Swordsmen of Gor cog[oc-29

by John Norman

  I was looking forward to meat and kal-da.

  Later, after supper, and a cup of hot kal-da, this doing much to restore my spirits and reconcile me to the day’s travails, rather than immediately retiring to a damp tarpaulin and the hard, chill, soaked boards of a wagon, a respite to which I had earlier looked forward, I took it upon myself to make the rounds of the march. This could be done in less than an Ahn. Too, whereas a tarpaulin and a wagon bed may be preferable to the mud beneath a wagon it is, in itself, as you might suppose, no prize lodging either. It is certainly inferior to the furs and a well-curved slave chained at one’s feet, against whom one may warm one’s feet. Here and there a lantern hung on a wagon, and I could make my way about without much difficulty. Occasionally, in passing a wagon, I would hear a gasping and moaning, and a rolling and thrashing in the mud where, it seemed, some fellow, presumably a mercenary, had pulled a slave from under a wagon, to the end of her tether, and was in the midst of reminding her of her bondage. I did not interfere in such matters, nor was I expected to do so. These were matters internal to the camp and not within the province of myself, or guards.

  “How goes the night?” I asked a fellow.

  “Well, Commander,” he said.

  I passed an enclosed, windowed, sutlers’ wagon. It was one of several recently allotted, given the weather, to the contract women. They would ride, of course, in any case, and not go afoot, as the collar-girls. Even so I did not doubt but what they had been jostled well about, and sorely discomfited by the lurchings and tiltings of their conveyances. I could imagine them within, amongst rattling pans, shifting vessels, and boxes, bracing themselves against walls, or clinging to supports. I supposed they would have, even so, some rude discolorations which might be laid to the account of the journey. Lord Nishida, interestingly, marched with his troops, braving the cold and mud, and slept in his pavilion tent. I did not know what might be typically the case with one of his rank amongst the Pani, but, if he were typical, they chose to share the hardships of their men. To be sure, he occasionally removed his mud-caked garments, bathed, donned a kimono, and honored his contract women with his presence.

  I accepted the greeting of a guard, and continued on my way.

  I have chosen, incidentally, in this narrative, as you have perhaps noted, to omit any explicit account of signs and countersigns. I am supposing the rationale for this is sufficiently obvious. Although such devices are frequently changed, some are used more than once. Also, certain recognition devices are portions of a secret tradition within Pani clans, the members of which may be separated by thousands of pasangs, and these are either permanent, or relatively so.

  Pertinax, I suspected, was with his Jane. The former free brat of Ar, now nicely collared, thrashed well.

  It is easy to caress a slave into submission, a submission in which she is yours, pleading and piteous, helplessly begging for the least continuation of your touch.

  Too, it is pleasant to have a slave so.

  Are they not lovely in their collars?

  Pertinax had avoided Saru.

  It seemed he had not forgiven her for having become a helpless slave, now in obvious, plaintive need, as other slaves, of the caresses of men.

  As his Jane was a Gorean female he had no reservations about accepting her slave nature. I thought this somewhat arrogant on his part. It was also, in its way, quite amusing. His Jane had been a Gorean free woman, with all that that entailed, and thus, on Gor, until her collaring, she would have been regarded as immeasurably superior to a mere barbarian female, an Earth female, such as the former Miss Margaret Wentworth, who would have been regarded as far beneath her as a pig beneath a princess. Goreans tend to view the women of Earth as natural slave stock. Do they not commonly bear their faces? Are their shapely calves and ankles not visible in public? Consider the frequent scandal of their garmentures, beach, and summer wear, the shortness of skirts, and such. Consider, too, the provocative nature of their secret undergarments. Do they not say, “Strip me, and find a slave!”? Some even dare to color their lips, or eyelids, a liberty on Gor permitted only to slaves, and sometimes forced upon them. Too, consider that many Earth females, of their own free will, have their ears pierced, an act which on Gor is likely to be inflicted only on the lowest of slaves. Many of the new slaves brought to Gor from Earth, who are, naturally, not yet familiar with Gorean, are startled, in their sale, while they are being exhibited, to understand that the bidding on them has suddenly become much more heated. The reason is often simple. Most likely, the auctioneer has just called it to the attention of the bidders, at a moment he deems propitious, that she is a “pierced-ear girl.” In any event, from the Gorean point of view, chasms separate the free woman of Earth, in so far as she has not yet been legally embonded, from the dignity, nobility, and glory of the Gorean free woman. The Gorean free woman, for example, is not only not a meaningless barbarian, but she has a Home Stone. What Pertinax’s Jane and Lord Nishida’s Saru had in common, of course, was that they were both human females, and thus, from a common Gorean point of view, at least amongst Gorean males, they were both, and should be, natural slaves. Many Goreans believe that all women are slaves, only that some are in collars and some are not. Certainly Pertinax’s Jane was now a slave, only a slave. And I suspect that anyone, with the possible exception of Pertinax, could see that not only was Saru a slave, but that she had the makings of a superb slave. Or was it that Pertinax saw this only too clearly, but, for some reason, was reluctant to accept it? I really found it hard to believe he did not want her at his feet, in his collar. And, too, it seemed clear that that was the dream, and hope, of the girl. In her heart, it seemed, she wanted to be his slave, and knew herself his slave.

  The collar well liberates a woman’s deepest and most feminine nature, the desire to wholly and helplessly serve and love, to be fully pleasing, in all ways, to her master.

  Women long for masters, as men for slaves.

  Saru, interestingly, was the only collar-girl in the march who was not afoot but wagoned. She was back-braceleted and shackled, and put on blankets, that she not be bruised, and was occasionally covered with a tarpaulin to protect her from the rains. This was obvious evidence of her specialness. It would not do, of course, for her to share a wagon with contract women, but, on the other hand, as she was intended for a shogun, one would certainly not wish to risk her either in the mud and cold of the march, put her at the mercy of impatient whip-masters, who might mark her back, or place her in possible jeopardy from the attacks of men or beasts along the way. This special attention accorded to Saru, of course, earned her the resentment, even the hatred, of many of her sister slaves, behind the wagons. “She is not more beautiful than I,” doubtless thought many of them, and doubtless correctly. But, her eye and hair coloring was unusual. Occasionally, as the opportunity afforded itself, she was spat upon by other slaves. Saru herself, I did not doubt, did not relish her privileges, and would have much preferred to be on a neck rope struggling with the others, but it was not permitted. I did talk to Lord Nishida once about her, commenting on the rationale for her special treatment, that doubtless being to protect her from the miseries and ardors of the march. “But, too,” had said Lord Nishida, “we wish her to fear her fellow slaves.” “Why is that?” I had asked. “That,” said Lord Nishida, “she will see men as her only protectors, her only defense, and will thus be the more anxious to be fully pleasing to them.” The lovely Saru wore one other bond than I have mentioned, other than, of course, the common bond of all Gorean slave girls, their brands and collars, and that was a chain on her neck, which fastened her to a ring set in the wagon bed. This was intended to make her theft less practicable. Are not valuable objects often chained down? Indeed, many a female slave, at night, is chained to her master’s slave ring. In this fashion, they are not only nicely secured but are conveniently at hand should the master desire them in the night.

  I passed two more sets of guards.

  A bit later I stopped suddenly
, back from a lantern.

  Two guards were there.

  We exchanged glances.

  “Yes,” said one of the guards, “they are in the forests.”

  “Have you seen one?” I asked.

  Taking light, even that of a lantern, the membrane behind the eyes can suddenly flash like molten copper, an anomaly in the darkness. It is the same with panthers and larls.

  “No,” said one of the guards.

  “If you have taken its scent,” I said, “it is not on your track.”

  When the fur is wet the scent is even more obtrusive. It might be fifty yards or more, back in the trees.

  “No,” said one of the guards.

  It is well known that the undetected sleen is he to be most feared.

  “Observe the night,” I said.

  “Yes, Commander,” said the guards.

  I continued on my way.

  I recalled that the scent of a sleen had also been detected back in the vicinity of Tarncamp, on the road between the central camp and the training and storage area. Vigilance is certainly to be recommended, but, on the whole, the human is not the common prey of sleen.

  I had the edged buckler with me, brought from the wagon after I had supped. I made my rounds in what, from the point of view of an Earth chronometer, not a Gorean chronometer, would be a clockwise fashion. In this way the buckler, on my left, was always between myself and the darkness. Too, one did not linger in the light of lanterns. I thought the forests empty of men, but one did not know, and I had been assured that there were spies in the camp of Lord Nishida. Someone, too, in league with Seremides, must have slain the fellow who had drugged the tarn, and accosted me in the vicinity of Tarncamp.

  Surely it was not impossible that a metal-finned quarrel might rest on its guide, patient in the darkness.

  I thought of the fellows encountered in the tent of Lord Nishida, at Tarncamp, Quintus, Telarion, Fabius, Lykourgos, and Tyrtaios. One or more, I had gathered, were spies, and one was possibly of the dark caste, the Assassins.

  Some leaders would have had all five killed, innocent and guilty alike, to guarantee the elimination of the guilty. Lord Nishida, however, had not done so. His motivations in this matter, I suspected, were primarily political. The spy is, after all, a conduit to the enemy.

  I thought of Seremides, and the strange conversation we had shared, on tarnback, in the darkness, partly in the rain.

  “Master!” I heard, a soft, pleading voice, from my right, in the darkness, from the ground, from beneath a wagon.

  I stopped.

  “Please, please, Master!” said the voice.

  Gorean men are not unfamiliar with that sound. They know it from their own slaves.

  “Please, Master,” said the voice.

  The voice bore within it the easily recognized, unmistakable note of the needful slave, a sound soft, tiny, uttered as though by one who might fear to be whipped, half a whimper.

  “You may speak, girl,” I said, authorizing her to speak.

  She squirmed a bit from beneath the wagon, until arrested by the neck tether. Her hands were tied behind her back.

  “He aroused me, and left me helpless,” she said.

  This is a cruel thing to do to a slave, of course.

  “What did you do,” I asked, “to be so punished?”

  “I did nothing!” she said. “He did this for his hatred, for his amusement. I was of Cos, and he of Ar! So he brought me to this point and left me! Have mercy on me!”

  “You are no longer of Cos,” I said. “You are only a slave.”

  “Yes, Master,” she wept.

  “Only a slave,” I said.

  “Yes, Master, yes, Master!” she wept.

  There are many warring polities on Gor, and there is often a deep-seated hatred amongst them. After all, do not enemies threaten one another’s cities, goods, fields, and resources, their walls, and Home Stones? Some vendettas and rivalries have continued for generations. Too, wars on Gor are fought not only for adventure and sport, but for gain, as well. An enemy’s trading posts may be looted, his mines seized, his crops harvested. Wars may be fought for arable land, for markets, for high ground, for defensible passes, for routes, for access to the sea, for olive groves and stands of timber, for orchards and vineyards, for precious metals, cloths, and jewels, for kaiila, tarsks, verr, many things. Indeed, a warrior’s pay is commonly the loot he can acquire. Too, we might note that amongst the most prized and sought-after fruits of war are the females of the enemy. They are valuable loot and bring good prices in the markets. Too, one may wish to keep them. One of the greatest pleasures of a Gorean warrior is to have a woman of the enemy as his slave. And often, she in his power, and as he is teaching her her collar, he may have it, however foolishly, that she stands proxy for her city and he may, however absurdly, vent upon her all the contempt and spleen he feels for a hated foe. Does she not then, chained in her cage at night, try fruitlessly to tear the collar from her throat? Then, in the morning, after sobbing herself to a fitful sleep, she is ordered forth from her cage again, naked, on all fours, in her shackles, to be again abused and set once more to arduous, exhausting, seemingly endless, humiliating labors, to be once more subjected to a misplaced vengeance, a vengeance now as meaningless, as inappropriate, and as out of place, now that she is a slave, as would be the gratuitous abuse of an innocent, helpless, tethered verr. One supposes the master’s victimization of his property will eventually subside, one certainly hopes so, when he no longer sees her as a scion of, and in terms of, hated foes, but comes to understand that she is no longer a proud, exalted free woman of the enemy toward whom a sword may be legitimately directed, but is now no more than a collar-beast he owns, a sleek, lovely collar-beast fully in his power, one who depends upon him, totally, and one who hopes to be found pleasing. She knows, of course, that Home Stones are now behind her, forever. She is collared. Too, she now has what she has always desired, a master, and she hopes to please him, to warrant a caress, and to one day win his love. As a former free woman certainly the extraordinary pleasure she gives her master and the extraordinary pleasure, psychological and physical, she derives from his mastery has come as a revelation, a welcome and astonishing joy which she as a free woman had only suspected in fearful, secret moments. Already it seems she is a love slave.

  “Please, Master,” she begged. “Complete his work! I beg it!”

  “What is your name?” I asked.

  “Talena,” she said.

  “No,” I said, suddenly. “You are not Talena!”

  “It is the name I have been given,” she said, frightened. “If it does not please you, name me as you will.”

  I fetched a nearby lantern, and held it over the supine slave, who half closed her eyes against the light.

  “You are not Talena,” I said.

  “I was of Cos,” she said. “They gave me a name of the mainland, of Ar.”

  “As masters may,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  This was not surprising. Had she been of Ar and taken to Cos it was likely she would have been given a Cosian name. The same animal on Earth, say a dog, would be likely to receive one name in Britain, another in France, another in Italy, and so on.

  “‘Talena’,” I said, “is the name of one who was Ubara of Ar.”

  “A false Ubara!” she said. “That is known even in Cos.”

  My hand tightened menacingly on the ring by means of which the lantern was suspended.

  “Do not strike me!” she pleaded.

  “Yes,” I said, drawing back, wearily, “she was a false Ubara.”

  “There are many Talenas,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. ‘Talena’ was a not unfamiliar name on Gor, at least on the mainland. To be sure, it would be an unusual name for a slave. There was at least one other Talena, of course, who was a slave. I recalled the Metellan district. I had not changed her name on the embondment papers, but had permitted her to retain the name ‘Talena’
, though then, of course, not as a free name but as a slave name, put upon her by the will of her master. Now, I supposed, she would, if somewhere collared, have yet a different name.

  “I do not like the name ‘Talena’ for you,” I said. “It is too fine a name for a slave.”

  “Forgive me, Master,” she said.

  “When you have a private master,” I said, “should you be so fortunate, beg him for a different name. Masters are commonly indulgent in such matters.”

  “I will!” she said.

  Slave names are often short, and convenient, such as ‘Lita’, ‘Lana’, ‘Dina’, and such. Earth-girl names, it might be noted, are commonly accounted slave names on Gor, and may be put upon Gorean girls as well as slaves harvested from the fields of Earth. For example, ‘Jane’, on Gor, would be clearly understood as a slave name. There are many names on Gor, of course, both masculine and feminine, which are frequently encountered, as is the case on Earth. My own first name, ‘Tarl’, for example, was quite common in Torvaldsland.

  I placed my hand on her right knee.

  “Yes, Master,” she said. “Please, Master!”

  I was annoyed at my reaction to being apprised of the slave’s name. Her voice had not been that of Talena. And I had even fetched the lantern to look upon her. She had not been Talena, of course, not the Talena.

  Again I recalled the conversation with Seremides, in the darkness above the forest.

  I gathered that the Ubara had not yet been brought before the throne of a Ubar’s justice.

  Strange, I thought, that so mighty a bounty, ten thousand tarn disks, of gold, of double weight, had not yet been claimed.

  What value might she have to someone, or something, which might exceed such a sum?

  Did a captor wait for even so incredible a sum to be increased? Were negotiations now in progress? Perhaps a captor was amused to have the former Ubara at his slave ring for a time, before, say, tiring of her, and then delivering her to the justice of Ar. I could well imagine the slave, in such a situation, striving mightily to please whoever, or whatever, might be her master of the moment, to postpone as long as possible the day of her return to Ar.