"Will no one protect a free woman?" she inquired.
The handsome interlocutor, at this point, seemed for a moment undecided. He might even have been considering the wisdom, all things considered, of hastening forward. I said to him, rudely, I fear, considering his indubitable fame and talent, controversial though the latter might be, "Kneel!"
Immediately he did so.
"Oh!" said the woman in dismay, seeing the handsome fellow put to his knees.
The two fellows with the handsome fellow, both free men, started forward a little at this point, but I threw them a welcoming, menacing glance, and they, looking to one another, decided to remain in the background. After all, on what grounds should they object to a legitimate command issued by a free person to one who, after all, was but a slave?
"Attack him!" said the woman to the free men with her.
"He is armed!" said the fellow I had met earlier.
Actually I was not armed today, as I was not in uniform, not wearing, that is, the armband of the auxiliary guardsman, and I did not want to be stopped by guardsmen, line or auxiliary, as being in possible violation of the injunction against unauthorized weapons in the city, that injunction which placed a populace at the mercy of anyone armed. When I had reached to my tunic earlier, of course, I had merely meant to convey the suggestion to the fellow that I had a concealed weapon there. This suggestion he, a bright fellow, had been quick to accept. To be sure, had I been really armed, I would not have cared to be he, calling the bluff.
"Be off!" cried the woman. "Or I shall set my bearers on you!"
"You would set your slaves on a free man in the streets?" I asked.
Her eyes flashed.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"That is none of your business!" she cried.
"It will surely be of interest to guardsmen," I said.
"Go away!" she said.
"They will wish to ascertain what person ordered slaves to attack a free man, an innocent fellow merely engaged in reporting a misdemeanor."
"Begone!" she cried.
"Besides," I said, "if I disembowel a couple of these fellows, how will you get home? I do not think that you would care to walk through the streets, perhaps soiling your slippers." The slippers were well worked, colorful and intricate with exquisite embroideries. Slave girls, on the other hand, commonly walk the streets barefoot, sometimes with something on an ankle, usually the left, a few loops of cord, an anklet, bangles, a tiny chain, such things.
"Also," I said, "what were you doing here, accosting a male slave?"
"Oh!" she cried, in anger.
"Do you not think guardsmen will be interested in that?" I asked.
"Beast!" she said.
"But then perhaps you are a slave girl," I said.
"Beast!" she said.
"Are you branded?" I asked.
"No!" she said.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Sleen! Sleen!" she said.
"Then I gather you are not branded," I said.
"No," she said. "I am not branded!"
"I see," I said. "Then you are an unbranded slave girl."
"Sleen!" she wept.
"There are doubtless many of those," I said.
"Sleen! Sleen!" she cried.
I reached to her veil, and tore it away, face-stripping her. She seized the veil in my hands but, as I held it, she could do nothing with it. Indeed, she could not, as she held the veil, even draw her hood more closely about her features. She looked at me in disbelief, in astonishment, in fury. Her features, though distorted by rage, were of interest. They were well formed, and exquisite. "You are very pretty, slave girl," I said.
She released the veil, cried out with misery, turned about in the palanquin, and threw herself down in it, covering her face with her hands, hiding it from me. Her head was now toward the foot of the palanquin, and her knees were drawn up. This well displayed her curves to me, even beneath the robes of concealment. "You apparently have an excellent figure," I said to her. "It would be interesting to see how it might look in a bit of slave silk."
"Take me home! Take me home!" she wept.
One of the free men with her, the one with whom I had earlier held converse, signaled to the bearers, and they lifted the palanquin. Soon it was on its way. He drew shut its curtains as it moved down the street. But I did not doubt but what he, too, before he drew shut the curtains, had formed some conjectures of his own on the lineaments within, and how they might appear if properly clad, in, say, a wisp of slave silk.
I glanced to the fellow kneeling there on the stones. "You may rise," I informed him.
He stood up.
"Kneel," I said to him, sharply, angrily.
Immediately, startled, he went again to his knees.
The two fellows with him started forward, but I warned them back with a look.
"Do you not know who that is?" asked one of them.
"A slave," I said. Then I turned to the slave. "Let us now try this again," I said. "You may rise."
"Yes, Master," he said. "Thank you, Master."
He then rose properly to his feet, humbly, permitted.
More than one person about gasped.
I think, as well, that this was not a familiar experience for the fellow.
The slave, of course, need not verbally respond to all such permissions, and such, but it is expected that his behavior will be in accord with the decorums of obedience.
"You may continue on your way," I said to the three of them, releasing them from the custody of my will.
"Come along," said one of the two fellows to the slave. The three of them then, together, lost little time in making their way down Aulus street. I noted that the fellow had not responded deferentially to the summons to come along, but then I did not think that that was my business. If the two fellows were disposed to treat the slave as though he might not be a slave, I did not think that that need be considered my concern. The interaction had not taken place with me, for example. Also, of course, I had upon occasion, though quite infrequently, to be sure, on this world, remarked an instance in which a slave had seemed to me at least minimally deficient in deferentiality to a master. In such instances, of course, one does not desire to usurp the prerogatives of the master, even if he is a weakling. One may always hope that he will eventually understand what must be done, and reach for the whip. Needless to say, all Gorean slave girls find themselves sooner or later, perhaps after a renaissance of manhood in the master, or a new sale, or some change of hands, kept under perfect discipline. It is the Gorean way. Only one can be master. The fellow did turn once, and look back at me, as though puzzled, and then, with the others, he continued on his way. I suspect he had not been reminded that he was a slave for a very long time. Perhaps Appanius had let that slip his mind. In my opinion, that would have been a mistake. At any rate I had seen no reason for doing so, particularly in the light of my plans. I did not think it would take them long to reach Tarn Court. Also, as I had cut short the fellow's conversation with the free woman in the palanquin, I had surely saved them a little time. I neither expected, nor wished, thanks for this, however. Briefly I recollected the free woman in the palanquin. Surely I had given her something to think about. Perhaps she was now curious as to what she might look like on a sales block, or what the nature of the bids might be.
Many women, in my view, underestimate their beauty, particularly on Earth. Some women, on the other hand, seem to have a rather exaggerated view of it. On Gor, Earth-girl slaves, brought in their chains to market, are often astonished to discover how beautiful they actually are. Interestingly, it seems to come as a revelation to them. This, I would suppose, is the result of their having imbibed, foolishly, but naturally enough from a strange environing, mechanistic, conformity-demanding culture, peculiar concepts of female beauty, promulgated largely perhaps by unusual men, which very few natural women could manifest or fulfill. Not complying, for example, with stereotypes of, say, awkward, sticklike giganticism they w
ere led to lament their own supposed inadequacies. The natural woman was led, strangely enough, to deplore herself for her lack of unnaturalness. To borrow a figure, they were led to regret that they were not tall, scrawny ducks whilst, unbeknownst to themselves, they were in actuality exciting, desirable, well-curved swans. You would think, on the other hand, that they would understand that they would not have attracted the attention of professional slavers if they were not beautiful, and not only beautiful, but, too, excruciatingly physically desirable. The slavers, after all, intend to sell them. Gorean tastes in women, you see, while surely accepting of a diversity of symmetries, tend toward the normal female, luscious, vital, sensuous, and feminine, woman as nature in thousands of generations has designed her for the comfort and pleasure of man. It is such a woman that the average Gorean wants. It is such a woman that he buys. It is such a woman that he wants to have, wary and concerned to obey, under his whip. So, many women, it seems, do not know how beautiful they actually are, before coming to Gor, and some, it seems, before coming to Gor, think they are more beautiful than they actually are. In any event, the block is a great arbiter in such matters. And economics can unsettle and dispel many illusions, both of diffidence and arrogance. To be sure, in bondage beauty blossoms. It is hard to have a prized identity, though one officially scorned, to be accepted and valued in that identity, to be dressed excitingly, to be dieted and exercised, and rested, and trained, to be sexually fulfilled, richly and profoundly, to be dominated and mastered, categorically, and such, and not be well pleased with oneself and the world. The woman finds herself in the collar. It is where she belongs, and where she desires to be.
As Lavinia was cognizant of the usual itinerary of the fellow from the theater to the house of Appanius and she had gone about to Tarn Court, on the way, and was presumably stationed there, to the east, under the bowers, I took a similar route, rapidly striding. In this fashion I would appear to be moving in the direction opposite the fellow and his two companions. I could then renew my contact with them from a distance, discreetly observing the encounter between that party and a girl seemingly in the garments of the state slave. In a few Ehn I was on Tarn Court, following the fellow and his companions. Once off Aulus, and perhaps being confident that they were not followed, they had slowed their pace. Tarn Court is a wide street, or, at least, wide for a city street on Gor. Several blocks east of Aulus, before noon, it is the location of a vegetable and fruit market. In the areas of the market, stretching almost from the north to the south side of the street, the street is shaded by a large number of vine-covered trellises, creating bowers, which provide protection for the produce and, later in the day, shade for pedestrians. Many Gorean streets, incidentally, are almost always in shade because of their narrowness and the encompassing buildings. A result of this is that one is not always clear as to the position of the sun and, accordingly, it is easy to lose one's orientation, even as to the time of day. The fact that not all Gorean streets have generally accepted or marked names can add to the confusion. To one who knows the area this presents little difficulty but to a stranger, or one unfamiliar with the area, it can be extremely confusing. Interestingly enough many Gorean municipalities intentionally resist the attempt to impose some form of rational order on this seeming chaos. This is not simply because of the Gorean's typical reverence for tradition but because it is thought to have some military advantage, as well. For example, portions of invading forces have upon several occasions, in one city or another, literally become lost in the city, with the result that they have been unable to rally, rendezvous, group and attain objectives. Cases have been reported where an enemy force has literally withdrawn from a city and some of its components have remained in the city, wandering about for a day or two, out of communication with the main forces. Needless to say, the military situation of such isolated contingents is an often unenviable one. More than one such group has been set upon and destroyed. To be sure, invaders usually supply themselves with fellows who are familiar with the city. It is illegal in many cities, incidentally, to take maps of the city out of the city. More than one fellow, too, has put himself in the quarries or on the bench of a galley for having been caught with such a map in his possession.
I was about fifty yards behind the group of three fellows, who were sauntering east on Tarn Court. For a long time I did not detect the presence of Lavinia. Then, some seventy yards or so ahead, and to the right, near a wall, before the eastern termination of the trellised area where the morning market is held, from a patchwork of lights and shadows, I picked her out. She, after entering from the south, from a side street, had apparently hurried on ahead. In this fashion she could make certain that she would not miss the group when it passed. She would also have time to prepare herself, and regain her composure. She had positioned herself on her knees, at a wall, near a slave ring. This was fully appropriate. Too, it added to the effect which her appearance must have on all males who saw her, her beauty, her collar and a slave ring. The ring was about level with her neck. To such rings, of course, a master may fasten or chain a girl while he busies himself elsewhere. I was pleased that she had had the intelligence not to act as though she had been put at the ring "bound by the master's will" because her leaving the ring might then have elicited astonishment or comment. There are many ways of putting a girl at the ring "bound by the master's will." One typical way is to stand her at the ring and have her place her right hand behind her back through the ring and grasp her left wrist. Another typical way is to kneel her at the ring and have her put her right hand through the ring, grasping her left wrist. One of the simplest and perhaps the most typical way of "binding by the master's will" is simply to have the girl grasp her left wrist with her right hand behind her back. Needless to say whatever amusement, pleasure or convenience this may afford a master it can be exquisitely frustrating to a slave to strive desperately and in terror to maintain this position while, say, being subjected to various attentions typical of the mastery. Most masters, in such a situation, would simply bind the girl, tying or braceleting her hands behind her back. In this fashion she knows her struggles will be unavailing, that she is helpless and cannot escape. She may then without fear or hesitation open herself completely to the joy of her subjugation, to the rapture of her conquest, to the bliss of her surrender.
When the party of three, the handsome fellow, and his two companions, were within a few yards of her, she rose lightly, gracefully, to her feet. They noted this movement, of course, and doubtless had observed her earlier. Certainly it is difficult for a kneeling slave, and one of such beauty, as they could now detect, even given the mixtures of light and shadow beneath the trellises, to be ignored. Their eyes met, and then she lowered her head, humbly. This contact, however, brief as it was, gave them to halt. In it she had conveyed to them that she had been waiting for them, and would approach. The two fellows with the handsome slave looked to one another. This girl who had been waiting was a state slave. Could she bear a message from someone in the Central Cylinder, say, from one of the many free women in the entourage of even the Ubara? Too, they may have remembered her from the theater, and from Aulus. Certainly the slave had bided her time discreetly. Could something sensitive be afoot? There were few about. The street was muchly deserted. The market was closed. The day was hot, even under the trellises. I lounged against a wall, several yards away, near a doorway. I did not think it would be easy to pick me out, even if one were interested in doing so, given the variegated patterns of light and shade, and the dangling vines. Too, between us, here and there, were some of the posts supporting the overhead trelliswork. The fellow said something to them. The two men immediately drew back. That interested me. It seemed that no official note was to be taken of this encounter, or, at least, that its content was to be accorded the delicacy of privity, at least in theory.
I watched the girl approach the slave.
She approached with rapid, small steps, her head down, her hands to the side, slightly extended, palms back. W
hen near him she lifted her head slightly, hardly daring to meet his eyes, and then she knelt before him, as before a master, doing obeisance onto him, her head down to the stones before his golden sandals, the palms of her hands, too, on the stones. This was not inappropriate, of course, even though both were slaves, as she was female and he male, and the obeisance thus, manifested in this instance in the persons of slaves, might be regarded simply as that of femaleness to maleness. The perfect obeisance, of course, the natural obeisance, that most in accord with nature, and most perfectly manifesting it, is that of the female slave to the free male. What surprised me about Lavinia's obeisance was that it seemed so perfectly to exemplify that of the female slave, literally that of the slave to her master, though it was performed before a male who was not only not her master, but himself a slave. That I found of interest. Did she think he owned her? Too, she did not have to perform such an obeisance in this context. It was not, for example, required by custom or prescribed by ordinance. Too, as he did not own her nor expect to encounter her he would not have had an opportunity to specify certain details of her relationship with him, for example, his preferences with respect to her manner of presenting herself before him, the nature of the rituals of deference or submission to be expected of her, and such. He was, after all, only a slave, too. Indeed, sometimes female slaves are quite cruel to male slaves, taunting or mocking them, and such. Let the female slave hope, in such a case, that she does not find herself braceleted and put to him in his cell, a whip tied about her neck. In such a case he is as master to her.
Lavinia looked up at him, tears in her eyes. He then, I think, from his reaction, clearly recognized her, well recollecting her from the capture room in the Metellan district, as one who was once a free female, whom he, as a seduction slave, had entrapped for his master, Appanius. He seemed stunned. I did not know if this were merely his surprise at seeing her here, again, from so long ago, so unexpectedly, she now in her collar, or if the startled response to her might be more the result of recognizing the incredible transformation which had taken place in her, that the mere free woman he had entrapped had now become, in her bondage, so astoundingly fascinating and beautiful. Perhaps it was both. Lavinia then, seemingly overcome, trembling, put herself to her belly before him, her lips and hair over his sandals, and beggingly, timidly, as though she feared she might be struck or kicked, began to kiss and lick his feet. I myself, I am sure, was little less startled than the fellow to whom these attentions were addressed. I had expected Lavinia to kneel before him and give him the message, little more. Indeed, I was not certain that she would have been permitted to do even this. I had thought it possible that she might be kicked back or cuffed away from him, if not by him, then by the fellows with him. She was, after all, a slave. If this sort of thing occurred, I would not be likely to interfere, of course, for that might reveal, or suggest, my connection with her, a relationship which I was eager, at this point, to conceal. I did not anticipate, of course, that she would be subjected to much more abuse than is natural to, or fitting for, a female slave. I was prepared, of course, to interfere if it seemed likely she might be in danger of disfigurement or serious injury. After all, she was not without value in a market, and one would not wish anything to happen to her which might lower her price.
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