Captive of Gor

by John Norman

  We were perhaps a pasang from the caravan. I, by standing on my tip toes in the grass, on the low hill on which we were gathering berries, could see the squarish tops of the wagons, with their blue and yellow canvas coverings. We were nine days out of Ko-ro-ba.

  It would be weeks before we could reach Ar, where we would be sold.

  I was pleased with the summer's day, and the breezes.

  Surreptitiously, I moved, picking berries here and there, closer to Ute.

  She was not facing me, nor was the guard.

  My hand darted into her leather bucket and seized a handful of berries, and quickly put them in my own. Neither she nor the guard noticed. Ute and the guard were stupid.

  I slipped one of the berries into my mouth, taking care that no juices showed on my lips or face.

  How clever I was.

  How good it was to have the stench of the pens behind us!

  I bent down and rubbed my ankles, and then stretched my legs. I ached from riding in the slave wagon. Girls are given only about a foot of chain fastened to their ankle rings, which is looped about the central bar, locked in place, in the slave wagon. There are only some folds of canvas to serve as a cushion between your body and the hard boards of the wagon. But now I was out and, save that I was tethered to Ute, could move as I wished.

  How good it was to have the stench of the pens behind us! How good it was to be out of the slave wagon!

  I, Elinor Brinton, formerly a rich girl, now a slave on a distant planet, was happy.

  I had more than one reason, too, I reminded myself, to be happy.

  I laughed.

  I recalled the morning we had left Ko-ro-ba.

  We had been called from our cells well before dawn. Each of us had then been forced to eat a large bowl of heavy slave gruel. We would not be fed again until that night. In the courtyard of the pens, under torchlight, with brushes, we were forced to scrub the stink of the pens from our bodies. We were then admitted to the wagons. We sat in the wagons, five to a side, our feet toward the center. The central slave bar was then locked in place. A guard then entered the wagon, with ten sets of chains and ankle rings over his shoulder. Beginning at the front of the wagon, backing toward the back, girl by girl, he fastened us to the bar. He then slipped from the wagon, and lifted up the back gate of the wagon, shoving its bolts in place, securing it. The canvas was then tied down. We found ourselves alone with ourselves, in the darkness, chained in the wagon.

  "Hi!" cried our driver, and we felt the wagon, creaking, begin to move.

  We were merchandise on our way to Ar.

  The caravan, wagon by wagon, made its way slowly toward Ko-ro-ba's Street of the Field Gate, which is the southernmost gate of the city.

  But we had been unable to move as rapidly as we had wished. The streets, even at that hour, were crowded. We could sense that there was a holiday atmosphere.

  "What is it?" I had asked Inge. "I do not know," she had said.

  We heard the drivers cursing and shouting at the crowds, but we could make little progress.

  Indeed, other wagons, we gathered, merchant wagons and those of peasants, too, were blocked in the streets.

  Foot by foot we moved toward the Street of the Field Gate, and then, at last, came that street.

  In the wagons, with the canvas tied down, chained, we listened to the crowds.

  By this time it was full daylight outside, and much light filtered through the wagon canvas. We could see one another quite clearly.

  The girls were excited.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "I do not know," said Inge angrily.

  I cursed the canvas.

  We heard music in the distance, trumpets, drums and cymbals. We looked at one another, scarcely able to restrain ourselves.

  "Move to one side and stop," said a voice from outside, one who spoke with authority.

  Our wagon pulled over to one side of the broad avenue, Ko-ro-ba's Street of the Field Gate.

  We felt crowds surge about the wagon. The music was coming closer.

  There was much shouting.

  "It is the catch of Marlenus!" cried a man.

  My heart leapt.

  I turned about, kneeling, twisting the ankle chain, and dug with my fingers under the edge of the rain canvas.

  The drums, the cymbals, the trumpets, were now quite close.

  I lifted up an edge of the rain canvas and peeped through.

  A hunt master, astride a monstrous tharlarion, holding a wand, tufted with panther hair, preceded the retinue. He wore over his head, half covering his face, a hood formed of the skin of the head of a forest panther. About his neck there were twined necklaces of claws. Across his back there was strapped a quiver of arrows. A bow, unstrung, was fastened at his saddle. He was dressed in skins, mostly those of sleen and forest panthers.

  Behind him came musicians, with their trumpets, and cymbals and drums. They, too, wore skins, and the heads of forest panthers.

  Then, on carts, drawn by small, horned tharlarion, there came cages, and poles of trophies. In certain of the cages, of heavy, peeled branches lashed together, there snarled and hissed forest sleen, in others there raged the dreadful, tawny, barred panthers of the northern forests. From the poles there hung the skins and heads of many beasts, mostly panthers and sleen. In one cage, restlessly lifting its swaying head, there coiled a great, banded horned hith, Gor's most feared serpentine constrictor. It was native only to certain areas of the forests. Marlenus' hunting must have ranged widely. Here and there, among the wagons, leashed, clad in short woolen skirts, heavy bands of iron hammered about their throats, under the guard of huntsmen, cowled in the heads of forest panthers, there walked male slaves, male outlaws captured by Marlenus and his hunters in the forest. They had long, shaggy black hair. Some carried heavy baskets of fruits and nuts on their shoulders, or strings of gourds; others bore wicker hampers of flowers, or carried brightly plumaged forest birds, tied by string to their wrists.

  The other girls, too, watched excitedly, all of them coming to my side of the wagon, wedging among us, lifting up the rain canvas, peeping out.

  "Aren't the male slaves exciting," said one of the girls.

  "Shameless!" I scorned her.

  "Perhaps you will be hooded and mated with one!" she hissed back.

  I struck at her. I was angry. It had not occurred to me, but what she said was true. If it should please my master, I could, of course, be mated, as easily as a bosk or a domestic sleen.

  "Look at the huntsmen!" breathed Lana, her eyes bright, her lips parted.

  Just at that moment one of the cowled huntsmen, a large, swarthy fellow, looked our way and saw us peeping out. He grinned.

  "I wish such a man would hunt me," said Lana.

  "I, too," said the Lady Rena, excited.

  I was startled that she had spoken so. Then I recalled that she, too, was only a female slave. The Lady Rena of Lydius, like the rest of us, was only a naked girl, a slave, chained in a wagon, destined for the touch of a master.

  I rejoiced that I did not have their weaknesses.

  I peeped again through the tiny opening between the canvas and the wooden side of the wagon.

  More carts were going by, and more huntsmen and slaves. How proud and fine seemed the huntsmen, with their animals and slaves. How grandly they walked. How fearful they appeared, in skins, cowled in the heads of forest panthers, with their hunting spears. They did not bear burdens. They led or drove those that did, inferior, collared, skirted men, slaves. How straight walked the huntsmen, how broad their backs, how straight their gaze and high their head, how large their hands, how keen their gaze! They were masters! They had made slaves even of men! What would a mere woman be in their hands?

  I detested them. I detested them!

  "Ute," said Inge, "how would you like such a master?"

  "I am a slave," said Ute. "I would try to serve him well."

  "Ah, Ute," breathed Inge. "You have never forgotten your former mas
ter, who sold you."

  I recalled that Ute had told us that she had tried to bend him to her will. What then did she expect, as a slave? It was no wonder that he had ridded himself of her, that she had been sold.

  Perhaps from the mistakes in one collar she would learn to be better in the next.

  Clearly she still loved him.

  That was sad.

  I wondered if he had cared for her, at least a little.

  To be sure, she had left him no alternative, really, but to have her put again on a sales block.

  To be sure, he could have had her fed to sleen, but he had not.

  That was interesting.

  I wondered if he had cared for her.

  Could that be?

  More likely, I supposed, he would have wished to recoup at least a part of his investment, her purchase price, and wanted to make a handful of coins on her.

  I did not think she would have brought him much, but she was not unattractive.

  It seems that if a girl is obedient and zealous in the furs, if she serves with perfection, if she is constantly concerned to please him, if she is dutiful and devoted, if she has the needfulness and helplessness of a slave's passion, and if she is abjectly and hopelessly in love with her master, that he could care for her, if only a little. Would one not do as much for another animal, a pet sleen, or such?

  But she had tried, unsuccessfully, to be sure, to bend him to her will.

  I myself, of course, once I had a master, a private master, planned to accomplish this feat. I was far more clever than Ute, and far more beautiful. I would manipulate my master so subtly that he would not even grasp what I was doing to him until I had been successful, until he was at my feet, lost, reduced, docile, confused, ingratiating, insecure, pathetic, needful, desperately eager to please me. I would wrap him about my little finger! Oh, I would have an easy life, a pampered life, with luxuries, and I would have him, a vaunted Gorean master, serve me as might a slave. I would turn him into no more than the men whom I knew on Earth, those with whom I was familiar. I would turn him into an obedient, manipulable Earth male, sex-betraying, dominance-surrendering, self-surrendering. I remembered the "male feminists" of my world, a laughing stock to women, despised even by the hate-filled, power-seeking, politically motivated women they sought so pathetically to please. I wondered, briefly, if these frustrated, lonely, empty women challenged men in order, on some subconscious level, to provoke, ultimately, a ferocious reaction, a putting of them, in one way or another, in the collars they needed, in the collars in which they belonged. But I did not need a collar! I did not belong in one! I was different! And so I confirmed myself in my resolution to reduce and subdue a master, to turn him, in effect, into a slave, into no more than a typical male of Earth.

  To be sure, at that time I did not know the nature of the Gorean male. Had I understood that, I would never have entertained such thoughts. I would have been terrified to do so.

  Gorean men are not as the men of Earth. They are accustomed to the mastery, and do not relinquish it. It is we who kneel before them, and know ourselves their slaves. It is we who are owned. It is we who are mastered. It is we who must obey, instantly and with perfection.

  Ute looked down.

  "What of you, El-in-or?" taunted Inge, though she was of the scribes.

  "I detest them," I told her.

  "You would serve such a one well," Inge informed me. "He would see to that."

  I did not answer her.

  Inge was now looking again, out of the tiny opening between the canvas and the wood. "I want to be owned," she said. "I want to be owned."

  "You are of the scribes," I whispered to her.

  She looked at me. "I am a slave girl," she said. "And so, too," she added, not pleasantly, "are you." She looked at me. "Slave," she said.

  I struck at her, but she caught my hair and pulled my head down to the canvas. I could not reach her hair, nor could I disengage her fists from mine. I was helpless, and held painfully.

  "Who is most slave in the wagon?" challenged Inge.

  I wept, trying to pull her hands from my hair.

  "Who is most slave in the wagon?" repeated Inge, angrily. She gave my hair a vicious yank, twisting my head on the canvas. I lay twisted among the other girls, chained. Inge knelt. "Who is most slave in the wagon?" repeated Inge, again, again yanking my hair, twisting it.

  "El-in-or," I whispered. "El-in-or!"

  "Let us all hear who is most slave in this wagon," said Inge.

  "El-in-or!" I cried out, in pain, weeping. "El-in-or!"

  When Inge released me, I scrambled back from her. I had no desire to fight her. I looked at her. There was triumph in her eyes. Every muscle in her body seemed vital and alive. I sensed then, knew then, that she had been waiting a long time for such an encounter. She had wanted a pretext to fight me. I now knew I could no longer bully Inge.

  "Let us fight!" she challenged.

  "No," I said. "No." I shook my head.

  I had thought myself stronger than Inge. I now realized that I was not. I had, as I thought I could with impunity, struck at her. Then, suddenly, cruelly, decisively, she had bested me. I looked at her. The shining eyes, the vital body, her eagerness to fight. I lowered my eyes, my head. Inge's days of being bullied by me were now at an end. Suddenly I was afraid of her. I had thought myself able to beat her, if I might choose, but now I knew that she, if she chose, could beat me. I had been clearly bested, and I sensed I could be again, if she wished. I was now frightened of Inge. I hoped that she would not bully me. Almost immediately I sensed the shift of power in the wagon, among the girls. I no longer ranked as high as I had, and Inge ranked higher. I sensed that Inge was regarded with a new respect, suddenly, and that I, who had often been the bully, the aggressor, would henceforth be regarded with little or no respect.

  That made me angry.

  Then we heard more music from outside, as more musicians, near the end of the retinue, approached.

  A girl from the other side of the wagon squeezed between Ute and I.

  "Get back," I snapped at her.

  "Be quiet," she said.

  "Look!" cried Ute.

  There was, outside, the snap of a whip.

  There was a great shout from the crowd.

  I pressed closer to the opening, looking out. More carts of sleen and panthers, with huntsmen and slaves, were passing.

  Then I heard the snap of the whip again.

  The crowd gave another shout.

  "Look!" cried Inge.

  And then we saw it.

  A cart was passing, flanked by huntsmen, and slaves, bearing their burdens of gourds, flowers, nuts and fruits. On the cart, as there had been on others, there was an exhibition structure; it consisted of a horizontal pole, parallel to the axles, this one about five feet above the floor of the cart, and its supports, fixed in the sides of the wagon. The supports consisted of two pairs of diagonally crossed poles. The horizontal pole was supported by these, lying in their cradles, so to speak, crosswise, and was lashed to them. The horizontal pole was a trophy pole, now with its stanchions; the pole, peeled, was formed of a straight branch, like the other trophy poles, higher, from which had hung the skins of slain animals. In a hunting camp such a pole is commonly lashed in the branches of trees, and is used to dry skins, display catches and such. Only from this pole, supported by the crossed diagonal poles, there hung no snared birds, no gutted tarsks, no drying skins of panthers or sleen.

  A different trophy or catch was here exhibited.

  Standing below this pole, obviously exhibited as a trophy of the hunt, alone on the cart, her skins knotted about her neck, her wrists bound behind her back, her hair fastened over the pole, holding her in place, was a beautiful panther girl, stripped, her weapons, broken, lying at her feet. I recognized her as one of the girls of Verna's band.

  I cried out with pleasure.

  It was the first of five carts. On each, similarly, wrists bound behind her back, stripped, her hair
bound cruelly over a trophy pole, stood a panther girl, each more beautiful than the last.

  I heard the blare of the trumpets, the clash of the cymbals, the pounding of the drums. The men shouted. Women cursed, and screamed their hatred of the panther girls. Children cried out and pelted them with pebbles. Slave girls in the crowd rushed forward to surge about the carts, to poke at them with sticks, strike them with switches and spit upon them. Panther girls were hated. I, too, wished I could rush out and strike them and spit upon them. From time to time, guards, huntsmen, with whips, would leap to the cart and crack their whips, terrifying the slave girls, who knew that sound well, back from the carts, that they might pass, but then the slaves would gather again, and rush about the following cart, only to be in turn driven back again. Standing outside the range of the whip they would then spit, and curse and scream their hatred of the panther girls.