Norman, John - Gor 19 - Kajira of Gor.txt

Norman, John - Gor 19 - Kajira of Gor.txt Page 32

by Kajira of Gor [lit]

  doing.”

  “What road is this?” I asked.

  “It is the road to Argentum,” she said.

  I pretended to be dissatisfied with one or two of the tunics I had washed. I

  dallied by the stream until Tina had finished her work and returned to the

  vicinity of her master’s wagon. Then, when no one was looking, I bent down and

  picked up a small, sharp stone from the edge of the stream. This I inserted in

  the hem of my slave tunic. Later I would hold it in my mouth, for the tunic

  would be taken from me before I was put in the trunk. The trunk, though sturdy,

  was not an iron or steel slave box. It was a trunk, made of wood, banded with

  iron.

  21 The Road

  I fled along the stone road, eastward, back toward the Viktel Aria.

  The road was wet. The night was cloudy.

  It had taken me two nights, with the sharp stone, to cut through the wood, under

  the blanket, in the trunk. I had begun by drawing deep, even scratches. The

  scratches had then, repeatedly, been deepened, slowly and carefully. I had

  worked only with great caution, and very silently, and even then only when I was

  assured that Speusippus was asleep. By day I hid the stone in the blanket, and

  the blanket itself covered the traces of my work. I rejoiced that Speusippus was

  not more fastidious about the conditions of my confinement. Yesterday morning,

  before dawn, the bottom of the trunk bail been loosened and, rolling to one

  side, I could get my fingers beneath it. Tonight, a few Ahn ago, I had lifted

  it, inside the trunk. I had then, tipping and lifting the trunk, been able to

  slip between the two iron bands which reinforced its strength, bands which

  joined with the hardware of the two locks, making it impossible to cut or saw

  around the locks. I had then eased the trunk back into place, slipped from the

  wagon, sneaked from the camp, and run.

  I was naked again, as I bad been, in the camp of Miles of Argenturn. I did not

  know where my slave tunic was, as, each night, would put it somewhere after I

  had been locked in the trunk. There was no clothing of a free woman in the camp

  as far as I knew. It was a camp of free men and slaves.

  I made my way eastward, gasping, and walking and running, on the Argenturn road,

  back toward the Viktel Aria. I did not think they would expect me to keep to the

  road. Yet, of course, on it, I could make my best time. Too, I did not think

  they would expect me to retrace the route to the Viktel Aria. Not only would

  this bring me into areas of greater population concentrations but, too, it would

  take me closer to, Ar.

  This would be almost as bad from my point of view, they would suppose, as moving

  toward Argentum itself. They’ would expect me, I supposed, to follow the stream,

  wading in it, and then, a few pasangs later, strike out northward. Speusippus

  would recall that I had, on my knees, begged him not to take me to Ar.

  I hurried on.

  An additional reason for keeping to the road was that I thought, on the hard,

  wet surface, it might be more difficult to follow my sign, if sleen were later

  used. Also, of course, my sign would be confused, or I hoped it would, with that

  of other travelers. To be sure, there were no sleen at the campsite and

  Speusippus might not be able to rent one for days. By that time, especially with

  the rains, it might be impossible, even for such fine, tenacious hunters as

  sleen, to follow my scent. Too, I did not think he would have anything that

  would be particularly useful for setting sleen on my trail. I had deliberately

  left the blanket in the trunk.

  It would bear not only my own scent but that of numerous other women as well.

  The tunic I had worn, too, bad been worn by others, presumably slaves, before

  me. Also, in the evening I had washed it thoroughly and, not donning it, handed

  it humbly to Speusippus before I had entered the trunk, presumably to be locked

  helplessly in it.

  It was becoming more cloudy. I felt a few drops of rain.

  Speusippus might not even rent sleen. By the time he could do so, he would

  recognize, as a rational man, that the scent presumably would have faded. Too,

  he had little of practical value in giving such beasts the initial scent. Too,

  it is expensive to rent sleen, and Speusippus, who was a poor man, might even

  lack the means to do so. It is much more expensive, for example, to rent a sleen

  than a slave. Sleen are often rented by the Ahn. Slaves are commonly rented by

  the day or week. One of the greatest advantages I had, I thought, was that

  Steusippus, being an intelligent man, would presumably keep the secret of my

  identity. It would do his coin box little good if I fell to the chain of some

  burly huntsman from the foothills of the Voltai. Besides, who would believe that

  he had ever had the Tatrix of Corcyrus in his keeping? They would surely think

  him mad. if authorities should search for me, I was sure it would be only as the

  girl of Speusippus, a runaway slave named Lita.

  It now began to rain more heavily. I welcomed the rain, hoping it would diminish

  and wash away the scent my body and bare feet might be leaving behind me.

  There was another reason I was retracing our steps on the Argentum road.

  Yesterday I had seen another open slave wagon, a long, wide wagon much like I

  had seen a few days ago. It, too, had contained several girls, their individual

  neck chains strung to a common central chain, their hair cropped as insolently

  short as mine. The similarity of the two wagons and the chaining arrangements

  suggested that a single company was involved. I had made inquiries. These were

  girls of the sort sometimes referred to as female work slaves. It is a very low

  form of slave, indeed, perhaps the lowest. Seldom can they aspire even to the

  status of the kettle-and-mat girl. They do not bring high prices. They are

  usually sold in multi-item lots in cheap markets and are usually purchased to be

  used in such places as the public kitchens or laundries, and the mills. From

  these applications, they are sometimes referred to, naturally enough, as

  “kitchen girls,” “laundry girls,” “mill girls,” and so on.

  These particular girls, it had been conjectured, had been obtained from markets

  in the north, where prices are often cheaper. They were now being brought south

  and cast, probably, from their shearing, for work in the mills. It was my hope

  that I could make secret ‘contact with these women, and obtain food, and perhaps

  advice, from them. I was naked, ignorant and illiterate. I was little better off

  than when I had escaped from the yard of the inn several days ago. Surely they

  would feed me, and be kind to me. Even though I was far superior to them, as I

  was free and they were mere slaves, it was my hope that they would be kind to me

  in my need. We shared a common sisterhood in the sense that we were all

  ultimately helpless women on a world where men had never relinquished, their

  sovereignty.

  Toward morning the rain stopped and I, fearful of discovery as it grew lighter,

  left the Argenturn road.

  22 The Wagon; Caught!

  “Please, do not make any noise,”
I whispered.

  “Who is there!” said the woman, frightened. I heard the movement of a chain.

  “Please be quiet,” I whispered. “I will not hurt you.”

  “What is going on?” whispered another woman. I heard the movements of bodies, of

  chains.

  “Be quiet, please,” I said. I had crawled over the side of the slave wagon. I

  had lowered myself, in the darkness, to the interior. I felt the wood of the

  wagon bed, beneath a blanket, or blankets, beneath my knees. The wagon,

  unhitched, was drawn among some trees. Two tharlarion were tethered nearby. Also

  a few yards away there was a tent.

  “Please be quiet,” I whispered. I lowered myself to my belly in the wagon. I did

  not wish to risk my upper body being seen over the side of the wagon.

  Although the wagon was normally open when on the road it was now, on this night

  on which it had rained off and on, rigged with a temporary,

  now-partially-rolled-up cover. The cover consisted of a tarpaulin sewn about

  long poles on two sides. This cover was placed over a frame which consisted of

  five poles; two of these poles, braced, crossed and tied together near the top,

  were at the front of the wagon; a similar pair was fixed at the back of the

  wagon; between these two pairs of poles there lay, across them, parallel to the

  long axis of the wagon, like a ridgepole, a fifth pole. The tarpaulin, then, was

  laid over this long pole and held in place by its own two poles, resting against

  the sloping sides of the crossed poles at the front and back of the wagon. The

  tarpaulin was rolled up and tied about its poles in such a way that there was a

  gap of about a yard between itself and the side of the wagon.

  huc “Please,” I begged. I lay on my stomach in the wagon. My body was wet; my

  feet were muddy.

  “Who are you?” whispered a woman.

  “I am one who is hungry, and in desperate need of help,” I said

  “But we are naked slaves,” said a woman.

  “And we are chained,” said another.

  “Give me some food,” I begged. “I must have foodl” I had not eaten in more than

  twenty Ahn, indeed, since I had received a feeding from Speusippus, and a rather

  sparing one, on the evening preceding my escape. He had on the whole fed me

  intelligently, but seldom generously. It seemed to be his intention, through

  diet and exercise, in so far as he could, to see to it that my body became as

  shapely as that of a pleasure slave.

  “There is no food in the wagon,” said a woman.

  I moaned in misery.

  “Our food is measured out to us in small, exact quantities,” said a woman, “and

  then we must, under supervision, consume it entirely.”

  “There must be food,” I said.

  “There is food within the tent,” said a woman, “but the drivers are there, and

  it is kept locked up.”

  “You must help me,” I said. “I am as sheared as you.”

  “What can we do?” asked a woman.

  “You had best flee,” said another.

  “I do not know what to do, or where to go,” I sobbed.

  “Who are you?” asked a woman.

  “I am a free woman,” I said.

  I heard a reaction, a shrinking back in the chains.

  “Do not be afraid,” I said. “I will not hurt you. Too, do not kneel, please.”

  “You are not a free woman,” said a woman.

  “You are a runaway slave,” said another.

  “If you were a free woman,” said another, “you would not come to slaves. You

  would go to free persons!”

  “I am hungry and miserable,” I said. “I need help. I do not care whether you

  think I am slave or free.”

  “She is not branded, I do not think,” said a woman. I pulled back. I felt hands

  checking my left and right thighs, the two most common brand sites for a Gorean

  slave.

  “No, I do not think so,” said another woman, apprehensively.

  “Some men do not brand their slaves,” said a woman.

  “They are fools,” said another.

  “Yes,” said another.

  “But she is sheared,” said another, feeling my head.

  “She must then be a slave,” said another.

  “Some free women have themselves sheared, to sell their hair,” said another.

  “I am a free woman,” I sobbed.

  “She is naked,” said another woman.

  “She doesn’t even have a string on her belly,” said another.

  I pulled back, angrily, from them. a,

  “Free women do not run about the countryside naked, my dear,” said another

  woman.

  “Nonetheless,” I said, “I am a free womanl”

  “Where are your clothes?” asked a woman.

  “A man captured me,” I said. “He took my clothesl He sheared my hair, too, for

  moneyl”

  “Why didn’t he keep you?” asked i woman.

  “She must be ugly,” said one of the women.

  “I am not uglyl” I said.

  “Then why didn’t he keep you?” asked the woman.

  “I don’t knowl” I said.

  “You are a slave,” said a woman.

  “Nol” I said.

  “Liarl” said another.

  “I am a free woman,” I sobbed. “I am a free woman.

  “If you are a free woman, and are not from this area,” said one of the slaves,

  “I think you should flee. It is not safe for you here.”

  “I do not understand,” I said.

  “Surely it would not do for you to be caught here,” she said.

  “No!” I said, frightened.

  “Then I think you should flee, now, while there is still time.

  “Where can I go?” I asked. “Where can I run?”

  “Anywhere,” said a woman. “But hurryl”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “It is nearly time for slave check,” said a woman.

  “Slave check?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “It is too late!” whispered a woman.

  I looked wildly about. Not feet away I saw a lantern approaching the back of the

  wagon. I quickly lay down, with .the others, huddled against them, as if asleep.

  I heard the wagon gate being lowered in the back. It swung down on its binges,

  striking against the wagon. I heard the boards of the wagon bed creak as they

  were subjected to additional weight. I sensed the light of the lantern in the

  wagon, under the tentlike tarpaulin, illuminating bodies.

  I lay very still.

  “Well,” said a voice, “what have we here?” I felt a foot kick me.

  I turned about, blinking up into the light of the lantern, terrified.

  “You have been caught, Slavel” said a woman near me, elatedly.

  23 The Chain

  “On your back,” said the man, “and put your hands, palms up, where I can see

  them.”

  I did so.<
br />
  ‘Now cross your wrists, in front of you,” he said.

  I did this and he, with one hand, grasped them both. In this grip I was held as

  helplessly as a child. He pulled me to my knees and, lifting the lantern,

  examined where I had lain.

  He then put me again to my back and released my hands.

  “I am unarmed,” I said. “I have no weapons. I am utterly defenseless. Please be

  kind to me.”

  “Durbarl” he called. He then hung the lantern from a hook on the ridgepole,

  beneath the damp, brown tarpaulin.

  “I am not what you think,” I assured him. “I am a free woman. I am not a slave.

  I am neither collared, as you can see, nor branded, as you may easily

  determine.”

  “You are a free woman?” he asked skeptically.

  “Yes,” I said. “And I am desperately in need of help. It is my hope that you

  will be kind to me, giving me food and clothing, and money and guidance, so that

  I may return to my home in Lydius. That is on the Laurius river. The town Laura

  is east of it.”

  “Is Lydius north or south of Kassau?” he asked.

  “North,” I said.

  “No,” he said. “South.”

  There was laughter from the women.

  “Your accent,” he said, “suggests that you might be from Tabor.”

  “Yesl” I said, seizing on this. “I am. My parents had arranged an unwanted

  companionship for me. I fled. I now want to go somewhere else.”

  “Tabor is far away,” he said. “Did you come all this way on foot?”

  “Yesl” I said.

  “That is amazing,” he said, “for Tabor is an island.”

  Tears sprang to my eyes. The women in the wagon laughed.

  “What is going on?” asked a fellow coming up to the wagon, fastening a belt of

  accouterments about himself.

  “See what we have here,” said the first fellow.

  “Ah!” he said.

  “She claims to be a free woman,” said the first fellow.

  “Of course,” said the second.

  “A man captured me,” I said. “He took my clothes! He sheared my hair, for

  money!”

  “If you are a free woman,” said the second man, he, I gathered, who was Durbar,

 

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