'With me,' I said gently, 'you are free.'
She looked at me scornfully. 'There have been a hundred men in this chamber before you,' she said, 'and they have taught me - and taught me well - that I wear a collar.'
'Nonetheless,' I said, 'with me you are free.'
'And there will be a hundred after you,' she said.
I supposed she spoke the truth. I smiled. 'In the meantime,' I said, 'I grant you freedom.'
She laughed. 'To hide a collar,' she said, in a mocking tone, 'is not to remove it.'
I laughed. She had had the best of the exchange. 'Very well,' I conceded, 'you are a slave girl.'
When I said this, though I spoke in jest, she stiffened as though I might have lashed her mouth with the back of my hand.
Her old insolence had returned. 'Then use me,' she said bitterly. 'Teach me the meaning of the collar.'
I marveled. Vika, in spite of her nine years of captivity, her confinement in this chamber, was still a headstrong, spoiled, arrogant girl, and one fully aware of her yet unconquered flesh, and the sinuous power which her beauty might exercise over men, its capacity to torture them and drive them wild, to bend them in the search for its smallest favours compliantly to her will. There stood before me insolently the beautiful, predatory girl who had come so long ago to the Sardar to exploit Priest-Kings.
'Later,' I said.
She choked with fury.
I bore her no ill will but I found her as irritating as she was beautiful. I could understand that she, a proud, intelligent girl, could not but resent the indignities of her position, being forced to serve with the full offices of the slave girl whomsoever the Priest-Kings might see fit to send to her chamber, but yet I found in these grievances, great though they might be, no excuse for the deep hostility towards myself which seemed to suffuse her graceful being. After all, I, too, was a prisoner of Priest-Kings and I had not chosen to come to her chamber.
'How did I come to this chamber?' I asked.
'They brought you,' she said.
'Priest-Kings?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said.
'Parp?' I asked.
For answer she only laughed.
'How long did I sleep?' I asked.
'Long,' she said.
'How long?' I asked.
'Fifteen Ahn,' she said.
I whistled to myself. The Gorean day is divided into twenty Ahn. I had nearly slept around the clock.
'Well, Vika,' I said, 'I think I am now ready to make use of you.'
'Very well, Master,' said the girl, and the expression by which she had addressed me seemed dipped in irony. Her hand loosened the clasp by which her garment was secured over her left shoulder.
'Can you cook?' I asked.
She looked at me. 'Yes,' she snapped. She fumbled irritably with the clasp of her robe, but her fingers were clumsy with rage. She was unable to fasten the clasp.
I fastened it for her.
She looked up at me, her eyes blazing. 'I will prepare food,' she said.
'Be quick, Slave Girl,' I said.
Her shoulders shook with rage.
'I see,' I said, 'that I must teach you the meaning of your collar.' I took a step toward her and she turned stumbling with a cry and ran to the corner of the room.
My laugh was loud.
Almost instantly, reddening, Vika regained her composure and straightened herself, tossing her head and brushing back a melody of blond hair which had fallen across her forehead. The wool fillet she had worn to bind her hair had loosened. She fixed on me a look of the most lofty disdain and, standing against the wall, lifting her arms behind the back of her neck, she prepared to replace the fillet.
'No,' I said.
I had decided I liked her better with her hair loose.
Deliberately, testing me, she continued to tie the fillet.
My eyes met hers.
Angrily she pulled the fillet from her hair and threw it to the floor, and turned away to busy herself with the preparation of my meal.
Her hair was very beautiful.
Chapter Six: WHEN PRIEST-KINGS WALK
Vika could cook well and I enjoyed the meal she prepared.
Stores of food were kept in concealed cabinets at one side of the room, which were opened in the same fashion as the other apertures I had observed earlier.
At my command Vika demonstrated for me the manner of opening and closing the storage and disposal areas in her unusual kitchen.
The temperature of the water which sprang from the wall tap, I learned, was regulated by the direction in which the shadow of a hand fell across a light-sensitive cell above the tap; the amount of water was correlated with the speed with which the hand passed before the sensor. I was interested to note that one received cold water by a shadow passing from right to left and hot water by a shadow passing from left to right. This reminded me of faucets on Earth, in which the hot water tap is on the left and the cold on the right. Undoubtedly there is a common reason underlying these similar arrangements on Gor and Earth. More cold water is used than hot, and most individuals using the water are right-handed.
The food which Vika withdrew from the storage apertures was not refrigerated but was protected by something resembling a foil of blue plastic. It was fresh and appetising.
First she boiled and simmered a kettle of Sullage, a common Gorean soup consisting of three standard ingredients and, as it is said, whatever else may be found, saving only the rocks of the field. The principal ingredients of Sullage are the golden Sul, the starchy, golden-brown vine-borne fruit of the golden-leaved Sul plant; the curled, red, ovate leaves of the Tur-Pah, a tree parasite, cultivated in host orchards of Tur trees; and the salty, blue secondary roots of the Kes Shrub, a small, deeply rooted plant which grows best in sandy soil.
The meat was a steak, cut from the loin of a bosk, a huge, shaggy, long-horned, ill-tempered bovine which shambles in large, slow-moving herds across the prairies of Gor. Vika seared this meat, as thick as the forearm of a warrior, on a small iron grill over a kindling of charcoal cylinders, so that the thin margin of the outside was black, crisp and flaky and sealed within by the touch of the fire was the blood-rich flesh, hot and fat with juice.
Beyond the Sullage and the bosk steak there was the inevitable flat, rounded loaf of the yellow Sa-Tarna bread. The meal was completed by a handful of grapes and a draught of water from the wall tap. The grapes were purple and, I suppose, Ta grapes from the lower vineyards of the terraced island of Cos some four hundred pasangs from Port Kar. I had tasted some only once before, having been introduced to them in a feast given in my honour by Lara, who was Tatrix of the city of Tharna. If they were indeed Ta grapes I supposed they must have come by galley from Cos to Port Kar, and from Port Kar to the Fair of En'Kara. Port Kar and Cos are hereditary enemies, but such traditions would not be likely to preclude some profitable smuggling. But perhaps they were not Ta grapes for Cos was far distant, and even if carried by tarns, the grapes would probably not seem so fresh. I dismissed the matter from my mind. I wondered why there was only water to drink, and none of the fermented beverages of Gor, such as Paga, Ka-la-na wine or Kal-da. I was sure that if these were available Vika would have set them before me.
I looked at her.
She had not prepared herself a portion but, after I had been served, had knelt silently to one side, back on her heels in the position of a Tower Slave, a slave to whome largely domestic duties would be allotted in the Gorean apartment cylinders.
On Gor, incidentally, chairs have special significance, and do not often occur in private dwellings. They tend to be reserved for significant personages, such as administrators and judges. Moerover, although you may find this hard to understand, they are not thought to be comfortable. Indeed, when I had returned to Earth from my first trip to Gor I had found that one of the minor inconveniences of my return was reaccustoming myself to the simple business of sitting on chairs. I felt, for some months, rather awkward, rather unsteady perched on a li
ttle wooden platform supported by four narrow sticks. Perhaps if you can imagine yourself suddenly being forced to sit on rather high end tables you can sense the feeling.
The Gorean male, at ease, usually sits cross-legged and the female kneels, resting back on her heels. The position of the Tower Slave, in which Vika knelt, differs from that of a free woman only in the position of the wrists which are held before her and, when not occupied, crossed as though for binding. A free woman's wrists are never so placed. The Older Tarl, who had been my mentor in arms years ago in Ko-ro-ba, had once told me the story of a free woman, desperately in love with a warrior, who, in the presence of her family was entertaining him, and whose wrists, unconsciously, had assumed the position of a slave. It was only with difficulty that she had been restrained from hurling herself in mortification from one of the high bridges. The Older Tarl had guffawed in recounting this anecdote and was scarcely less pleased by its sequel. It seems she thereafter, because of her embarrassment, would never see the warrior and he, at last, impatient and desiring her, carried her off as a slave girl, and returned to the city months later with her as his Free Companion. At the time that I had been in Ko-ro-ba the couple had still been living in the city. I wondered what had become of them.
The position of the Pleasure Slave, incidentally, differs from the position of both the free woman and the Tower Slave. The hands of a Pleasure Slave normally rest on her thighs but, in some cities, for example, Thentis, I believe, they are crossed behind her. More significantly, for the free woman's hands may also rest on her thighs, there is a difference in the placing of the knees. In all these kneeling positions, incidentally, even that of the Pleasure Slave, the Gorean woman carries herself well; her back is straight and her chin is high. She tends to be vital and beautiful to look upon.
'Why is there nothing but water to drink?' I asked Vika.
She shrugged. 'I suppose,' she said, 'because the Chamber Slave is alone much of the time.'
I looked at her, not fully understanding.
She gazed at me frankly. 'It would be too easy then,' she said.
I felt like a fool. Of course the Chamber Slaves would not be permitted the escape of intoxication, for if they were so allowed tolighten their bondage undoubtedly, in time, their beauty, their utility to the Priest-Kings would be diminished; they would become unreliable, lost in dreams and wines.
'I see,' I said.
'Only twice a year is the food brought,' she said.
'And it is brought by Priest-Kings?' I asked.
'I suppose,' she said.'
'But you do not know?'
'No,' said she. 'I awaken on some morning and there is food.'
'I suppose Parp brings it,' I said.
She looked at me with a trace of amusement.
'Parp the Priest-King,' I said.
'Did he tell you that?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said.
'I see,' she said.
The girl was apparently unwilling to speak more of this matter, and so I did not press her.
I had almost finished the meal. 'You have done well,' I congratulated her. 'The meal is excellent.'
'Please,' she said, 'I am hungry.'
I looked at he dumbfounded. She had not prepared herself a portion and so I had assumed that she had eaten, or was not hungry, or would prepare her own meal later.
'Make yourself something,' I said.
'I cannot,' she said simply. 'I can eat only what you give me.'
I cursed myself for a fool.
Had I now become so much the Gorean warrior that I could disregard the feelings of a fellow creature, in particular those of a girl, who must be protected and cared for? Could it be that I ihad, as the Codes of my Caste recommended, not even considered her, but merely regarded her as a rightless animal, no more than a subject beast, an abject instrument to my interests and pleasures, a slave?
'I am sorry,' I said.
'Was it not your intention to discipline me?' she asked.
'No,' I said.
'Then my master is a fool,' she said, reaching for the meat that I had left on my plate.
I caught her wrist.
'It is now my intention to discipline you,' I said.
Her eyes briefly clouded with tears. 'Very well,' she said, withdrawing her hand.
Vika would go hungry that night.
--------------------
Although it was late, according to the chamber chronometer, fixed in the lid of one of the chests, I prepared to leave the room. Unfortunately there was no natural light in the room and so one could not judge the time by the sun or the stars and moons of Gor. I missed them. Since I had awakened, the energy bulbs had continued to burn at a constant and undiminished rate.
I had washed as well as I could squatting in the stream of water which emerged from the wall.
In one of the chests against the wall I had found, among the garments of various other castes, a warrior's tunic. I donned this, as my own had been torn by the larl's claws.
Vika had unrolled a straw mat which she placed on the floor at the foot of the great stone couch in the chamber. On this, wrapped in a light blanket, her chin on her knees, she sat watching me.
A heavy slave ring was set in the bottom of the couch to which I might have, had I pleased, chained her.
I buckled on my sword. 'You are not going to leave the chamber, are you?' asked Vika, the first words she had said to me since the meal.
'Yes,' I said.
'But you may not,' she said.
'Why?' I asked, alert.
'It is forbidden,' she said.
'I see,' I said.
I started for the door.
'When the Priest-Kings wish you, they will come for you,' she said. 'Until then you must wait.'
'I do not care to wait,' I said.
'But you must,' she insisted, standing.
I went to her and placed my hands on her shoulders. 'Do not fear the Priest-Kings so,' I said.
She saw that my resolve was not altered.
'If you go,' she said, 'return at least before the second gong.'
'Why?' I asked.
'For yourself,' she said, looking down.
'I am not afraid,' I said.
'Then for me,' she said, not raising her eyes.
'But why?' I asked.
She seemed confused. 'I am afraid to be alone,' she said.
'But you have been alone many nights,' I pointed out.
She looked up at me and I could not read the expression in her troubled eyes. 'One does not cease to be afraid,' she said.
'I must go,' I said.
Suddenly in the distance I heard the rumble of the gong which I had heard before in the Hall of Priest-Kings.
Vika smiled up at me. 'You see,' she said in relief, 'it is too late. Now you must remain.'
'Why?' I asked.
She looked away, avoiding my eyes. 'Because the energy bulbs will soon be dimmed,' she said, 'and it will be the hours allotted for sleep.'
She seemed unwilling to speak further.
'Why must I remain?' I asked.
I held her shoulders more firmly and shook her to force her to speak. 'Why?' I insisted.
Fear crep into her eyes.
'Why?' I demanded.
Then came the second rumbling stroke of the distant gong, and Vika seemed to tremble in my arms.
Her eyes were wide with fear.
I shook her again, savagely. 'Why?' I cried.
She could hardly speak. Her voice was scarcely a whisper. 'Because after the gong -' she said.
'Yes?' I demanded.
'- they walk,' she said.
'Who!' I demanded.
'The Priest-Kings!' she cried and turned from me.
'I am not afraid of Parp,' I said.
She turned and looked at me. 'He is not a Priest-King,' she said quietly.
And then came the third and final stroke of that distant gong and at the same instant the energy bulbs in the room dimmed and I understood that n
ow somewhere in the long corridors of that vast edifice there walked the Priest-Kings of Gor.
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