by John Norman
I then lifted her into the wagon, kneeling her on the boards, and followed her into the wagon, crouching near her.
Her breasts were loose and sweet within her small garment. It was high on her thighs.
I then, using the leash, passing it before her body and between her legs, crossed and bound her ankles, thus fastening her in that same kneeling position in which I had originally placed her. She could not rise and the fastening on her collar kept her head down. It is a standard submission tie on Gor for a female slave.
I was angry with the mistress.
Why had she had Telitsia sold?
She had deprived me, and my fellow stable slaves, of a pleasurable object of male recreation.
It is not easy being a stable slave. One looks forward to occasionally being afforded access to one of the stable sluts.
The sluts, too, of course, look forward to their occasional chainings in a man's stall.
Not easy either is their life.
So they look forward to their slave use.
Sometimes a new girl will dare to be slightly displeasing or will slacken somewhat in her work, hoping to be thrown to male slaves as a "punishment." Such a ruse is occasionally successful with a Mistress, but few slave masters are fooled. Kenneth, for example, was only too aware of this naive stratagem, and the errant girl would be whipped or shorn, or deprived of rations, or put somewhere by herself, her small limbs locked painfully in close chains. She would soon learn that if she was to be "punished," so to speak, she would have to work long, and hard, and well, to earn her "punishment."
Their lives are hard.
It not easy being a stable slut.
How precious then do they find their occasional, helpless enfoldings in the arms of a strong man! They discover rapture on a chain, ecstasy in a stall. I wondered if free women, in their large, cold beds, had any cognizance of, or were even capable of a cognizance of, the experiences of their girls, chained in the straw of a cell, their grateful writhings, the kissings and sobbings, the thrashings and pleadings, of their despised collar sluts.
The girl in the slave sack squirmed angrily, irritably.
Kenneth looked at the sack move, responding to the luscious girl curves within it.
"Does she not know she is not to squirm?" asked Kenneth.
Borto laughed. "Apparently not," he said.
"There is nothing in the note," said Kenneth, "to indicate that she is not to be a stable slut."
"Doubtless she will have to be taught a few things," said Borto.
"Barus!" called Kenneth.
"Yes," answered Barus, who was nearby, tallying feed sacks.
"Bring a stable collar," said Kenneth.
Barus put aside his tallying board and marking stick, and went into a nearby small building, an equipment shed.
"Hood her," said Kenneth to me.
Telitsia sobbed. I took the slave hood from the wagon bed and drew it over her head, adjusting the straps and buckling them under her chin. I then descended from the bed.
I was angry with the mistress.
Why had she had Telitsia sold?
Telitsia was a good little stable slut, popular, comely and diligent. Indeed, she had been my favorite.
Why had she been sold?
Kenneth threw the key to Telitsia's collar to Borto, who caught it and placed it in his pouch. Her collar would be removed only when a new one was ready to replace it, probably the house collar of some slaver's emporium.
"Remove her from the sack," said Kenneth. "We will have a look at her."
Borto untied the ropes at the foot of the sack.
Barus came to the wagon, handing Kenneth a stable collar, a light, hinged circle of iron, with an attached ring, that of the sort which is often used to loop the throats of stable sluts.
Borto lifted the sack somewhat, shaking and sliding the girl somewhat from it. Then she was on her knees, with the sack still covering the upper part of her body. I saw she had good legs. She also wore, I saw, a brown tunic, similar to those which are worn by stable sluts. It was, however, a little long.
Borto then drew away the sack.
"Ah!" said Kenneth.
I, too, was surprised. Kneeling before us, on the wagon bed, her hands braceleted behind her back, two small keys dangling from her enameled collar was Taphris, who was one of the personal serving slaves of the Lady Florence.
"It seems you have fallen from the Mistress' favor, Taphris," said Kenneth.
"Perhaps," she said.
He looked at her.
"Perhaps, Master," she said.
"On your belly," he said, "head over the end of the wagon."
Angrily Taphris lowered herself to her shoulder, and then to her belly, and put her head over the end of the wagon.
Kenneth, removing one of the keys from the enameled collar she wore, removed it from her, putting it, and its key, back in the wagon, to one side. He then, she briefly shuddering, locked the stable collar on her throat.
He let her lie there for a moment. Then he said, "Descend from the wagon bed, and stand here, before me."
She struggled up and then, carefully, that her tunic not be drawn upward, put her legs over the edge of the wagon bed and lowered herself to the ground.
Kenneth regarded her. Taphris was a luscious wench. "You are no longer a house slave," he said. "There are strong men in the stables. Stand straight, and beautifully."
"Master has, I trust," she said, acidly, "read the note which has accompanied me."
Kenneth removed the note from his tunic, where he had placed it, and read it again, to himself, with apparent care.
She tossed her head.
"I see nothing in here to the effect that you are not a stable slut," he said.
"Master!" she protested.
"Are you not now a mere stable slut?" he asked.
Taphris quickly looked at me. "Yes, Master," she said. "I have fallen from the favor of the Mistress. I am now only a mere stable slut."
"It is true," said Kenneth, grimly. He put the note again in his tunic.
"Master?" she asked.
"Bring heavy shears," said Kenneth to Barus.
"Master?" asked Taphris.
Barus returned in a moment with a heavy pair of large-handled iron shears, procured from the nearby equipment shed. They were of the sort which could be used for shearing the wool of the bounding hurt. The Lady Florence did not raise hurt, though some were raised on nearby ranches. Miles of Vonda, for example, raised hurt as well as tharlarion. They were used in the stables for a variety of cutting tasks, ranging from opening feed sacks to shearing the hair of kajirae, which is unexcelled for the braiding of catapult ropes. Slaves, incidentally, were not allowed in the equipment shed. A careful accounting is kept in the stables of bladed equipment.
Kenneth, shears in hand, stepped back and regarded Taphris. "Your tunic has sleeves," he said. "Let us bare your arms, that you may work more efficiently."
"Work?" she said.
Kenneth, with the shears, cut away the sleeves of her tunic, so that her arms were bared.
Her hands tensed in the slave bracelets, confining them behind her back.
"Let us free, too, your legs," he said, musingly.
He then, with the shears, considerably heightened the hemline on the skirt of her tunic. This did not displease me. He handed the shears to Barus.
"Wait until the Mistress hears of this!" she cried.
"And this," said Kenneth, angrily, "I do for the pleasure of my men."
She shrank back. Angrily he tore away two additional horts from the tunic's freshly sheared hem. She cried out with misery, so exposed. "And this, too!" he said angrily. "Please, no, Master!" she wept. But his hands then tore open the tunic, that the beauty of her breasts be but ill concealed. Lastly he tore open, to the hip, on the left side, the now ragged, scandalously brief skirt of her tunic. I saw that she wore the common kajira mark of Gor. It is that mark, lovely, small, a Kef in cursive script, the first letter of 'Kajir
a', which is worn by most Gorean slave girls.
He then kicked her legs out from under her, and she knelt sobbing in the dirt at his feet.
"Give me the shears," he said to Barus.
"The note, the note, Master," said the girl, looking upward, pathetically.
"Is it not time," Kenneth asked Barus, "that the hair of this Kajira was harvested?"
"I think so," said Barus.
Taphris had long, dark hair.
"The note, the note, Master," begged the girl.
"Have no fear, Slave," said Kenneth. "You will be treated in accordance with the exact letter of the note. But beyond that you are only and fully a stable slut."
He then, holding her hair, sheared it away at the base of her neck.
"Put a string on this and put it in the sack," he said to Barus.
The girl was sobbing.
Kenneth normally did not shear the hair of his stable sluts, even in the fall. He did occasionally use shearing, however, as a disciplinary device. Goreans tend, culturally, to be fond of long hair on a woman. The shorn girl, thus, in her collar, tends to be an object of scorn and ridicule. Girls will go to great lengths to please a man, that they not be shorn. The girls who are regularly shorn are usually slaves who work on the great farms or on the large, commercial hurt ranches, or low girls who are used in large numbers in such places as the mills, or the public laundries and kitchens. Any girl, of course, may be shorn, even a high pleasure slave, if she displeases the master. The girls know that there is always a market for their hair.
I watched Barus going toward the equipment shed. He carried the shorn hair and the shears. The sack in which the shorn hair of Kajirae was kept until it was marketed was in the equipment shed, where the shears were kept.
"Stand, shorn slave," said Kenneth to the girl.
She quickly stood.
"Remember," said he, "you are now no longer a lady's house slave. You are now a stable slut."
She then, fearfully, stood straight and beautifully. To see her in the brief rag of a stable slut, she standing so beautifully, the narrow collar on her throat, was to desire to rape her.
"Not bad," commented Kenneth.
The girl trembled. Her small hands were still locked behind her back, in slave bracelets.
"Not bad at all," said Kenneth.
Barus was now returning to the vicinity, having bound and discarded the hair in the hair sack. Too, he had replaced the shears in the shed.
"Ah," said Barus. "She is not unattractive for a shorn slave."
"Yes," said Kenneth.
"She will be a pleasant addition to the Kajirae in the stables," said Barus.
"I think so," said Kenneth.
"I must be on my way soon," said Borto, who was the driver of the tharlarion wagon.
Barus went to the discarded, enameled collar, now open, which lay in the wagon bed. He removed the second key from it, that which opened the slave's bracelets. He went behind the girl and freed her hands. He threw the opened bracelets, leaving the key in one of the bracelet locks, to the wagon bed. Borto lifted up the rear gate of the wagon and, with two hooks, fastened it in place.
"I wish you well," said Borto to the two free men.
"I wish you well," said Kenneth to him.
"I wish you well," said Barus to him.
In a few moments Borto had climbed to the wagon box and, with a crack of his whip, had urged the two tharlarion whose reins he controlled into motion.
Borto began to sing.
I watched the wagon departing, its wheels leaving tracks in the soft dust of the stable yard. In the wagon, hooded, head down, tied on her knees, bound hand and foot, her shoulders shaking, was Telitsia, an animal bound for the market.
I would miss her.
I wondered why she had been sold.
I turned again to regard Taphris.
"Turn your hip out," said Kenneth. "Place your feet like that," he said, kicking her right foot. "Suck in your gut. Put your palms on your thighs. Lift your head."
Taphris was learning quickly that she was no longer in the house, but in the stables, a province in which she was a woman and in which men were supreme.
"Bend over at the waist," said Kenneth. "More!"
Her knees were flexed. Her head was then at his hip.
Kenneth stepped back from her. I could see that he was not displeased to have the lovely Taphris at his mercy.
She did not dare raise her head.
"Barus," said Kenneth, "will show you your kennel, and your duties."
"Yes, Master," she said.
Barus placed his hand in her hair, grasping it firmly. She winced.
She had not moved her head, of course, for she knew she had been placed in a common leading position for slave girls.
She tried to look up at Kenneth, but the hand of Barus did not permit it. She must look to the dirt at her feet.
Barus turned away from us, leading her.
"Barus," said Kenneth.
"Yes," said Barus, stopping, and looking back.
"See that the new girl is worked well," said Kenneth.
"The south stables should be cleaned," said Barus.
"Shoveled and scrubbed," said Kenneth.
Barus grinned.
"And then water must be drawn and carried to fill the tanks in stables six through ten."
"Yes," said Barus. He turned then and strode away, pulling the half-running Taphris beside him.
Water is drawn from wells. It is then carried, in yoked buckets, to great wooden tubs in certain of the stables.
I did not envy the beautiful Taphris.
Kenneth turned to me. "You cannot read," he said.
"No, Master," I said, "not Gorean." Slaves are commonly kept illiterate. It makes them more helpless. It gives the masters more control over them. Besides, it is said, why should a slave know how to read?
"I do not think our little friend, Taphris," said Kenneth, "has fallen in the favor of the Mistress."
"Oh, Master?"
"No," he said.
"But she has been sent to the stables," I said.
"And she will learn what it is to be a stable slut," said Kenneth, grimly.
I smiled. I had little doubt but what Kenneth said was true.
"May I inquire as to the contents of the note, that which accompanied her?" I asked. I gathered that Kenneth would have been willing to let me read it, had I been able to do so.
"It specifies that she is to be exempt from assignment to male stable slaves, that she is not to be given to them for wench sport."
"That is interesting," I said.
"And, further, it specifies that under certain conditions she is to be granted certain freedoms of observation and movement. Too, once, weekly, she is to be sent to the house on some errand or another."
"What are these conditions under which she is to be granted movement and freedom of observation?" I inquired.
"Conditions deemed pertinent to the cognizance of a certain male slave's whereabouts and activities," he said.
"Mine?" I asked.
"Yes," said Kenneth, grinning.
I said nothing.
"Our lovely Taphris, it seems," said Kenneth, "has business in the stables."
I said nothing.
"It seems the Mistress has not forgotten her former silk slave."
I did not speak.
I looked to the tracks in the dust of the stable yard, left by the wagon which had borne Telitsia away.
What might have hitherto seemed implausible to me, even incredible, though I suppose it was obvious enough, at least to others, now seemed surely surprising, but also credible. I was flattered, but also irritated. I wondered where the truth in these matters might lie. But what cared I of the views and concerns of the mistress? Was she not, when all was said and done, only a woman? Too, she was not of Earth, not the sort of woman to whose feelings, and such, one must desperately strive to accord complete solicitude and deference. Still there might be danger in these m
atters, even great danger.
"Taphris is a spy," said Kenneth. "She has been sent to the stables by the mistress to spy on you."
"I see," I said.
"Beware of her," he said.
"I will," I said.
20
I Learn that the Mistress will have House Guests
I reeled back, sprawling in the sand. I could feel blood about my mouth.
I grunted, kicked. He threw himself at me, fists striking.
I heard the screams of the crowd, in the tiers. I rolled to one side, eluding the attacker.
I staggered up. He, too, then, was on his feet. I tried, gasping, to thrust him away. He struck me in the gut with his head, driving me half to the wall. He again lowered his head. I clasped my hands, and flung them upward, catching him under the chin and he staggered backward. I spit blood into the sand. He again rushed at me, seizing me, and flung me against the low palings. "Fight! Fight!" I heard. "Jason!" I heard. "Kaibar!" I heard. "Now you have him!" I heard. "Get away from the wall!" Kenneth was screaming. The slave, Kaibar, then, of the stables of Shandu, holding his hands together, slashing sideways, struck me with his left elbow, and then his right. "Get away from the wall!" I heard. I grunted, taking a blow in the gut and then another, the fists now, like battering rams. "Get away from the wall!" screamed Kenneth. But it was not he, the bastard, who was pinned against it. I clenched Kaibar, holding to him, gasping. He tried to shake me from him. "Do not delay the fight!" warned the referee, moving about us. I felt his whip lash at me. Then he was between us, forcing us apart. But I was now in the center of the pit. Kaibar and I faced one another. We were both bloody, and exhausted. He struck at me with his balled fist. I blocked the blow. He was strong. My arms ached. Even to parry the blows of a strong man takes its toll. My shoulders and arms ached. I could scarcely lift them. Kaibar staggered toward me again. Again I seized him, holding to him.
We heard then the bar being struck.
"Here!" called Kenneth. I, turning about, followed the sound of his voice and in a moment he had seized me and pulled me down on the box. Barus, with a sponge, dipped in a bucket, squeezed water over my head.
"You are doing splendidly," Kenneth assured me.
I could not even answer him.
Barus sponged sand and blood from my body.