by John Norman
I saw leather thongs put on the necks of Ulla and Lenna, the beaded collarsthrust up to admit them. These thongs were then tied to the high pommels of thekaiila saddles. Such saddles are not uncommon among the red savages, though theyare commonly used for visiting, trading and ceremonial journeys. The hunting andwar the red savage commonly rides bareback. The thongs were some seven or eightfeet in length and the red savages knelt Ulla and Lenna down, their bands stilltied behind them by the forepaws of their kaiila.
One of the red savages was now walking over to the kailiauk robe beneath whichlay Margaret.
The red youth now rose from the side of the red-haired girl, adjusting hisbreechclout. He then indicated that she should roll onto her stomach, which shedid. He then slapped her twice, commending her. Her hands clutched at the grass.
He then sauntered away.
I walked over to her. "It seems I have served my purpose," she whispered,angrily, in English.
"One of your purposes," I said, "for the time being." I spoke to her in English.
She rose to her hands and knees, and looked up at me. She put down her head,reddening. She looked up again, angrily, and then, again, put down her head,blushing. "Why did you make me yield?" she asked.
"You wanted to," I said. "And, besides, as a slave, you must yield."
She did not speak.
"Are you angry?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"I heard you cry out, and whimper with pleasure," I said.
"It is true," she said. "I did want to yield. How terrible I must be."
"Such feelings," I said, "such desires to yield, are not only permitted of theslave, but required of her."
"Required?" she said.
"Yes," I said. "Do not confuse yourself with a free woman. You are quitedifferent from her."
"And as a slave," she said, "I had to yield. I had no choice, did I?"
"No," I said. "The slave must yield, and fully."
"How can you respect me?" she asked.
"Assume the belly position, and kiss my feet, Slave," I said.
She did so.
"What now was your question?" I asked.
"How-how can you respect me?" she asked, half choking.
"I do not," I told her. "Do you know why?"
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I am a slave," she said.
"True," I said.
"How strong are the men of this world," she said, wonderingly. "How they own,and dominate us. How, before them, can we be anything but women?"
"Your question about respect was stupid," I said. "Perhaps you should belashed."
"Please do not lash me, Master," she said.
I turned to leave. "Master," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"Tonight," she said, "I beg to be taken from the coffle for your pleasure."
"Tonight," I said, "I think I may be more in the mood for Lois or Inez, orperhaps Priscilla. We shall see. And tonight, in the coffle, you will be bound,hand and foot. Perhaps that will teach you to ask stupid questions."
"Yes, Master," she said.
I then went over to the kailiauk hide where one of the Dust Legs was standing.
Grunt had joined him there. Grunt seemed reluctant to lift the hide.
"Hou," I said to the Dust Leg.
"Hou," said he to me.
"Ieska!" called one of the Dust Legs, rising to his feet, where the men had beensitting. This was another of the names by which Grunt was known in the Barrens.
It literally is one who speaks well. Less literally, it is used as a generalexpression for an interpreter.
Grunt excused himself and went to see what the man wanted. He was the fellow whohad been looking at the hatchet. The fellow was holding up three fingers, andthen he pointed to the dark-haired girl kneeling by the kaiila.
In an instant she had been summoned, and she hurried to him, as she could, withher head down, following the sound of his voice. When she reached her master andGrunt her master put his hand under her chin and thrust up her head. She lookedabout, startled, wildly, now permitted to regard surroundings. She saw the otherkaiila, the men, Grunt, myself, the girls in the coffle. Then she was strippedand knelt naked, before Grunt. He had her rise and turn slowly, her back arched,her hands behind the back of her head, before him. Then he again knelt her.
"Tarl," called Grunt to me. I went to him, and he tossed me his whip. "See ifshe whips well," he said.
The girl looked up at me, frightened.
"On your hands and knees," I told her.
She assumed this posture.
Much can be told of the responsiveness of a girl by how she moves beneath thewhip.
I would give her three lashes. After all I was not whipping her, but testingher.
I would not strike her with my full strength, but, on the other hand, she mustknow clearly that she had been struck.
How else could the test prove significant?
She cried out, thrown to her belly by the first stroke. I then administered thesecond stroke. She cried out in misery and turned to her side, pulling up herlegs. I then struck her a third time and she cried out again, sobbing, andpulled up her legs even more.
I thought she moved well beneath the whip. She obviously felt it, keenly.
"On your hands and knees," said Grunt. He then, as she shuddered, felt her, sherecently impressed with the might of men over her, she freshly lashed.
"Good," said Grunt.
She became Grunt's for three hatchets. She was, after all, only a white femaleslave and they were fine hatchets.
"Ieska! Wopeton!" called the fellow by the kailiauk hide.
We left the dark-haired girl on the grass, where she had been lashed, and thenpurchased.
The Dust Leg requested that the kailiauk hide be thrown aside. Grunt, a shrewdfellow, appeared to demur, and, indeed, even invited the fellow to examine theother girls on the coffle. The fellow, however, scarcely cast a glance at them,but they shrank back, under even so cursory an examination, fearing to belong toa red master. He did look for a longer moment at the red-haired girl but Gruntsaid something to him, and he turned from her again to speculate on what mightlie concealed beneath the kailiauk hide. Grunt apparently did not wish torelease the red-haired girl in a common sale. He had, it seemed, anotherdisposition in mind for her. I remembered he had speculated that he would getfive hides of the yellow kailiauk for her. No, she had not been brought along,marched into the Barrens, as a mere beast of burden. He had something else inmind for her.
One or two of the other Dust Legs now came over to where lay the kailiauk hide,concealing Margaret, the stripped English girl. The first Dust Leg was nowshowing signs of impatience. He was no fool. It was clear to him that Grunt, ifhe truly, seriously, wished to hide a girl, would presumably cache her, boundand gagged, out of sight, perhaps in a slit trench a pasang or so away. As itwas, the kailiauk hide was presumably a device to arouse the interest of apossible buyer. The Dust Leg doubtless realized this. Further, he doubtlessrealized that his interest, in spite of the obviousness of this stratagem, waspiqued. I could not blame him, accordingly, for feeling some irritation orresentment. I hoped Grunt knew what be was doing. He had already, in his trickwith Ulla and Lenna, in my opinion, been treading on dangerous ground. Suddenlythe Dust Leg, Grunt speaking to him, broke out in laughter. It took me a momentor so to understand what was happening, but, in an Ehn, it became quite clear.
The Dust Leg, if interested, was to bid, sight unseen, on what lay beneath thekailiauk hide. The whole thing was, in effect, a joke and a gamble. The matternow put in a clearer light, the Dust Leg, and his fellows, were delighted. Hetried to walk about and peep beneath the hide and Grunt, with great apparentearnestness and seriousness, hurried about, tugging down the hide at the edges.
Red savages, on whole, are fond of jokes and gambles. Their jokes, to be sure,might sometimes seem a bit eccentric or rude to more civilized folk. A favoritejoke, for example, is to
tell a young man that his kaiila offer to the parentsof his prospective woman has been refused, thus plunging him into despair, untilwith roars of laughter, he is informed that it has been accepted. This type ofthing, incidentally, does not count, culturally, as a violation of truthtelling, a practice which the red savages take with great seriousness. Gambling,too, is of interest to the savages. Common games are lots, dice and stoneguessing. Betting, too, may take place in connection with such things as thefall of arrows, and the appearance and movements of animals, particularly birds.
Kaiila races, perhaps needless to say, are very popular. An entire village islikely to turn out to watch such a race. What was going on, further, could notbe clearly understood unless it is understood that the Dust Legs knew andrespected, and liked, Grunt. Such a game they would not have played with astranger. Theoretically, one supposes, a high bid might be made on what layconcealed beneath the hide and then the hide, the bid accepted, might bewithdrawn to reveal a wench as ugly as a tharlarion, but the Dust Legs knew, inthe practical context, that Grunt would not do this to them. They understood, inthe context, that he would be sure to put something not only good, but verygood, beneath that hide. Similarly, since bids are almost always lower on anunseen commodity, he would be, in effect, making them a gift. The Dust Legrefused, with great drama, to go higher than two hides for what lay beneath thehide. Grunt, he made it clear, must now either accept or reject that offer. Itwas, of course, accepted, and Grunt, with some flair, threw off the hide.
Margaret, suddenly exposed, cried out with fear. She blinked against the lightand made herself, lying on her side, as small as possible. Curled naked on thegrass, revealed, terrified, owned, she was exquisite. The two friends of theDust Leg shouted out with pleasure and, striking him about the shoulders andback, congratulated him on his good fortune. Margaret cringed at their feet. TheDust Leg, more than pleased, tried to get Grunt to accept at least one extrahide for the girl, but this, of course, Grunt magnanimously refused to do. Abargain struck was, after all, a bargain to be adhered to. He was, after all,was he not, a merchant? Margaret was jerked to her knees and the Dust Leg tiedhis beaded collar on her throat. He then bound her small wrists tightly beforeher body with a long thong and, pulling her to her feet, led her away, by thefree end of the thong, followed by his friends, to his kaiila.
"They are very pleased," I said to Grunt.
"I think so," he said.
We watched the Dust Legs mounting up now, most of them, both men and women,preparing to take their leave. Ulla and Lenna were now on their feet, theirhands still tied behind their backs, their neck thongs tied to the high,decorative pommels of their masters' saddles. Their masters regarded them. Theythen slapped the girls' naked flanks with possessive pleasure, as though theymight have been kaiila. They then climbed to theft saddles, leaving the girlsafoot, naked, neck-thonged, near theft stirrups. The girls looked up at theirmasters with fear and then, as the kaiila moved, hurried along beside the loftyanimals, the grass to their thighs. I had little doubt but what they would soonbe taught their duties, both those outside the lodge and those within it. I thensaw Margaret, looking wildly over her shoulder, being drawn along, by the thongon her wrists, at the side of her own master's beast. She, too, would doubtlesssoon receive instruction on the modalities of pleasure and service to be exactedby a red master of a female slave, and one who was merely white.
We watched the Dust Legs moving away, across the grasses.
"It was a good trading," I said.
"I think so," said Grunt. "We were all, I think, well satisfied."
"Do you think the two fellows with Ulla and Lenna are sufficiently pleased?" Iasked. "You did, it seems, maneuver them to some extent."
"I do not think they minded being maneuvered," he said. "Did you not see howthey struck the girls on their flanks, so possessively, so pride fully, sogood-naturedly? They are more than enough pleased to have such girls on theirtethers, to lead them home, to add them in with their kaiila and other stock."
"You are right," I said.
"Take this one to the stream," he said, indicating the dark-haired girl we hadacquired for the three hatchets, she lying on the grass near us, "and see thatshe has a bath."
"I will," I said. "What are you going to do?"
"We will make camp here," he said.
"Here?" I asked.
"There is water nearby," he said, "and wood."
"You are going to stay for a time at the trading point?" I asked. This puzzledme. This was the last trading point in the territory of the Dust Legs. It didnot seem to me likely that more Dust Legs were to be expected, certainly not forsome time. I myself was anxious to move eastward.
"For tonight," he said.
"We could make five pasangs before dark," I said.
"We will camp here tonight," he said.
"Very well," I said.
He went over to the girl lying in the grass. "Womnaka, Amomona," he said.
"Womnaka, Wicincala."
"Ho, Itancanka. Ho, Wicayuhe," she said.
"She speaks Dust Leg," he said. "She then will also be conversant with Kaiila.
These are two closely related languages, or, better, two dialects of a singlelanguage. Fleer is also related to them, but more remotely."
"She responded to your commands earlier," I said. "She must know Gorean, too."
"Do you speak Gorean?" he asked. She might, after all, know only certaincommands, much as might a sleen.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"I shall attend to the camp," said Grunt, looking about. "See that she has abath at the stream."
"All right," I said.
"Do not hurry with her," he said. "There is no hurry in returning."
"All right," I said. Grunt was looking about, scanning the surroundinggrasslands. Then he went to the coffle, where Ginger was waiting. He would freecertain of the girls and set them about their duties. We would make camp, itseemed, early this day.
I looked down at the girl at my feet. She looked up at me. I kicked her. Shewinced. "On your hands and knees," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I indicated to her the direction of the stream.
"Yes, Master," she said.
She would crawl to it. She was a slave.
"You whipped me well," she smiled, kneeling in the shallow stream, pouring wateron her body.
"You whip well," I commended her.
"Thank you, Master," she said.
The sexually responsive woman whips well. This is probably a function of thehigh degree of her skin sensitivity and the depth and vulnerability of herfeelings, tier sensitivity and responsiveness make her peculiarly helpless underthe lash. She who writhes best under the lash, so say the Goreans, writhes bestin the furs.
"The water," I said, "has wrought quite a transformation in you." She was now,substantially, cleaned. Most of the dust and blood, the grime, the dirt andsweat, had been washed away. Her dark hair, wet now, seemed very dark, veryshiny. She knelt in the water, removing tangles and snarls from her hair.
"No longer, at least," she said, "Am I womnaka."
"What is that?" I asked.
"Master does not speak Dust Leg or Kaiila?" she asked.
"No," I said.
"It is something which exudes much odor," she laughed.
"What did Grunt, who is your master, the fellow in the broad-brimmed hat, callyou? I asked.
"Wicincala'," she said, "which means "Girl', and "Amomona', which means "Baby' or "Doll'."
"I see," I said. I myself prefer the application of such expressions not toslaves, but to pretentious free women, to remind them that they, in spite oftheir freedom, are only women. They are useful, by the way, in making a freewoman uneasy, their use suggesting to her that perhaps the male is consideringshortly enslaving her. In speaking to a slave I prefer expressions such as" Slave' or "Slave Girl', or the girl's name itself, she understanding clearly,of course, that it is only a slave name. "And what did you call him?" I asked.
"I thought so," I said.
I sat on the bank, watching her work with her hair. She was now combing it out,with her fingers. She would not yet be entitled, of course, to use the commonbrush and comb slotted for the use of the coffle. The other girls, unless themasters intervened, would vote on whether or not she was to be granted its use.
This is a way of encouraging a new girl to congenial and to participateequitably in the work. One negative vote will keep the brush and comb from a newgirl. The suspension of brush-and-comb privileges is also used, upon occasion,by the first girls as a disciplinary measure, within the coffle. Otherdisciplinary measures practiced among girls themselves involve such things asbonds, the control of rations and switchings. Girls, thus, under the control offirst girls, reporting to the masters, commonly keep a good order amongthemselves. All, of course, including the first girls, are in all thingssubject, ultimately, to the total authority of the master.
"Ginger!" I called.
Ginger, in a moment, came running to the stream.
"Bring the comb and brush," I told her.
"Yes, Master," she said. Her authority, as that of any slave, could be overruledby any free person.
In a few moments Ginger returned with the comb and brush. "Give her the comb," Isaid. I, myself, took the brush, which I placed beside me. Ginger waded into thestream and gave the comb to the new girl. "You do not yet have generalcomb-and-brush privileges," she informed her. "Unless, of course, the mastersorder it," she added.
"Yes, Mistress," said the new girl, bowing her head to her.
Ginger returned to the bank and, somewhat mollified, turned to regard the newgirl, who was now combing her hair with the comb of kailiauk horn.
"She is rather pretty," said Ginger.
"I think so," I said. She was slim, and beautifully shaped.
"She might be worth four hides," said Ginger.
"Perhaps," I said. Ginger then took her leave.