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

by Renegades of Gor [lit]

  “It is hard to suppose that you would not be pleased to see them dancing before

  you, in the beads and chains of slaves.”

  “It is on less pleasant things that my thoughts now dwell,” he said.

  “For some,” I said, “you might give your purse, and even draw your sword, to

  take them from the auction block.”

  “I do not have such feelings now,” he said.

  “Some,” I said, “the curvy little sluts, in their collars, can make you scream

  with pleasure.”

  He was silent, looking to the east.

  “It is hard to lose ideals,” I said. “But sometimes one can purchase them back,

  by deeds, in a new form.” I recalled the delta of the Vosk, I recalled

  Torvaldsland.

  He was silent.

  “I wish you well,” I said.

  “I wish you well,” he said.

  I then went back, amidships, and gathered up a sea bag and a few articles, a

  shaving knife, and such, which I had purchased on the ship from one or another

  of the good fellows of Port Cos. Then, my blade over my shoulder, I lifted my

  hand to the deck officer and took leave of the Tais.

  I had scarcely set foot on the pier when the three girls came quickly forward,

  and knelt down.

  “Come to the Dina!” said the first. “All our girls are dinas!” She turned her

  left thigh to me and drew up her tunic, showing me the dina brand. The dina is a

  small, roselike flower. It is popularly called the “slave-flower.” The dina

  brand, or slave-flower brand, is a common one on Gor.

  “Come to the Veninium!” said the second. The veminium is a delicate,

  five-petaled blue flower common in both the northern and southern hemispheres of

  Gor. “We are not so expensive!” The use of the veninium, as a name for the

  tavern, given the widely spread range of the flower was perhaps supposed to

  suggest affordable beauty. The second and the third girls were the one who were

  bare-breasted.

  (pg.437) “My master’s tavern is the Larma!” said the third.

  I smiled. The larma is luscious. It has a rather hard shell but the shell is

  brittle and easily broken.

  Within, the fleshy endocarp, the fruit, is delicious, and very juicy. Sometimes,

  when a woman is referred to as a “larma,” it is suggested that her hard or

  frigid exterior conceals a rather different sort of interior, one likely to be

  quite delicious. Once the shell has been broken through or removed, irrevocably,

  there is, you see, exposed, soft, vulnerable, juicy and helpless, the interior,

  in the fruit, the fleshy endocarp, in the woman, the slave.

  “Are all the paga taverns in Port Cos named for flowers or fruits?’ I asked.

  “No!” laughed the first.

  “Surely there is a connection,” I said, “through ownership or tradition?”

  “Many towns have a tavern of dinas, Master,” said the first.

  “That is true,” I granted her.

  “’Veminium’ is a pretty name,” said the second.

  “True,” I said. “Incidentally, what is the point of the name? Is it to suggest

  that the girls there, like the veminia, are cheap and pretty?”

  The second girl, she from the Veminium, gasped, suddenly, laughing, putting her

  hand before her Mouth. “I do not know!” she said, looking at the others,

  scandalized, laughing. “I never thought of it! Perhaps, Master!”

  “And are all the girls there cheap and pretty?” I asked.

  “I think we are pretty,” she laughed. “I do not know if we are so cheap.”

  I smiled. I had wondered if perhaps the name had not been chosen more to lure

  fellows inward, than to supply an objective assessment of the commercial

  competitiveness of the contained services and merchandise.

  “There are many paga taverns in Port Cos, Master,” said the first. “Not all are

  named for flowers or fruits. There is the Cage, the Jewels of Telnus,

  Artemidorus’ Cargo, the Secret Basement, the Hold, the Scarlet Whip, the Tavern

  of the Collar of the Two Chains, and many others.”

  “I am pleased to hear it,” I said. “I take it that you are all friends.”

  “Yes, Master,” said the first.

  (pg.438) “The Veminium and the Larma are owned by brothers,” said the first.

  “They are near one another,” said the second.

  I was pleased to hear these things. The girls were friends, which suggested they

  might be from similar style and level institutions. Certainly girls from high

  taverns and from low taverns seldom consort with one another. And two of the

  places were owned by brothers and were near one another. These were connections,

  at least of some sort.

  “And what of the girls at the Larma?” I asked. “Are they expensive?”

  “We, like those at the Dina and Veminium, are affordable,” she said. “Our uses

  go much for the standard prices.”

  “Were the girls at the Larma all once larmas?” I asked.

  “I suppose some, Master,” laughed the third girl.

  “Were you a larma?” I asked her.

  “No, Master,” she laughed. “I have known that I was a slave since puberty, and I

  never pretended to be otherwise, perhaps because I feared someone might see

  through me and beat me.”

  “Of what caste were you?’ I asked.

  “Of the Peasants,” she said. “We had too many daughters, too few sons. Two of my

  older brothers had already been sold into slavery before I was fifteen. One

  autumn my father’s fields again failed. We were starving. I begged him to sell

  me. He then beat me, and bound me, and sold me.”

  “You are happy as a slave?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she said. “It is what I am, and want to be. I hope only that

  someday I may have a private master, a love master, to whom I may be his devoted

  and obedient love slave.”

  “You long,” I asked, “for a master who is strong, and love?”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  She was a pretty young thing. She had very dark hair and very light skin, and,

  for a girl who had once been of the Peasants, was surprisingly slim. She

  reminded me a little of Phoebe, from Telnus, whom I had left on the coffle with

  the remainder of the debtor sluts I had redeemed, and obtained, at the Crooked

  Tarn, Temione, Amina, Rimice and Liomache.

  “Master!” she said.

  (pg.439) I had put down the sea bag and, crouching before her, lifted back the

  beads about her body.

  “Are you typical of the girls at the Larma?” I asked her.

  “I think so, Master,” she said.

  “You are, of course, soliciting for your master’s tavern,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “But are you, yourself, rentable?” I asked.

  “Of course, Master,” she said.

  “And what of you others?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master,�
�€ said the dina.

  “Of course, Master, said the girl from the Veminium.

  “Ho, Warrior,” I said, getting up, addressing the young fellow, Marcus, who had

  only now descended the gangplank and was going to make his way up the pier,

  toward the warehouses, the shops, the town.

  He turned to regard us, and I beckoned that he should join us.

  “Line up,” I said to the kneeling slaves. “Straighten your backs, get your knees

  wider.”

  Then they were indeed presented as an excellent display of slaves.

  The young warrior looked upon them.

  “What do you think of them?” I asked. I thought they would make a nice set.”

  “They are appealing,” he said.

  His interest encouraged me. He needed a woman, and the best of such are slaves.

  “Who are you?” I asked the slaves.

  “Roxanne, of the Dina, slave of Simonides, taverner of Port Cos,” said the

  first.

  “Korinne, of the Veninium, slave of Agathocles, taverner of Port Cos,” said the

  second.

  Yakube, of the Larma, slave of Panicrates, taverner of Port Cos,” said the

  third.

  “That is a Tahari name,” said Marcus, looking at her closely. Indeed, of the

  three women it was she, the young slave from the Larma, to whom he seemed most

  drawn, in whom he seemed most interested. She was, I gathered, as I presumed

  they did not know one another, a type of woman whom he found extremely and

  excitingly attractive, a sort (pg.440) toward whom he seemed powerfully, perhaps

  almost irresistibly drawn. I was pleased to see his interest in her, as I hoped

  that she, or she and another, or she and the others, might distract him from his

  moody reflections. Slaves are excellent at relaxing a man, and giving him

  happiness. But something in his tone of voice had been menacing, and chilling.

  “Yes, Master,” said the girl, hesitantly. She was clearly aware of the implicit

  menace in his tone. Slave girls are extremely sensitive to such things. I could

  see that she was frightened.

  “But you are not of the Tahari, are you?’ he asked.

  “No, Master,” she said. Her coloring, of course, did not suggest that of a woman

  native to the Tahari region. Many males of the Tahari, of course, are fond of

  fair-skinned slaves, and such, shipped south and east, bring excellent prices in

  their markets. Thereafter they learn to serve their dark masters well, within

  the recesses of the cool, white buildings of the oases and cities, and out on

  the desert, in the tents. In such places they learn the wearing of the garments

  of the Tahari, and, if the master pleases, the stride-measuring ankle chains of

  the area, worn even by many free women. It is expected, too, that they will

  quickly become adept in the manifold labors of the Tahari woman, and, in

  particular, in their cases, those of the Tahari slave woman. In the latter

  respect, swiftly are the many meanings of the submission mat taught to them,

  where their slavery in their master’s house or tent begins, but is not likely to

  end. To it they may be from time to time returned.

  “Why do you have a Tahari name?” he asked.

  “It was given to me, Master,” she said.

  This sort of thing is not all that unusual. For example, last fall, after

  accepting her as a slave, I had named the former Lady Charlotte of Samnium

  “Feiqa.” Which is a Tahari name. The name, which I had soon determined, had done

  wonders for new understanding of herself, and for her sexuality. To be sure,

  much depends on the woman. certain names on Gor tend to be used almost

  exclusively as slave names, such as Dina, Lita, Lana, Tafa, Tela, Tula, and so

  on. Perhaps because of the commonness and simplicity of such names, as well as

  their exciting beauty, many girls respond quite well to them.

  (pg.441) Many masters, in acquiring a slave, will change her name that she may

  understand that she is now, in effect, beginning her life anew. Indeed, some

  masters, even with the same girl, and not simply as a matter of discipline or

  reward, may change her name, to startle her, to impress their will upon her,

  and, perhaps, to freshen their relationship, she understanding, in effect, that

  she must now begin anew.

  “It is not to disguise another name?” he asked.

  “No, Master,” she said.

  He regarded her.

  I did not understand his seeming anger, his seeming suspicion.

  “I have worn many names, Master,” she said. “I am a slave. Men name me, as is

  fitting for me, as they please.”

  “Are you a bred slave?’ he asked.’

  “Not in the legal sense of the term, Master,” she said.

  “Speak clearly,” he said.

  “Though I am a natural slave,” she said, “there was a time when I was not a

  legal slave. I was once, in the eyes of the law, a free woman,”

  “What was your name, when you were free?” he asked.

  She squirmed beneath his gaze, which was like edged steel. I was sure she wished

  that she might reach up and bring the strands of beads, which I had lifted and

  thrown back, about her collar, that they might dangle behind her, obscuring the

  less my vision of her loveliness, back again before her, as though such tiny,

  colorful objects might protect her to some extent from that imperious scrutiny.

  But she did not dare to lift her hands from her thighs where, in one of the

  common positions of the pleasure slave, they now reposed. I had little doubt but

  what their palms were sweating. She moved her knees a little further apart,

  presumably in an effort to make clear her desire to be pleasing. How lovely her

  throat looked in its closely fitting steel collar.

  “Prokne,” she said.

  His eyes blazed.

  She trembled. She knew, of course, from his insignia, that he had come from Ar’s

  Station.

  His hands went to his belt, and she shrank back. I though that perhaps he was

  considering it, to lash her.

  “Are you from Cos?” he asked.

  (pg.442) “No, Master!” she said. “The fields of my father were north of White

  Water!”

  White Water is called such because of rapids in its vicinity. It is a ton on the

  northern back of the Vosk. It is a member of the Vosk League. It is the first

  major town west of Lara, which is located at the confluence of the Vosk and

  Olni. Lara is the westernmost city in the Salerian Confederation. White Water is

  east of Ar’s Station. There are three major towns between Ar’s Station and White

  Water. They are Forest Port, Iskander and Tancred’s Landing, which three towns,

  like White Water, are members of the Vosk League.

  Most of the major towns on the Vosk are on the northern bank. This is

  undoubtedly because of a one-time policy of Ar to maintain a margin of

  desolation to the north, one stretching to the river, across which is would be

  difficult for an invader to bring an army. The major route south was then, as it

  is now, the Viktel Aria, which by means of its camps and posts, Ar
then

  controlled. Thus, supposedly, Ar could move north with ease, but it would be

  difficult for other forces to move south, unless challenging Ar for the Viktel

  Aria. The margin of desolation however, has not been maintained for years. Its

  military significance declined with the development of large-scale tarn

  transport, capable of supplying troops in the field. Too, as Ar’s population

  increased she began to move northward. Indeed, her interests in the Vosk Basin

  are well known. In the past few years, particularly under the governance of

  Marlenus of Ar, the policies of Ar have tended to be expansionistic.

  Accordingly, it seems clear that in time the strategists of Ar came to view the

  margin of desolation less as a rampart than a barrier.

  “Such names,” he said, “are not so common east on the river.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “You are a long way from White Water,” he said.

  :Yes, Master,” she said.

  I saw his hand tighten on the belt, near its buckle. This was not lost on the

  slave, either.

  “You came from the vicinity of White Water?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “With a name like ‘Prokne’?”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  (pg.443) “I wonder if you are lying,” he said.

  “No, Master,” she said. “I am not lying! The slave, Yakube, does not lie to free

  men! she would not dare to do so!”

  “Perhaps you are indeed from far away,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  He looked at her.

  “Men take me where they wish, they do with me as they please,” she said.

  Slave girls, of course, as goods, as exchangeable properties, and so on, are

  likely to see a great deal more of their world than the average free woman. Many

  free persons on Gor seldom travel more than a few pasangs from their village or

  the walls of their city. An important exception to this is the pilgrimage to the

  Sardar, which every Gorean, male and female, is expected to undertake at least

  once in his life. The journey, of course, from many points on Gor to the Sardar

  is, at least in certain parts, dangerous. It is not unknown for a young woman

  who sets out in the pilgrim’s white to arrive as a chained slave, who will be

  sold at one of the fairs. Her glimpse of the Sardar is likely to be obtained