by John Norman
I smiled at her.
She looked at me, horrified, frightened, tears ire her eyes.
“You are a pretty little slave,” I said.
She struggled furiously, but could not escape.
When her struggles had subsided I began, half biting, half kissing, to move up her calf to the delights of the sensitive areas behind her knees.
“Please” she wept.
“Be quiet, pretty little Slave Girl,” I mumbled.,
Then, kissing, but letting her feel the teeth which could, if I chose, tear at her flesh, I moved to the interior of her thigh. Slowly, with my mouth, by inches, I began to claim her.
“Please,” she said.
“What is wrong?” I asked.
“I find I want to yield to you,” she whispered.
“Do not be frightened,” I told her.
“No,” she said. “You do not understand.”
I was puzzled.
“I want to yield to you,” she whispered, “as a slave girl!”
“You will so yield to me,” I told her.
“No!” she cried. “No!”
“You will yield to me,” I told her, “as a slave girl to her master.”
“No!” she cried. “No! No!”
I continued to kiss her, to touch her.
“Please stop,” she wept.
“Why?” I asked.
“You are making me a slave,” she whispered.
“I will not stop,” I told her.
“Please,” she wept. “Please!”
“Perhaps,” I said to her, “the Goreans were right?”
“No!” she cried. “No!”
“Perhaps that is what you desire,” I said, “to yield with the utterness of a female slave.”
“Never!” she cried, weeping in fury. “Leave me!”
“Not until you have become a slave,” I told her.
She cried out in misery. “I do not want to be a slave!”
But when I had touched the most intimate beauties of her she became uncontrollable, writhing, and in my arms I knew the feeling of a slave girl and such, for the moment, was the beautiful Elizabeth Cardwell, helpless and mine, female and slave.
Now her lips and arms and body, now those only of an enamoured wench in bondage, sought mine, acknowledging utterly and unreservedly, shamelessly and hopelessly, with helpless abandon, their master.
I was astonished at her for even the touch of the whip, her involuntary response to the Slaver’s Caress, had not seemed to promise so much.
She cried out suddenly as she found herself fully mine.
Then she scarcely dared to move.
“You are claimed, Slave Girl,” I whispered to her.
“I am not a slave girl,” she whispered intensely. “I am not a slave girl.”
I could feel her nails in my arm. In her kiss I tasted blood, suddenly realizing that she had bitten me. Her head was back, her eyes closed, her lips open.
“I am not a slave girl,” she said.
I whispered in her ear, “Pretty little slave girl.”
“I am not a slave girl!” she cried.
“You will be soon,” I told her.
“Please, Tarl,” she said, “do not make me a slave.”
“You sense that it can be done?” I asked.
“Please,” she said, “do not make me a slave.”
“Do we not have a wager?” I asked.
She tried to laugh. “Let us forget the wager,” said she. “Please, Tarl, it was foolishness. Let us forget the wager?”
“Do you acknowledge yourself my slave?” I inquired.
“Never!” she hissed.
“Then,” said I, “lovely wench, the wager is not yet done.”
She struggled to escape me, but could not. Then, suddenly, as though startled, she would not move.
She looked at me.
“It soon begins,” I told her.
“I sense it,” she said, “I sense it.”
She did not move but I felt the cut of her nails in my arms.
“Can there be more?” she wept.
“It soon begins,” I told her.
“I’m frightened,” she wept.
“Do not be frightened,” I told her.
“I feel owned,” she whispered.
“You are,” I said.
“No,” she said. “No.”
“Do not be frightened,” I told her.
“You must let me go,” she said.
“It soon begins,” I told her.
“Please let me go,” she whispered. “Please”
“On Gor,” I said, “it is said that a woman who wears a collar can be only a woman.”
She looked at me angrily.
“And you, lovely Elizabeth,” said I, “wear a collar.”
She turned her head to one side, helpless, angry, tears in her eyes.~
She did not move, and then suddenly I felt the cut of her nails deep in my arms, and though her lips were open, her teeth were clenched, her head was back, the eyes closed, her hair tangled under her and over her body, and then her eyes seemed surprised, startled, and her shoulders lifted a bit from the rug, and she looked at me, and I could feel the beginning n her, the breathing of it and the blood of it, hers, in my own flesh swift and like fire in her beauty, mine, and knowing it was then the time, meeting her eyes fiercely, I said to her, with sudden contempt and savagery, following the common Gorean Rites of Submission, “Slave!” and she looked at me with horror and cried out “Nor” and half reared from the rug, wild, helpless, fierce as I intended, wanting to fight me, as I knew she would, wanting to slay me if it lay within her power, as I knew she would, and I permitted her to struggle and to bite and scratch and cry out and then I silenced her with the kiss of the master, and accepted the exquisite surrender which she had no choice but to give. “Slave,” she wept, “slave, slave, slave I am a slave”
It was more than an Ahn later that she lay in my arms on the rug and looked up at me, tears in her eyes. “I know now,” she said, “what it is to be the slave girl of a Master.”
I said nothing.
“Though I am slave,” she said, “yet for the first tinge in my life I am free.”
“For the first time in your life,” I said, “you are a woman.”
“I love being a woman,” she said. “I am happy I am a woman, Tarl Cabot, I am happy.”
“Do not forget,” I said, “you are only a slave.”
She smiled and fingered her collar. “I am Tarl Cabot’s girl,” she said.
“My slave,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, “your slave.”
I smiled.
“You will not beat me too often will you, Master?” she asked.
“We will see,” I said.
“I will strive to please you,” she said.
“I am pleased to hear it,” I said.
She lay on her back, her eyes open, looking at the top of, the wagon, at the hangings, the shadows thrown on the scarlet hides by the light of the fire bowl.
“I am free,” she said.
I looked at her.
She rolled over on her elbows. “It is strange,” she said. “I am a slave girl. But I am free. I am free.”
“I must sleep,” I said, rolling over.
She kissed me on the shoulder. “Thank you,” she said, “Tarl Cabot, for freeing me.”
I rolled over and seized her by the shoulders and pressed her back to the rug and she looked up laughing.
“Enough of this nonsense about freedom,” I said. “Do not forget that you are a slave.” I took her nose ring between my thumb and forefinger.
“Oh” she said.
I lifted her head from the rug by the ring and her eyes smarted.
“This is scarcely the way to show respect for a lady,” said the girl.
I tweaked the nose ring, and tears sprang into her eyes.
“But then,” she said, “I am only a slave girl.”
“And do not forget it,�
� I admonished her.
“No, no, Master,” she said, smiling.
“You do not sound to me sufficiently sincere,” I said.
“But I arm” she laughed.
“I think in the morning,” I said, “I will throw you to kaiila.”
“But where then will you find another slave as delectable as I?” she laughed.
“Insolent wench!” I cried.
“Oh” she cried, as I gave the ring a playful tug. “Please!”
With my left hand I jerked the collar against the back of her neck.
“Do not forget,” I said, “that on your throat you wear a collar of steel.”
“Your collar!” she said promptly.
I slapped her thigh. “And,” I said, “on your thigh you wear the brand of the four bosk horns”
“I’m yours,” she said, “like a bosk!”
“Oh,” she cried, as I dropped her back to the rug.
She looked up at me, her eyes mischievous. “I’m free,” she said.
“Apparently,” I said, “you have not learned the lesson of the collar.”
She laughed merrily. Then she lifted her arms and put them about my neck, and lifted her lips to mine, tenderly, delicately. “This slave girl,” she said, “has well learned the lesson of her collar.”
I laughed.
She kissed me again. “Vella of Gor,” said she, “loves master.”
“And what of Miss Elizabeth Cardwell?” I inquired.
“That pretty little slave” said Elizabeth, scornfully.
“Yes,” I said, “the secretary.”
“She is not a secretary,” said Elizabeth, “she is only a little Gorean slave.”
“Well,” said I, “what of her?”
“As you may have heard,” whispered the girl, “Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, the nasty little wench, was forced to yield herself as a slave girl to a master.”
“I had heard as much,” I said.
“What a cruel beast he was,” said the girl.
“What of her now?” I asked.
“The little slave girl,” said the girl scornfully, “is now madly in love with the beast.”
“What is his name?” I asked.
“The same who won the surrender of proud Vella of Gor,” said she.
“And his name?” I asked.
“Tarl Cabot,” she said.
“He is a fortunate fellow,” I remarked, “to have two such women.”
“They are jealous of one another,” confided the girl.
“Oh?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, “each will try to please her master more than the other, that she will be his favourite.”
I kissed her.
“I wonder who will be his favourite?” she asked.
“Let them both try to please him,” I suggested, “each more than the other.”
She looked at me reproachfully. “He is a cruel, cruel master,” she said.
“Doubtless,” I admitted.
For a long time we kissed and touched. And from time to time, during the night, each of the girls, Vella of Gor and the little barbarian, Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, begged, and were permitted, to serve the pleasure of their master. Yet he, unprecipitate and weighing matters carefully, still could not decide between them.
It was well toward morning, and he was nearly asleep, when he felt them against him, their cheek pressed against his thigh. “Girls,” mumbled he, “do not forget you wear my steel.”
“We will not forget,” they said.
And he felt their kiss.
“We love you,” said they, “Master.”
He decided, falling asleep, that he would keep them both slave for a few days, if only to teach them a lesson. Also, he reminded himself, it is only a fool who frees a slave girl.
Chapter 26
THE EGG OF PRIEST-KINGS
In the dampness and darkness long before dawn the forces of Kamchak, crowding the streets of Turia in the vicinity of Saphrar’s compound, waited silently, like dark shapes on the stones; here and there the glint of a weapon or accoutrement could be made out~the fading light of one of the flying moons; someone coughed; there was a rustle of leather; I heard to one side the honing of a quiva, the tiny sound of a short bow being strung.
Kamchak, Harold and I stood with several others on the roof of a building across from the compound.
Behind the walls we could hear, now and then, a sentry calling his post, answering another.
Kamchak stood in the half darkness, his palms on the wall running about the edge of the roof of the building on which we stood.
More than an hour ago I had left the commander’s wagon, being roused by one of the guards outside. As I had left Elizabeth Cardwell had awakened. We had said nothing, but I had gathered her into my arms and kissed her, then left the wagon.
On the way to the compound I had met Harold and together we had eaten some dried bosk meat — and drank water, from one of the commissary wagons attached to one of Hundreds in the city. As commanders we could eat where we chose.
The tarns that Harold and I had stolen from Saphrar’s keep several days ago had both been brought into the city and were nearby, for it was thought that such might be needed, if only to convey reports from one point to another.
There were also, in the city, of course, hundreds of kaiila, though the main body of such mounts was outside the city, where game could be driven to them with greater ease.
I heard someone chewing nearby and noted that Harold, who had thrust some strips of bosk meat from the commissary wagon in his belt, was busily engaged, quiva in hand, with cutting and eating the meat.
“It’s nearly morning,” he mumbled, the observation somewhat blurred by the meat packed in his mouth.
I nodded.
I saw Kamchak leaning forward, his palms on the wall about the roof, staring at the compound. He seemed humped in the half darkness, short of neck, broad of shoulder. He hadn’t moved in a quarter of an Ahn. He was waiting for the dawn.
When I had left the wagon Elizabeth Cardwell, though she had said nothing, had been frightened. I remembered her eyes, and her lips, as they had trembled on mine. I had taken her arms from about my neck and turned away. I wondered if I would see her again.
“My own recommendation,” Harold was saying, “would be first to fly my tarn cavalry over the walls, clearing them with thousands of arrows, and then, in a second wave, to fly dozens of ropes of warriors to the roofs of the main buildings, to seize them and burn the others.”
“But we have no tarn cavalry,” I noted.
“That is what is wrong with my recommendation,” granted Harold, chewing.
I closed my eyes briefly, and then looked back at the dim compound across the way.
“No recommendation is perfect,” said Harold.
I turned to a commander of a Hundred, he who was in charge of the men I had trained with the crossbow. “Did tarns enter or leave the compound last night?” I asked.
“No,” said the man.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“There was moonlight,” he said. “We saw nothing.” He looked at me. “But,” he added, “there are, by my count some three or four tarns from before within the compound.”
“Do not permit them to escape,” I said.
“We shall try not to do so,” he said.
Now, in the east, as on Earth, we could see a lightness in the sky. I seemed to be breathing very deeply.
Kamchak still had not moved.
I heard the rustling of men below in the streets, the checking of arms.
“There is a tarn” cried one of the men on the roof.
Very high in the sky, no more than a small speck, speeding toward the compound of Saphrar from the direction of the Nil, tower I believed held by Ha-Keel, we saw a tarn.
“Prepare to final” I cried.
“No,” said Kamchak, “let it enter.”
The men held their fire, and the tarn, almost at the centre of the compound,
as far from our encircling positions as possible, suddenly plummeted downward, its wings high, opening them only at the last minute to land on the top of the keep, beyond accurate crossbow range.
“Saphrar may escape,” I pointed out.
“No,” said Kamchak, “there is no escape for Saphrar.”
I said nothing.
“His blood is mine,” said Kamchak
“Who is the rider?” I queried.
“Ha-Keel, the mercenary,” said Kamchak “He is coming to bargain with Saphrar, but I can better whatever terms he is offered for I have all the gold and women of Turia, and by nightfall I will have the private hordes of Saphrar him self.”
“Beware,” I warned, “the tarnsmen of Ha-Keel they might yet turn the brunt of battle against you.”
Kamchak did not respond.
“The thousand tarnsmen of Ha-Keel,” said Harold, “left before dawn for Port Karl Their tower is abandoned.”
“But why?” I demanded.
“They were well paid,” said Harold, “with Turian gold of which substance we have a great deal.”
“Then Saphrar is alone,” I said.
“More alone than he knows,” remarked Harold.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You will see,” he said.
It was now clearly light in the east, and I could see the faces of men below me, some of them carrying rope ladders with metal hooks at the ends, others scaling ladders.
It seemed to me that a full storming of the compound would take place within the Ahn.
The House of Saphrar was encircled literally by thousands of warriors.
We would outnumber the desperate defenders of his walls perhaps by twenty to one. The fighting would be fierce, but it did not seem that the outcome would be in doubt, even from the beginning particularly now that the tarnsmen of Ha-Keel had left the city, the saddle packs of their tarns bulging with Turian gold.
Then Kamchak spoke again. “I have waited long for the blood of Saphrar of Turia,” he said. He lifted his hand and one who stood near him climbed to the wall of the roof and blew a long blast on a bosk horn.