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

Norman, John - Gor 23 - Renegades of Gor.txt Page 35

by Renegades of Gor [lit]

  male, her joy in fulfilling her biological role, her joy in obedience,

  submission and love, her elation in knowing herself owned and mastered, subdued

  and conquered, a condition manifested in acts as disparate, and yet strangely

  akin, as the tying of her master’s sandals and slave writhings in the furs,

  being forced to thrash helplessly in the orgasmic ecstasies he chooses to impose

  upon her.”

  She trembled.

  “There are women who understand such things,” I said.

  “All women understand such things,” she said.

  “Perhaps,” I said. “I do not know.”

  Again she trembled.

  “But we were speaking of the former Lady Publia,” I said. “She now knows herself

  a slave, having said the words. Too, she knows that she, a slave, can be freed

  only by a master. What will she make of these things? That, I take it, is your

  question?”

  “Doubtless she would pretend she had never said the words,” she said.

  (pg.275) “That she would, in one way or another, attempt to conceal her true

  condition?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Perhaps,” I said. “But, of course, she would still, in her heart, know the

  truth, that she was a slave.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And that only a master could free her?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Surely it might be difficult to live with such a hidden truth,” I said. Perhaps

  it, irrepressible, insistent within her, might finally require some resolution.

  She must then take action. She might turn herself over to a praetor, hoping for

  mercy, as she had surrendered herself. Or perhaps she might solicit some person

  to make active claim upon her, such a claim, after certain intervals,

  superseding prior claims. Although there are various legal qualifications

  involved, which vary from city to city, effective, or active, possession is

  generally regarded as crucial from the point of view of the law, such possession

  being taken, no other claims forthcoming within a specified interval, as

  conferring legal title. This is the case with a kailla or a tarsk, and it is

  also the case with a slave. In such a case, presumably the woman would expect

  the master who has then put claim on her to free her. That would presumably be

  the point of the matter. Otherwise she could simply submit herself to him as an

  escaped or strayed slave. Thus, in this fashion, she could reveal her hidden

  truth, thereby alleviating her acute mental conflicts, and her sufferings,

  attendant upon its concealment, and by another, as she has no legal power in the

  matter herself, be restored to freedom. To be sure, there are risks involved in

  this sort of thing. For example, when she kneels before him, his slave, perhaps

  he will then simply order her to the kitchen or to his furs. No promise made to

  her has legal standing, no more than to a tarsk. In this way, she, ostensibly

  seeking her freedom, may find herself plunged instead into explicit and

  inescapable bondage, and will doubtless, too, soon find herself properly marked

  and collared, to preclude the possible repetition of any such nonsense in the

  future.

  “Yes,” whispered Lady Claudia, not taking her eyes off the small figure

  suspended on the spear, on the battlements over the gate.

  (pg.276) I looked over the wall. The towers had now stopped, aligned, some

  twenty yards or so from the wall. They would overtop it. When they advanced,

  they would do so, together.

  “You had best go now,” I said.

  “I do not want to leave you,” she said.

  “When the towers spill their troops onto the wall,” I said, “I do not thing they

  will be stopping to make slaves. Go, hide. Perhaps later, when the citadel is

  burning, when resistance is ended, when the blood lust has to some extent

  lessened, you may receive an opportunity to strip yourself for captors.”

  “What of her?” she asked, pointing to the former Lady Publia.

  “The slave?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “She is already stripped,” I said.

  “True!” she laughed.

  “You had best leave,” I said.

  “You never intended to impale her, did you?”

  “Not on the spear of execution,” I said.

  “I see,” she said.

  “Unless perhaps she might prove displeasing or in some way uncooperative.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “There are, however, many other forms of impalement quite suitable for such as

  she,” I said.

  “Doubtless!” she laughed.

  “And for you,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, “for me as well!”

  “Go,” I said. “The towers will advance at any moment.”

  “Why did you let us believe you would impale her?” she asked.

  “Surely the genuineness of her terror added to the effectiveness of our

  disguises,” I said, “as did you own authentic concern.”

  “You manipulated us as women and slaves!” she said, her eyes flashing.

  “And you are a clever woman,” I said, “biding your time here against my will.”

  “I am a free woman,” she said. “I think I shall remain here, by your side.”

  (pg.277) “Free woman or no,” I said, “I wish I had a slave whip. I would teach

  you docility and compliance quickly enough.”

  “And I would offer them to you without the whip,” she said, “—Master.”

  “Fortunate for you that you are not a slave!”

  She laughed, merrily.

  “I would you were naked at my feet, in a collar,” I said, angrily.

  “Ah,” she said, “I would that I were there, too, my master, but I fear that that

  pleasure, if pleasure it be, seeing me so, having me so, will go not to you,

  but, if luck be with me, to a Cosian.”

  “That is not unfitting,” I said. “You are a traitress. You declared for Cos. It

  seems not unfitting, then, that you should belong to a Cosian.

  She tossed her head, angrily.

  “Go,” I said.

  “I do not want to go,” she said.

  “I will not be able to protect you here,” I said, “nor, in a few moments, will

  these others.”

  “I will remain here,” she said.

  “Here you will be in the way,” I said. “You would jeopardize others, concerned

  for you.”

  She looked at me, her eyes angry.

  “Go,” I said. “You do not belong here.”

  “And do you?” she asked. “You are not of Ar’s Station. You are not even of Cos!”

  “Go,” I said. “The work of men is soon to be done in this place.”

  She knelt down before me, though she was a free woman, and lifting her veil,

  pressed her lips to my sandals.

  She then lifted her head to me, tears in her eyes. “I would that I were at your

  f
eet as a true slave, my master,” she said.

  “Go,” I said.

  Her eyes regarded me, piteously.

  “Go,” I said. “I would, if I were you,” I said, “while any of Ar’s Station are

  about, with a sword in their hand, keep my veil.”

  She nodded, frightened. She then looked once more at the former Lady Publia, now

  a roped slave, suspended on a spear, and then again at me, and then hurried from

  the wall.

  (pg.278) I then turned to look across the twenty yard or so of space between the

  somber, looming towers, aligned, and the wall of the citadel. I could see cracks

  in the wood. Through some of these I could see numerous shapes, on various

  levels. The hides hung profusely about the outsides of the towers, especially on

  the frontal surfaces, were dark with water. The ram was still pounding at the

  gate.

  The men on the wall, others coming up to join them from below, prepared to meet

  the onslaught. Groups bunched before each tower. Others scattered down the wall

  to meet the grapnel crews and the scalers, with their ladders. Weapons were

  unsheathed. Tridents were readied. Buckets of oil on the long poles were

  ignited.

  I would have thought Aemilianus, commander of the citadel, would have come to

  the wall, but I did not see the helmet with the crest of sleen hair.

  It occurred to me that I had not much business here, really. This was not my

  fight. I was no lover of Ar nor of Cos.

  The trumpets would surely sound any moment.

  The sky was calm enough, oblivious of a pending tumult beneath. The clouds would

  be indifferent to the blood that would be split beneath, dark in their racing

  shadows. What occurred here would surely be insignificant in the face of the

  universe. What small expanse of meaning was this, compared to the magnitudes of

  space? How tiny the disturbances and exertions of the afternoon must seem,

  compared to the dissolution and formation of worlds, and the turmoils wrought in

  the depths of incandescent orbs? Yet there was feeling and consciousness here

  and they, flickering it seemed in the darkness, tiny and frail, seemed to me in

  that moment to blaze in dimensions unfamiliar to the physicist, and in their own

  world and way to dwarf and mock the insensate placidities of space. Should the

  eye which opens on the awesomeness of the universe not apprehend as well the

  awesomeness of its own seeing? In man has the universe not come to

  self-consciousness, surprised that it should exist?

  Where then was Aemilianus?

  It was not my fight. I should go below. Surely in the citadel, somewhere, I

  could find other garments. My accents could not be confused with the liquid

  accents of Ar or those (pg.279) so similar, of Ar’s Station. In the ingress of

  victors I should mingle with them.

  It was not my fight.

  Where was Aemilianus?

  How dispirited seemed the defenders! How listlessly they stood! How resigned to

  their fate! What preparations did they make for the towers? Did they think they

  now faced only fellows on ladders, fellows climbing ropes, the clinging,

  climbing, creeping, shouting swarms, stinging with spears and blades, that they

  knew from a hundred trails in the past? They would be swept aside like dried

  leaves before the descendent blast of Torvaldsland. Were Cosians not to know

  their swords had been warmed and nicked in their romp?

  “Ho, fools!” I cried, striding down the walkway. “The bridges will drop and you

  will think an avalanche of iron has spilled upon you! How shall you meet it? Let

  it spill on your heads? Clever fellows! Bring poles! Bring stones! You, fetch

  grapnels and ropes. The crews to the catapults, now! Yes, to the engines! You

  men there, you can see where this tower will come, there by the stairs. Break

  away the stone there! Open a great gap! You there, bring tarn wire!”

  “Who are you?” cried a man.

  “One who holds this sword!” I said. “Do you want it in your gut?”

  “You are not Marsias!” cried another.

  “I am assuming command,” I said.

  Men looked at one another, wildly.

  “The wall cannot be held,” said a man.

  “True,” I said. “I do not lie to you. The wall cannot be held. But what will it

  cost the Cosians?”

  “Much,” said a man, grimly.

  “Those who have no stomach to stay,” I said, “let them hide themselves among the

  women and the children below.”

  “Life is precious,” said a man, “but it is not that precious.”

  Suddenly there was a blast of trumpets from the foot of the wall and the eleven

  towers, with a lurch and groan, began to creep forward.

  “Hurry!” I cried.

  “Bring stones, poles, tarn wire!” cried men.

  17 Battle: We Will Withdraw to the Landing

  (pg.280) The bridges of the tower were still raised. These bridges were each

  about eight to ten feet in width. The towers themselves, which taper on the

  sides and back for stability, but are flat on the approaching surface, to make

  it possible to come flush with the wall, at that height were about fifteen feet

  in width. They were out from the wall, back from it, some seven feet. The lower

  sills of the bridges, from whence they would swing down, clapping, thundering,

  on the crenelation, were about four or five feet above the height of the wall.

  This permits a considerable momentum to the attackers without being so steep as

  to endanger the surety of their footing. There was no accident about the height

  of the towers. A simple geometrical calculation gives the height of the wall. We

  could now hear little movement within the towers, scarcely the clink of arms.

  They were, however, crowded with men.

  “It is the waiting I do not like,” said a fellow near men.

  I lifted and lowered my sword. Men tensed along the wall. Fires were lit.

  It had taken the towers at least five Ehn to move the twenty yards or so to the

  wall.

  They were now here.

  There are many ways of meeting such devices. The most effective, but generally

  impractical, as it consumes much time and materials, is to raise the wall

  itself, building it (pg.281) higher, so that they can serve as little more than

  ladder platforms. What is more often done when time permits is to build portable

  wooden walls, some fifteen feet or so, in height, with defensive walkways and

  loopholes for missiles, which are then moved in the path of the towers. Sorties,

  the object of which is to fire the towers, are less practical than it might seem

  at first glance. Such towers are usually well defended, and are often not

  brought into play until such excursions are for most practical purposes beyond

  the resources of the defenders. Too, it is difficult to fire such objects, and

  the fires began on them by, say, small task forces are generally quickly

  extinguished.

  At a singe blast of trumpets, the eleven bridges were loosened, rattling, to the

  crenelation.

  As soon as the bridges struck down on the stone, at eleven points along the

  wal
l, from each of the somber, giant, looming, hide-hung towers, scores of men

  packed within rushed forth, spewing forth, erupting, like lave or steam and

  water breaking from the side of a cliff, racing, sprinting, descending the

  bridges, shields set, hurling themselves downward. Poles, and pikes, and stones,

  and wire, and steel and fire met them. At two of the towers great poles were

  used. One, a foot thick and twenty feet in length, managed by ten men with

  ropes, mounted at an angle of some twenty degrees on an improvised pivot of

  heaped stone, swept the bridge an instant after it struck the crenelation, then

  tumbled off, used once, to fall behind the parapet. Men, before its movement,

  were struck screaming to the ground, but others followed them, pouring over the

  wall, to plunge into coiled tarn wire, to stumble, to fall, to wade in it

  bloodied, to meet stones and steel. The second great pole was tied to two

  crosspoles and, by ten men on each crosspole, was thrust in place as soon as

  that bridge fell, and was held at an angle, like a railing, its sturdy barrier

  diverting the stream of attackers, causing many on the outside edge to be

  buffeted by their comrades to the ground below, a hazard in crossing such a

  bridge at any time under the conditions of battle. Many clung to the pole, as

  they could, and many strove to slip under it or climb over it. In the cleared

  angle of the bridge, the defenders mounted to the bridge itself an there, behind

  the barrier, and about it, (pg.282) stanched the flow of men upward, holding

  them on the planking of the bridge, between the tower and the wall.

  At two of the bridges tiles and bricks, some two feet in length and six inches

  in height and width, met the attackers, not so much to stay the force of the

  attack as litter the bridge itself, that rushing men, not suspecting them, might

  stumble and fall. And in such cases there was always the press of men from

  behind, ascending the ladders, pushing the others forward. Tarn wire here, too,

  was set to enmesh those who came over the wall. I had had the rear portions of

  the two catapults propped up, that the angle of fire could be flattened. This,

  given the height of the openings, revealed by the dropped bridges, made it

  possible to fire at point-blank range, the shovel of one catapult containing a

  thousand bits of rock and metal, the shovel of the other a large boulder,

 

‹ Prev Next ›