by John Norman
Between the tables there was a large, tiled scarlet circle, some twelve feet in width, with an iron ring at its center. "What is the entertainment you have planned for us, Lady Florence?" inquired the Lady Melpomene.
"It is to be a surprise," said the Lady Florence.
"I can hardly wait," said the Lady Melpomene.
"You are so secretive, Florence," laughed the Lady Leta, as though chiding the Lady Florence. Yet from her laugh I through it not unlikely that she knew well what was in store.
Philebus, across the tiled circle, cleared his throat. "Let us conduct our business," he said. "We may then proceed to the amusements of the evening."
"A splendid idea!" said the Lady Florence.
"A splendid idea!" said the Lady Melpomene.
"Before you, Lady Melpomene of Vonda," said Philebus, "lie several papers, detailing the consolidation of your debts. These papers are certified by the bank of Bemus in Venna, and are witnessed by the signatures of two citizens of that city. Do you acknowledge that the tallies are correct and that the debts are yours?"
"I do," said the Lady Melpomene.
"I now," said he, "by my purchased rights, charge you with these debts and demand payment."
"And, thanks to my friend, the Lady Florence, she of Vonda," said the Lady Melpomene, "you shall have your payments, and now. The Lady Florence has graciously agreed to lend me the full amount of the due notes and at no interest."
This seemed to me incredibly generous of the Lady Florence. Kenneth, near me, behind the curtain, was smiling.
"I herewith publicly sign," said the Lady Melpomene, "this loan note, made out to the Lady Florence of Vonda, for the full sum of one thousand, four hundred and twenty tarns of gold."
"And I," said the Lady Florence, "herewith publicly sign this draft, marked in the same amount, drawn on the bank of Reginald in Vonda, and properly certified, made out to Philebus of Venna."
She handed the draft to the Lady Melpomene. The Lady Melpomene handed her back the loan note. Philebus of Venna went to the table of the Lady Melpomene and took the draft. He looked at it, and was satisfied, and placed it in his pouch. The loan note was carried by the Lady Florence herself to the prefect and to the Lady Leta and the Lady Perimene. These, with their signatures, and the prefect with a stamp also, certified and witnessed the loan note. Pamela and Bonnie, incidentally, the two enslaved Gorean beauties in attendance on the tables, did not fetch or carry the documents about. This had been done by Philebus of Venna and the Lady Florence. Slaves, generally, are not permitted to touch legal documents. They are slaves.
"You are now my full and only creditor, Lady Florence," said the Lady Melpomene. "I trust that you will be merciful, and kind, to me."
"You will be treated precisely as you deserve," the Lady Florence assured her.
"Let us all, together rejoicing," called out the Lady Melpomene, "prepare to lift our cups to our lovely and generous hostess, she with whom I share a Home Stone, my dearest friend, the Lady Florence of Vonda!" The Lady Melpomene reached for her cup.
"Do not touch that cup, Slut," said the Lady Florence.
"Florence!" cried the Lady Melpomene.
"Have you paid for the wine?" asked the Lady Florence. "Can you pay for it?"
"I do not understand," stammered the Lady Melpomene.
The Lady Florence reached to the tiny cup of wine, and seized it up, and hurled its contents against the Lady Melpomene. It struck against her veil and the upper portions of her garments.
"What are you doing?" demanded the Lady Melpomene angrily.
"What perfume are you wearing?" demanded the Lady Florence.
"Yours, as you know!" said the Lady Melpomene, coldly. "That from the shop of Turbus Veminius in Venna." I recalled the perfume which I had fetched for the Mistress, when I had been waylaid by the henchmen of the Lady Melpomene. I supposed it was the same perfume, replaced.
"Not mine," said the Lady Florence. "I use it only as a slave perfume. I use it to souse my stable sluts before I throw them chained to the men." That was not true. The Lady Florence did not permit her stable sluts perfume, even slave perfume. On the other hand the smell of their sweat and fear, and the precipitated odors of their hot love oils, indicative of their helpless arousal, were more than sufficient to excite the brutes who took them in their arms.
"Whose garments do you wear?" asked the Lady Florence.
The Lady Melpomene sprang to her feet. "I will not remain here to be insulted," she said, furiously. She drew up her robes, to her ankles, and in fury, with a sob, fled toward the door. But there she was met by two large fellows, who barred her way. "Durbar! Hesius!" she said. "Take me home." I recognized the pair. They were the fellows who had, long ago, captured me in an alley in Venna and carried me, bound in a slave sack, to the house of the Lady Melpomene, where she had used me for her pleasure. I had been returned similarly helpless to my Mistress, with a note. After that my Mistress had sent me to the stables.
The two men now each held an arm of the Lady Melpomene. "Take me home!" she cried.
"We are now in the fee of the Lady Florence," said one of the men, he whom I took it was named Durbar.
They then turned the Lady Melpomene about and, she stumbling, they forced her back to a place between the tables. The three of them then stood on the red tiles. The two men, each one holding an arm, held the Lady Melpomene so that she must face the Lady Florence.
"What is the meaning of this?" cried the Lady Melpomene.
"Whose garments do you wear?" demanded the Lady Florence.
The Lady Melpomene struggled, but helplessly. "Yours! Yours!" she then cried, held.
"Remove them," said the Lady Florence, coldly. The two men released the arms of the Lady Melpomene and stood back some feet and to the side.
"Never," said the Lady Melpomene.
"The slippers first," said the Lady Florence.
The Lady Melpomene stepped from the slippers. "She bares her feet before free persons," said the Lady Florence. The Lady Leta and the Lady Perimene laughed.
"Now throw back the hood and remove your veil," said the Lady Florence, harshly.
"Never!" cried the Lady Melpomene. The veil bore the stain from the wine which had been thrown upon it.
"You will do these things or they will be done for you," said the Lady Florence, indicating Durbar and Hesius.
The Lady Melpomene, angrily, threw back her hood, and then, pin by pin, lowered her veil. Her hair, as I recalled, was long and dark. Her cheekbones were high, her eyes dark. She was a very lovely woman.
"She face strips herself before free persons," said the Lady Florence.
"Why are you doing this to me?" cried out the Lady Melpomene. There was again laughter from the Lady Leta and the Lady Perimene.
"Remove your clothing now, all of it," said the Lady Florence, coldly.
With a sob the Lady Melpomene suddenly fled from the hall, to the anteroom beyond it. The Lady Florence indicated to Durbar and Hesius that they were not to pursue her. We heard the Lady Melpomene in the outer room, pounding on a door. It was apparently barred from the other side and whoever guarded it, probably Borto, one of the men of the Lady Florence, had been instructed not to open it in answer to her entreaties.
"Let me out! Let me out!" cried the Lady Melpomene.
"Come back, Lady Melpomene," called the Lady Florence, "and hurry, lest we become displeased."
The Lady Melpomene hurried back to the tables, sobbing, and fell on her knees at the low table of the Lady Florence. She extended her hands to the Lady Florence. She tried to touch the Lady Florence but the Lady Florence drew back. "What are you doing to me?" begged the Lady Melpomene.
"Go, stand there on the tiles, where you were before," said the Lady Florence, pointing.
With a sob the Lady Melpomene rose to her feet and went to stand where she had stood before.
"Now remove your clothing, all of it," said the Lady Florence, "or it will be done for you."
Trem
bling, garment by garment, the Lady Melpomene removed her clothing. Then she stood on the scarlet tiles, naked, near the iron ring.
"That is the sum of your resources," said the Lady Florence. "That is what you have, nothing."
"Please, Florence," moaned the Lady Melpomene.
"Am I not your single and full creditor?" asked the Lady Florence.
"Yes," whispered the Lady Melpomene.
Then, grandly, loftily, the Lady Florence lifted up the loan note from the table before her.
"I demand payment," said the Lady Florence. "I demand that you now pay me the sum of one thousand, four hundred and twenty tarns of gold."
"I cannot pay you now," said the Lady Melpomene. "You know that."
The Lady Florence turned to look upon Brandon, who was a prefect in Vonda. He jotted down something on a paper before him.
"You cannot do this!" cried out the Lady Melpomene.
"Such notes as that I hold," said the Lady Florence, "are due, as you must know, upon the demand of the creditor."
"Yes, yes!" cried the Lady Melpomene, clenching her small fists. "But I did not dream you would desire to achieve so hasty a closure on your note."
"Such is my prerogative," said the Lady Florence, imperiously.
"You must give me time to recoup my fortunes!" cried the Lady Melpomene.
"I do not choose to do so," said the Lady Florence.
"Is it your intention to bring about my total ruin?" asked the Lady Melpomene.
"My intentions go far beyond your ruin," said the Lady Florence.
"I do not understand," said the Lady Melpomene.
"A demand for payment has been made, Lady Melpomene," said Brandon, a prefect of Vonda. "Can you pay?"
"You have lured me here," cried out the Lady Melpomene to the Lady Florence, "away from Vonda, beyond the shelter of her walls!"
"The walls of Vonda," said the prefect sternly, "would no longer afford you protection, for your debt, in its plenitude, is now owed to one who is a citizen of Vonda."
The Lady Melpomene shuddered. "I have been tricked," she said.
"Can you pay?" pressed the prefect.
"No," she cried in misery, "no!"
"Kneel, Lady Melpomene, free woman of Vonda," said the prefect.
"Please, no!" she wept.
"Would you rather this be done on the platform of public shame in the great square of Vonda, where you might bring shame upon the Home Stone?" inquired the prefect.
"No, no," sobbed the Lady Melpomene.
"Kneel," said the prefect.
"What is to be my sentence?" she cried.
"Kneel," said he.
She knelt, trembling, fearfully, before him.
"I pronounce you Slave," he said.
"No," she cried, "no!" But it had been done.
"Let her be collared," he said.
The girl put her head down, sobbing.
The Lady Florence cried out with pleasure and clapped her hands together in triumph. The Lady Leta and the Lady Perimene, too clapped their hands and laughed with pleasure. Then, for a moment they struck their left shoulders in Gorean applause, congratulating the Lady Florence on her triumph over her long-term enemy.
"On your hands and knees, Slave Girl," said Tenalion of Ar, who had risen to his feet. From the box beside him he had taken a collar, with a chain loop, and a length of chain.
"May I present our friend Tenalion in a new light to you?" inquired the Lady Florence of the naked, shuddering slave near the ring. "I was somewhat obscure, as seemed fitting, concerning his business to you. He is, of course, a slaver, as is his man, Ronald."
There was a decisive click as Tenalion locked the collar on the slender, lovely throat of the new slave. It fitted, snugly. Slavers can tell a woman's collar size at a glance. She sobbed, head down, on her hands and knees, at the ring. She was now collared. Tenalion crouched beside her.
It interested me that Tenalion, a slaver of Ar, was in the vicinity of Vonda. I was curious as to what the reason for that might be. It was doubtless only a coincidence, I assumed.
The chain loop depended from the girl's collar. Her breasts, now those of a slave, given her posture, depended beautifully from her body. Tenalion snapped the lock at the end of the length of chain he carried about the chain loop on the girl's collar. Such women, thriftless, then indigent, on my old world, Earth, I supposed, might be supported indefinitely at public expense. Tenalion then snapped the lock-loop at the other end of the length of chain about the iron ring in the tiles. The former Lady Melpomene of Vonda, now a nameless slave, collapsed to her belly, sobbing, on the scarlet tiles, chained by the neck to a slave ring. Goreans do not see fit to reward improvidence.
"Bring a slave whip!" cried the Lady Florence, leaping to her feet.
Pamela hurried from the room.
Brandon, though a prefect in Vonda, rose to his feet and carried papers to the Lady Leta and the Lady Perimene. They were, after all, free women. They affixed the seal of their witnessing signatures to the documents. He then returned to his place and himself signed the papers.
Pamela hurried back, pressing into the hands of the Lady Florence a long-handled, five-bladed Gorean slave whip.
She seized the whip with two hands and turned to look at Brandon.
I heard the stamp of Brandon strike on the papers before him. He looked up at the Lady Florence, and smiled. "The papers are in perfect order," he said.
"I have waited long for this moment!" cried the Lady Florence. "We have been rivals, and enemies, for years!" she said to the prone slave. "How I have despised you in your pride and pretensions, how I hated you, how I held you in contempt! And now you are fully mine, helpless and at my mercy!"
The girl sobbed.
"I name you Melpomene!" cried the Lady Florence.
The girl shook with uncontrollable sobs.
"Kneel to the whip, Melpomene!" she ordered her.
Melpomene then, sobbing, knelt, her legs close together, her wrists held crossed under her, as though bound, her head down, touching the floor, the bow of her back exposed, a slave girl awaiting punishment.
"Triumph! Joy!" cried the Lady Florence. Then, holding the whip with two hands, she lashed savagely down at the slave. She struck her again and again, as though in maddened fury. The struck girl, crying out with misery could not hold the position.
"Do you dare to obstruct a blow of the whip!" cried the Lady Florence to the girl who lay now terrified and supine, in pain, wild, her hands trying to fend the leather away, at her feet.
"No, no!" cried the girl.
"No, what!" cried the Lady Florence.
"No, Mistress!" cried the girl.
"On your belly," said Tenalion to the slave. "Hold to the slave ring with both hands."
The girl obeyed. The Lady Florence then again, wildly, angrily, laid the leather to the lovely back of her former rival. I smiled to myself. Tenalion, though doubtless a strict master, was merciful. He was helping the girl to endure her first beating. Usually, of course, a girl is tied or chained for her beatings. Sometimes, however, she is not secured but merely ordered to hold the ring. After the first two or three strokes it is sometimes difficult to pry her fingers from the iron. The most merciful thing, is my opinion, however, is always to tie or chain the girl. The beating can then be straightforward and efficient. The Lady Florence was now gasping. Holding the whip clenched in her hands, standing over the slave, gasping for breath, she stopped.
"Do you beg to be whipped?" she asked.
"No, Mistress!" wept the girl on her belly at the ring.
"Beg!" cried the Lady Florence.
"I beg to be whipped, Mistress," she wept.
"Very well," cried the Lady Florence, and then, again, she struck at the girl. Then, after a few blows, five blows, she stepped back, and threw aside the whip. The girl lay at her feet, sobbing, shuddering, her hands white on the ring, her back richly striped with the blows of the whip. The Mistress returned to her place, exhausted. The Lady Flo
rence was not strong. She had only a woman's strength.
I observed the back of the girl. It was red, and covered with an intricate pattern of deeper reds, as stripes, but it was not bleeding, nor was it cut. The Gorean slave whip is made to punish a girl, and terribly, but it is not made to permanently mark or scar her. A girl with a scarred back brings a lower price in the markets. Melpomene sobbed in pain and disbelief at the ring. She had not known what it could be to be beaten. I had no doubt she would now be docile, helpless and obedient, a true slave girl. Yet I could not help smiling to myself. I wondered what would have been her reaction had she been beaten not by a mere woman, but by a man, with a man's strength.
"On your knees, Melpomene," snapped the Lady Florence.
"Yes, Mistress," wept the girl.
"Feed and water the slave," said the Lady Florence to Bonnie.
"Yes, Mistress," said Bonnie. She brought forth a pan of crusts and one of water, which she placed before Melpomene, on the floor.
"You see what an indulgent Mistress I am, Melpomene," said the Lady Florence. "I permit a slave to eat before our supper is finished."
"Yes, Mistress," whispered Melpomene.
"From whom do you receive your food and water?" inquired the Lady Florence.
"From you, Mistress," said Melpomene. The chain dangled from her collar, down, between her thighs, to the ring.
"Eat," said the Lady Florence.
"Yes, Mistress," said Melpomene. She reached for one of the crusts.
"Melpomene!" said the Lady Florence.
"Mistress?" asked the girl, frightened.
"Do not use your hands," she said.
"Yes, Mistress," said the girl. She then bent forward and, the palms of her hands on the tiles, began to eat from the pan. Too, as she ate, she lapped at the water.
"Pamela, Bonnie," called the Lady Florence, "we are now ready for the second course of our supper."
"Yes, Mistress," they said, and hurried to fetch the second course.
"It is a small dish," said the Lady Florence, "the white meat of roast vulos, prepared in a sauce of spiced Sa-Tarna and Ta wine."
The guests expressed a murmur of pleasure and anticipation. "It will be wonderful," said the Lady Leta.
The Lady Florence turned to the musicians, who were sitting to one side. "You may play," she said.