Swordsmen of Gor cog[oc-29

by John Norman

  She turned away from me.

  “We are now out of the Steel World,” she said.

  “So?” I said.

  “You freed Ramar,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Will you not now free me?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “Do not be absurd. You are not a sleen. You are nothing, only a human female.”

  “And one who belongs in a collar?”

  “Obviously,” I said.

  “In your collar?”

  “In a collar,” I said, “whomsoever’s it might be.”

  “In any man’s?” she said.

  “In some man’s,” I said.

  “Yours?”

  “Not necessarily,” I said, “but in some man’s collar.”

  “I belong in a collar?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “I gather,” she said, “that female slavery exists on this world?”

  “That is true,” I said, “and male slavery, as well.”

  “But most slaves are female, are they not?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Slavery is a misfortune for the male, for the male, or most males, are naturally free, and master, but bondage is apt for the female.”

  “Females are not the same as males?” she said.

  “No,” I said. “They are quite different, profoundly, radically different.”

  “The male is to own, and the female is to be owned?”

  “The female, as a female,” I said, “can find her total fulfillment only in bondage, only at the feet of a powerful male, who will see her and treat her as the property she wishes to be, and nature intended her to be.”

  “I see,” she said.

  “It does not matter whether you do or not,” I said.

  “I am in a collar.”

  “Yes.”

  She looked away.

  “I suppose female bondage has a justification,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Nature,” she said.

  “Certainly,” I said. “Nature. Let her tell you of the rightfulness of your collar.”

  She spun about, tears in her eyes. She clutched her collar. “She has told me!” she cried.

  “I know,” I said.

  “But we are no longer in the Steel World,” she said. “Here, surely, whether I will it or not, you will free me!”

  “If you are testing me, trying my patience,” I said, “I do not care for it.”

  “But we are alone,” she said. “You need not now, nor could you, continue to hold me in bondage!”

  “Do you wish to be freed?” I asked.

  “No,” she cried. “I do not wish to be free! But you must free me! You are not Gorean! You are of Earth, of Earth! You have no choice but to free me!”

  “I do not understand,” I said. Did she not know she stood on the soil of Gor, and was collared?

  “You must take me away from myself!” she sobbed. “You must rob me of myself!”

  “I do not understand,” I said.

  “You are of Earth, of Earth!” she said. You have no choice but to free me! You must free me!”

  “You think so?” I asked.

  “Certainly,” she wept.

  “Certainly?” I inquired.

  “Certainly,” she said.

  “Remove your clothing,” I said, “and approach me, with your wrists crossed, before your body.”

  “What?” she said.

  “Now,” I said.

  In a moment I lashed her wrists together before her body. I then drew her, stumbling, by the loose end of the strap to the edge of the forest. There I thrust her against a tree, belly against the bark, and flung the free end of the strap over a branch. “Master!” she cried. I then drew her crossed, bound hands up, high, unpleasantly so, over her head, and fastened them in place, that by means of the same strap, it now tied beneath the straps on her wrist.

  “Master!” she wept.

  She was stretched, on her tiptoes.

  “You have not been pleasing,” I informed her.

  “Forgive me, Master!” she cried.

  I removed my belt.

  In a moment I was through with her, but it had been enough.

  “Do you think you will be freed?” I asked.

  “No, Master!” she wept.

  “Perhaps I will sell you,” I said. The former Miss Virginia Cecily Jean Pym had not been pleasing.

  “Please do not sell me!” she begged.

  I replaced my belt, freed her and turned away.

  In moments she had followed me, and was on her belly on the pebbled sand, naked, sobbing, licking and kissing my feet, in piteous supplication.

  “Do you think you will be freed?” I asked.

  “No, Master!” she wept. “No, Master!”

  “I am Gorean,” I said.

  “Yes, Master!” she said.

  “Do you understand that, Earth female?” I said. “You are owned — owned by a Gorean.”

  “Yes, Master!” she said.

  “Do you understand the meaning of that?”

  “Yes, Master!” she said. “I am a slave, only a slave, and no more!”

  “The most abject, worthless, and meaningless of slaves,” I said.

  “Yes, Master!” she wept.

  “What a miserable lot is yours,” I said, “that of helpless, abject bondage.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Perhaps you understand better now the peril and degradation of your condition?”

  “Yes, Master!”

  “Do you still wish to be a slave?” I asked.

  “Do not make me speak!” she begged.

  “Speak,” I said.

  “Yes, Master!” she sobbed. “Yes, Master!”

  “Why?” I demanded.

  “For then,” she said, “as a woman, I am wholly myself!”

  “Do you think you will be kept as a slave for any reason of yours?” I asked. “Perhaps because you wish to be a slave?”

  “Master?” she said.

  “What you might wish is not only unimportant,” I said, “but meaningless, absurdly irrelevant.”

  She looked up at me, from her belly, tears in her eyes.

  “It is irrelevant,” I said, “whether or not you want to be a slave, or desire to be a slave, or need to be a slave.”

  “Master?” she said.

  “You will be kept as a slave,” I said, “because you are a slave, and should be a slave, and it pleases men that such as you should be owned.”

  “Yes, Master,” she sobbed.

  “Your will is nothing,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “You were less than fully pleasing,” I informed her. “A slave is to be fully pleasing.”

  “Yes, Master!” she wept.

  “I think I will sell you,” I said.

  “Please, no, Master!” she wept. “I will try to please you, Master, fully, Master, fully, fully, perfectly, in all ways! Please do not sell me, Master! Keep me, I beg you!”

  “I will do as I wish,” I informed her.

  “Yes, Master,” she wept.

  “Perhaps you now better understand what it is to be a slave?”

  “Yes, Master,” she whispered. “Yes, Master.”

  She looked up at me, mine, her face run with tears.

  I regarded her.

  Her lips trembled with emotion.

  Her face was sensitive, soft, and beautiful. It was nicely framed in glossy, dark hair, still a bit short, perhaps, but it would grow. Long hair, as is well known, is favored in such as she. Much may be done with it, aesthetically, and in the furs. Too, it might be noted, in passing, that the female was highly intelligent. That much improves a girl’s price. That would be important if I chose to sell her. Such women make the best slaves. They quickly learn what they now are. Too, compared to the more ordinary, or average, woman, they tend to be, at least initially, more in touch with, and more aware of, and more open to, their own deepest need
s, and desires. They come into the collar, thus, half-prepared for bondage.

  Gorean slavers do not bring stupid women to Gor. They do not sell well.

  I looked down upon her.

  I liked her as she was, at my feet, collared, naked.

  She belonged there.

  “Now,” I said, “we must welcome our visitor.”

  She looked up at me, wildly.

  “Clothe yourself, girl,” I said.

  She scrambled on her knees to her discarded garment, hastily pulled it on, over her head, and turned, on her knees, to face the visitor.

  She would remain kneeling until given permission to rise, as she was a slave in the presence of free men.

  “Tal,” said the fellow, standing back, amidst the trees, in the shadows.

  “Tal,” I rejoined.

  Chapter Two

  pertinax; a vessel will not beach

  “Come forward,” said the fellow, gesturing toward the forest.

  “You come forward,” I said, motioning him down, toward the beach. I did not know what might lurk in the forest.

  “You want me within the circuit of your steel,” he remarked.

  “You need not approach that closely,” I said. “Too, my blade is sheathed.”

  “That seems unwise,” he said, “when greeting a stranger.”

  “You do not appear to be armed,” I said.

  I wondered if he realized how swiftly a blade might be unsheathed.

  “Are you one of them?” he asked.

  “One of whom?” I asked.

  “I saw no ship,” he said.

  “From the sky,” I said. “Do you know such ships?”

  He wore a mottled tunic, irregularly green and brown. It would match in well with the background, with attendant shadows.

  He did not have the blue and yellow chevrons which sometimes characterizes the lower-left-hand sleeve of the slavers, different, of course, from their more formal regalia, or robes, commonly blue and yellow, their colors. Some view the Slavers as a caste, others as a subcaste of the Merchants. The colors of the Merchants are yellow and white, or gold and white.

  Had he been a slaver it was possible he might have been aware of the sky ships, so to speak, such as the disklike vessel of Peisistratus. On the other hand, the greater numbers, indeed, the vast majority, of Gorean slavers, one supposes, as Goreans of other sorts, had never seen such a ship. Indeed, many Gorean slavers, as many Goreans, might not even believe in the existence of such ships. They, of course, as most Goreans, would be well aware of the existence of Earth girls, from the markets, if from no other source, but they, as many Goreans, might suppose that Earth was somewhere on Gor, though doubtless far away. Much of Gor, you see, even from the point of view of Goreans, is, so to speak, terra incognita. Gor is somewhat smaller than Earth but having missed the cataclysm that drew, say, a sixth of Earth into space to form her magnificent single moon, leaving behind a mighty basin to become in time a vast ocean, her land area is quite possibly more extensive than that of Earth. In any event, much of Gor, to most Goreans, is unexplored, and consequently uncharted. There is thus no great difficulty in supposing the existence of unknown lands, even many of them, and one, perhaps, might be called “Earth.” And most Goreans, even today, would be as unacquainted with, and as skeptical of, the possibility of space travel as men of Earth might have been a thousand or more years ago.

  The fellow, observing me carefully, came forward, some yards down the beach.

  He was a tall man.

  He glanced at the slave. “Her name is ‘27’?” he asked.

  “You can read,” I said.

  “Passably,” he said.

  “‘27’ was a ring number,” I said. “Her name is Cecily.”

  “That is a strange name,” he said.

  “She is from Earth,” I said.

  “That is far away,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I am not unfamiliar with such women,” he said. “Some have been brought here, to content us.”

  “There are others then,” I said.

  “A few,” he said.

  Gorean men need women, and by “women” they commonly understand the most luscious and desirable of women, the female slave. To be sure, the forests are dangerous, and what free woman would care to frequent them? Girls brought on chains, of course, have little to say about such things.

  “She is pretty,” he said.

  “She is not muchly trained,” I said, “and there are doubtless thousands who would bring higher prices.”

  “Still, she is very pretty,” he said.

  “Do you wish to challenge for her?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “I have a better.”

  Unless there should be some misunderstanding here, one might observe that such challenges are not frequent, and normally require almost a ritual of circumstances. For example, aside from the usual impropriety of challenging one with whom one might share a Home Stone, Gorean honor militates against, if it does not wholly preclude, casual or unprovoked challenges. Obviously a skilled swordsman would have an advantage in such matters, which it would be inappropriate, and perhaps dishonorable, to press. Normally challenges would take place to recover a stolen slave, to protect a mortally endangered slave, perhaps to obtain a slave once foolishly disposed of, without which one cannot then bear to live, such things. Too, there may be economic constraints, as well, for if the challenge is not accepted, one is sometimes expected, depending on the city, the castes, and circumstances, to pay for the slave, with a purse several times her value. Few potential challengers then care to risk a refused challenge, as it is likely they cannot afford the slave, and must then retire in embarrassment. Many other possibilities enter into these things, but these remarks, hopefully, will give any who might chance to peruse these several sheets a sense of some of the prevailing customs in these matters. To be sure, brigands, pirates, enemies, and such, are not likely to concern themselves with challenges, but are rather the more likely, as they see fit, to attack, and kill. Similarly, in raids, and wars, it is understood that the property of the enemy, or quarry, or target, including not only his livestock and slaves, but even his free women, is legitimate booty. A proper challenge, on the other hand, is more akin to a duel, sometimes even to the setting of a time and place.

  “You are a forester?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “You are in the precincts of the reserves of Port Kar,” he said.

  “I did not know that,” I said.

  The great arsenal at Port Kar has its shipyards, as well as its warehouses and wharves. To guarantee a supply of valuable, suitable timber, for example Tur trees for strakes, keels, and planking, needle trees for masts, and tem wood, the rare yellow tem wood, for oars, the arsenal claims and badges selected trees within given ditched areas in the northern forests, which supplies, largely in a raw state, together with others, more processed, such as tars, resins and turpentines, items primarily suitable for naval stores, are transported southward on Thassa to the Tamber gulf. Occasionally, it is rumored, the precincts set aside by Port Kar are raided, or exploited, or poached upon, by other naval powers, particularly those of Tyros and Cos. On the other hand, I frankly doubt that this is true. Both of those formidable maritime ubarates have their own reserves, and extensively so, as does Port Kar. Indeed, predictably, there are similar rumors abroad, I understand, that Port Kar predates on the precincts of Tyros and Cos, and other maritime ubarates. I take these rumors to be false, as well. The last thing Port Kar, or these other powers, needs is a land war, which would have to be primarily conducted by mercenaries. Cos is already overextended in this manner in the south, at Ar. Indeed, there now tends to be little interaction, at least ashore, amongst these powers. Much contest, however, is done for the mastery of certain sea lanes, particularly toward the south, and towards Tabor and Asperiche, and even as far south as Bazi, Anango, and Schendi. If the forests were less abundant, one supposes, of course, that wars would be foug
ht for scarce, possibly dwindling resources. On the other hand the environed trees, and, in particular, those marked or badged, tend on the whole to be left unmolested, in the various precincts.

  I was soon to learn, however, that these surmises, however sound in principle, required certain qualifications.

  “Your Home Stone,” I said, “is that of Port Kar?”

  “Yes,” he said, “but I have not seen her for years.”

  “You were not born in the forests?”

  “No,” he said. “There are few free women in the forests.”

  Slaves are commonly used for work and pleasure. They may be bred, of course, as the livestock they are, at their master’s will. There are slave farms here and there, but they are rare, and often specialize in exotics of various sorts. It is expensive and time consuming to raise female slaves from infancy. It is easier and less expensive to allow others to raise them, so to speak, and then, when convenient, attend to their harvesting and collaring. There are many female slaves on Gor and it is often, to the irritation of venders, and the mortification and chagrin of the slaves, a buyers’ market. Almost all Gorean slaves are captures, having once been free women. The bred slave, other than in the sense that all women are bred slaves, is rare.