Norman, John - Gor 23 - Renegades of Gor.txt

by Renegades of Gor [lit]

surprise, partly with sensation.

  I chuckled. Her legs looked well, split, squirming, over the glossy saddle.

  “Monster!” she wept, her head back.

  Her hands jerked, the fingers moving. She could not reach me. I heard the small

  sounds of the links, jerking taut, then relaxing, then jerking taut again,

  joining the bracelets.

  “Perhaps you are now more in the mood?” I asked.

  “Do not stop!” she begged.

  “And what shall you call me?” I wondered.

  “Oh,” she moaned. “Ohhh!”

  “Surely you are curious to know what you should call me,” I speculated.

  “Yes!” she cried. “Yes! Yes! What shall I call you? Oh! Oh!”

  “You may call me ‘master,’” I said.

  (pg.147) “Yes, Master!” she cried.

  I then held her still, trying to calm her for a time.

  “I called you Master!” she cried. “Am I yet legally free?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but I think it will be well for you to accustom yourself to

  calling free men Master.”

  “Yes!” she said.

  I decided that I would not yet grant her the collar, ripe for it though she

  might be. She was a free woman. I would make her wait longer, in frustration,

  for it.

  “Please touch me again,” she begged.

  “You liked it?” I asked.

  “I have now felt it,” she said. “I now desperately need it.”

  “Even to the surrender of all you are, and have been?” I asked.

  “You have tried out your tarn,” she said. “Now, try me out!”

  I regarded her. I thought she would look well, naked, tied absolutely

  helplessly, on her back or belly, over the saddle of the tarn.

  “Master?” she asked.

  It was a fitting tie for such as she.

  “Perhaps later,” I said.

  I then folded my cloak about her, to protect her from the wind.

  We continued northward.

  9 The Camp of Cos

  (pg.148) “Who is it?” she asked, kneeling in the darkness of the tiny tent, the

  large sack covering most of her body.

  “It is I,” I said, reassuring her.

  I crouched beside her and unfastened the drawstrings of the sack which I had

  tied under her body and about her thighs, to hold it on her. I then pulled it

  from her and unbraceleted her hands from behind her back.

  “Were you successful?” she asked, shaking her head, loosening her hair.

  “Cook,” I said.

  I then sat, cross-legged, in the tiny tent. We were just within the fringes of

  the Cosian camp. There were, in this vicinity, clouds of tiny tents and

  shelters,’ some of them belonging to soldiers, most to civilians, sutlers,

  merchants, slavers, and such. The nearest investment trench was a half pasang

  away. One could see the walls of Ar’s Station from where we were. The girl

  busied herself, preparing food. It seemed peaceful here. It was difficult to

  believe that fighting took place daily in the vicinity of the walls, indeed,

  sometimes at night.

  “There is little but porridge,” she said.

  I nodded.

  There would be even less, I supposed, in most homes in Ar’s Station.

  “Have you heard anything?” she asked. She was putting (pg.149) twigs and leaves

  in a small pit outside the entrance of the tent.

  “It is said the city will soon fall,” I said.

  “The defenses cannot be long maintained?” she asked.

  “It is thought not,” I said.

  “You wish to gain entrance to the city,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I have business there,” I said.

  “Your accent is not of Ar,” she said.

  “I would hope not, in this camp,” I smiled.

  She used a tiny fire maker and set fire to the leaves and twigs. She blew on the

  small flame, encouraging it.

  We could smell cooking fires about. It was near dusk.

  “Your plans have not proceeded as you hoped?” she asked.

  “I do not complain,” I said. “Things might have proceeded better than they have,

  but they have gone much as I expected they would.

  She added sticks to the small flame.

  The first portion of my plan had been to reach Ar’s Station as swiftly as

  possible, which meant, in effect, to do so on tarnback, and in such a way as to

  gain immunity from the attentions of Cosian tarn patrols. That I had managed.

  The patrols, which were thick in the vicinity, given my habiliments and

  accouterments, and my brandished pouch, presumably a diplomatic one, had taken

  me for a courier. Also, although I had not planned it, the presence of the

  blindfolded, braceleted girl before me, apparently a capture, presumably picked

  up enroute, and doubtless soon to be collared, added to the effect. The ears of

  the delicate Phoebe must have burned as she heard the snapping of wings near us

  and the shouting of ribald, raucous jests, of which her beauty and its probably

  disposition were the subject. At times I had even received an escort, which

  happily, at their patrol limits, had been suspended.

  I had hoped, of course, somehow, ideally, to be able to enter Ar’s Station on

  tarnback. As I had feared, however, this had not been possible. Even my garb as

  a courier had not permitted me access to the airspace over Ar’s Station. I had

  (pg.150) been immediately pursued and fired upon by flights of Cosian tarnsmen.

  I had made the attempt in the afternoon and again in the evening of the first

  day I had arrived in the vicinity of Ar’s Station. Had it not been for the

  strength of the bird and my start I might have been downed over the city. I had

  escaped the second time only with considerable difficulty, by taking my way over

  the citadel and harbor, past the chained rafts closing the harbor, and across

  the Vosk itself, eluding my pursuers only after a long run, under the cover of

  darkness.

  In these attempts I had, of course, not taken Phoebe. I had no wish to risk a

  quarrel’s penetrating that beauty, which properly refined and improved, would,

  in my opinion, not have shamed even the central block of the Curulean. Too, her

  weight, slight as it was, might have made the difference between falling to

  pursuers and eluding them.

  I had, accordingly, before these excursions, sat her down, closely, before a

  small tree, her legs on either side of it. I had then tied a rope on her left

  ankle, looped the rope about another tree, a yard or so away, and brought it

  back, to tie about her right ankle. I did this is such a way, adjusting the

  length of the rope, that though her legs were forced to be rather extended, they

  were also permitted to flex enough for comfort. I then pushed her belly against

  the bark and braceleted her arms about the tree. The extension of her legs, of

  course, was such that she could not reach the ropes on her ankles with her

  braceleted hands. It also, of course, made it impossible for her to rise to her


  feet. I had sat her down there, and she would remain there, sitting, and as I

  had placed her. The location of the tree was close enough to the road that she

  might, if I had not returned by morning, call out, attracting attention to

  herself, thus saving herself, even if, at the same time, making it almost

  certain that soon thereafter her thigh would know the fiery kiss of slave iron,

  and her neck the clasp of a master’s collar.

  She built up the fire.

  I watched her.

  She unfolded and adjusted a single-bar cooking rack, placing it over the fire.

  From this she suspended a kettle of water. The single bar, which may be loosened

  in its rings, and has a handle, may also function as a spit.

  (pg.151) “And what did you do today?” I asked.

  “I knelt in a body hood,” she said.

  “It was only a sack,” I said.

  “It served,” she said.

  The sack I had drawn over her was an improvised body hood. There are several

  varieties of body hoods on Gor, which is not surprising in a society in which

  slavery, and particularly female slavery, is an essential ingredient. Most body

  hoods are made of leather or layers of stout canvas. I have seen at least one in

  which two layers of canvas were sewn about a lining of linked chain. They may be

  fastened by means of such devices as cords, straps and laces. They may be tied

  shut or locked shut.

  The prisoner is entered into some body hoods from the back, her legs being

  placed through openings in the lower portion of the hood, the hood then being

  pulled up and, from the back, lacked shut. Most of these hoods do not have

  openings for the arms, but some do. In most hoods the arms are confined within

  the hood, either free within the hood itself or bound or braceleted within it.

  Some hoods are open at the bottom, and fastened on the prisoner by means of

  thongs or straps, often looped about the thighs. Others are constructed in such

  a way that they may be opened at the bottom, for the master’s convenience.

  Sometimes the hood is thrust up and fastened about the prisoner’s waist.

  The typical hood provides hand and arm security with the advantages of the

  blindfold. Most body hoods, unlike many common slave hoods, do not have

  provisions for an internal gag. The prisoner, of course, may be gagged before

  being hooded. The body hood, like the slave hood, tends to keep a female docile.

  This may be a particular advantage early in her training, when she may not yet

  fully understand her new nature and its meaning. Another advantage of the body

  hood is that it is intriguing and attractive on a woman, baring her legs but

  usually, unless the arms are also intriguingly bared, concealing the rest of

  her, this sort of thing exciting male interest, and yet in virtue of the

  predominant concealment afforded, making her seizure less likely than if she

  lying about more exposed in common hoods.

  Slavers, in moving their wares through the streets, sometimes place them in body

  hoods. To be sure, it is more (pg.152) common to throw a cloak or sheet, which

  might be of various lengths, over their heads, this usually being fastened on

  them by means of a cord or strap looped once or twice about the neck and

  fastened under the chin. In many cities free women object to the marching of

  naked slaves through the streets. Still, even though the girls may be covered

  with cloaks or sheets, the men will usually come to watch, and call out to them,

  and jeer, and such. It is understood, of course, that the girls, beneath those

  cloaks or sheets, are slave naked. It is sometimes very trying, though also

  perhaps very instructive, for a new slave, perhaps a woman of a conquered city,

  to be marched thusly through the streets, stung with pebbles, pinched and

  slapped, subjected to the most intimate forms of raillery, jocosity and abuse.

  “Do you object?” I asked.

  “No,” she said, suddenly, quickly. Then she put herself on her belly, on the

  dirt floor of the small tent, before me. She lifted her head, looking up at me.

  “When,” she asked, “may I use the word ‘Master’ truly to you, in all honesty?”

  “But you are a free woman,” I said to her.

  “I beg the collar!” she said.

  “Is that not an unusual request for a free woman?” I asked.

  “My freedom is now a mockery,” she said. “After what you have done to me these

  past two nights, how could I even thing of being free? Do you think that that

  delusion can be meaningful to me any longer?”

  “You have then learned something about yourself?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I have learned that I should be branded, that I should be in a

  collar!”

  I smiled.

  “Do not frustrate me,” she begged. “Let me be what I truly am, in all honesty!”

  “The porridge water should be salted,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, and crawled to the front of the tent.

  “Salt it lightly,” I said. She was learning to serve.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  The days I had spent here had not been fruitless. I had muchly reconnoitered. I

  had thought that perhaps I might (pg.153) have been able to ascend the walls of

  Ar’s Station on one of the scaling ladders, in a morning attack, but I had soon

  thought the better of it. Resistance was still such that few Cosians could reach

  the parapets, and those who did were usually driven back. Whereas I supposed it

  was possible that I might enter the city in this way this modality of ingress

  seemed dubious at best. It was difficult to see how my projects would be

  furthered if, while attempting to identify myself and explain my mission, I were

  to be cut open with a boat hook. Similarly I was not interested, in the midst of

  friendly overtures, in receiving a bucket of flaming oil in the face or, say,

  being struck from a ladder by a roofing tile brought from the interior of the

  city. I had also considered trying to enter the city through its main gate, in

  the confusion, when it opened for sorties by the defenders. There had been no

  sorties, however, for twenty days. That in itself was an index of the straits of

  the defenders, their will and numbers. Also, it did not seem to me practical to

  try and enter the city during the daylight hours from the harbor side because of

  the besiegers. Similarly, during the night hours, it seemed the defenders might

  be unusually alert.

  I did not, of course, know any appropriate signs and countersigns. One might

  well be set upon as soon as one tried to haul oneself unto a wharf. Indeed, they

  probably patrolled the pilings and such in small boats. An additional problem,

  at least to a swimmer, I had gathered, from talking with some of the soldiers,

  were Vosk eels. These often lurk in shadowed areas, among the pilings beneath

  piers. Whereas they normally feed on garbage and small fish it is not unknown

  that they attack swimmers. In the last few weeks, too, given the fighting at the

  rafts, and in the harbor, predictably, river sharks, usually much farther to the

  west, had made their
appearance.

  My second plan, or the second portion of my plan, involved the women from the

  Crooked Tarn. Late this afternoon, as I had expected, they, in the keeping of

  the sutler, Ephialtes, had arrived. I had made contact with him away from his

  wagon and I had had him blindfold the women, with the exception of Liadne, the

  first girl, and the only slave among them, before I inspected them. Liadne, who

  was delighted with her name, showed them off to me, proudly. (pg.154) She had

  done a good job with them, in only three days. The free women knelt very

  straight, their bellies sucked in, their shoulders back, their breasts thrust

  forward. Too, they knelt back on their heels, their knees spread, as those of

  slaves. They were all there, Lady Temione, Lady Amina, the Vennan, Lady Elene,

  from Tyros, and Ladies Klio, Rimice and Liomache, all from Cos. All of them had,

  or had desired, to exploit men. now they knelt before me, not knowing who it was

  before whom they knelt. I regarded them. Once they had been haughty, proud free

  women. They now knelt within the fringes of a military camp, frightened,

  confused, chained, blindfolded, shave-headed prisoners. They did not know in

  whose power they were, or what their fate might be. I had plans for them, or

  some of them. They, or some of them, would learn soon enough what these might

  be.

  I watched Phoebe pour some meal into the boiling, salted water.

  Temione and Klio had had marks on their bodies. Perhaps they had dared to be

  initially recalcitrant, at least to some small degree. Perhaps, incredibly

  enough, they had even had some reservations, free women, to being handled and

  treated as slaves, being stripped, and chained behind a wagon, for example, or

  to having to obey promptly and perfectly the orders of a slave, Liadne, who had

  been put over them, as first girl, kneeling before her, addressing her as

  Mistress, and such. Perhaps, free women, they had dared, at least initially to

  think that they might be above such things. They had learned differently. Too,

  their treatment might, in some trivial ways, perhaps smooth, or make a bit less

  traumatic, the transition to bondage, which was a likely, as well as suitable,

  disposition for them. To be sure, there is probably no fully adequate way for

  one to anticipate, or prepare for, psychologically, the actual transition to

  bondage, even if one eagerly seeks it, even if one welcomes it joyously, for