by John Norman
Strange, I thought, how a woman can desire to be owned, and helplessly so.
“Girl,” he said.
“Master?” I said.
“The air, and light, is better forward, and there is not much dust.”
The countryside was beautiful, mostly meadows. The road stretched ahead, a gleaming line between hills, beyond the first large-wheeled, lumbering wagon, that of the Lady Bina, and, perhaps Lord Grendel, a road, I learned, of layers of fitted stone blocks, feet deep. Like the Viktel Aria, the road was designed not to last some years, or a decade, but centuries, even millennia.
“With Master’s permission,” I said, “I shall remain where I am.”
He reached to the side, and bent down, and, from in front of the wagon box, lifted up a carefully folded blanket. My body roughened, and sore, I eyed it covetously. He dropped it inside the wagon, to the right of the central bar, just behind the wagon box. He then turned away, to look down the road.
The blanket lay there, neatly folded.
Why did he not cast it back to me? I knew.
“Oh!” I said, for the wagon had lurched.
The Venna road is smooth, but even so it has its irregularities. Indeed, over the years, its surface, in shallow grooves, records the passage of countless wagons. A wheel may scrape into, dip into, or climb from, such a groove. Too, the shifting of the earth, the occasional softening of the soil by rain, differences in weathering, various temperature changes, and such things, may produce a shifting of one stone in relation to another.
I crawled forward, to the back of the wagon box, the chain sliding along the wooden floor, along the metal bar.
I seized the blanket there and spread it beneath me. It was but one blanket, but it was welcome. I did not take it to the rear of the wagon, as it seemed clear its placement was meant to bring me, if I wished its comfort, to the front of the wagon. I was then close enough that he might turn and touch me, but he did not do so.
Was I not smooth, and attractive? Why did he not reach back and touch me? What difference would it make? Was I not a slave?
“A slave is grateful for the blanket,” I said.
“It rained a while ago,” he said.
I knew that, from the sound, earlier in the afternoon, the light patter on the canvas. It darkened, but, closely woven, it had not leaked.
“I think it will rain more, later,” he said.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“It rained last night,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“This morning,” he said, “I saw strange prints about the edge of the camp. Do you have an account of such things?”
“No,” I said. How would I know what beasts might lurk about the camp? I suspected, of course, that they might be the prints of Lord Grendel, or his fellow, the blind Kur.
“Perhaps you have a conjecture?” he said.
“Curiosity,” I said, “is not becoming in a kajira.”
He had seen the blind Kur in the market of Cestias, though I suspected he had not realized it was blind. If he had been with the party, with the wagons, I suspected he knew of the presence of one, or both, of the beasts. Presumably, as might others, he thought them some sort of pet, or guard animal. I doubted that he recognized them as a form of rational life, of fearfully rational life.
I wondered if he had been testing me. Certainly he knew I would be aware of the existence of such things, from the market of Cestias that earlier night, some days ago.
I supposed that I had inadvertently told him what he wanted to know, that the wagons undertaking this mysterious journey might harbor secret denizens, of which I, and others, were not to speak, denizens which might be embarked on projects of a nature best concealed from public scrutiny.
“Tomorrow, we should reach Venna,” he said. “Have you ever been to Venna?”
“No,” I said.
“Nor I,” he said.
“Can you cook?” he asked.
“I am not a cook slave,” I said.
“What sort of slave are you?” he asked.
“I am a woman’s slave,” I said.
“You should be a man’s slave,” he said.
“What sort of man’s slave?” I asked.
“You have the curves of a pleasure slave,” he said.
“Oh?” I said.
“Are you hot?” he asked.
“Perhaps Master remembers, from Six Bridges,” I said.
“As I recall, you begged, liked a piteous little bundle of collar meat, to be bought.”
I was silent.
How he demeaned me!
How I loathed the brute!
But I knew I was a slave, in need of a master. What would it be, I wondered, to be his slave? I had little doubt I would be an excellent slave to him. He would see to it.
“I wager,” he said, “in a matter of Ehn, I could have you kicking and squirming, and moaning, and begging for more.”
“I am stronger now,” I said.
“No,” he said, “you are weaker now, and more needful, for you have been longer in bondage.”
I feared it was true. Slaves need their masters.
“I am a free woman,” I said, “who has had the misfortune to be placed in a collar.”
“No,” he said, “you are a slave.”
“Oh?” I said.
“You were never a free woman,” he said. “You were always a slave, though perhaps not always in a collar.”
“I see,” I said. How often I had sensed that true, even from girlhood.
“I tasted your lips, at Six Bridges,” he said. “They are those of a slut, and slave, a slab of worthless, needful collar meat.”
“I see,” I said.
I well recalled, to my humiliation, how he had aroused me, so profoundly, so quickly, so easily. But I, a slave, had been unable to help myself, even had I desired to do so.
“It is fortunate,” he said, “that you were captured on the barbarian world and brought to the markets of Gor. Otherwise you might never have fulfilled your birthright, heritage, and destiny, that of a female, to be a slave, to be owned, and mastered.”
“Perhaps you believe all women are slaves,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“I am not your slave,” I said.
“You would be, if I bought you,” he said.
We then drove on, for a time.
He pointed to the side, to the left. “There is a pasang stone,” he said.
“I cannot read,” I said.
“Fifty,” he said.
On the Venna road, from Ar, there is usually a well every ten or twenty pasangs. Sometimes there is an inn, or a camping ground, where there will be shops.
“Fifty pasangs to Venna,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“We will camp tonight,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, “in an Ahn, or so.”
“I am in your care, I gather,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Will you let me leave the wagon?” I asked.
“Certainly,” he said.
“When I am out of the wagon, will you remove my shackles?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
“‘No’?”
“No,” he said. “Do not be concerned. There will be many wagons there, and there will doubtless be other kajirae there, several more closely shackled than you.”
“More closely shackled than I?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Presumably because they will be regarded as more valuable,” he said.
“I see,” I said.
“A single chain, run through their shackle chain, and fastened between trees, will secure the lot. You may be added to such a chain.”
“My Mistress,” I said, “usually buys at the camps.”
“I know,” he said. “I have been with the wagons since Ar.”
“Why are you with us?” I asked.
“I have taken fee,”
he said.
“And why have you taken fee?” I asked.
“I thought it might be nice to see Venna,” he said.
I smiled to myself. I thought I might be able to manipulate him. But then, too, I thought, it is difficult to manipulate a man when one is chained at his feet.
“You can cook, can you not?” he asked.
“On my former world,” I said, “I did not do such things.”
“But here,” he said, “you find that the lowliest, the most trivial and servile of tasks, are yours to perform, unquestioningly, and perfectly.”
“Yes,” I said.
“So?” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said. “I can cook, a little. I was taught in the slave house, that of Tenalion of Ar.”
“I know the house,” he said.
“Then Master knows it handles the most beautiful, and prized, slaves in Ar,” I said.
“All the houses do,” he said. “The house of Tenalion is also known for distributing she-tarsks amongst minor markets, for quick, cheap sales, some even in the Metellan district.”
“I see,” I said.
I recalled the small cell, facing the market area, behind the bars of which I, with others, as merchandise to be vended, were publicly displayed to passers-by, and then my sale, being turned about, exhibited naked, on the small cement sales dais.
“I am thinking of having you prepare my food tonight,” he said. “Do you think you could do it, passably?”
“A slave must do her best to please,” I said.
“If I am not satisfied,” he said, “you will be beaten.”
“A slave will do her best,” I said.
“If I am satisfied,” he said, “I will let you feed.”
“A slave is grateful,” I said.
“Would you prefer,” he said, “to have the food cast to the ground, or to take it, kneeling, or on all fours, from my hand?”
“From Master’s hand,” I said.
He well knows, I thought, how to teach a woman that she is a slave. I recalled a lesson in such things from the house of Tenalion, in which I fed, kneeling, leaning forward, from the hand of a guard, my right hand clasping my left wrist behind my back. Such things can enflame the belly of a woman.
“Master?” I said.
“Yes?” he said.
“I think my tunic may be in the wagon box.”
“So?” he said.
“May I wear it, outside the wagon?” I asked.
“Do you beg it?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” I said, “I beg it.”
“Very well,” he said.
Chapter Seventeen
It was hard not to be excited by the roar of the crowd. I leaped to my feet, with thousands of others. “Hurry on!” I thought to myself, feverishly, with respect to the blue colors. He in whose care I was favored them. Perhaps, then, I thought, as I hated him, I should favor another color, say, yellow, or red, just so that it would be different, to spite him, though it would not do, of course, to call such a discrepancy to his attention. It could be my private concern. But I did not. He had wagered on blue, he in whose charge I was. Thus, insofar as I might have a color, which, of course, I was not permitted, it was his color, blue. How strange! His desire was my desire, his wager as though my wager. Odd, I thought. As I loathed him, what difference was it to me, his fate, his fortune? To be sure, it occurred to me that if he lost, he might be displeased, and I might be beaten. “Hurry on, blue!” I thought, rising to my tip toes. Across the track it was hard to see for the dust. Much was the noise about me. Some had glasses of the builders, though shorter than the usual glass. I felt myself immersed in the surf of screaming, shouting, cheering adherents. I did not cry out, of course. I had not been given permission to speak. We were in the high tiers. There were five in our party, if I include myself. I pulled a little at my wrists, which were braceleted behind me. It is only so that my sort were permitted in the stadium. To be sure, if the master lacks bracelets, one’s wrists may be thonged or corded behind one, or, with a strip of cloth, tightly scarfed in place. Venna was far more permissive than Ar, for in Ar slaves, unless discreetly concealed, were not permitted in the stadiums, let alone theaters. For example, one would almost never see them at the pageants, the plays, the concerts, the song dramas, the epic readings, the great kaissa matches, and such. This was in deference, supposedly, to the feelings of free women, whose sensibilities might be offended by the presence, in their vicinity, of the half-clad, shapely beasts of masters. One sort of slave, however, is likely to be more visible in a stadium, a certain sort of stadium, a “stadium of blades,” a more vulgar, violent milieu, the sort helplessly chained naked to a post, a sack of gold tied about her neck, she and it prizes to be awarded to a successful fighter.
“Hurry on, red!” cried another slave, two rows below me.
She had permission to speak, to cheer for her master’s favorite! I felt like pulling her to the ground by her hair, but I would not dare to do so. I knew it would be I who would soon be weeping, and pleading for mercy! It would not be another, but I, I knew, who would soon be the cringing, beaten slave. This was clear to me, even from my former world. I had sensed this ever since the party on my former world, when I had been disgracefully camisked and forced to serve, in a locked leather collar, and had found myself tearfully, stung again and again, helplessly groveling under the switch of the imperious Nora. It takes but one such experience to realize that one is a slave. I still, after all these months, dreaded and feared Nora, terribly. She was Mistress and I was slave. She had taught me that.
As you know, as in the tarn races, there are various factions, the blue, the yellow, the orange, the red, and so on.
Many Goreans take their allegiance to a given faction with great seriousness. This may continue for generations in families. There are sometimes riots between the adherents of these factions.
Orange won the race.
I sat down, on the tier. Many filed down the tiers, to place new bets. Hundreds clutched programs, which listed the mounts, and their riders.
The last race, just witnessed, was one of quadrupedalian tharlarion. These are bred for endurance and speed, but, even so, they are ponderous beasts, and no match for the more typical racing tharlarion, which is lighter and bipedalian. It is also carnivorous and more aggressive. In the race they commonly have their jaws bound shut. There have been several cases in which such beasts, before a race, or in the stable or exercise yards, have attacked their competitors, even their handlers. They are occasionally used for scouting or communication. Some hunt wild tarsk with lances from their saddles.
“Orange won,” said he in whose charge I was.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
There were five in our party at the stadium, the Lady Bina; Astrinax, who was our jobber; a man named Lykos, hired, I think, for his sword; he in whose keeping I was; and myself. I remembered the man, Astrinax, from Ar, as it was he who had arranged my sale to the gambling house. He had been hired in Ar by the Lady Bina to facilitate our journey, buying tharlarion and wagons, hiring teamsters, putting in supplies, arranging the stages of our journey, and such. Clearly such matters could not have been well handled by the Lady Bina, Lord Grendel, or myself.
I was pleased to have been permitted to come to the stadium. It would have been easy enough to have left me in the wagon, in the fenced-in wagon lot, shackled to the central bar.
I looked about myself. As I, the other slaves I noted in the audience were tunicked, and some more scantily than I. One, I saw, who regarded me disdainfully, and tossed her head proudly, was even camisked. How proud her master must have been of her, the arrogant brute, to so display her. And how smug, and how vain, she was, how proud of her beauty, to be so displayed, camisked.
“I am going below, to bet anew,” said he in whose care I was.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
I felt my left ankle gripped, and, a moment later, it was shackled to the iron ring anchored in the cement u
nder my seat.
He then departed, to seek the betting tables beneath the stadium tiers. The Lady Bina, Astrinax, and Lykos accompanied him.
I sat on the tier, alone, moved my ankle a little, and pulled a little at the bracelets. Had my hands been free, I would have better adjusted the tunic at my left shoulder.
I was an unattended slave. I was apprehensive. I realized what that might mean. Such a slave might be accosted, even fondled, with impunity. Still, there were many about.
We had arrived in Venna early this morning.
Apparently the small collation I had prepared for the Metal Worker yesterday evening had proved satisfactory. In any event, after he had eaten for a bit, I kneeling back, he signed me to all fours, a simple gesture, and indicated that I might approach, beside the small fire. Then, from time to time, as he fed, he held out tidbits to me, and I fed, too, delicately, from his hand. Afterwards he permitted me to lie by his side, “bound by the master’s will,” I crossing my shackled ankles, and holding my hands behind my back, my left wrist held in my right hand.
He said, “Speak.”
“Surely Master is not interested in hearing a slave speak,” I said.
“Speak,” said he.
“Of what shall I speak?” I said.
He then told me to speak, as I would, telling him about my former world, my former life, my capture, my training, my sales, my owners, even my thoughts and feelings.
I fear much that was foolish gushed forth from me, but words had tumbled forth, seemingly endlessly, for Ahn, even amidst grateful tears.