Tribesmen of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “Kneel,” I told her.

  Slowly, numbly, the beauty slipped to her knees before me. “Tarl?” she said.

  I drew from my garment a rag. It was thin, brief, tattered, much torn; it was cheap rep-cloth, brown and coarse; it was stained with dirt, with grease. I had found it in the kitchens of Ibn Saran.

  I threw it against her body. “Put it on,” I told her.

  She looked at the tiny, filthy, greasy rag with disgust. One could have held it easily in a closed hand. “Such things are not for me,” she said. She had had private quarters. She had been a preferred slave. Indeed, she was doubtless a high slave. The capture of a high slave is a coup for a warrior, though not so much as that of a free woman.

  “Put it on,” I told her.

  “Surely not!” she said.

  “Now,” I said.

  She parted the bit of yellow silk she wore, dropping it to one side. She reached for the bit of rep-cloth.

  “Remove first the bangles,” I told her. She sat on the tiles and, one by one, before me, slipped the bangles from her left ankle. Then she stood up, and pulled the rag over her head. Her body involuntarily shuddered as the grease-thick rag slipped over her beauty and clung snug, revealingly, about it; I examined her, walking about her; I tore the neckline down, to better expose the beauty of her breasts; I ripped away a strip from the garment’s hem, shortening it; she must now walk with exquisite care; I ripped the left side of the garment a bit more, to better reveal the delicious line from her left breast to her left hip.

  I backed away a few feet from her.

  She faced me. “The gown much reveals me,” she said, “Tarl.”

  “Cross and extend your wrists,” I told her. She did so. With a strip of leather binding fiber, I fastened them together. The strip was long and enough was left to lead her, serving as tether.

  “We do not have a great deal of time,” I told her. “There will soon be fighting in the kasbah.”

  “I love you,” she said.

  I looked at her with fury.

  She was startled at my anger. “I am sorry I have so offended you,” she whispered. “I have suffered much for it. You cannot know how I have suffered, weeping in the nights. I am so sorry, Tarl!”

  I did not speak.

  “I can understand that you might be angry with me,” she said. “But do not be angry with me, Tarl!”

  I had waited long to see this woman before me, bound.

  “I was cruel, and terrible,” she said, “and petty.” She looked down, miserably. “I can never forgive myself,” she whispered. She looked up. “Can you forgive me, Tarl, ever?” she asked.

  I looked about. I could use one of the tharlarion-oil lamps by the large mirror.

  “I testified against you at Nine Wells,” she said. “I lied. I spoke falsehood.”

  “You did as you were told, Slave Girl,” I told her.

  “Do not speak of me as though I might be a slave, Tarl,” she said. “I am of Earth. You are of Earth. You know that you can see me only as a free woman.”

  “Oh?” I said.

  “And you know that before you I can be only a free woman.”

  “Who,” I asked, “before me can be only a free woman?”

  “—I,” she said.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “I,” she said, “Elizabeth, Elizabeth Cardwell!”

  “Elizabeth Cardwell,” I said, “was a free woman. But you are not she. She was free. You are not. That name is not even yours any longer.”

  “We are the same!” she said.

  “The meat is the same,” I said, “but now it has a collar on it.”

  “Tarl!” she exclaimed, reproachfully, “do not jest, do not spoil the joy of our reunion. You well know that before you I can be only a free woman.”

  “I did not know that,” I said.

  “You cannot see me as a slave!” she said.

  “But I do see you as a slave,” I said.

  “You cannot!” she cried.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “I am from Earth!” she said.

  “There are many Earth-girl slaves,” I said. “There have been many in the history of our planet, doubtless millions, and there are many today. And on this world it would be foolish to deny that there are many Earth-girl slaves. That is a simple fact to ascertain. One need only visit certain markets, particularly in the larger cities.”

  “They are lesser girls,” she said.

  “Not like you?”

  “No.”

  “You are better than they, other than they?”

  “Certainly,” she snapped.

  “Do you show impatience before a free man?” I inquired.

  “I may do so,” she said. “I am a free woman!”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Before you, surely,” she said. “You are not Gorean. With you I am always free! We can be to one another only as perfect equals, free and perfect equals. Surely, my dear Tarl, you recollect this. Thus I can speak my mind, and, if I wish, anger you, and demean and insult you.”

  “Those are prerogatives of a free woman,” I said.

  “And thus mine,” she said.

  “You are beautiful enough,” I said, “to be a slave. You have a face and figure, curves, the loveliness, the exquisiteness, suitable for a slave.”

  “Is that intended to be a compliment?” she asked.

  “Perhaps,” I said. “But, I think, rather more of an observation.”

  “Thank you,” she said, uncertainly.

  “And I wonder,” I said, “if you have a slave’s responsiveness.”

  “Tarl!” she chided, aghast.

  Such a feature, of course, is very public, when discussing slaves. I had little doubt that, by now, slave fires would have been lit in the belly of pretty Vella. Masters would have seen to it. It was my intention, later, to examine the slave in this particular.

  “It is fortunate that you are as beautiful as you are,” I said.

  “Oh?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. “It is fortunate that you have a slave’s beauty.”

  “Why is that?” she asked.

  “Because,” I said, “such features, such charms, make it more likely that you will be permitted to live, provided you strive zealously to be fully and perfectly pleasing in all respects.”

  “I do not understand,” she said.

  “It is fortunate that you have a slave’s beauty,” I said, “—for it can be dangerous to be a slave.”

  “What are you saying?” she asked.

  “Is it so hard to understand?” I asked. “Having a slave’s beauty, you are likely to be at somewhat less risk than you might be otherwise, other things being equal, considering what you are.”

  “—What I am?”

  “Yes,” I said, “what you are, what you obviously are—a slave.”

  “No!” she cried.

  “But yes, pretty Kajira,” I said.

  I did not refer then again to such matters as responsiveness. But I had gathered from Ibn Saran that Vella, with perhaps a minimum of handling, could be made to writhe obediently, helplessly, whatever might be her personal feelings, will or desires in the matter.

  “You are like this because you are angry with me,” she said.

  “I am not angry,” I said.

  Why should I have been angry? I had her where I wanted her, precisely where I wanted her.

  “Oh, Tarl!” she wept. She looked at me, fearlessly. “For Lydius,” she said, “I wanted to send you to Klima!”

  “Your wishes are not of interest to me,” I told her.

  She looked at me with horror. She wept then, and put down her head. “I identified you for Ibn Saran,” she said.

  I shrugged.

  “Are you not angry!” she cried.

  “A slave girl,” I said to her, “owes her master absolute obedience.”

  She looked aside, angrily. “I dare not even speak to you what else I did,” she said.

&nb
sp; “You betrayed Priest-Kings,” I told her, “fully, and to the best of your ability.”

  She turned white. “Will it make a difference?” she said.

  “I do not know,” I told her. “It could mean the loss of Earth and Gor, the ultimate victory of Kurii.”

  She shuddered. “I was weak,” she said. “There was a dungeon. I was stripped, chained. It was dark. There were urts. I was terrified. I could not help myself. They told me I would be freed.”

  By the leather strap I yanked her wrists, indicating to her that they were well tied. “You will not be freed,” I told her.

  “With you,” she smiled, “I know I am always free.”

  I considered what the slave might look like, under the lash.

  Then she wept. Then she asked, “Will what I did make a difference, Tarl?”

  “I do not know,” I told her. “Perhaps those on the steel worlds will not believe your protestations. They may believe you only spoke sincerely what you believed to be true, not what, necessarily, was true.”

  She shuddered miserably.

  “There are many who know of your treachery,” I said. “Doubtless some will be captured, or fall into the hands of agents of Priest-Kings. Soon your life will be worth little among the agents of Priest-Kings.” I thought of Samos. He was not a patient man.

  She lifted her eyes to me. “I could be tortured and impaled,” she said.

  “You are a slave girl,” I told her. “No such honorable death would be yours. You would be given one of the deaths of a slave girl, who has not been pleasing. In Port Kar, doubtless, you would be given the Garbage Death—bound naked and hurled to the urts in the canals.”

  She sank to her knees in horror. I looked at her. In time she again lifted her head.

  “Can you forgive me,” she asked, “for what I have done?”

  “What seems to concern you,” I said, “does not to me seem to require forgiveness. You are a slave girl. You were simply obedient to your master. No man objects to a girl obeying her master.”

  “Then,” she said, softly, “you will not even have the kindness to be cruel to me?”

  “I am not lenient,” said I, “Girl, with certain other gratifications you permitted yourself, which were not commanded of you.”

  She looked at me. “What?” she asked.

  “At Nine Wells,” I said, “following your testimony, falsely accusing me, when removed from the rack, you looked upon me, and smiled.”

  “So tiny a thing?” she said. “I’m sorry, Tarl.”

  “And when I was chained, and bound for Klima,” I said, “again you smiled upon me. You cast me a token, a bit of silk. You blew me a kiss.”

  “I hated you!” she cried, from her knees.

  I smiled.

  “I acted like a slave girl,” she said, her head down.

  “Do you know why you acted like a slave girl?” I asked.

  “No,” she said.

  I looked upon her, in the brief garment, bound, kneeling before me, looking up at me. “Because you are a slave girl,” I told her.

  “Tarl!” she cried.

  There was a sudden, unexpected stroke, loud, reverberating, on the summoning gong, placed just outside the entryway to the larger room outside, that with the alcoves. Vella started. She looked at me, frightened. Soldiers seldom enter the slave quarters themselves. They usually wait outside and, the designated girl emerging, they back-bracelet her and escort her, head down, to her assigned rendezvous. The outer room was empty. Both its door and the door to Vella’s chamber were open. There was nothing to keep the man from entering. For his sake, I hoped he would not. I slipped instantly behind the girl, my hand over her mouth, my dagger across her throat. She could feel its edge.

  “You will not cry out or give the alarm,” I told her.

  She nodded, miserably, scarcely daring to move her head, for the blade at her throat.

  I removed my hand from her mouth.

  “Vella! Vella!” called a voice. Again was the summoning gong sounded, this time, it seemed to me, from the nature of the stroke, impatiently.

  “Do you not trust me, Tarl?” she asked, softly.

  “You are a slave girl,” I whispered. “Answer.” The knife was still at her throat.

  “Yes, Master!” called the girl.

  “You know that at the twentieth hour you are to give pleasure to the guards in the north tower!” called the man.

  “Yes, Master,” she called.

  “Hurry,” he commanded. “Must I enter and fetch you,” he asked, “and lead you out by the hair?”

  “No, Master,” she called out, frightened.

  “Tell him,” I whispered to her, “that he need not wait, that you are already in the keeping of another.”

  I had no wish to kill him.

  “Another has called for me, Master,” she called out.

  I smiled.

  “I am in the keeping of another, Master,” she called out. “You need not wait.”

  “You are in the charge of another?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she said. She trembled, my knife at her throat. “I am now in the charge of another!”

  “Good,” he said, “then I may call early on Feiqa below.”

  “May she give you much pleasure, Master,” she called.

  “Have no fear on that score,” said he, unpleasantly. I gathered that some Feiqa would not only this evening be serving well, but earlier than expected. I doubted, however, that she would be serving long. “Hurry!” he called. “Hurry!”

  “I am applying my cosmetics,” she called. “I shall hurry!”

  “If you are late by so much as five Ehn,” he called, “you will be caressed by the five fingers of leather.” This was an allusion to the Gorean five-strap slave whip, commonly used on girls because of the softness and width of its lashes. It punishes severely but, because of its construction, does not permanently mark the girl.

  “I hurry, Master! I hurry!” cried Vella.

  The man left.

  I suspected that, following the defeat in the desert, the discipline amongst the men of Ibn Saran may have lessened somewhat. But, too, it would be highly unlikely that Vella would be lying. She was not a free woman. Free women may lie with impunity. But a slave girl can be punished terribly, even slain, for a lie. Too, of course, I had gathered, from his voice, that some Feiqa might be an unusually delicious armful of slave, one to whose helplessly gasping kisses a man might be pardoned for hastening.

  “You are in great danger,” said Vella. “You must flee.” I sheathed the dagger I had held her in obedience with.

  “It is my understanding,” I said, “that you are a high slave.”

  “That is how these brutes understand me,” she said.

  “Are you a high slave?” I asked.

  She looked at me.

  “Answer clearly,” I said.

  “Yes!” she said, proudly.

  “How is it then that you are to serve guards in the north tower?”

  “I do not know,” she said, troubled. “It is the first time.”

  “Who is your master?” I inquired.

  “Master?” she smiled. “Surely you know me better than that, Tarl,” she said. “I am a woman of Earth. Do you not remember me, me, Elizabeth Cardwell? Was she not the perfection of a free woman? How could one be more free than she? How could she have a “master”? How could one such as I have a “master”?”

  “Easily,” I said.

  “I am a woman of Earth!” she protested.

  “They make excellent slaves,” I said.

  “I am of Earth!” she cried.

  “You hold yourself better than Gorean girls?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, “of course, don’t you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “—They are barbarians,” she said.

  “They would regard you, and the sick culture that has spawned you, as barbarian,” I said.

  “Tarl!” she protested.

  �
��You are all of the same species,” I said. “You are all of Earth origin, either recently or remotely. You are all human females. You are all the same, human females—merely human females.”

  “Merely?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. “And all are fit for the collar.”

  “No!” she said. “Certainly not!”

  “I am tired of playing games with you, Slave Girl,” I said. “Are you, or are you not, a slave?”

  She regarded me, angrily.

  “And answer honestly,” I said, “for discipline is involved.”

  “Discipline?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, angrily. “I am a slave!”

  “A rightful, and true slave?” I asked.

  “I am from Earth,” she said. “How could one such as I, one who was a free woman of Earth, be a rightful and true slave?”

  “Speak,” I said.

  “Do not make me speak,” she said.

  “Speak,” I said.

  “Am I under discipline?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, angrily, “I am a rightful and true slave!”

  “Now you speak truly,” I said.

  She put her head down, furious.

  “So you have come to an understanding of yourself on Gor?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “That you are a rightful and true slave.”

  “Yes,” she said, angrily, looking up at me, defiantly. “She whom you knew as Elizabeth Cardwell is a rightful and true slave!”

  “And not only on Gor,” I said, “but before, even on Earth?”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” she said, angrily. “Yes, even before, on Earth! Yes, yes, yes!”

  “Why would you try to conceal this from me,” I asked.

  “You are from Earth,” she said.

  “And such things are to be concealed from the men of Earth.”

  “Of course,” she said, bitterly.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I do not know,” she said. “Women on Earth are so alone, so denied. They hear only what they should be, seldom what they are. I do not even know if there are many masters on Earth, true masters, masters who know, treasure and love women, for what they are in themselves, not for their conformance to some images alien to their deeper nature, men who so desire and lust for such creatures that they are content with nothing less than owning them, commanding them, ruthlessly dominating them, categorically mastering them, even to bonds and the switch. But some men do not want to master women but merely to hurt them, simply, it seems, for the pleasure of hurting them. I do not understand this. Is it not enough to own and master, and have the whole slave of her? I think the culture makes them that way, that it twists them from the power and force, and the magnificence, of the mastery to smaller, more petty, less worthy concerns, and that they seek lamentable, misdirected vengeance on innocent women for the pathological society’s denial of their deepest needs. Too, you must understand that for a woman it is not only natural, fulfilling and glorious to be a slave, but frightening, too, to know that you are owned, that you must obey, that you must please, and that you may, and will be, punished, if you are not pleasing.”