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

Norman, John - Gor 19 - Kajira of Gor.txt Page 41

by Kajira of Gor [lit]

  than you were as a free woman.”

  I squirmed, his bound prisoner.

  “I wonder how you escaped from the camp of Miles of Argentum,” he said. “You

  certainly upset our plans in that particular. We had not even considered the

  possibility of such thing. But it seems that now the former Miss Collins of

  Earth may yet prove useful in our plans.”

  I uttered tiny, helpless sounds.

  “I have not been captured,” said Ligurious, “nor have I entered the palace

  surreptitiously. I am here of my own will. I return for immunity I have

  volunteered to give evidence for the state of Argentum in the identification of

  the Tatrix of Corcyrus. Who would know her better than I? My two retainers,

  those two of all the others who have remained faithful, and with me, those who

  escaped with me from the house in Ar, have been entered into the palace in the

  guise of envoys from distant Tuna. As I will have my business here, So too, will

  they have theirs. There is some dispute, you see, a to who is the true Tatrix of

  Corcyrus, she who is eve now suspended in the golden sack near the ceiling in

  this very room, or yourself, helpless now before me on the tile Witnesses will

  give testimony. Drusus Rencius, for example has come here from Ar. He will

  doubtless identify you as the true Tatrix, as he did before. We saw to it that

  he, like several others, knew only you as the Tatrix. Similarly I had had

  clothing smuggled out of Corcyrus, clothing which you wore. This will be

  presented to Claudius, the Ubar, and the high council, as the clothing of the

  Tatrix of Coreyrus, it will be identified as the former wearer of the clothing,

  course, by sleen. The work of Claudius and the high council of course, will be

  made somewhat easier by the fact the when the golden sack is opened at the

  banquet it will be Occupied not by the true Sheila, but by you, her dupe and

  double. We will not encounter objections by Hassan, the Slave Hunter, as he will

  not appear at the banquet. My two men will see to it that he is detained.

  Similarly, objections will not be encountered by Miles of Argentum. He will

  receive formation, purportedly from Hassan, that he had the wrong girl and that

  you, as he now recognizes, are the true Tatrix Accordingly he has placed you in

  the sack and, in his embarrassment, and fearing a loss of honor, has left the

  palace, ta mg the other girl with him, she then to be consigned to sor suitable

  slavery or other. In this fashion we expect Miles Argentum to be satisfied. He,

  in any case, is convinced, you probably know, that it is you, and not the other

  woman who is the Tatrix. This, of course, is because we saw to it that he, like

  certain others, would know only you as the Tatrix. He will identify you as the

  true Tatrix, for be knows you as such, with the same conviction as Drusus

  Rencius, and others. All this is in accord with our plans. And, of course, I

  too, shall identify you as the true Tatrix. You may depend on it. Meanwhile, of

  course, the true Sheila will be concealed in my quarters, later to be smuggled

  from the palace in the guise of a free woman, that of a companion of one of my

  retainers, supposedly an envoy from Tuna. The slave brought in with him in this

  role, put back in proper slave garb, has already been sold to an officer in the

  palace guard. He could not resist the superb price on her.”

  There were tears in my eyes. I pulled futilely against the thongs on my wrists.

  You are very pretty, as a slave,” he said, regarding me, musingly, his hands on

  my ankles. He moved my ankles, tight in his grip, slowly, widely apart. I could

  not prevent this. Then angrily, he closed them. ‘No,” be said. “It would be too

  long much like her.” Then, with a loop of thong, he crossed my ankles and tied

  them together. I could not rise to my feet now. He then looped a thong from my

  ankles to a slave ring near the foot of the dais. I could not now even squirm

  from my place. “Doubtless she will be naked in the sack,” he muttered to

  himself, “as naked as a slave. The in-human beasts will have done that to her.’

  I must try not to look at her more than is necessary.” .

  He then, quickly, rose from my side and went to the side of the room. He loosed

  the rope there, that rope going up to a ring in the ceiling, and then down to

  the sack.

  I fought frenziedly to free myself. I could not do so.

  Hand by hand, he lowered the golden sack to the tiles. He then opened it and

  drew forth from it the vulnerable, quivering body of a naked woman. She looked

  wildly at him. She was bound head and foot. She was gagged.

  “They have put you in a collar!” he said. “How dare they have done this!”

  She struggled to kneel to him. I do not even know if he, in his agitation,

  realized this. The collar, of course, was the collar of Hassan. He had put it on

  her in Ar, and had apparently never removed it.

  “No!” cried Ligurious. “The beasts! The beastsl They have put your fair thigh

  under the iron!”

  I recalled that Hassan, in Ar, had informed her that the’ would make a stop

  first, before proceeding to his lodging That stop, I now realized, must have

  been the shop of metal worker.

  There the slave mark would have been burned into her thigh. It would already be

  on her, thus, when shi was carried over his threshold, naked and on his

  shoulder, a slave.

  The hands of Ligurbious fumbled at the cords on he ankles, and then on her

  hands. He was sweating. She knelt frightened, her back to him.

  “What have they done to you!” he cried. “What have they done to you!”

  She knelt with her back to him, her head down, frightened.

  Could he not see what they had done to her?

  She was not the same woman he had known. He had known a cold, supercilious,

  arrogant woman, one who had been petulant and harsh, one who had been cruel,

  severe an~ demanding, an imperious and haughty slut. This, now, was not she.

  There were many differences. For example, she knelt now rather than stood, and

  she was now naked, rather than regally robed and bedecked. Too, of course, on

  her neck, now there was a locked, close-fitting, steel slave collar, and on the

  thigh, of course, might be found a certain, meaningful mark one apprising all

  who might find it of interest of her status that it was bond.

  Too, for those who might, find such thing interesting, it might have been noted

  that her master, Hassan apparently had her on a careful diet and exercise

  program Her body was now vital and healthy, and excitingly curved far beyond

  anything that one commonly expects in a free woman.

  But all of these things, in their way, were perhaps rather trivial or external.

  The most important difference about her how were internal differences, deep,

  profound differences, differences which manifested themselves beautifully and

  unmistakably in such things as appearance, carriage, attitude and behavior.

  These differences were doubtless consequences of having been helplessly in the

  hands of Hassan, the Slave Hunter. These were the major differences in her. She

  was now soft and vulner
able; she was now extremely feminine; she was now

  informed and mastered; she was now, in the thousand ways in which this can be

  true of a woman, slave.

  Ligurious tore the gag from her.

  “Master,” she sobbed.

  “You know me,” he said. “I am Ligurious!”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Do not call me ‘Master,’” he said, his voice throaty with emotion. I saw that

  he was only too eager to hear this word from her. He was fighting himself. But

  even this innocent title, doing little more than recognizing the place of his

  maleness in the order of primate nature, and surely a suitable expression on the

  lips of a female slave, such as she now was, alarmed him. Too long bad he

  idolized this woman. He was not yet ready to see that she had become real; it

  seemed he desperately wished to keep her as some remote, cherished illusion. On

  the other hand, there was a painful ambiguity in his relationship to her,

  probably one that she had once fully exploited.

  This had been evident in his attitudes toward me. He had, at various times, I

  had understood, seriously considered subjecting me to his pleasure and, rather

  clearly, I think, in the modality of the uncompromising master. In this, he had,

  I think clearly evidenced his desire to use her in the same fashion. He had

  wished to use me as a proxy for his longed-for domination of her. Our

  resemblances, however, had apparently been too close. Each time he had refrained

  from doing so. I do not think he truly desired me, or at least not other than as

  a man might casually desire a girl he sees in a paga tavern or, say, one of the

  girls he might notice chained in a row on their mats on a side street, but he

  did desire her. Ligurious was truly a master; he had proved this with other

  women; similarly, in most circumstances, had he so much as snapped his fingers

  at me, I would have thrown my legs apart for him; this was not the modality

  though, for whatever reason, in which he related to this other woman; he seemed

  to see her as some frosty ideal of perfection, as something finer than and

  different from all other women, as something of which he might scarcely be

  worthy, as something to which he should perhaps dare not aspire, as something

  almost untouchable and abstract. In his mind he condemned her to perfection; in

  this fashion he kept her from being a woman. Hassan, of course, did not see her

  in this fashion. In his arms she would not find herself cheated of herself. This

  is not all that unusual, incidentally. A woman revered by one man as an icy

  goddess is often another man’s pleading, licking slave. Ligurious, to his fury,

  as a timid swain, would never get a hundredth from her of what Hassan, her

  master, might command with a casual word. But this, of course, was only to be

  expected. She was, after all, Hassan’s slave.

  “But you are a free man,” she whispered. “What are you doing here? What are you

  doing? Where is Hassan, my master?”

  “Do you wish to be impaled?” he asked.

  “No!” she said.

  “Your body!” he suddenly cried,’ looking at her. “It is that of a slave!”

  “Yes, Master,” she wept, trying to crouch down and cover her breasts with her

  hands.

  “And the collar on your throat, and the brand, superb!”

  “Thank you, Master,” she wept. “No,” he suddenly cried, much to himself; “It

  cannot be!” Then, not looking at her, he angrily pointed to the tunic, on the

  tiles near me. “Put that on,” he said. “Be quick! In the halls they will think

  you are she.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  I struggled again to free myself, and could not do so.

  In a moment Ligurious had freed my ankles of the thong that fastened me to the

  slave ring and dragged me by the arm across the tiles to the golden sack. There,

  putting me to my stomach, he began to replace my bonds with those she had worn.

  This, presumably, is what Hassan would have done had he himself been effecting

  this change of slaves.

  “It is so small,” she said, pulling down at the sides of the slave tunic.

  I looked up at her, angrily. It was the slave tunic Miles of Argentum put us all

  in. We all wore it, all of his girls. To be sure, in it she was well displayed,

  and as what she now was, a slave.

  My gag was then replaced with the one which she had worn. The wadding was packed

  into my mouth. It was still wet from her saliva. It was then secured in place. I

  was then thrust feet first into the golden slave sack. My head was thrust down.

  The sack was tied shut over my head. In a moment I felt myself, bit by bit,

  helpless in the sack, being hoisted upward. The rope was then secured, and,

  miserable and frightened, I swung slowly back and forth in the darkness of the

  sack until, eventually, there was little more movement than that connected with

  the tension of the rope, and my own small, occasional movements.

  I ~ ~be ~ b~ng I~Wered.

  f ~o not think I had been in it for even an Aim. Surely it Was not yet time for

  the great feast.

  Then the sack was on the floor.

  It was opened.

  My eyes widened. I could not cry out, gagged. I was drawn from the sack by

  Drusus Rencius.

  Behind him, naked, bound hand and foot, gagged, kneeling, was Sheila, the former

  Tatrix of Corcyrus.

  Drusus Rencius removed my bonds and, lastly, my gag. “Be silent,” he said.

  I nodded, and knelt before him, as the slave I was, before a master.

  I then saw him, and not gently, replace the bonds on Sheila, she now on her

  belly on the tiles, with those I had worn, even to the gag, packed then tightly

  in her mouth, wet and sopping, and secured there. He then thrust her in the

  sack, tied it shut and, in moments, had hoisted her high to the ceiling, its

  enclosed and helpless prisoner.

  I reached out, timidly, to touch Drusus Rencius. “May I speak?” I whispered. I

  did not wish to be cuffed.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I am not the Tatrix of Corcyrus,” I said.

  “I am sure you are not,” he said. “I have been a dupe and a fool, as I am sure

  so, too, have been many of us.”

  “Where is Ligurious?” I asked, frightened.

  “He is with his cronies from Corcyrus, those pretending to be envoys from

  Turia,” he said.

  “Fortunately they did not see me. I recognized them, of course. Indeed, I have

  been keeping a close eye on Ligurious ever since I discovered he was in the

  palace. I saw him, for example, enter the throne room, and saw you enter later.

  I then, later, saw him leaving the throne room with the other woman, she whom,

  after he left his quarters, I took the liberty of replacing in the sack where

  she belongs. He was in his banquet robes when he left his quarters. Accordingly

  I do not think he will discover her new whereabouts until the sack is opened.”

  “It is intended,” I said, “that the cohorts of Ligurious detain Hassan, and

  prevent him fro
m attending the banquet.”

  “Hassan, I am sure,” said Drusus Rencius, “can take care of himself.”

  I looked at him, wildly.

  “Stand,” he said.

  I did so.

  “I believe this is yours,” said Drusus Rencius, lifting skimpy tunic which,

  doubtless hut shortly before, he had moved from Sheila, probably binding and

  gagging her.

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  “Put it on,” he said, throwing it against my body.

  I caught it. “Yes, Master,” I said. In a moment I was in It does not take long

  to don such a garment. I adjusted it my body. Then I straightened up. I saw I

  was being inspect as a slave.

  “Turn, slowly,” he said.

  I did so, displaying as well as I could one of the property of Miles of

  Argentum.

  “Have you been named?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “’Sheila,’ Master,” I said.

  He smiled. “That would seem appropriate,” He said, least from the point of view

  of Miles of Argentum. That, incidentally, is the name of the slave in the sack.

  It was on her in Ar by her master, Hassan, the Slave Hunter.”

  I nodded. I had not known that. He could have named I anything, of course.

  Daphne, Jean, Wanda, Marjorie, Ta Nose, Excrement, whatever he pleased. It had

  apparently amused him, however, perhaps as an irony, to put her name back on

  her, this time, of course, as a mere cognon in bondage, a convenience by means

  of which to refer to as the animal she now was, a slave name.

  “You are very pretty, Sheila,” he said.

  “Thank you, Master,” I said. That was my current sl~ name.

  “The other Sheila, too, is very pretty,” he said. “It will interesting, tonight,

  to compare you, when you are both naked and in chains, side by side, presented

  to Claudius a the high council.”

  “Doubtless, Master,” I said. In such a situation, ni might, I supposed, make

  their appraisals and deterministic under almost ideal conditions. The conditions

  would be most as favorable as those of a slave market. We might even be measured

  and posed. When I was exhibited before him this fashion it was my hope that

  Drusus Rencius would like what he saw.

 

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