Smugglers of Gor

by John Norman

  “She is a barbarian,” said one of the girls.

  “That is obvious,” said the gowned slave.

  Doubtless this had been clear from my accent.

  “You are so clever,” said another girl, sneeringly.

  “I could have had you boiled in tharlarion oil,” snapped the gowned slave.

  “Be careful or they will take your gown away,” laughed another girl.

  “Her vanity is exceeded only by her addled wits,” said another girl.

  “She is mad,” laughed another.

  “I am not!” cried the gowned slave.

  “She thinks she is important,” said another.

  “I am important,” said the gowned slave. “I was important.”

  “Who are you?” asked another of the girls.

  “No one,” said the gowned slave, angrily.

  “She is mad,” said one of the girls, “with all her airs. That is why they have named her ‘Ubara’.”

  “That is cruel,” I said.

  “It is a joke,” said one of the girls.

  “I hate barbarians!” cried the gowned slave.

  “They are stupid and ignorant,” said a girl, “but why would you hate them?”

  The gowned slave was silent.

  “What is your name?” asked one of the girls of me.

  “Laura,” I said.

  “That is a pretty name,” said one of the slaves. “But as you are a barbarian, why did they not give you a barbarian name?”

  “I think it is a barbarian name,” I said.

  “That is a well-known town on the Laurius to the south,” said a girl.

  “Perhaps it is a coincidence,” I said, though I doubted that. Certainly I had found occasional words in Gorean which were words also in my native language, or very similar to such words, perhaps influenced by them or derived from them. I supposed Gorean, like most complex languages, may have borrowed from many tongues. Certainly it seemed to me that Goreans, or most of them, were clearly human, and, doubtless, directly or indirectly, owed their origin to my native world, Earth. Perhaps, I thought, the clue to the mystery might lie in the distant, formidable Sardar Mountains, of which the legendary or fabled Priest-Kings were supposedly denizens. In any event, much in these matters was obscure to me.

  “Perhaps,” said the girl.

  “You are very nice looking, Laura,” said another slave. “Why are you so chained? Do they think you are going to leap over the stockade wall? What did you do?”

  “I ran away,” I said.

  “You see,” said a girl who had earlier spoken, “barbarians, they are stupid.”

  “We are not stupid,” I said. “We may be ignorant. We might do foolish things.”

  “Such as run away?” said one of the girls.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Ubara!” called a male voice, from the clearing outside the kennel, within the stockade.

  The gowned slave, whether or not her wits were addled, or whether or not she was mad, must have been subjected to discipline, for she sprang up, and hurried outside and knelt before the guard, putting her head down to his feet, then lifting it, to attend his words.

  I was startled at seeing the gowned slave outside the kennel, in the light. Before she had been much in the darkness of the kennel, away from the door. Now I saw that she was an incredibly beautiful woman, with a face and figure that might bring as much as a piece of gold off the block. She had long, dark hair, and a smooth olive skin. She might be mad, I thought, but she was such as one might expect to find chained beside a Ubar’s throne. She might be an admiral’s woman, or the slave of a polemarkos. If all were such as she, I thought, then the stockade might well be what it was rumored to be, a holding area for unusually beautiful slaves, prize slaves. Her appearance and mien suggested that in the days of her freedom, for I supposed she had once been free, she might have been of high caste. A slave, of course, has no caste. She is property, an animal, a beast.

  “No!” she cried. “I will not!”

  “You will not?” inquired the guard.

  “Of course, I will obey, Master!” she cried. “But do not make me do this! Do not so humiliate and insult me, I beg of you! I am a high slave! I was of high caste! I might bring gold! I would be worthy of sandals!”

  “Fetch a bowl,” he said. “Go to the feed trough, fill it, and feed the barbarian slave.”

  “Please, no!” she begged.

  “Now,” said the guard.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  Several of the slaves in the kennel, and some of those outside, laughed delightedly, apparently gratified by the discomfiture of the lovely, olive-skinned slave.

  In a few Ehn, obviously fuming with displeasure, but holding a small bowl, which she had dipped briefly and angrily into the feed trough, the gowned slave, apparently named ‘Ubara’ as an insult or joke, entered the kennel. Several of her kennel sisters laughed.

  “She-sleen!” said the gowned slave.

  “Feed the barbarian, low slave!” laughed a girl.

  “The mad one, in her lovely gown, worthy of a high merchant’s companion, is least amongst us!” said another.

  “She waits upon a barbarian,” said another. “Let her pride absorb that!”

  “Forgive me, Mistress,” I said to her. “It is not my doing.”

  Even in the light I could see that the gowned slave had dark eyes, matching the sable crown of glorious hair which swirled about her shoulders and down her back. When she had exited the kennel I had seen that the hair, despite its length, had been cut in the “slave flame.” That is unusual. The “slave flame” is usually used with medium-length hair, just behind the shoulders. Her eyes, she was now close to me, were deep, and beautiful, but, I saw, too, they were now dark with anger. I did not doubt but what it might take gold to bring such a prize from the block.

  “There,” said the gowned slave, placing the bowl on the planks before me.

  “Mistress,” I said, “I cannot reach it.”

  “Unfortunate,” she said.

  As I was chained, I could not even bring my hands together, nor could I lift them to my mouth.

  “You should not have run away,” she said.

  “I am hungry, Mistress,” I said.

  “Then eat,” she said.

  “Please, Mistress!” I said.

  “The ship will leave soon,” she said. “I have heard the ready banner is flying. Perhaps they will feed you on the ship.”

  “Feed her, low slave!” said one of the girls.

  “We will call the guard!” said another.

  “Do not call the guard,” said the gowned slave, obviously frightened. “I am teasing. It is only a merry jest.”

  “Feed her,” said another.

  “I shall, you she-tarsks,” said the gowned slave.

  I did not think the gowned slave had addled wits, or was mad. In any event, I saw no indication of this. If anything, I saw high intelligence and cleverness. She did carry herself aristocratically. Her origins, I gathered, were mysterious. I did not doubt she might have been of high caste. That she should feed me was intended, I gathered, to insult her, to humiliate her, and help her better understand that she, identically with the others, was a slave. Surely that was not so hard to understand. Did she not know there was a collar on her neck? And I did not doubt but what beneath that gown there was a searing furrowed into her left thigh, just beneath the hip. Perhaps she did have airs, or pretensions. Perhaps she did suggest terrors she was in no position to inflict. Perhaps she did pretend she had once, if not now, been important. Perhaps she did despise the other slaves as inferiors. Perhaps she did not even recognize herself as a slave, or think of herself as a slave. Perhaps she thought of herself as wholly other than the others, as though she might be free, and they mere slaves. Did she think to put herself on the free side of the immeasurable chasm that separated persons and citizens from properties and beasts? Such things, doubtless, would make her resented amongst her chain siste
rs, but, too, they would not seem to me indications of madness, and certainly not, if there were any ground for possible airs or pretensions.

  The gowned slave put her hand behind my head, holding it in place, and thrust the small bowl to my lips.

  “Feed, barbarian she-tarsk,” she said.

  I choked a little, and I felt some of the gruel run beside my mouth.

  “There,” she said, “it is done,” and drew the bowl away.

  I recalled the quick, superficial descent of the bowl into the feeding trough. The bowl was small, of plain, unglazed, baked clay, and was chipped, and there had been very little in it, presumably by the gowned slave’s intent, and part of what there was had been removed with the bowl.

  She stood up, and, with her finger, several times, wiped some gruel from the bowl, which adhered to her finger, which she would then suck away. Then she turned away to return the bowl somewhere outside.

  I was still very hungry.

  “We saw, Laura!” said one of the slaves.

  “You were not well fed,” said another.

  “Call the guard, and complain,” said another.

  “No,” I said, “he is a master.” I did not wish to be lashed.

  “We will back you,” said another girl. “Call out!”

  “No,” I said.

  “Then we will do so,” said another.

  “Pretty Ubara then will be stripped and lashed, tied in the doorway,” said another.

  “It will not be the first time,” laughed another.

  “No,” I said, “do not do so! Please do not do so!”

  “What is going on?” said the guard, entering, holding the gowned slave roughly by one arm. She seemed small and distraught beside him, so held.

  “Ubara did not feed the barbarian!” said a girl.

  “No, she ate her food!” said another.

  “Speak!” said the guard, shaking the miserable gowned slave by the arm, almost causing her to lose her footing.

  “I fed her well, as commanded!” said the gowned slave, frightened. “A full bowl, as commanded! I did not eat her food.”

  So, I thought, beauty, for all your having possibly been of high caste or whatever, and for all your pretensions and superiorities, you are now only a frightened slave, and a liar.

  The guard dragged the gowned slave before me. “Speak,” he said to me. It was clear he held the beautiful, olive-skinned slave in contempt. To him, I saw, she was no more than another slave, and perhaps one that was less than pleasing. I did not think he would find her stripping and lashing amiss. Perhaps it was he who had put her in the gown, to signal her out for envy and derision. It is the masters, of course, who decide whether or not a slave is to be clothed, and, if clothed, how, and to what extent. Such small things, as many others, help the slave to keep well in mind that she is a slave.

  “I was fed, Master,” I said. “I am content.”

  Several of the slaves in the kennel cried out in protest. The gowned slave, her arm released, regarded me with surprise, and then, as the guard withdrew, with contempt.

  “You did not inform on me,” she said.

  “No,” I said.

  “You were afraid to do so,” she said.

  “No,” I said.

  “Why did you not have her beaten?” asked a girl.

  “She was afraid,” snarled the gowned slave.

  “No!” I said.

  “Then why?” asked another slave.

  “The whip hurts,” I said.

  The gowned slave, her face contorted with fury, bent toward me. “You are a fool,” she whispered. “I owe you nothing!”

  “I expect nothing, and want nothing, from such as you,” I said.

  “From such as I?” she said.

  “You may or may not have been born to high caste,” I said, “but I see little of high caste about you. You may be beautiful, but you are small, petty, cruel, pretentious, self-centered, and a liar, and most obviously, now a slave.”

  “Silence, slave!” she hissed.

  “A slave may speak so to a slave,” I said.

  “I am not a slave!” she cried.

  “Slave!” I said.

  The gowned slave then threw herself upon me, screaming, striking, biting, and scratching, and the other slaves about leapt to their feet, and rushed toward us, to protect me, and, as they seized her, the gowned slave had seized my hair, and shook my head, violently, and I had pulled back, with a rattle of chain, that I not be strangled in the wall collar, and the gowned slave’s hands were pulled apart, away from my hair, and she wept with pain, as she was dragged back, away from me, by the hair.

  “Release me!” she demanded, but two girls held her arms, one on each side, and another had her hair pulled back so tightly that the gowned slave’s head was facing the ceiling of the kennel. Other slaves were crowded about, angrily, and some others had entered from the clearing outside the kennel.

  “I hope you marked her,” said a slave to the gowned slave, “that your nose will be cut off!”

  “No, no!” cried the gowned slave. “She is not marked, not marked!”

  “Who are you that you would attack a chained slave?” asked a slave.

  “She is not marked!” cried the gowned slave.

  I was scratched but, as it turned out, superficially. I did not think any damage had been done. I was more angry than anything else. My assailant’s blows, dealt with the sides of her fists, happily, had been administered only with a woman’s strength, and my rescuers had been upon her almost as soon as she had hurled herself upon me. The bites about my shoulder had not drawn blood. I did taste blood, but I had inadvertently bitten my own lip in the tumult.

  “Cut off her nose!” said a slave of the gowned slave.

  “No!” she wept.

  Masters, as is recognized, seldom mix in the altercations of slaves. On the other hand, they are very much concerned with maintaining the value of the goods involved. Nothing is to be done to a girl which might reduce her value on the block. For example, the supple, broad-bladed, five-stranded slave whip designed to punish an errant slave, and well, is also designed in such a way that it will leave no lingering residue of its attentions. Happily for women, and, I suppose, for their owners, if they are owned, it is very rare that their disagreements, unlike those of men, result in any permanent injuries or disablements. Amongst free women who may tear veils or lose slippers, or amongst slaves, who may rend or lose a tunic, not much is likely to take place which could not be reduced to unpleasantries such as insults, scratchings, bitings, and yanked hair.

  “Cut off her ears, too!” cried another slave.

  “No, no!” wept the gowned slave.

  She was then forced down to her knees.

  She struggled but was helpless in the hands of her chain sisters, two of whom maintained their grip on her arms, one on each side.

  “Would that we had a dagger,” said one of the slaves.

  “The guard has one,” said a slave.

  “Call him!” said another.

  “No, no, no!” begged the gowned slave.

  “Leave it to Laura!” said a girl.

  “No!” begged the gowned slave. “No! Not to her!”

  “Beg her forgiveness!” said one of the girls holding the gowned slave’s arm, the left arm.

  “She is a barbarian!” protested the gowned slave.

  “Now!” cried a girl, and, taking the gowned slave’s head by the hair, with two hands, forced it down to the planks before me.

  The gowned slave howled with misery. “Forgive me, forgive me!” she wept.

  “Call her ‘Mistress’,” said another girl.

  “Mistress!” wept the gowned slave.

  “I am not ‘Mistress’,” I said. “Let her up.”

  It was permitted to the gowned slave that she might raise her head, but she was held on her knees, helpless, as before, before me.

  “Bespeak your contriteness,” said a girl. “Beg her forgiveness, as what you are, a low
ly, miserable slave.”

  “That is not necessary,” I said.

  “Now,” demanded one of the girls.

  “I am not injured,” I said.

  “I am contrite, Mistress,” said the gowned slave. “Please forgive me, Mistress.”

  “I forgive you,” I said.

  “We do not!” said a slave, angrily.

  “Please, let her alone,” I said.

  “Are you important?” asked a slave of the gowned slave.

  “No, Mistress,” she said.

  “What are you?” asked another.

  “A slave, Mistress,” she said.

  “What sort of slave?” asked another.

  “A meaningless slave, Mistress,” said the gowned slave.

  “Are you better than we?” asked a girl.

  “No, Mistress,” said the gowned slave.

  “Are you less than we?” asked another.

  “Yes, Mistress,” said the gowned slave.

  Several of the slaves laughed. “She speaks truly,” said one of them.

  “Remove her gown,” said a girl.

  “No!” begged the gowned slave.

  “The guard will not permit it,” said a slave.

  “Go, see!” said a slave, and another slave hurried from the kennel.

  “No, no!” said the gowned slave.

  In a moment the slave who had rapidly exited the kennel returned, beaming. “It may be done!” she shouted.

  “No!” wept the gowned slave, but then, in a moment, she was as stripped as the others. She was then dragged toward the door. There the light was better. “The mark of Treve!” cried a slave, pointing to the thigh of the held slave.

  So, I thought, she is branded. I knew little of Treve, other than the fact that it was reputedly a bandit city somewhere in the vastness of the mighty Voltai mountains, far to the south.

  “I hope masters burn a dozen brands into her leg,” said a slave.

  “Yes,” said another.

  “Let her alone,” I said. “Please let her alone.”

  The slaves then went about their ways. She who had been gowned then crept back into the darkness of the kennel, and lay on the planks, her head down on her arms.

  A slave approached me. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “The gate is opening!” called a girl.

  “Keep back,” said the guard.