psychological power, were of biological importance, rather than wealth and status, the best women, statistically, would fall to the strongest, most intelligent men; it is possible, and likely, that women, or the best women, were once fought for, literally, as well as symbolically, as possessions; if this were the case then it is likely that something in the female, genetically, would respond to dominance and strength; most women do not, truly, want weak men; they wish their children to be born not to an equal but a superior; how could they respect a man who in stature and power was no more than themselves, the equal of a woman, a prize; given the choice to bear the child of an equal, or a master, most women would choose to bear the child of a master; women long to bear the children of men superior to themselves; it is a defeated woman whose body grows fat with the child only of an equal; just as evolution, at one time, selected for strong, intelligent men, capable of combat, because they were successful in mate competitions, so, too, correspondingly, in the transmission of genetic structures, it would be selecting for women who responded to, and yielded to, such men, women who were the biologically specified and rightful property of such men, our ancestors. The dominant male is thus selected for in mate competition; the undominant male tends, statistically, to lose out to his stronger, more intelligent foe; correspondingly, evolution selected for the female who responds to the dominant male; she who fled such men either mated with weaker men, her children then being less well adapted for survival, or, perhaps, fled away, and her genes were lost, for better or for worse, to the struggling human groups; the female who was excited by such men, and longed to belong to them, to masters, and keep by them and serve them, had the best chance of survival; she was the best protected; her children would be the best protected; further, her children would be more intelligent and stronger, being the offspring of more intelligent and stronger men; her lusts, and her love of being owned by such men, and her pride in their possession of her, would contribute substantially to not only her survival but that of her children; too, the woman would, over generations, become more beautiful and desirable, and sexually exciting, as vital males exercising their masculine prerogatives selected among the daughters of the daughters of such women; men chose for mating women who pleased them, and women who pleased them were not the ugly, the gross, the belligerent and stupid, but the intelligent, loving, desirable and beautiful; the twin dynamics of evolution, natural and sexual selection, thus formed over thousands of years the biological nature of the human female; originally there might have been only random tendencies to respond to masculine domination, but those who had them had the best chance of survival; such tendencies were then transmitted, becoming pervasive genetic characteristics of women; owned women lived; the most beautiful and best of these were selected by the strongest, most intelligent and powerful men; it is from such intricate workings of nature that has come the intelligent, beautiful, sensitive woman, the feminine woman, with full complement of normal feminine hormones, who longs in her heart to lie lovingly, obediently, excitedly in the arms of a strong man, his woman; beyond this, one might note that dominance and submission are genetically pervasive in the animal kingdom; among mammals in general, and primates in particular, it is the male who dominates and the female who submits; this is not an aberration; the aberration is its conditioned frustration, possible, interestingly enough, only in an animal complicated enough to be subject to extensive conditioning regimes, where words may be used to induce counterinstinctual responses, to the detriment and misery of the individual organism, though perhaps subservient to a given conception of economic and social relationships. We are bred hunters; we are made farmers.