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

  “Of course,” I said.

  (pg.204) “And so I went again to the wall, as I had so many times,” she said.

  “This time the papers hidden in my basket pertained to the defenses at the great

  gate, the posting of guardsmen, the arrangement of their watches, and such. I

  put the basket over the wall, through the same crenel, and had begun to lower

  it. I had even feigned some weakness on the parapet, stumbling a little, as

  though I might be faint with hunger. I thought that I had acted skillfully. My

  attention was on the rope and basket. Then I felt the loops of a rope put about

  my neck, closely, tightly, and I was drawn backward. “Do not make a noise,” said

  a voice. But I could not have made a noise, had I wished, so tight was the rope.

  I had made a noise, had I wished, so tight was the rope. I had wanted to drop

  the basket but I had had no opportunity to do so. There were three men. as one

  man had put his rope on me, making me his prisoner, another had taken the rope

  from my hands. A third, standing back, had a dark lantern. I had not even heard

  them approach. It took them only a moment, in the unshuttering of the dark

  lantern, to rifle beneath the cloth and money in the basket and find the papers.

  Their nature was immediately determined. I was immediately stripped. The rope

  which had made me its prisoner was then fastened on my neck as a tether. My

  clothing was put in the basket and lowered. I gathered that the nature of its

  message would not be lost on him, or those, below. The rope was then drawn up

  again and removed from the basket. My arms were then bound tightly to my sides

  with it, in what seemed a hundred coils. It is hard for me to make clear to you

  how helpless I felt. I was then drawn to my home, where my money and jewels were

  found, notes on my next reports and the letter of safety, with the

  acknowledgment of services. I was then conducted as I was, bound and naked, on a

  tether, before Aemilianus. I was knelt before him so. The evidence pertinent to

  my case, both from the parapet and from my home, was presented before him. That

  very night, I was put in this cell, as I am.

  “And you now await the pleasure of those whom you betrayed,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. In her voice there was terror.

  I heard a sound behind the door, the placing of a pan on a stone.

  “And what is your story?’ she asked.

  (pg.205) “I am a courier of Gnieus Lelius, Regent of Ar,” I said, “mistaken for

  a spy.” I was sure that there was significant treachery in Ar, and in high

  places. The regent’s message, I was sure, had been removed from, or had never

  been inserted in, the letter cylinder. A substitution had been made, doubtless,

  of the contents of the cylinder or cylinders themselves. I had not, of course,

  seen the regent place the message in the cylinder and seal it. There would be

  nothing unusual in that, of course, for it is not permitted that couriers be

  present at such times. Seldom are they privy to the councils of state. Normally

  they simply receive the sealed letter or closed cylinder, or such, from a

  subordinate, later, and are on their cylinder, or such, from a subordinate,

  later, and are on their way.

  “No! she said. “You are lying! You are trying to save yourself! You, too, are a

  spy!”

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  The observation panel in the door slid back. Lady Claudia quickly hurried

  forward, to kneel a few feet before the door, back from it, thusly, but in easy

  view from the panel. “Kneel beside me,” she whispered, tensely. “We are fed but

  once a day!” I saw no one in the observation panel. I remained sitting, as I

  was. “Kneel beside me,” begged Lady Claudia. I then heard something like a stool

  or platform scrape on the stones outside the door. A moment later I saw a small

  head rise up behind the panel, that of a child or woman. I could see little, but

  it seemed to be a delicate head, covered closely with a white, scarflike turban,

  and I saw deep eyes, and a bit of veil, over the bridge of a fine, delicate

  nose.

  “I se, Lady Claudia,” said a woman’s voice, from behind the door, amused, “that

  you will not be so lonely now.”

  “Glory to Ar!” cried Lady Claudia, frightened. Then she turned to me. “Kneel

  beside me,” she begged, “or we will not be fed!”

  I knelt beside her, and the woman behind the door laughed. Then she snarled,

  “Spies!” I did not think I could get my hand through the panel, as it was

  narrow. “Glory to Ar,” said the woman behind the door.

  “Glory to Ar! Glory to Ar! Glory to Ar!” cried Lady Claudia. Then she turned,

  distraught to me. I had been silent. “Please!” she begged.

  “Glory to Ar,” I said, three times.

  (pg.206) The woman behind the door laughed.

  I wished I had a way to get my hands on her. Her small, turbaned, veiled head

  then disappeared from behind the opened panel and, a bit later, the low panel

  slid back and a pan of water was slide partway beneath the door. Lady Claudia

  went to it and took it back to the right, where she emptied it in a small,

  shallow cistern in the cell. She then slid it back under the door, and returned

  to kneel where she had been before. It did not seem probably I could get my hand

  well through the low portal, to seize an ankle or wrist. It was worth

  considering, of course. A male warder, taller, could see through the observation

  panel, and determine that we were kneeling in our proper places, at the same

  time that he might shove pans beneath the door with his foot. The woman would,

  however, would not be tall enough for that.

  Her head again appeared behind the panel.

  “Food pan forward,” she said.

  Lady Claudia immediately fetched a shallow pan from the side and put it about

  five feet in front of where she now again knelt. I gathered she had been well

  trained in these feeding procedures. Presumably to have put the pan forward

  earlier, before receiving the order, or permission, would have been regarded as

  presumptuous, and perhaps have resulted in its remaining empty for the day.

  “You are pretty, naked, Lady Claudia,” said the voice.

  Lady Claudia choked back a sob.

  “Glory to Ar!” said the voice behind the door, sternly.

  “Glory to Ar!” cried Lady Claudia, three times. I repeated this formula, as

  well, three times.

  The head then disappeared again from the panel. At the same there was a tiny

  scrape, as of wood on stone, probably from a platform on which she had stood.

  There was then silence, no sound of pans, or such. I quickly, to the

  consternation of Lady Claudia, moved to the observation panel and looked through

  it. I saw the warder going down the corridor. She was barefoot, and wore tatters

  which barely covered her calves. These tatters appeared to be the remains of

  what had perhaps once been a double dress, now shortened. The hems of both the

  inner and outer skirt, doubtless in their shortenings, had been deeply serrated,

  each in a
series of some seven or eight large, triangular points. These points

  were alternated (pg.207) in such a way that those of the inner skirt appeared

  between those of the outer skirt. Thus, though the general appearance of the

  garment suggested rags, they were, in their way, contrived rags. In a way,

  though she perhaps did not understand this, they invited a man to their removal.

  Perhaps it was her hope that if the city fell such a garment might save her

  life, sparing her for the collar. The white, scarflike turban on her head, I

  supposed, was a vanity, to conceal shortly cropped hair. The veil, of course,

  was appropriate for a free female. I observed her calves, her bare feet, the

  cleverly contrived rags she wore. Perhaps she had already rehearsed how she

  would surrender herself to a man. If the time came, I was sure, stern warder

  though she might pretend to be, she would submit herself quickly enough and

  appropriately enough, ending her farce, accepting nudity and a collar, to a

  master. She bent down and picked up a bucket, and, before she turned back, I

  left the observation panel and returned to my place.

  “Do not leave your kneeling position at such a time,” begged Lady Claudia, tears

  in her eyes.

  The head appeared behind the observation panel and found us in our places. As

  soon as it left the panel this time I bent down to see if it might be possible

  to seize her somehow from under the door. But, to my irritation, a pan, into

  which had been ladled some meal and a piece of bread was thrust beneath the door

  with a rod. Lady Claudia rushed to the pan and placed the meal and bread in the

  cell’s food pan some five feet in front of her and then replaced the delivery

  pan half under the door. It was pulled back with the rod. The warder, given that

  she was a female, had been well taught suitable alterations in the common

  routines of warders. Doubtless, too, somewhere there were men about, to back her

  up, if need be. I was angry. I then straightened up in time to be in place when

  she looked through the panel again. The use of the two pans is not primarily for

  security as one pan could be used, or an exchange of pans, provided suitable

  distances between the prisoners and the warders are maintained, but rather to

  keep pans localized to given cells. This helps to prevent the spread of

  infections and makes each cell responsible for its own hygiene.

  “Please give us more to eat!” cried Lady Claudia.

  “You are too fat now,” said the warder.

  (pg.208) “Please!” begged Lady Claudia.

  :Lady Claudia, in my opinion, was certainly not fat. On the other hand, it was

  probably true that she had been better fed than most in Ar’s Station, at least

  prior to her incarceration in the cell, given her former hoarding and the

  additional food she had obtained at the wall, in the basket.

  “Are you afraid your pretty complexion will suffer?” asked the warder.

  “Please!” said the Lady Claudia. “Please!”

  The panel slid shut.

  “The she-sleen!” cried Lady Claudia. “How I hate her!” she clenched her fists.

  “I hate her! I hate her!” she said. She pounded her fists on the stone, the

  blows softened by the intervening straw. Then she looked dismally, angrily, at

  the bit of meal and the crust of bread in the pan. “Surely it is their intent to

  starve me!”

  “Us?” I asked.

  “Yes, us,” she said.

  “You are probably being fed as well as most in Ar’s Station,” I said. The men on

  the walls, hopefully, would receive more. Yet those I had met had seemed half

  starved. “Too,” I said, “it is not unlike the rations given to new slave girls

  in their training period, when they are being taught their dependence on me for

  their food.”

  She made an angry noise and stood up. She made as though to move to the pan, but

  stopped short. “Oh!” she said. My hand had closed about her ankle.

  “Get on your belly,” I told her.

  “What are you doing?” she exclaimed, angrily. She could not advance toward the

  food.

  “Now,” I said.

  Angrily she went to her belly and I drew her back a foot or two by the ankle.

  She put out her hands but could not reach the food. I then got up and went to

  the pan. I picked it up and took it back, toward the back of the cell, where I

  sat down, cross-legged, the pan before me. She turned about, not daring to leave

  her belly, to look at me.

  “You may approach,” I told her. “But do not come close enough to touch the

  food.”

  She squirmed forward, desperately.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked.

  (pg.209) “Yes!” she said.

  “Would you like to eat?” I asked.

  “Yes!” she said.

  “Perform,” I said.

  “No!” she cried. “I am a free woman!”

  “Very well,” I said. I paid her no more attention. I fingered some of the meal

  into my mouth. It was in a glutinous, semisolid glob. It was neither sugared nor

  salted.

  “Please!” she cried. She had not risen from her belly.

  “Do you think you are still alone in the cell?” I asked.

  “Please!” she begged.

  I fingered more of the meal, a good two fingersful, into my mouth.

  “I will perform!” she said.

  “Stand up,” I said, “back a bit, where I may see you.” I put the pan to one

  side, on the straw, on the stone, and looked at her. She was not a woman of

  Earth. A woman of Earth, if not beaten, and swiftly forced to learn her

  womanhood, would doubtless have held out for a time, confident that Gorean men,

  like those to whom she had become accustomed on her native planet, would prove

  to be weak, that they would yield to her. They learn, soon enough, however, that

  the average Gorean male simply does not share the conditioned political

  conceptions of the female, which in so many cases have succeeded in crippling,

  weakening and demasculizing the men of Earth. She finds that she is viewed

  rather in the context of biology and nature. She quickly learns, too, that where

  women are concerned, and thus where she is concerned, the average Gorean male

  has a will of iron. She also quickly learns that he has, personally and

  culturally, the power to enforce this will.

  “Stand straight,” I said, “the palms of your hands on the sides of your legs.”

  She did so.

  The spy was lovely, though there was a kind of hardness, and nastiness, about

  her.

  “Perform,” I said.

  “For such performances,” I said, it is hard to believe that the guards would

  have fed you.”

  She looked at me, angrily.

  (pg. 210) “Now,” I said, “perform for me, as you did for them.”

  “Not bad,” I said, fingering more of the meal into my mouth. I was, after all,

  hungry, too. I had not eaten since early morning, at the small tent I had shared

  with Phoebe.
To be sure, Lady Claudia would not have had anything since noon,

  the day before.

  “Please!” she said.

  “But I,” I said, “am more demanding than the guards. Do you understand?” I put

  more meal into my mouth.

  “Yes!” she said. She then began, again to try to please me, this time even more

  desperately. She did not do badly. Then, after a time, I helped her, giving her

  detailed instructions, putting her, here and there, and about the cell, through

  detailed woman paces. Then she lay on her belly before me, gasping, covered with

  sweat. I motioned that she should kneel near me, and I placed her hands on her

  thighs. I rubbed my hand on her head. The short-cropped hair was wet with sweat.

  I then, having her lean forward, eagerly. Sometimes I made her stretch, holding

  the food just a little out of her reach. Sometimes I had her lick and suck my

  fingers, too, which she did eagerly enough, that none of the meal would be lost.

  Then we had finished the bit of meal and bread between us. She knelt back,

  regarding me reproachfully.

  “Stand,” I said, “back a bit, where I can see you, straightly, with your hands

  on the sides of your legs, as you did before.”

  I then rose up and went to her, and looked at her, walking about her. Then I

  stood again before her.

  I put my hands on her upper arms. “Look at me,” I said. She lifted her head.

  “You are hard, and petty, and nasty,” I said.

  She looked up at me, angrily.

  “But you are pretty,” I said.

  She did not respond.

  “Yes,” I said. “You will do.”

  “Do?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I do not understand,” she said.

  “Do not tire me,” I said. I then flung her back, behind where we had stood, to

  the straw, and put her to my purposes.

  13 Food

  (pg.211) “My hair,” she said, “is grown our more now.”

  “Yes,” I said, rubbing the brush of it near my thigh, where her head rested.

  “I want my hair to grow out,” she said.

  I did not respond.

  Chloe looked up at me, from where she lay, beside my thigh. “You have made me

  soft, and female,” she said. “You would have it so, and have had it so. Now I