by John Norman
But Haakon was a tarnsman, and he frightened me. He was ugly, and he seemed treacherous.
Targo seemed nervous in doing business with him.
We remained six full days in Targo's rented compound outside of Laura. On five of these days, in the morning, I was taken with four other girls into Laura, leashed with them, to bring back supplies. Two guards accompanied us. But, interestingly, at a given building, one guard would separate me from the others and together, the guard and I, we would go into the building, while the others continued on to the market. Returning from the market they would call at the building, at which time I and my guard would go outside. There I would be leashed with the others again, the burdens would be redistributed, I would take up my share, and, carrying my burden as a slave girl, on the head, balancing it with one hand, I and the others, under guard, would return to the compound. The last two times I begged to do so, and was permitted to carry a jar of wine on my head. Ute had taught me to walk without spilling it. I enjoyed the men watching me. Soon I could carry wine as well as any girl, even Ute.
The building where I would wait on these days was the house of a physician. I was taken through a corridor to a special, rough room, where slaves were treated. There my camisk would be removed. On the first day the physician, a quiet man in the green garments of his caste, examined me, thoroughly. The instruments he used, the tests he performed, the samples he required were not unlike those of Earth. Of special interest to me was the fact that this room, primitive though it might be, was lit by what, in Gorean, is called an energy bulb, an invention of the Builders. I could see neither cords nor battery cases. Yet the room was filled with a soft, gentle, white light, which the physician could regulate by rotating the base of the bulb. Further, certain pieces of his instrumentation were clearly far from primitive. For example, there was a small machine with gauges and dials. In this he would place slides, containing drops of blood and urine, flecks of tissue, a strand of hair. With a stylus he would note readings on the machine, and, on the small screen at the top of the machine, I saw, vastly enlarged, what reminded me of an image witnessed under a microscope. He would briefly study this image, and then make further jottings with his stylus. The guard had strictly forbidden me to speak to the physician, other than to answer his questions, which I was to do promptly and accurately, regardless of their nature. Though the physician was not unkind I felt that he treated me as, and regarded me as, an animal. When I was not being examined, he would dismiss me to the side of the room, where I would kneel, alone, on the boards, until summoned again. They discussed me as though I were not there.
When he was finished he mixed several powders in three or four goblets, adding water to them and stirring them. These I was ordered to drink. The last was peculiarly foul.
"She requires the Stabilization Serums," said the physician.
The guard nodded.
"They are administered in four shots," said the physician. He nodded to a heavy, beamed, diagonal platform in a corner of the room. The guard took me and threw me, belly down, on the platform, fastening my wrists over my head and widely apart, in leather wrist straps. He similarly secured my ankles. The physician was busying himself with fluids and a syringe before a shelf in another part of the room, laden with vials.
I screamed. The shot was painful. It was entered in the small of my back, over the left hip.
They left me secured to the table for several minutes and then the physician returned to check the shot. There had been, apparently, no unusual reaction.
I was then freed.
"Dress," the physician told me.
I gratefully donned the camisk, fastening it tightly about my waist with the double loop of binding fiber.
I wanted to speak to the physician, desperately. In his house, in this room, I had seen instrumentation which spoke to me of an advanced technology, so different from what I had hitherto encountered in what seemed to me a primitive, beautiful, harsh world. The guard, with the side of the butt of his spear, pressed against my back, and I was thrust from the room. I looked over my shoulder at the physician. He regarded me, puzzled.
Outside the other four girls and their guard were waiting. I was leashed, given a burden, and, together, we all returned to Targo's compound.
I thought I saw a small man, garbed in black, watching us, but I was not sure.
We returned, similarly, to the physician's house on the next four days. On the first day I had been examined, given some minor medicines of little consequence, and the first shot in the Stabilization Series. On the second, third and fourth day I received the concluding shots of the series. On the fifth day the physician took more samples.
"The serums are effective," he told the guard.
"Good," said the guard.
On the second day, after the shot, I had tried to speak to the physician, in spite of the guard, to beg him for information.
The guard did not beat me but he slapped me twice, bringing blood to my mouth. Then I was gagged.
Later, outside, the guard looked at me, amused.
I stood facing him, head down, gagged.
"Do you wish to wear your gag home to the compound?" he asked.
I shook my head vigorously, No. If I did wear it back Targo would surely inquire, and I would doubtless be beaten. I had seen him, once or twice, tell a girl to ask a guard to beat her. The girl is then strung up by the wrists. And the guard uses not the handful of leather straps with which Lana, only with her woman's strength, had struck me, but the five-strap Gorean slave whip, wielded with the full, terrible strength of a man. I had no desire to feel it. I would be compliant, swift to obey and be pleasing in all things. No, I shook my head, no!
"Does the little slave beg her guard's forgiveness?" he asked, teasing me.
I nodded vigorously, Yes. It is hard to be a slave girl. Men tease you, but, in an instant they may change, and their eyes may grow hard. You must be careful what you say, what you do. They hold the power of the whip. I knelt to him, putting my head down to his feet. Then, as I had seen Lana once do, I gently took his leg in my hands and put my cheek, head down, against the side of his leg.
"All right," he said.
He untied the gag. I looked up at him gratefully, my hands at his hips, as I had seen Lana do.
He suddenly seized me by the arms and lifted me to face him.
Suddenly, with terror, I realized I was going to be raped.
"Ho!" said a voice, that of the other guard. "It is time to return to the compound."
Angrily, my guard released me and I staggered back.
"She is white silk!" said the other guard, laughing uproariously.
The other girls, leashed behind him, were laughing.
My guard, however, with a great laugh, seized me and, like a naughty child, threw me across his knee. He flung up the camisk, over my back. "No!" I begged. "Please, no, Master!" He then beat me, soundly, with the stinging flat of his hand, until I cried for mercy and wept.
I was only too happy to be leashed again and carry a burden.
The girls, even Ute, were laughing.
I was annoyed, humiliated.
"She's a lovely, isn't she?" said the guard who had interfered.
"She is learning the tricks of the slave girl," said my guard, grinning, breathing heavily.
The other guard looked at me. "Stand straight," he said. I did so. "Yes," he said, "she makes a lovely wench." And he added, "I would not mind owning her."
I walked back to the compound, proudly, with the deliberate, taunting, insolent grace of the slave girl. I knew then that men wanted me, the leashed animal carrying her burden, Elinor Brinton.
I did not, of course, try to speak again to the physician.
On the fourth day I received the last shot in the Stabilization Series. On the fifth day the physician had taken his tests and pronounced the serums effective.
When I left his house on the fifth day I heard him tell the guard, "An excellent specimen."
The
fourth and fifth days I was permitted to carry wine back to the compound.
It was true that I had never felt as healthy in my life as I did then, nor had the air seemed as clear and pure, the sky so blue, the clouds so sharp and white. I suddenly realized, climbing the ramps of Laura toward the compound, leashed, under guard, carrying a jar of wine on my head, balancing it with my right hand, among my sisters in bondage, breathing the fantastic air of Gor, that I was happy. Though barefoot, though thonged by the throat, though branded, though clad in a camisk, though a degraded slave, at the mercy of men, I felt, perhaps for the first time in my life, paradoxically, vitally and joyously happy. I now thought more often of men. I knew now that they found me attractive. And, startlingly, for the first time in my life, I, too, now undeniably, began to find them attractive, deeply and sensuously attractive, even excitingly so. One would carry his head in a certain way; another laughed well, openly, heartedly; another had sturdy legs; another had long, fine arms and strong hands, a fine chest and head. I found I wanted to look upon them, to stand near them, as if by accident, to touch them, as if inadvertently, perhaps in brushing past them. Sometimes they would discover me looking upon them, and I, responding to their grin, would look down, swiftly, shyly. Sometimes I would be pleased when, among the other girls, they would throw me their leather or sandals to clean. I did so, excellently. I did not object either, at the stream on stones, near the compound, to washing their garments. I liked to handle them, to feel the strong fabric that had clung to their sweet strength. Once Ute caught me holding the tunic of the guard who had watched me at the physician's against my cheek, my eyes closed. She squealed with delight and leaped to her feet, standing between the flat rocks in the water, pointing to me. The other girls, too, looked, laughing, slapping at their knees. "El-in-or wants a master!" squealed Ute. "El-in-or wants a master!" I pursued her into the stream splashing water at her, and she fled away, stumbling, and then turned and fled back to the bank. Ute, and the others, stood there, laughing and pointing at me. I stood knee deep in the swift stream. "El-in-or wants a master!" they cried, laughing.
I stood in the stream, furious, fists clenched. "Yes," I cried, "I want a master!"
Then, angrily, I returned to my laundry, and so, too, did the other girls. But I felt there was now something different. I listened to them chat gaily together, pounding and rinsing the fabrics, in the sunlight, at the edge of that swift stream. And I, too, Elinor Brinton, worked with them. My hands were in the cold water, immersing the fabric, and lifting it and wringing it, and pounding it on the rock, and immersing it again, in simple, ancient rhythms. What was it that was different? I wore my camisk, belted with leather, binding leather, suitable for securing a woman, naught else. I knelt as they. I worked as they. There was no penthouse here, no Maserati, no wealth, no mighty buildings, no roar and drone of engines, no scream of planes, no clouds of choking smoke. There was only the laughter of the girls, the bubbling of the stream, the work, the blue sky and white clouds, the wind and the bending grass, clean air and, somewhere, the call of a tiny horned gim, the tiny purplish owl-like bird.
I stopped working for a moment and took a deep breath. I was no longer angry. I felt the binding leather, in its double loop, tight against my body, tied at my right hip. I understood the meaning of binding leather, for a woman such as I, and I rejoiced in it.
I was the sort of woman whom men would look upon and decide to own. I was such that men would find me so desirable that nothing less than the full owning of me would satisfy them. I was so beautiful that they would settle for nothing short of having absolute power over me. I smiled to myself. I had been found interesting enough, and beautiful enough, to enslave!
How magnificent, I thought, are these men!
I stretched. I felt my body luxuriously protesting the rough fabric of the camisk.
I wondered what man would tear it from me.
"Work," said a guard.
I returned to my work, Elinor Brinton, one slave girl among others, primitively washing the clothes of masters at the edge of that swift stream on a beautiful, distant world.
I knelt there on the flat rock, pounding and rinsing the fabric, in the fresh air with the bright blue sky overhead. I listened to the sound of the stream. I looked up and saw the sky. I put down the wet fabric and suddenly stood up on the rock, throwing my arms into the air and laughing. The girls looked at me, bewildered. "Yes! Yes," I cried. "I am a female!"
I stood on the rock in the sun before the rushing stream, my arms raised, eyes closed.
Then I opened my eyes to the blue skies.
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" I cried, to all the skies of Gor, and all the stars and all the worlds. "I want a master! I want a master!"
"Return to your work," said a guard.
Swiftly, lest I be beaten, I knelt again on the rock and returned to my washing.
I laughed.
The other girls, too, laughed.
I was happy.
Ute, slapping fabric on the flat rocks and rinsing it in the cold water, began to sing.
I was happy. I was one with them.
I found myself looking forward eagerly to my sale. I found myself wondering, curiously, what it would be like to be owned by a man. Sometimes, when the other girls were not looking, I put my hand to my throat, as though his collar were there. I pretended to trace the lettering on the collar, which proclaimed me his. I did not even have an objection to being sold in Laura. It seemed to me a simple, wild, lovely place, with the glorious air and sky, the forest to the north, the river to the south. I loved its ramps going down to the river and winding among the warehouses, the painted, carved wood on its buildings, the black shingles, the smell of bosk on the ramps and the creak of wagons, the smell of fish and salt, and glistening tharlarion, from the river, the smell of hides and fur, and sawed lumber, at the docks. And her men I liked, in their rough cloaks and tunics, vital, supple, strong men, large-handed and laughing, men who worked with their hands and backs in the clean air and on the river. I wondered if I might, as I had seen other girls, ride beside them on their wagons, or, as I had heard, fish with them at night with torches on the river. I wondered if I could bargain shrewdly with his coins at the market, if he would like my cooking. I smiled to myself that I would try to please him well in the furs. And I smiled again to myself, for I knew he would beat me if I did not. I wondered if he would take me with him on journeys and sometimes, where no one could see, walking in the fields, though I were slave, hold my hand. I had seen a master and his girl kissing in a doorway in Laura. I had seen her eyes. How I had envied her! She loved him. I hoped, for her sake, that he would not sell her. It is strange. Not until I had become a slave girl, and understood that men might own me, did I become so devastatingly, thrillingly, aware of them, the rude beauty and strength of their bodies, and their power.
Interestingly, for the first time in my life, I found that I was not displeased to be a woman. I was pleased, rather, indeed, thrilled, that they were men. It is joyous to be a woman on Gor, even though slave, with such men. I would not have exchanged my sex, though I was only a girl in bondage, for the throne of Ar.
That afternoon, Targo called me aside. "Slave," he called. I, frightened, not knowing what I might have done, ran to him and knelt at his feet, head down. I trembled.
"Lift your head," he said.
I did so.
"When the display chain is put forth again," he said, "you are Eleven Girl."
I could not believe my ears. "Thank you, Master," I whispered.
There were sixteen girls in the chain now, for Targo had sold four before coming to Laura. The hundred village girls were not included in the display chain. They were to be sold in Ar.
"You are high on the chain now," said Targo.
I put my head down.
"You are almost beautiful," he said.
When I lifted my head he had gone.
I was much pleased.
I ran to the barred gate of the compound and the g
uard unlocked it, and I went inside, and then he closed the gate, relocking it.
He did not make me remove my camisk before entering. We were now permitted to wear our camisks in the compound. Even the village girls, yesterday, under the eyes of guards, had cut and sewn camisks for themselves. They wore them happily. It was the first clothing they had been permitted since they had been taken by the marauders of Haakon of Skjern. I do not know why, for certain, we were permitted clothing in the compound. It may have been, of course, because the weather had now cleared and the compound was no longer muddy, but I do not really think so. I think it was rather because Targo was, simply, rather pleased with the lot of us. His older girls, among whom I numbered myself, were excellent goods. His new girl, the Lady Rena of Lydius, would net him fifty-five gold pieces if she could be delivered in Ar to her captain from Tyros. And his hundred village girls, bought for only two gold pieces a girl, could well stand to make him rich, if they could be brought to Ar before the Love Feast. Targo was in a good mood. That is why, I think, Targo permitted us clothing in the compound.
I ran to tell Ute and Inge that I was now Eleven Girl. We hugged and kissed one another.
Lana was high girl, of course, Sixteen. Inge was second, even though she had been of high caste, Fifteen. Ute was Fourteen.
It is not only prestigious to be high on the chain, but, of course, then one's price is commonly higher as well, and, accordingly, one's master is somewhat more likely to be well fixed.
I strutted before Ute and Inge, in the rough camisk. "I do not object," I told them, loftily, "if my master chooses to dress me in silk."
We laughed.
"Let us hope," said Inge, "you are not purchased by the master of a paga tavern."
I looked at her, irritably.
"They can often afford fine girls," said Inge, "paying more than many private masters can."
I swallowed.
"Of all the slave girls sold, however," observed Inge, "very few are purchased for taverns."
I looked at her gratefully.
"Perhaps you will be purchased for a serving slave or a tower slave," said Inge.