by John Norman
"It is unfortunate," I said, "that she is a virgin."
"Why?" asked Grunt.
"Because she is quite pretty," I said.
"I do not understand," he said.
"Her virginity will doubtless improve her price," I said.
"Not in the Barrens," he said.
"No?" I asked.
"No," said Grunt. "They take virginity seriously only in their own women."
"I see," I said.
"If you were going to buy a she-tarsk," asked Grunt, "would its virginity matter to you?"
"No," I said, "of course not."
"If she pleases you," he said, "you may have her, or any of the others, if you wish."
"Thank you," I said.
"What are slaves for?" he asked.
"True," I grinned.
"If you take her, however," he said, "take her, the first time, with gentleness."
"Very well," I said.
"It will be time enough later for her to learn what it is to be a true slave," he said.
"I understand," I said.
Grunt then turned away.
"Grunt," I said. He turned about. He still wore the broad-brimmed hat. I had never seen him without it.
"Yes," he said.
"The Hobarts," I said, "the men who were following, what of them?"
"If they were still following us," he said, "they would have arrived by now."
"Yes," I said.
"So they are no longer following us," he said.
"I am prepared to believe that," I said.
"So put the matter from your mind," he said.
"What became of them?" I asked.
"It is time to sleep now," he said.
"What became of them?" I asked.
"We shall make a determination on that matter in the morning," he said. "In the meantime, let us sleep."
"Very well," I said.
12
I Learn Why We Are No Longer Being Followed;
We Add Two Members to our Party
We saw a small gray sleen, some seven or eight feet in length, lift up its head.
We urged our kaiila down the slope, into the shallow declivity between two low hills.
My stomach twisted. We had smelled this before we had come upon it.
The sleen permitted us to approach rather closely. It was reluctant to leave its location. There were insects on its brown snout, and about its eyes. Its lower jaw was wet.
"Hei!" cried Grunt, slapping the side of his thigh.
The beast seized another bite and, whipping about, on its six legs, with its almost serpentine motion, withdrew.
"It is clean work," said Grunt, "the work of Dust Legs." This tribe I knew, in its various bands, was regarded as the most civilized of the tribes of the Barrens. In the eyes of some of the other tribes they were regarded as little better than white men.
"This is clean work?" I asked.
"Relatively," said Grunt.
I sat astride the kaiila, surveying the scene. I counted some twenty-one bodies. They were stripped. There were no kaiila. Insects swam in the air above several of the bodies. One could hear their humming. Two jards, fluttering, fought in an opened abdominal cavity. Several yellow fleer stalked about, and some perched on motionless limbs. Saddles and clothing, cut to pieces, lay strewn about.
I moved the kaiila slowly among some of the bodies, threading a path between them. It stepped daintily. It hissed and whined, uneasily. I did not think it was at ease in this place.
"I see no kaiila," I said to Grunt, "no weapons. I see little of value."
"It was taken," said Grunt.
I looked down at the slashed bodies. Arrows had apparently been pried loose from the flesh, that they might be used again.
"Are things usually done in this fashion?" I asked Grunt.
"This is not bad," said Grunt. "This is the work of Dust Legs."
"They are the friendly fellows," I said, "the congenial, pleasant ones."
"Yes," said Grunt.
The tops of the skulls, and parts of the tops of the skulls, in the back, of several of the bodies were exposed. It was here that the scalp and hair, in such places, had been cut away. These things could be mounted on hoops, attached to poles, and used in dances. They could be hung, too, from lodge poles, and parts of them, in twisted or dangling fringes, could decorate numerous articles, such as shields and war shirts.
"I do not understand all the cutting," I said, "the slashing, the mutilation."
"That sort of thing," said Grunt, "is cultural, with almost all of the tribes. The tradition is an ancient one, and is largely unquestioned. Its origins are doubtless lost in antiquity."
"Why do you think it is done?" I asked.
"There are various theories," said Grunt. "One is that it serves as a warning to possible enemies, an attestation of the terribleness of the victors as foes. Another is that the practice is connected with beliefs about the medicine world, that this is a way of precluding such individuals from seeking vengeance later, either because of inflicted impairments or because of terrorizing them against a second meeting."
"Surely leaving a litter behind like this," I said, "might serve as a warning."
"True," said Grunt, "but, too, I think it is generally understood that this sort of thing produces fear not so much as a desire for revenge, at least among the savages themselves."
"Your second theory you take most seriously, then?" I asked.
"Not really," said he. "If one's objective was really to terrorize or to inflict vengeance-precluding injuries, then it seems that the corpses, regularly, would be blinded, or have the hands and feet cut off. On the other hand, those particular injuries are very seldom inflicted."
"Why, then, do you think it is done?" I asked.
"I think," said Grunt, "that it is done in the joy and lust of victory, that it ventilates powerful emotion, that it expresses vengeance and hatred, and, indeed, pleasure and life, and that it is done, too, to show contempt for the enemy and to humiliate him, thereby demonstrating one's own superiority."
I regarded Grunt.
"In short," said Grunt, "it is done because it elates them, and fills them with power and joy."
"I see," I said.
"Surely you are familiar, as I suspect you are, with such carnage, with such practices?" he smiled.
"Yes," I said, "I am." I was a warrior.
"I thought so," said he.
I turned my kaiila to face Grunt.
"Let us not, then, feel so superior to these gentle and kindly folk," he said.
"Very well," I said.
Grunt laughed.
I looked about. "It is a good thing we did not bring the girls," I said.
"It was for this reason," said Grunt, "that I left them in the camp."
I nodded. They, beautiful, frightened, half-naked slaves, shackled by the neck in the Barrens, did not need to see this. Let them not be concerned, at least as yet, with what might be the fate of an enslaved white female in such a world.
"There is not enough wood about to burn these bodies," I said. "We shall have to bury them."
"They are to be left as they are," said Grunt. "It is the usual way of the Barrens."
We turned our kaiila about, to leave this place.
"Help," we heard. "Please, help."
Grunt and I looked at one another.
"Over here," said Grunt. He moved his kaiila to our left, and turned it.
He looked down, from the lofty saddle. He smote his thigh, and laughed. I urged my kaiila to his side.
Below us, half concealed in the tall grass, on their backs, lay the two fellows I recognized as the brothers, Max and Kyle Hobart. They were stripped and their hands were thonged behind their backs. They could not rise to their feet. Each wore a crude, single-position, greenwood leg-spreader.
"It is a present to me, from my friends, the Dust Legs," laughed Grunt, "the leaders of those who followed us."
"A thoughtful present," I said. "Now the
y are yours."
"And a rich joke it is, too," laughed Grunt. "See?"
"Yes," I said. Max and Kyle Hobart wore leg-spreaders. These are commonly reserved by the red savages for their white female slaves. They wore single-position leg-spreaders. One ankle, by thongs threaded through a pierced end, is fastened tightly to one end of the sturdy spreader. The other ankle is then pulled to a corresponding position at the other end of the pole where, by means of another thong passed through another hole, drilled at that point in the spreader, it is fastened securely in place. More sophisticated spreaders have several positions. In the simplest case a series of holes is drilled in the pole and the girl's ankles are merely fastened on the pole at whatever separation the master desires. In more sophisticated devices, two, or even three, poles or boards are used, which can slide apart, and are fastened at given points by pegs or thongs. In this latter sort of device the girl's ankles, fastened at the far ends of the pole or board, need not be untied and retied. One may then, in accordance with one's moods, and at one's convenience, regulate the distance between them.
These spreaders may be used in a variety of ways, of course. Sometimes they are used for the wrists, the pole or board then usually behind the girl's back. Too, they may be used in concert with other devices. In the lodges of Warrior Societies, for example, as a portion of the amusements accompanying a feast, a girl may be richly used in one, her hands tied behind the back of her neck, in the draw cords, looped once or twice about her neck, of the sack drawn over her head. In this way she fears all the men of the society for she does not know who it was who was the most cruel to her. Too, she regards all the men of the society with mixed feelings of sensual uneasiness, for she does not know which one among them it was who made her yield most ecstatically, most abjectly, as a slave. This is thought good by the men for the camaraderie of the society. To be sure, eventually she is usually awarded to one or another of the society members. This will usually be either to he who was most cruel to her or to he who made her yield most abjectly, most rapturously. She will learn which it is when she, in the privacy of his own lodge, after her labors, is ordered to his furs. Not unoften, incidentally, it turns out that these two fellows are the same, that he who most cruelly and effectively dominated her as a master is also he to whom she yielded most abjectly as a slave.
"Please," said the fellow called Max Hobart.
"Please," said he called Kyle Hobart.
"You are stripped," said Grunt.
"They took our clothing," said Max Hobart.
"You wear leg-spreaders," laughed Grunt.
"They put us in them!" said Kyle Hobart.
"As though you might be women," said Grunt.
"Yes," said Max Hobart, squirming. He tried to rise. He could not, of course, do so.
"Thus do the Dust Legs demean you," said Grunt, "treating you as no more than women."
"Please," moaned Max Hobart.
"Please," begged Kyle Hobart. "We are helpless!"
Grunt, moving the reins of the kaiila, pulled the beast's head away. I followed him. The kaiila in the area of the perimeter, those ridden by white men, are generally controlled by a headstall, bit and reins, in short, by a bridle, not by a nose rope, as is cultural in the Tahari. Different areas on Gor give witness to the heritage of differing traditions. The bridle used by the red savages, incidentally, usually differs from that used by the white men. The most common form is a strap, or braided leather tie, placed below the tongue and behind the teeth, tied about the lower jaw, from which two reins, or a single double rein, a single loop, comes back over the beast's neck. The jaw tie, serving as both bit and headstall, is usually formed of the same material as the reins, one long length of material being used for the entire bridle.
"Wait!" begged Max Hobart. "Wait!"
"Do not go!" begged Kyle Hobart.
"We will die, if left here!" cried out Max Hobart. "We have been tied by red savages! We cannot free ourselves!"
Grunt stopped his kaiila. "Exposure on the prairie, to die of thirst, or hunger, or of the predations of animals, is what they deserve," he said.
I shrugged. The decision in this matter seemed to me his.
"Please!" cried out Max Hobart, plaintively.
"Yet, perhaps I could spare them this horror," mused Grunt. "It would inconvenience me little to do so."
"I do not suppose the Dust Legs would object," I said.
"They left them in my keeping," said Grunt.
"That is true," I said. "What are you going to do?"
"Cut their throats," said Grunt.
"I see," I said.
He brought his kaiila back to where the two men lay bound in the grass. I followed him. He tossed me the reins of his beast and, drawing his knife from a beaded sheath, slipped from the saddle to the ground. In an instant he crouched beside Max Hobart and, holding the fellow's hair in his left hand, had his blade across his throat.
"No!" whispered Max Hobart, hoarsely. "No! Don't kill me! Please, do not kill me!"
"Have mercy on us!" begged Kyle Hobart.
Grunt looked up at me.
"In this way, of course," said Grunt, "I get nothing from them."
"A poor bargain from the point of view of a merchant," I observed.
"Do you think they might have some worth?" asked Grunt.
"Perhaps to someone," I said.
"They seem two stalwart, handsome lads," said Grunt. "I might, from someone, be able to get something for them."
"That seems to be possible," I said.
Max Hobart lay back in the grass, gasping, the knife removed from his throat.
Grunt, from his saddlebags, removed two collars. He joined them, by means of snap locks, with a length of chain. He then put them on the necks of Max and Kyle Hobart.
"Slave collars!" gasped Max Hobart.
"Yes," said Grunt. Grunt looked up at me. "Their wrists are adequately thonged for now," he said. "Later, in the camp, we shall provide them with proper manacles."
I nodded.
"Are you going to make us slaves?" asked Max Hobart.
"For the time you may account yourselves mere prisoners," said Grunt. "It is when you are purchased that you will be truly slaves."
"Do not put us in your coffle," begged Max.
"You will be put at the end of the coffle," said Grunt.
"You would chain us behind slave girls?" asked Max.
"You will surely admit that you are the least desirable of the elements in the coffle. Accordingly, you will be chained in the position of 'last girls.'"
Max moaned, lying in the grass.
"I assure you," said Grunt, "our friends, the red savages, both men and women, will find that quite amusing."
"Please," begged Max.
"But do not fear," said Grunt, "you will not be expected to bear burdens."
Max regarded him, miserably.
"It is the women who are the pack beasts, who will bear the burdens," said Grunt.
Max nodded, numbly.
"You will discover that there are some advantages to bringing up the rear of the coffle," said Grunt. "You may then, for example, observe the women before you, bearing their burdens. You are not, however, to so much as touch them, even though they are slaves. Do you understand?"
"We understand," said Max, miserably.
"Yes," said Kyle.
Grunt looked about and found some shreds of shirts which, cut to pieces, lay about in the grass. He tied some of these pieces together and bound them about the hips of the Hobarts. They regarded their new garments, decided for them by Grunt, with dismay.
"We are not slave girls," protested Max.
"The red savages, as you may not know," said Grunt to me, though doubtless he was speaking primarily for the benefit of the Hobarts, "are rather strict about the privilege of wearing the breechclout."
"Oh?" I said.
"Yes," said Grunt. "It is not permitted to women, even to their own women, nor, of course, is it permitted to slaves."
"I understand," I said. The breechclout of the Barrens, incidentally, consists of a single piece of narrow material. This may be of tanned skin but, not unoften, is of soft cloth. It is held in place by a belt or cord. It commonly goes over the belt or cord in the back, and down and between the legs, and then comes up, drawn snugly tight, over the belt or cord in the front. In cooler weather it is often worn with leggings and a shirt. In warmer weather, in camp, it is usually the only thing that a male will wear.
"For a slave, or a prisoner, to wear a breechclout might be regarded as pretentious or offensive," said Grunt, "an oversight or indiscretion calling for torture or, say, for being set upon by boys on kaiila, with war clubs."
"I understand," I said.
The Hobarts looked at one another. Their garments, like those of female slaves, would not be permitted a nether closure.
Grunt cut the thongs binding the ankles of the Hobarts to the leg-spreaders. "On your feet," he said.
They struggled to their feet, chained together by the neck.
Grunt mounted to the high saddle of his kaiila. He looked down on them. "You are my prisoners," he said, "totally, and when sold will be slaves. You will be perfectly docile and totally obedient. At the least sign of refractoriness or insubordination on the part of either one of you, both will be slain. Is that clear?"
"Yes," said Max, miserably.
"Yes," said Kyle.
"That way lies our camp," said Grunt, pointing. "Move!"
The two Hobarts, stumbling, the chain on their necks, proceeded in the direction indicated.
I turned about in the saddle to view once more the torn, bloodied grass, the motionless figures, the insects and birds, the place where, yesterday, in brief compass, carnage had touched the prairie.
"Come along," said Grunt.
"I am coming," I said.
He rode after the Hobarts.
In a moment I had urged my kaiila after him.
When he reached the Hobarts he unhooked his whip from its saddle ring and, throwing it out behind him, and then bringing it forward, he lashed them. "Hurry!" he called. "Har-ta! Faster! Faster! Har-ta! Har-ta!"
They hurried on before him, stumbling and gasping, helplessly herded, driven, responding to his will and the imperious strokes of his whip, neck-chained and bound, his enemies. I smiled. It is pleasant to have one's enemies in one's power.