by John Norman
“We surrender!” called the pirates on the wall. Swords were flung down. I put my prisoner with the rest. From the wall’s height I could see the walk near the holding crowded with our men, emerged from the holds of the Tuka and Tina. The fleet of Policrates, as I knew, some forty ships, was abroad, to prevent reinforcements from the eastern towns, should they appear, from proceeding westward to assist at the defense of the chain. Accordingly, within the fortress, under the command of Kliomenes, only a small force had been left, some two hundred to two hundred and fifty men. These would have been sufficient to hold the fortress against a significant attack, but, once the enemy, in numbers, as we were, were within, the defense of the holding would be a lost cause.
From the wall, looking down and across the sea yard, Callimachus and I saw Aemilianus emerging from the holding. He looked upward, toward the wall. He lifted his bloody sword into the air.
“We have won,” said Callimachus.
“This battle,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
We would not raise over the holding of Policrates the flags of Port Cos, or of Victoria, or of Ar’s Station.
Chapter 11 - MILES OF VONDA AND I OBSERVE SLAVES, UTILIZING THE SCREENED BALCONY ABOVE THE CENTRAL SLAVE QUARTERS
“Would you care to join me, my friend, Miles of Vonda?” I asked.
“Yes,” said he.
It was the night of our victory, that in which we had taken the holding.
I put the heavy key into the lock on the door, and opened it. It led onto a narrow balcony, screened by intricate grillwork, which, some twenty feet above the floor, encircled the area of the central slave quarters.
The room below was lit by lamps.
We observed the girls through the grillwork. It is so designed that they do not know when they are under observation,-and when they are not. Anything that they might do or say, thus, for all they know, is being seen and heard by men. This is acceptable. They are slaves.
“Yes,” I said, softly, “she is beautiful.”
Miles of Vonda, I saw, could not take his eyes from one slave. She sat against the far wall, her hands upon her knees. She was auburn-haired, and luscious. She was clad in her collar, and a bit of yellow rag. She had once been the Lady Florence of Vonda. She was now the mere slave, Florence.
I saw the fists of Miles of Vonda clench.
“If we are successful,” I said, “doubtless she, and the others, will be distributed.” These girls, of course, like silver and gold, and rich cloths, were loot, and prizes. “You have thus far played a significant and handsome role in our business, Miles of Vonda,” I said. “If you desire her, it is quite possible she will be allotted to you, as a portion of the spoils.”
“If I want her,” said Miles of Vonda, lightly. “There are doubtless numerous others captive below who are quite as beautiful.”
“Doubtless,” I granted him, “but, yet, she is quite lovely.”
“Yes,” he said, looking upon her, “she is.” I smiled to myself. Did Miles of Vonda seek to conceal from me his affection for a mere slave? It was obvious that he cherished that slave. I had little doubt but what he would die for her.
“It seems that you, too,” said Miles of Vonda, looking at me, “find one of these slaves of interest.”
“Several are not displeasing to my senses,” I admitted.
“What of that exquisite little brunet?” he asked.
“Which one?” I asked.
“That one,” said he, indicating a collared girl in a scandalously brief bit of red rag sitting below and across from us, near the foot of the opposite wall.
“Her?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
I shrugged. It was not impossible that my eyes had more than once strayed to her.
I saw her petulantly, impatiently, push another girl away from her, who had, apparently in her opinion, come too close to her.
“She apparently has a nasty streak in her,” said Miles of Vonda.
“She is from Earth,” I said. “The whip can take that out of her.”
“Could you whip her?” asked Miles of Vonda.
“Of course,” I told him. What woman could respect a man who is not strong enough to put her under the whip?
We continued to look downward into the central room of the slave quarters. Many such rooms are quite lovely, resplendent with multicolored tiles and rich hangings, and beautifully appointed with baths and columns, but this was not such a room. This was more in the nature of a gloomy, forbidding, ill-lit, stoutly secure incarceration chamber for females. The walls were high and stern; the tiles were large and dark. In the center of the room there was a cistern. To one side there was a trough for wastes. Scraps of food were commonly thrown to the girls through a window in the grillwork on the side of the room to our left.
It is not common on the part of pirates to pamper their slaves. All the girls in the holding we had placed in this one room, that they might, for our convenience, be located in a single place. Among them, too, we had placed Shirley and Lola, who had been at the prows of the Tuka and Tina when we had entered the sea yard. Before we had put them in with the other girls we had given them brief slave tunics, that they might have some prestige among their new fellow slaves.
When the fellow had thrust Lola into the room, earlier in the afternoon, I had, from the concealment of the balcony, wishing to keep my presence in the holding unknown to the brunet, observed what had ensued. Seeing the small, exquisite brunet in the bit of red rag, Lola had shrieked with pleasure. “You sold me!” she cried, delightedly, more of her body covered by her brief slave tunic than was covered of the body of the brunet by the scrap of red cloth she had been allotted. “You sold me!” she cried. “Now, you, too, wear a collar!” The brunet, terrified, had shrunk back against the wall.
The fellow who had brought Lola to the central room of the slave quarters took her by the hair and shook her head. “She is not to be attacked, or blinded,” he told her. This warning I had instructed him to issue to Lola, anticipating her hostility, which was only too understandable, against the brunet. “Yes, Master! Yes, Master!” had wept Lola.
She had then been locked inside, with Shirley, and the others. I had instructed Lola, clearly and firmly, prior to her confinement in the central room of the slave quarters that she was to mention to no one that I was present in the holding. A similar injunction was imposed upon lovely Shirley. These girls would keep this secret. They were slaves. They did not wish to be fed to sleen. Accordingly, though the brunet would know that, to her woe, she, now in her own collar, was confined with a girl to whom she had once been almost as Mistress, she would not begin to know or suspect that one named Jason, of Victoria, a free man, resided now within the same holding as she.
“How beautiful are slaves,” said Miles of Vonda.
“Yes,” I said.
I watched Lola moving toward the brunet. She had, I gathered, seen the brunet push the other girl away, earlier. She sat down, apparently indolently, next to the brunet, and stretched her body languorously, as a slave girl. Though Lola seemed thoughtless and unconcerned in what she did, neither I nor the brunet could be under any delusion as to what was transpiring. She then, as though wearily, and paying no attention, intruded herself even more closely to the brunet. Would the brunet push her away, as she had the other? If so, Lola would not, strictly, have attacked her. The first blow would have been struck by the brunet. Lola, it could then seem, could only be defending herself.
I smiled to myself. Lola’s defense, I was certain, might leave the little brunet half torn to pieces. I saw the shoulders of the little brunet shake, and then she sobbed, and leaped to her feet, fleeing, She ran across the room. Lola, then, lay down in her place, and curled up, cat-like, to sleep.
The brunet then sought another place. “Go away!” said a girl pushing at her. Weeping, the brunet then went to another place. “Go away!” said another girl. The brunet then went and knelt, head down, her dark hair to the floor, be
fore a girl. “Yes,” said the girl, “you may rest here, there is enough room for two.” It was the girl whom the brunet, earlier, had pushed away. “Thank you,” said the brunet, and lay down there. That, then, would be her section of the tiles for the night. It would be there that she would, this night, sleep. I saw her briefly rise up on the palms of her hands, and, furtively, regard Lola. Then, quickly, she lay down again. She trembled. She feared Lola. This pleased me. I smiled to myself. There was another, too, whom she would soon learn to fear, and well, he who would be her master.
“I count eighty-nine,” said Miles of Vonda, “including those two, both yours, whom we brought in at the prows of the Tuka and Tina.”
“That is correct,” I said.
“An exquisite lot,” said Miles of Vonda.
“Pirates have excellent taste in slave flesh,” I said.
“Have the barred alcoves and the cell blocks, and the kennels, been emptied?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“They are all here?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“What of the pens,” said he, “those deep below the fortress?”
“They, too, have been emptied,” I said. “See those in the corner, those naked, and in close chains?”
“Yes,” said he.
“They are the ones from the pens of which you have spoken,” I said.
“Were they in close chains in the pens?” he asked. He did not inquire pertaining to clothing. It is common to keep girls naked in the pens. Not only is this excellent for discipline, but it is more sanitary.
“No,” I said. “We put them in close chains only upon bringing them to this room. That they were in the lower pens suggested that they might be being disciplined, or were perhaps not well trained, or were new to their collars.”
“The close chains, then,” said he, “are in compensation for their being brought to an upper level.”
“Yes,” I said. “They must soon learn that their new masters are stricter than their old.”
“Excellent,” said Miles of Vonda.
Close chains, even after only two or three Ahn, build up a considerable amount of body pain. Girls confined in close chains soon beg to be released, that they may then strive to better please their masters.
“There is quite a diversity in the garbing of these slaves,” remarked Miles of Vonda.
“We brought them in as they were,” I said. The clothing worn by the girls ranged from the long, classic gowns worn by the girls from the walk, who had welcomed us with song, flowers and dance, on our entry into the holding, to the cruel, heavy scantiness of the close chains, and their brands and collars, of the girls brought up from the lower pens. Most of the girls, however, wore one or another of a recognizable variety of slave garments, such as tunics, camisks or the scandalous Ta-Teeras. Some, however, had been put in little more than twists of torn rags, such as those on the body of the auburn-haired beauty in which Miles of Vonda had seemed to take an interest and on the body of the small, exquisite brunet of whom I had deigned to take note. I gathered that the pirates had enjoyed setting off their beauty in this fashion. Their decision met with my full approval.
The dressing of slaves, incidentally, is an interesting and intricate pastime. The slave is almost never totally nude. Her body is marked almost always with some token of her condition, which is bond. This is usually a collar, but it may also be an anklet, sometimes belled, or a bracelet. Her brand, of course, fixed in her very flesh, deep and lovely, is always worn. There is no mistaking it. The iron has seen to that. Beyond these things, much depends on the individual girl and on her particular master of the time. Individual taste is here supreme. To be sure, there are natural congruences and proprieties which are generally observed.
For example, although one may see a girl in the streets, naked save for, say, her brand and collar, or a bit of chain, this is not common. This sort of thing is done, usually, only as a discipline. Free women tend to object, for the eyes of their companions tend almost inadvertently to stray to the exposed flesh of such girls. Perhaps, too, they are angry that they themselves are not permitted to present themselves so brazenly and lusciously before men. Needless to say it is difficult for men to keep their minds on business when such girls are among them. Perhaps this is the reason that magistrates tend to frown upon the practice. After all, Goreans are only human.
In a family house, of course, girls are almost always modestly garbed. Children of many houses might be startled if they could see the transformation which takes place in their pretty Didi or Lale, whom they know as their nurse, governess and playmate, when she is, in their absence or after their bedtime, ordered to the chamber of one of the young masters, there to dance lasciviously before him, and then to be had, and as a slave.
Context determines much. If a young man is giving a proper and refined dinner, his girl, modestly attired, will commonly serve it, shyly and deferentially, quietly and self-effacingly, as befits a slave. She may even draw commendations from his mother, pleased that he has purchased such a modest, useful girl. In a dinner given for his rowdy male companions, of course, in which even unmixed wines might be served, she, obedient, writhing and sensuous, is quite a different girl. Perhaps he has even purchased her some training, from local slave masters. His guests, uncontrolled in their desire, driven half mad with passion, will mightily envy him his girl. Perhaps he, in Gorean hospitality, will share her with them, but, in the end, when they have gone, it is at the foot of his own couch that she, licking and kissing, and begging, will be chained.
The most common Gorean garment for a slave is a brief slave tunic. This tunic is invariably sleeveless and, usually, has a deep, plunging neckline. It may be of a great variety of materials, from rich satins and silks to thin, form-revealing, clinging rep-cloth. Camisks are favored in some cities. The common camisk is a simple rectangle of cloth, containing, in its center, a circular opening. The garment is drawn on by the girl over her head and down upon her shoulders; it is worn, thus, like a poncho; it is commonly belted with binding fiber or a bit of light chain, something with which the girl may be secured, if the master wishes.
One city in which the common camisk is favored, generally, is Tharna. The Turian camisk is a bit like an inverted “T”, the bar of which has beveled edges. It goes about the neck, down, low, and is drawn up, and snugly, usually quite snugly, between the legs, the beveled bar ends of the “T” then being folded closely forward about the girl’s flanks and being tied, tightly, at her belly. In the common camisk the girl’s flanks, and her brand, are bared. In the Turian camisk, because of its snugness and adjustment cords, it is easy, as you might well imagine, to leave little doubt as to the girl’s beauty.
Needless to say, the camisk most commonly found in great Turia, the Ar of the south, is that camisk which Goreans, generally, know as the “Turian camisk.” Interestingly, in Turia itself, it is known simply as the “camisk,” and what I have called the common camisk is, in Turia, referred to as the “northern camisk.”
One of the most exciting slave garments, if the slave is permitted clothing, is the Ta-Teera, or, as it is sometimes called, the slave rag. This is analogous to the tunic, but it is little more, and intentionally so, than a rag or rags. In it the girl is in no doubt as to whether or not she is a slave. Some cities do not wish girls in Ta-Teeras to be seen publicly on the streets. Some masters put their girls in such garments only when they are camping, or in the wilds. Others, of course, may prescribe the Ta-Teera for their girls when they are within their own compartments.
There are many types of slave garments, of course, other than such obvious categories as tunics, camisks and Ta-Teeras. Pleasure silks, in all varieties, and swirling, diaphanous dancing silks might be mentioned. The leathers forced on the slave maidens of the Wagon Peoples, taught to care for the bosk and please their masters, too, might be called to mind.
Sometimes, too, it is controversial as to what constitutes a garment and what a bond. For example,
is a slave harness a garment or a bond; objectively, I suppose, it is both. So, too, I would suppose, are the tunic chains of Tyros. A girl may be “set off,” of course, and beautifully, even if, technically, she is not clothed. She may be garbed, for example, in netting, as the “Hunter’s Catch”; or she may be bedecked in jewels and leather, and shimmering chains, dancing under a whip in a tavern in Port Kar; or she may have flowers intertwined in her chains, as when she is awarded to a victor in public games in Ar.
Interestingly, what counts as slave garments and what does not, is apparently a culturally influenced phenomenon. Goreans, unhesitantly, regard such things as the brassiere and panties, or panty hose, as slave garments. This may be because such garments have been associated with Earth females brought to Gorean slave markets, garments which are sometimes permitted the girls during the early portions of their sale, or, perhaps, independently, because they are soft, sensual and slave-like. Earth girls who don such garments might be interested to know then that that they are putting things on their bodies which on Gor are taken to be the garments of slaves.
The main purpose of slave garments, of course, is not particularly to clothe the girl, for she need not even be clothed, as she is an animal, but to, as I have suggested, “set her off.” In this sense slave garments may be as resplendent and complex as the robes of an enslaved Ubara, to be removed by the general who has captured her upon a platform of public humiliation, or as simple as the cords on a girl’s wrists and a piece of rope knotted on her throat.
Additional functions of slave garments, of course, other than those of displaying the girl and making it clear to all how desirable she is, are to remind her, clearly, that she is a slave, which is useful in her discipline, and, also, interestingly, to stimulate, intensify and deepen her sexuality. It is impossible for a woman to dress and act as a slave, and be enslaved, in full legality, and not, sooner or later, understand that she is really what she seems to be, a slave. The master, meanwhile, of course, keeps her under discipline, uses her frequently and often casually, and forces her to undergo the abuses proper to her degraded condition. At a given moment of tenderness, sooner or later, she yields herself to him, fully, and as his slave. This moment is usually accompanied with tears of joy, and love. This is experienced by the woman as a moment of marvelous liberation.