Fighting Slave of Gor coc-14

by John Norman

  Chapter 17 - THE LADY MELPOMENE; THE VENGEANCE OF THE LADY MELPOMENE

  "Ah, Jason," said the woman. "You are awake."

  I struggled to move, but could not well do so. When the tharlarion wagon had arrived at a house in Venna, I had been removed from the slave cage and slave sack. When the hood, with its gag, had been removed from me, I had been forced, sitting in the courtyard, my head back and nose held, to swallow a draft of water, into which a reddish powder had been mixed. I had shortly thereafter lost consciousness.

  I closed my eyes. The image of the woman had been blurred.

  "I know you are awake," she said.

  I opened my eyes. I moved my arms and legs a little, but they were, on the whole, effectively restrained. I lay on my back on a large, round couch, on deep furs. I was chained, hand and foot.

  "Do you know me?" she asked.

  I now recognized her, but I thought it wiser on my part to deny this. Though she had been veiled when I had seen her on the streets of Ar, in her palanquin, it was not difficult to recall the eyes, the character of the cheekbones, the voice.

  "No, Mistress," I said.

  "I am the Lady Melpomene of Vonda," she said.

  "Yes, Mistress," I said.

  She stood near the couch, looking at me. "Your Mistress," she said, acidly, "insinuated in Ar that I could not have bid sixteen tarsks for you. That is false. It was rather that I did not think you were worth sixteen tarsks."

  "Yes, Mistress," I said.

  "You are her preferred silk slave, are you not?" she asked.

  "I think so, Mistress," I said.

  "Is she fond of you?" she asked.

  "She finds me in some respects not unacceptable," I said.

  "You are now chained on my couch," she said.

  "Yes, Mistress," I said.

  "You are a pretty male," she said, "sleek and strong."

  I said nothing.

  "I have complimented you," she said.

  "Thank you, Mistress," I said.

  "You have recovered more quickly than I had anticipated from the Tassa powder," she said. "But it does not matter. You may watch me while I prepare myself." She went to a vanity and knelt there, and, looking in the mirror, began to comb her hair. It was long and dark.

  I looked about the room. It was large, but shabby. The hangings were old. There were cracks in certain of the walls. It was not kept up.

  The Lady Melpomene slowly, luxuriantly, delighting in its beauty, and well displaying it for me, combed her hair. She used a comb of kailiauk horn. She wore a yellow gown, long and almost transparent. Her feet were bare.

  "Lady Melpomene has beautiful hair," I said.

  "Silk slaves are such flatterers," she said. But I could see she was pleased. It was true, of course, that she had beautiful hair.

  There was dust on her bare feet, and on the floor of the room. I had heard that she had had to sell her slaves, or most of them. My Mistress spoke occasionally about her. She hated her. The two families, of which these two young women were scions, were ancient rivals in Vonda. The investments of the family of my Mistress, however, had prospered, while those of the family of the Lady Melpomene had languished. Indeed, most of the members of the family of Lady Melpomene had left Vonda over the years. She, of that family, had remained in Vonda, reigning over the shreds of what had once been a considerable number of assets.

  "In the courtyard below," I said, "I was drugged."

  "It was done by Tassa powder," she said.

  "It was tasteless, and effective," I said.

  "Slavers sometimes use it," she said. "It is well for a girl not to drink with a strange man," she laughed.

  "It shows up, of course," I said, "in water."

  "It is meant to be mixed with red wine," she said.

  "Of course," I said.

  I wondered how many girls, accepting the apparent generosity of a stranger, had found themselves suddenly, inexplicably, swooning, only to awaken later in some unknown place, naked and in the chains of a slave.

  The Lady Melpomene then laid aside her comb. She then touched perfume to her body.

  "I did not enjoy my conversation with your Mistress in Ar," she said.

  Deftly she touched the perfume to her body.

  "She insinuated that my fortunes were in sorry order," she said, "indeed, that I was almost destitute."

  "Perhaps she meant no harm," I said.

  "I am not a fool," she snapped. Then she rose to her feet and turned to face me.

  Like many Gorean women, she did not use cosmetics. Free women in Ar commonly use cosmetics, but, outside of Ar, usually it is only the bolder women who resort to them. My Mistress, for example, did not use cosmetics either. Many free women regard cosmetics as only for slave girls. Slave girls, of course, use them often.

  The Lady Melpomene regarded me. Then she slipped the yellow gown from her body. She was extremely lovely, though, I think, not so lovely as my Mistress. My eyes, inadvertently, wandered to her throat. It would have looked well in a collar. The collar, like a brand, enhances the beauty of a woman, particularly when she is naked. It, of obdurate, locked, circular steel, indicative of harsh, uncompromising bondage, contrasts well with the delicious, feminine softness which it encircles and confines. "But now," she said, "Jason, her precious silk slave, lies chained upon my couch."

  I did not speak.

  She came to the couch and sat near me. "You are a pretty slave," she said.

  I did not speak.

  She looked at me, sternly.

  "Thank you, Mistress," I said.

  She touched me. "I see that you find me attractive," she said.

  "Yes, Mistress," I said.

  She lowered her head, letting her hair fall about my face. "Do you smell the perfume?" she asked.

  "Yes, Mistress," I said.

  "It is that of your Mistress," she said. "What did it cost?"

  "Five silver tarsks," I said. "It was purchased, as you perhaps know, at the shop of Veminius."

  "Once," she said, "I could afford five tarsks for perfume. Once I, too, could shop at the shop of Veminius."

  I looked about the room, lofty, but disreputable, covered with dust. She, of course, a free woman, and one once of means, would not concern herself with such work as dusting and cleaning. It was beneath her. She had had, apparently, to sell all, or most, of her slaves. I had not even been washed and combed, apparently, before being placed on her couch. The men who had captured me had, doubtless, for their small fee, brought me to the room and had then left, after which she had, while I lay unconscious, locked her chains on me.

  "It is true, then," I asked, "that Mistress has had misfortunes in her financial affairs?"

  "I have had difficulties, Jason," she said. "It is common knowledge."

  I did not speak.

  "I was in Ar negotiating the sale of this house," she said. "The very palanquin in which you first saw me, that in which I rode in Ar, was rented."

  "My Mistress," I said, "had suggested to me that it might be."

  "But now you lie chained at my mercy," she said.

  "Yes, Mistress," I said.

  "I was successful in selling the house," she said. "I am leaving it tomorrow."

  "Mistress has mow recouped her fortunes?" I asked.

  "Only a small portion of them," she smiled. "I remain still much in debt."

  "Mistress has," I said, "a house in Vonda. Perhaps she might sell that, too."

  "I could sell ten houses," she smiled. "and not recoup my fortunes. I owe the merchants of a dozen cities."

  "What will you do?" I asked.

  "Tomorrow," she said. "with the moneys I will have from the sale of this house I will recoup all, in a single afternoon. I will become again one of the richest women in Vonda."

  "In what way can Mistress possibly accomplish this?" I asked.

  "I am assured of certain winners in the tharlarion races," she said.

  "You have information?" I asked.

  "Yes," she
said.

  "Is it wise to venture your capital in such a way?" I asked.

  "I shall do with it as I please," she said.

  "Yes, Mistress," I said.

  "There are many notes against me," she said. "I must do something."

  "Yes, Mistress," I said.

  "But have no fear, pretty slave," she said. "Lady Melpomene of Vonda will win, and then will be again one of the richest women in Vonda. Perhaps, even, in time, she may ruin your Mistress, and force your sale." She smiled at me, and idly fingered my arm. "She might then, if she wished," she said, "buy you for her very own." She then, idly, touched my belly. "Would you like that, Jason?" she asked.

  "No, Mistress," I said.

  "Why?" she asked. "Am I not beautiful?"

  "You are beautiful, Mistress," I said.

  "Then, why not?" she asked.

  "I am a man," I said.

  "No," she said, "you are only a silk slave." She looked down at me. "Indeed," she said, "you are a male of the world called Earth. You are fit, thus, only to be a woman's property."

  I did not speak. I was bitter. I knew that many of the men of Earth were, in effect, the property of their women. It was not particularly their fault. They had been raised to be such. Rhetoric, conditioning and social controls kept them in their place. Only occasionally did they dream of the subverted biological hegemonies which were theirs by nature. One must own, in effect, or be owned. The women of Earth, in effect, owned their men. But the women of Earth were unhappy. Perhaps they wished, in some deep part of themselves, that it was they who were owned by the men.

  "Is it your intention to return me to my Mistress?" I asked.

  "Perhaps," she said.

  I suddenly reared up, struggling, my shoulders some two or three inches above the surface of the couch.

  "Do not be afraid, Jason," she said. "I am only caressing you."

  I struggled, futilely.

  "You are helpless, Jason," she told rime. "The room may be in disrepair, but I assure you that the chains are new, and adequate. I have checked them."

  I cried out with rage.

  Again, I struggled, but was held helplessly and perfectly in the sturdy steel.

  "What a chained larl you are!" she laughed. "How fortunate for me that your hands are not free. If they were free, I, though a free woman, could scarcely dare conjecture my fate!"

  Again I struggled, and was again held helplessly and perfectly in the steel.

  "Cease your struggles," she said, suddenly, angrily. "Or I will geld you."

  I ceased my struggles.

  "That is better," she said.

  "What are you going to do with me?" I asked.

  "Are you not slave enough to know?" she asked.

  I looked at her, in fury.

  "Do you think you can resist me?" she asked.

  "No," I said. "I do not." No man, chained as I was, could resist any woman. And she was exciting, and beautiful.

  She mounted me.

  "Unchain me," I said. "Let me take you in my arms."

  "I am not a fool," she said. "I will not be made a slave by any man."

  "Aiii!" I cried.

  "Thus," she laughed. "I, the Lady Melpomene of Vonda, take the silk slave of my enemy, the despicable Lady Florence of Vonda!"

  I looked up at her, shuddering.

  "It is only the beginning," she said to me.

  She used me several times that night. It was only later that I realized that she, in spite of the fullness of her use of me, had never once kissed me. She did not wish to soil her lips by touching them to my body, that of a slave.

  Chapter 18 - THE INSPECTION OF THE STABLE SLAVES

  "The stable slaves are ready for inspection, Lady Florence," said Kenneth, head keeper of the Mistress' slaves. Barus, who assisted him, stood near him.

  We knelt in the sunlit, central stable yard of the Mistress' stables, which were extensive. There were barns about, and equipment and feed sheds. These structures were generally painted yellow and trimmed with shades of blue. These colors tend to be cultural for Goreans with respect to housings for domestic animals. Blue and yellow, too, of course, are the colors of the slavers. There may tie a connection here, for the slave is, of course, regarded as a domestic animal. To be sure, in barns and such the color yellow usually predominates, whereas in the colors of slavers, exhibited in such places as in the blue and yellow of the canvas covering slave wagons or is the blue and yellow of the tenting of slave pavilions, the blue and yellow is, or tends to be, more equally distributed, almost invariably occurring in stripes.

  I knelt near the end of the line. The Mistress, with a long, tharlarion quirt, had begun her inspection.

  When the Lady Melpomene had finished with me, after that long night of her use of me, she had held for me another draft of water, discolored by the reddish Tassa powder. I had not wished to drink this. Then she had held her dagger to my body. I drank. Soon I was unconscious.

  "Kneel more straightly, Slave," said the Lady Florence to another stable slave, down the line from me.

  Apparently the two men in the hire of the Lady Melpomene, those two who had originally captured me, and carried me to her house in Venna, returned for me. I did not regain consciousness until, painfully, I was aware of being thrown upon a hard surface. I heard two men hurrying away. I was, knees drawn up, and head down, fastened in a slave sack. Within the sack itself my ankles were crossed and tied, and my hands, too, were similarly fastened, behind my back.

  "What is going on here?" I heard cry. "Stop!" It had been the voice of Kenneth, the head keeper of my Mistress' slaves, the Lady Florence of Vonda. I had heard a wagon rattling away, swiftly.

  "What is going on?" I had heard, a woman's voice, that of my Mistress. Over my head I had felt the sack being untied.

  "It is Jason," had said Kenneth. He had drawn me from the sack by a bound arm. I felt my head slapped to the side. "You are in the presence of the Mistress," had said Kenneth.

  I had then knelt before her. I was on the porch of her house in Venna. I was naked.

  "There is a note tied to his collar," said Kenneth. Men and women of the household, including male and female slaves, domestic slaves, house slaves, such as short-legged, luscious Taphris, had gathered about. The note on my collar was taken and handed to the Mistress. She read the note in fury, and then crumpled it, and cast it to the side. She looked down at me, in fury.

  "Send him to the stables," she said.

  "Yes, Lady Florence," had said Kenneth.

  "Have the rest of you nothing better to do than gawk at a stable slave?" she snapped.

  Quickly the small crowd dissipated, the free persons turning aside to their duties and the slaves, barefoot, including Taphris, scurrying quickly to their tasks. Lady Florence, Kenneth and myself were alone left on the porch.

  Kenneth unbound my ankles and threw aside the binding fiber which had restrained them.

  I kept my head down.

  Kenneth stood up. "Lady Florence," he asked.

  "Yes?" she said.

  "When we return to your villa near Vonda," he asked, "is the slave to be returned to the house or is it your intention that he serve there, as well as here, in the stables, not your private stables but the great stables?" The Lady Florence owned more than a thousand tharlarion. She bred and raised tharlarion, and her stables were among the finest in the vicinity of Vonda.

  "He is a stable slave," she said, angrily. "Use him as such."

  "In the great stables?" he asked.

  "Yes," she said.

  "As a full stable slave," he asked, "subject to all the conditions and strictures of such?"

  "Yes," she said.

  "Excellent," he said.

  Then, in fury, she had spun about and left, robes swirling.

  I lifted my head. Kenneth was chuckling. For some reason he seemed pleased.

  "Master," I said.

  "Yes?" he said.

  "May I know what was in the note which was affixed to my coll
ar?"

  "I, too, am curious," he grinned. He picked up the note. "'My sweet friend and compatriot, Lady Florence of Vonda,'" read Kenneth, "'Thank you very much for the use of your lovely silk slave, Jason. I enjoyed him very much. It is easy to see why you are so fond of him. Incidentally, thank you, too, for the lovely gift of perfume. I wore it while using him for my pleasure. Thank you again, my sweet and understanding friend, and generous friend, for your kindness in these matters. I wish you well. Melpomene, Lady of Vonda.'"

  Kenneth then dropped the note, muchly where he had found it.

  He pulled me to my feet and thrust me, stumbling, to my right, down the steps and toward the wagon way leading about the house, toward the stables.

  At the corner of the house we stopped.

  "Look," he said.

  I looked back. The Lady Florence had come out again on the porch. She looked about, but did not see us, as we were some distance away, at the corner of the house, and shielded by trees. She bent down, furtively, and snatched up the note which had been attached to my collar. Then she hurried again into the house.

  "She is a woman," said Kenneth.

  "Yes, Master," I said.

  "She cannot bear that it might be found," laughed Kenneth. "Too, perhaps she wants it, that she may, regarding it, hate the Lady Melpomene even more than she has in the past, if that is possible."

  "Yes, Master," I said.

  "Did you see how furtive she was," he asked, "so fearful of discovery?"

  "Yes, Master," I said.

  "She is, for all her wealth and freedom," he said, "only a woman."

  "Yes, Master," I said.

  "Is she pleasant in the furs?" he asked.

  "It was I, a silk slave," I said, smiling, "not she, who must needs be pleasant in the furs."

  "Of course," he said. Then he said, "Would she look well in a collar? Would she look well naked, upon a slave block?"

  I was startled. "May I respond to such questions?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said.

  "Yes," I said, "she would look well in a collar, and would look well naked, upon a slave block."

  "I had guessed as much," he grinned.

  "If I may speak, Master," I said, "you seem pleased to learn that I have been consigned to the stables."