Nomads of Gor coc-4

by John Norman

  “Let us celebrate your freedom,” I said, pouring her a small bowl of wine.

  She took the bowl of wine and smiled, waiting for me to fill one for myself.

  When I had done so, I faced her and said, “To a free woman, one who has been strong, one who has been brave, to Elizabeth Cardwell, to a woman who is both beautiful and free.”

  We touched the bowls and drank.

  “Thank you, Tarl Cabot,” she said.

  I drained my bowl.

  “We shall, of course,” Elizabeth was saying, “have to make some different arrangements about the wagon.” She was glancing about, her lips pursed. “We shall have to divide it somehow. I do not know if it would be proper to share a wagon with a man who is not my master.”

  I was puzzled. “I am sure,” I muttered, “we can figure out something.” I refilled my wine bowl. Elizabeth did not wish more. I noted she had scarcely sipped what she had been given. I tossed down a swallow of Ka-la-na, thinking perhaps that it was a night for Paga after all.

  “A wall of some sort,” she was saying.

  “Drink your wine,” I said, pushing the bowl in her hands toward her.

  She took a sip, absently. “It is not really bad wine,” she said.

  “It is superb!” I said.

  “A wall of heavy planks would be best, I think,” she mused.

  “You could always wear Robes of Concealment,” I ventured, “and carry about your person an unsheathed quiva.”

  “That is true,” she said.

  Her eyes were looking at me over the rim of her bowl as she drank. “It is said,” she remarked, her eyes mischievous, “that any man who frees a slave girl is a fool.”

  “It is probably true,” I said.

  “You are nice, Tarl Cabot,” she said.

  She seemed to me very beautiful. Again I considered raping her, but now that she was free, no longer a simple slave, I supposed that it would be improper. I did, however, measure the distance between us, an experiment in speculation, and decided I could reach her in one bound and in one motion, with luck, land her on the rug.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “Nothing that I care to inform you of,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said, looking down into her bowl of wine, smiling.

  “Drink more wine,” I prompted.

  “Really” she said.

  “It’s quite good,” I said. “Superb.”

  “You are trying to get me drunk,” she said.

  “The thought did cross my mind,” I admitted.

  She laughed. “After I am drunk,” she asked, “what are you Being to do with me?”

  “I think I will stuff you in the dung sack,” I said.

  “Unimaginative,” she remarked.

  “What do you suggest?” I asked.

  “I am in your wagon,” she sniffed. “I am alone, quite defenceless, completely at your mercy.”

  “Please,” I said.

  “If you wished,” she pointed out, “I could in an instant be returned to slave steel simply be reenslaved and would then again be yours to do with precisely as you pleased.”

  “That does not sound to me like a bad idea,” I said.

  “Can it be,” she asked, “that the commander of a Tuchuk Thousand does not know what to do with a girl such as I?”

  I reached toward her, to take her into my arms, but I found the bowl of wine in my way, deftly so.

  “Please, Mr. Cabot,” she said.

  I stepped back, angry.

  “By the Priest-Kings,” I cried, “you are one woman who looking for trouble”

  Elizabeth laughed over the wine. Her eyes sparkled. “I am free,” she said.

  “I am well aware of that,” I snapped.

  She laughed.

  “You spoke of arrangements,” I said. “There are some. Free or not, you are the woman in my wagon. I expect to have food, I expect the wagon to be clean, the axles to be greased, the bosk to be groomed.”

  “Do not fear,” she said, “when I prepare my meals I will make enough for two.”

  “I am pleased to hear it,” I muttered.

  “Moreover,” she said, “I myself would not wish to stay in a wagon that was not clean, nor one whose axles were not greased nor whose bosk were not properly groomed.”

  “No,” I said, “I suppose not.”

  “But it does seem to me,” she said, “that you might share in such chores.”

  “I am the commander of a Thousand,” I said.

  “What difference does that make?” she asked.

  “It makes a great deal of difference!” I shouted.

  “You needn’t shout,” she said.

  My eye glanced at the slave chains under the slave ring.

  “Of course,” said Elizabeth, “we could regard it as a division of labour of sorts.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “On the other hand,” she mused, “you might rent a slave for such work.”

  “All right,” I said, looking at her. “I will rent a slave.”

  “But you can’t trust slaves,” said Elizabeth.

  With a cry of rage I nearly spilled my wine.

  “You nearly spilled your wine,” said Elizabeth.

  The institution of freedom for women, I decided, as many Goreans believed, was a mistake.

  Elizabeth winked at me, conspiratorially. “I will take care of the wagon,” she said.

  “Good,” I said. “Good!”

  I sat down beside the fire bowl, and stared at the floor.

  Elizabeth knelt down a few feet from me, and took another sip of the wine.

  “I heard,” said the girl, seriously, “from a slave whose name was Hereena that tomorrow there will be great fighting.”

  I looked up. “Yes,” I said. “I think it is true.”

  “If there is to be fighting tomorrow,” she asked, “will you take part in it?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I suppose so.”

  “Why did you come to the wagon tonight?” she asked.

  “For wine,” I said, “as I told you.”

  She looked down.

  Neither of us said anything for a time. Then she spoke. “I am happy,” she said, “that this is your wagon.”

  I looked at her and smiled, then looked down again, lost in thought.

  I wondered what would become of Miss Cardwell. She was, I forcibly reminded myself, not a Gorean girl, but one of Earth. She was not natively Turian nor Tuchuk. She could not even read the language. To almost anyone who would come upon her she might seem but a beautiful barbarian, fit presumably by birth and blood only for the collar of a master. She would be vulnerable. She, without a defender, would be helpless. Indeed, even the Gorean woman, outside her city, without a defender, should she escape the dangers of the wild, is not likely long to elude the iron, the chain and collar. Even peasants pick up such women, using them in the fields, until they can be sold to the first passing slaver. Miss Cardwell would need a protector, a defender. And yet on the very morrow it seemed I might die on the walls of Saphrar’s compound What then would be her fate? Moreover, I reminded myself of my work, and that a warrior cannot well encumber himself with a woman, particularly not a free woman. His companion, as it is said, is peril and steel. I was sad. It would have been better, I told myself, if Kamchak had not given me the girl.

  My reflections were interrupted by the girl’s voice. “I’m surprised,” she said, “that Kamchak did not sell me.”

  “Perhaps he should have,” I said.

  She smiled. “Perhaps,” she admitted. She took another sip of wine. “Tarl Cabot,” she said

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Why did Kamchak not sell me?”

  “I do not know,” I said.

  “Why did he give me to you?” she asked.

  “I am not truly sure,” I said.

  I wondered indeed that Kamchak had given the girl to me.

  There were many things that seemed to me puzzling, and I thought of G
or, and of Kamchak, and the ways of the Tuchuks, so different from those native to Miss Cardwell and myself.

  I wondered why it was that Kamchak had put the ring on this girl, had had her branded and collared and clad Kajir was it truly because she had angered him, running from the wagon that one time or for another reason and why had he subjected her, cruelly perhaps, in my presence to the Slaver’s Caress? I had thought he cared for the girl. And then he had given her to me, when there might have been other commanders. He had said he was fond of her. And I knew him to be my friend. Why had he done this, truly? For me? Or for her, as well? If so, why? For what reason?

  Elizabeth had now finished her wine. She had arisen and rinsed out the bowl and replaced it. She was now kneeling at the back of the wagon and had untied the Koora and shaken her hair loose. She was looking at herself in the mirror, holding her head this way and that. I was amused. She was seeing how the nose ring might be displayed to most advantage. Then she began to comb her long dark hair, kneeling very straight as would a Gorean girl. Kamchak had never permitted her to cut her hair. Now that she was free I supposed she would soon shorten it. I would regret that. I have always found long hair beautiful on a woman.

  I watched her combing her hair. Then she had put the comb aside and had retied the Koora, binding back her hair.

  Now she was again studying her image in the bronze mirror, moving her head slightly.

  Suddenly I thought I understood Kamchak! He had indeed been fond of the girl!

  “Elizabeth,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, putting the mirror down.

  “I think I know why Kamchak gave you to me aside from the fact that I suppose he thought I could use a prettier wench about the wagon.”

  She smiled.

  “I am glad he did,” she said.

  “Oh?” I asked.

  She smiled. She looked into the mirror. “Of course,” she said, “who else would have been fool enough to free me?”

  “Of course,” I admitted.

  I said nothing for a time.

  The girl put down the mirror. “Why do you think he did?” she asked, facing me, curious.

  “On Gor,” I said, “the myths have it that only the woman who has been an utter slave can be truly free.”

  “I am not sure,” she said, “that I understand the meaning of that.”

  “It has nothing to do, I think,” I said, “with what woman is actually slave or free, has little to do with the simplicity of chains or the collar, or the brand.”

  “Then what?” she asked.

  “It means, I think,” I said, “that only the woman who has utterly surrendered and can utterly surrender losing herself in a man’s touch can be truly a woman, and being what she is, is then free.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “I do not accept that theory,” she remarked. “I am free now.”

  “I am not talking about chains and collars,” I said.

  “It is a silly theory,” she said.

  I looked down. “I suppose so,” I said.

  “I would have little respect for the woman,” said Elizabeth Cardwell, “who could utterly surrender to a man.”

  “I thought not,” I said.

  “Abdomen,” said Elizabeth, “are persons surely as much as men and their equals.”

  “I think we are talking about different things,” I said.

  “Perhaps,” she said.

  “On our world,” I said, “there is much talk of persons-and little of men and women and the men are taught that they must not be men and the women are taught that they must not be women.”

  “Nonsense,” said Elizabeth. “That is nonsense.”

  “I do not speak of the words that are used, or how men of Earth would speak of these things,” I said, “but of what is not spoken of what is implicit perhaps in what is said and taught.

  “But what,” I asked, “if the laws of nature and of human blood were more basic, more primitive and essential than the conventions and teachings of society what if these old secrets and truths, if truths they be, had been concealed or forgotten, or subverted to the requirements of a society conceived in terms of interchangeable labour units, each assigned id functional, technical sexless skills?”

  “Really!” said Elizabeth.

  “What do you think would be the result?” I asked.

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” she said.

  “Our Earth,” I suggested.

  “Women,” said Miss Cardwell, “do not wish to submit to men, to be dominated, to be brutalized.”

  “We are speaking of different things,” I said.

  “Perhaps,” she admitted.

  “There is no freer nor higher nor more beautiful woman,” I said, “than the Gorean Free Companion. Compare her with your average wife of Earth.”

  “The Tuchuk women,” said Elizabeth, “have a miserable lot.”

  “Few of them,” I said, “would be regarded in the cities as a Free Companion.”

  “I have never known a woman who was a Free Companion,” said Elizabeth.

  I was silent, and sad, for I had known one such.

  “You are perhaps right,” I said, “but throughout themammats it seems that there is one whose nature it is to possess and one whose nature it is to be possessed.”

  “I am not accustomed to thinking of myself,” smiled Elizabeth, “as a mammal.”

  “What do you think of yourself as,” I asked, “biologically?”

  “Well,” she smiled, “if you wish to put it that way.”

  I pounded the floor of the wagon and Elizabeth jumped.

  “That,” I said, “is the way it is!”

  “Nonsense,” said she.

  “The Goreans recognize,” I said, “that this truth is hard for women to understand, that they will reject it, that they will fear it and fight it.”

  “Because,” said Elizabeth, “it is not true.”

  “You think,” I said, “that I am saying that a woman is nothing that is not it, I am saying she is marvellous, but that she becomes truly herself and magnificent only after the surrenders of love.”

  “Silly!” said Elizabeth.

  “That is why,” I remarked, “that upon this barbaric world the woman who cannot surrender herself is upon occasion simply conquered.”

  Elizabeth threw back her head and laughed merrily.

  “Yes,” I smiled, “her surrender is won often by a master who will be satisfied with no less.”

  “And what happens to these women afterwards?” asked Elizabeth.

  “They may wear chains or they may not,” I said, “but they are whole they are female.”

  “No man,” said Elizabeth, “including you, my dear Tarl Cabot, could bring me to such a pass.”

  “The Gorean myths have it,” I said, “that the woman longs for this identity to be herself in being his if only for the moment of paradox in which she is slave and thus Freed.”

  “It is all very silly,” said Elizabeth.

  “It is further said that the woman longs for this to happen to her, but does not know it.”

  “That is the silliest of all!” laughed Elizabeth.

  “Why,” I asked, “did you earlier stand before me as a slave girl if you did not, for the moment, wish to be a slave?”

  “It was a joker” she laughed. “A joker”

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  She looked down, confused.

  “And so,” I said, “that is why I think Kamchak gave you.”

  She looked up, startled. “Why?” she asked.

  “That in my arms you would learn the meaning of a slave collar, that you would learn the meaning of being a woman.”

  She looked at me, astonished, her eyes wide with disbelief.

  “You see,” I said, “he thought well of you. He was truly fond of his Little Barbarian.”

  I stood up and threw the wine bowl to the side of the room. It shattered against the wine chest.

  I turned away.

  She leaped to her
feet. “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I am going to the public slave wagon,” I said.

  “But why?” she asked.

  I looked at her frankly. “I want a woman,” I said.

  She looked at me. “I am a woman, Tarl Cabot,” she said.

  I said nothing.

  “Am I not as beautiful as the girls in the public slave wagon?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said, “you are.”

  “Then why do you not remain with me?”

  “Tomorrow,” I said, “I think there will be heavy fighting.”

  “I can please you as well as any girl in the slave wagon,” she said.

  “You are free,” I told her.

  “I will give you more,” she said.

  “Please, do not speak so, Elizabeth,” I said.

  She straightened herself. “I suppose,” she said, “you have seen girls in slave markets, betrayed as I was by the touch of the whip.”

  I did not speak. It was true that I had seen this.

  “You saw how I moved,” she challenged. “Would it not have added a dozen gold pieces to my price?”

  “Yes,” I said, “it would have.”

  I approached her and gently held her by the waist, and looked down into her eyes.

  “I love you, Tarl Cabot,” she whispered. “Do not leave me.”

  “Do not love me,” I said. “You know little of my life and what I must do.”

  “I do not care,” she said, putting her head to my shoulder.

  “I must leave,” I said, “if only because you care for me. It would be cruel for me to remain.”

  “Have me, Tarl Cabot,” she said, “if not as a free woman as a slave.”

  “Beautiful Elizabeth,” I said, “I can have you as neither.”

  “You will have me,” she cried, “as one or the other!”

  “No,” I said gently. “No.”

  Suddenly she drew back in fury and struck me with the flat of her hand, a vicious slap, and then again and again, and again.

  “No,” I said.

  Again she slapped me. My face burned. “I hate you,” she said. “I hate your”

  “No,” I said.

  “You know your codes, do you not?” she challenged. “The codes of the warrior of Gor?”

  “Do not,” I said.

  Again she slapped me and my head leaped to the side, burning. “I hate you,” she hissed.

  And then, as I knew she would, she suddenly knelt before me, in fury, head down, arms extended, wrists crossed, submitting as a Gorean female.