by John Norman
The massive walls and towers of Brundisium could be seen in the distance, some two pasangs, or so, away. It was at Brundisium that, months ago, the invasion forces of Cos and Tyros had made an unopposed landfall, and proceeded thence toward Ar.
The sky was a bright blue. White clouds, unhurried, insouciant, pursued their leisurely way inland, floating, drifting, in the currents of the wind, like ships on an invisible ocean, like remarkable, protean creatures risen majestically from the cold waters of gleaming Thassa, the sea.
She felt the rope jerked tight on her ankle, both forward and back, and then drawn back, to be ready for the next bead, so to speak, on this improvised slaver’s necklace. The attendant stood up, slightly behind her, waiting for the next slave.
“Make yourself desirable,” he said. “Slave desirable.”
“Yes, Master,” said Ellen. There was no mistaking what he had said, or what it meant. How far she was from Earth, she thought, with its oddities, eccentricities, miseries, agonies and denials. How different is Gor from Earth, at least for women such as I, she thought. How simple, how natural, how primitively virtuous is Gor! Here, there is no war of the sexes, at least for women such as I. Here the war of the sexes is over, at least for women such as I, certainly for me. I have fought. I have lost. I have been taken. I am spoils of war, and am now slave. But Ellen did not mind this. She rejoiced in this, and wanted it. It suddenly occurred to her that this might well be the point of the war of the sexes, that it might well be entered into and encouraged by women merely that they might be reassured, much as a naughty child might test limits, that they might have manhood affirmed, and find themselves once more, in the light of fact and truth, seized and returned to their rightful place in the order of nature, dutifully subdued, conquered, treasured, prized, mastered, loved, owned. How she then pitied free women in their ignorance, both those of Gor and Earth, in their anxieties and depressions, in their little-understood forlornness, in their little-understood, unsatisfied hungers.
But then she was suddenly terrified. There was a rope on her ankle. She was mere property! She was slave!
How she was looking forward to the opportunity to clean her body, after the heat, the dust, the coffle!
There was to be a festival camp, celebrating yet another victory of invincible Cos. Merchants, dignitaries, soldiers, travelers, artisans, peddlers, tradesmen, citizens, peasants, villagers, townspeople and others were all making their way into the vicinity of the city, some setting up tents and camps, others renting space either within the city, or about the walls. Among these visitors, and citizens of Brundisium, too, she knew, would be slavers, professional slavers. These were men who dealt shrewdly in wares such as she. She trembled, thinking of the sales block, the eager, virile, possessive, bidding men, the whips, of being exhibited dramatically, specifically, callously, in intimate detail, rawly, as the lovely, helpless merchandise she was.
She trembled, yes. But, too, she was fascinated, almost giddy, at the thought of being sold. What would she bring?
She thought of her feminist sisters, of Earth, on such a block, in chains, being sold to men. In such a place they would be in little doubt of their sex, or of its meaning — just as she, here, on Gor, had learned her sex, and its meaning.
“Move!” she heard, and her group of ten, in its turn, in line, she the seventh in her group of ten, in ankle coffle, left foot first, was directed across the grass. The grass felt fresh and soft beneath her feet. She watched the rope move before her, that fastened to the left ankle of the girl before her, pulled forward, then dropping down, disappearing in the grass, then seeming to leap up, only to drop down again between the blades. The group was directed toward a narrow trail, one winding its way gently downward among deciduous trees. In a few Ehn, between trees, she saw a small stream. The pools, she had heard, would be in the vicinity of this stream, some nearer, some farther. Her group was conducted downward, slipping a bit on the dirt and grass, one girl fell, to the border of the stream, along which was a narrow trail, some five feet above the stream. The group was then directed along this trail, rather toward the city. Another such group was a hundred yards or so before them. Presumably they would be followed by other groups. Here and there there were tiny, wooden bridges over the stream. Wagon tracks in the mud, however, and the prints of bosk and tharlarion indicated that wagons commonly forded this narrow waterway. At the fording places she could see gravel and rocks under the water, and she thought that the depth there could not be much more than a foot or two, surely not higher than the hubs of wagon wheels. The rocks and gravel, or some of it, she supposed, might have been put there to help secure a reliable fording. Elsewhere she supposed that the stream was not more than three or four feet deep, or, as the Goreans would have it, who tended to think of water from the bottom up, three or four feet high.
“Look,” whispered the girl before her, indicating with a subtle motion of her head, a direction across the stream, to her right.
“Yes,” whispered Ellen.
It was there she saw the first of several small, sunken, shallow, walled pools, each a yard or so deep. Most of these were in the vicinity of the stream, some on one side and some on the other, and some were actually open to the stream, and fed by its water. Others were not now in obvious contact with the stream but were nearby, perhaps fed by waters which had occasionally exceeded the normal boundaries of the stream, or by waters which had drained downward naturally, overflowing the sunken walls, filling the area, cisternlike, the expected result of the declivity in terrain. To be sure, she supposed that they might, or some of them, have been filled by water carried to them, from the nearby stream. That was a possibility. And within the Ahn this possibility became even more obvious, and vivid.
What startled Ellen was the large number of these pools. Surely there were at least thirty or forty of them, some on one side of the stream, some on the other. In several of them, sporting delightedly, some in the water, some splashing about, some assiduously washing, some attending to their hair, were groups of slave girls, ten in each group. Ellen had little doubt that these girls, those in each group, were roped together, as were those in her group. Supervising each group was a man, not a soldier, or guardsman, merely an attendant, a drover, a hireling, usually loitering nearby.
In these days one did not steal from Cos.
“Male slaves, to the left,” whispered the girl before Ellen.
Some seven or so males were kneeling in a small space, stripped, covered with dirt, heads down, to the left. They were chained, hand and foot, and fastened together by the neck, by an additional chain. They appeared haggard, exhausted. They were perhaps half-starved, in order to induce distraction, confusion, failure of will, and weakness. Their bodies were bruised, as though by the blows of clubs or spear hafts, and bore in lines of caked blood the marks of the lash, where the whip, perhaps the snake, had been put to them.
The snake is never used on women, for they might soon die under its blows. Whereas Gorean masters are strict with their kajirae, some inordinately so, they never forget that they are females, only females.
“I do not think they are slaves yet,” whispered the girl behind Ellen. “I think they are prisoners, war captives.”
“They will soon be slaves,” said the first girl, haughtily.
“Yes,” said the second, “and doubtless on the galleys, or in the quarries of Tyros.”
Ellen gasped.
“Move more quickly. Harta!” said their attendant.
One of the men had raised his head. Ellen recognized Portus Canio! He did not see her. It seemed as though he could see little. Beside him, chained to him, was Fel Doron!
Ellen hurried on, miserable. How awry had turned out the brave adventure of Portus Canio!
“Thus to the enemies of Cos!” called out their attendant, spitting toward the group of prisoners, or slaves.
More than one of them lifted their heads, but they seemed not fully to comprehend, or mind, the passing jibe. Ellen supposed
that little might matter to them now but food, sleep and commands. How complete was the victory of Cos! And what a small part of their victory was the slave called ‘Ellen’, as incidental to it as an appropriated tarsk!
Ellen quickly turned her head away from the kneeling captives, or slaves, put it down and brushed her hair to the side. She did not wish to be recognized by either Portus Canio or Fel Doron. Surely Portus Canio was miserable enough. No need for him to see his former slave as she was now, now merely another evidence of the victory of his foes, now no more than another article amongst the loot of his enemies, now merely another item in the abounding wealth of Cos. Too, she would have been embarrassed to have been seen by him as she was, naked, on a stranger’s rope, being marched to the bath. So much, perhaps, remained to her of Earth.
“There,” said the attendant, pointing, “over the bridge.”
To the right of the stream was an empty cisternlike, low, walled enclosure, a constructed pool, of some twenty feet in diameter. In this pool none were bathing. Near to it, on towels spread on the grass, were vessels, presumably of cheap oils and lotions. Too, on them, toward the edges, were a number of sponges and rags. Some small heaps of pebbles, doubtless from the stream, lay here and there near the towels.
In a moment the bridge was passed, Ellen feeling the worn, spaced boards beneath her feet, and then, on the other side, the grass. The bridge, as with most Gorean bridges, even the high bridges in the cities, was without railings. In this case that presented her with no anxiety as the bridge was little more than a yard or so above the waters of the shallow stream. She saw a fish disturb the water briefly, noted the rippling effect of clouds and sky in the stream, and caught sight briefly of her own image, of her head and upper body, peering down, into the water. She quickly looked up, for the image reminded her of what she was. It was the image of a bared slave.
“Kneel down here,” said the attendant. “First obeisance position.”
The girls complied.
“Do you beg to be permitted to bathe?” inquired the attendant.
“Yes, Master,” said the girls, quickly. “Yes, Master!”
“Each of you,” he said, “will beg individually. As I stand before you, you may lift your head, but keep the palms of your hands on the ground.”
He then stood before the first girl. “Do you beg to be permitted to bathe?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said, lifting her head, looking up at him, but keeping the palms of her hands on the ground. “I beg to be permitted to bathe.”
“You may bathe,” he said.
“Thank you, Master,” she said.
“You may kiss my feet,” he said. “First obeisance position.”
“Yes, Master,” she said. “Thank you, Master.”
This ritual was repeated down the line, one by one, as Ellen was approached, girl by girl.
Obviously the girls had been brought to the pool to bathe, but it is common for the kajira to thank the master on such occasions, as for a scrap of food thrown before her, a caress, a blow, water in her pan, a blanket, a rag with which she might cover herself, and such. If a girl did not beg there was always the possibility that the attendant would simply return her, unbathed, filthy, smelling, to the coffle, at which point one would not wish to be that girl, for discipline would be swift and severe. Commonly the interval between a girl’s being displeasing in any way and suffering the consequences of her lapse is very short. And it is far more terrifying when the interval is long, say, overnight, for that commonly signifies that the master is according some serious thought to the matter of her punishment.
Then the attendant was before Ellen.
“Do you beg to be permitted to bathe?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” said Ellen, looking up but keeping the palms of her hands on the ground. “I beg to be permitted to bathe.”
“You may bathe,” he said.
“Thank you, Master,” said Ellen.
“You may kiss my feet,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” said Ellen. “Thank you, Master!”
She kissed his feet gratefully, tears in her eyes, overjoyed to be shown this favor, permitted to touch her lips, though only those of a slave, to the feet of a free man, a master.
How unworthy she was of this privilege!
Ellen thrilled to be dominated categorically by a strong male, she in a position of absolute helplessness and servitude. It was what she lived for, and what she realized she had lived for on Earth, and had never found. She was mightily aroused, and knew herself alive and wet with heat, vulnerability and desire. She had scarcely understood the extent and power of female desire until that moment, at the feet of a mere attendant, a Cosian hireling. She wondered if the irresistible might of male desire did not have its perfect corollary and complement in the natural woman, the slave, eager to yield all unreservedly and unquestioningly to her master, begging to love and serve, to please, to be owned wholly.
She wondered if the man could smell her desire, her need, her petition to be treated as a mere object, to be his, as a possession or a toy, to be uncompromisingly subjugated.
She realized, and had earlier learned, that the former strait-laced, female Ph.D. whom she had been, she who had specialized in gender studies, she who had been so smug and haughty, she who had been so proud of her degree and her publications, she who had been respected, even esteemed, for her unquestioned political orthodoxies, she who had been invited to attend many conferences organized to promote pathological political agendas, she who had been once no more than a miserable, frustrated, lonely activist, a militant bluestocking, was now no more than a young, lovely, hot slave. In her belly now, as she knelt in the grass, a rope on her ankle, burned slave fire. She moaned, and trembled, a slave almost incandescent with need.
But she knew that she was not to be permitted any satisfactions. She had not yet been sold.
“Bathe,” said the attendant.
“May we speak, Master?” begged a bold girl.
“Very well,” said the attendant.
“Thank you, Master!” cried several of the girls.
Chatting, laughing, the slaves went eagerly to the water. Some cried out at its surprising coldness. Ellen, the rope on her ankle, went with them, she, too, eager, to the edge of the wall, and, with them, first sitting on the edge of the wall, rather at the level of the ground, in her turn, slipped into the water. It was cold. It had been days since they had bathed, and they rejoiced in the opportunity to cleanse themselves of the filth and soilings of the march. How wonderful, thought Ellen, is the chance upon occasion to do something even as simple as washing one’s body! How few people realize how precious so seemingly common and familiar an act can be at times! How grateful the slaves were for this opportunity to bathe! The rope on Ellen’s ankle, as she had slipped into the water, first floated, and then was drawn under, she and her companions entering the pool. Then, the rope was held under the water as the slaves stood about in the water, rinsing, laughing and splashing about. But the rope, of course, held them together, even though it could not be seen. Ellen was grateful to the masters for the chance to bathe, to wash away the misery and grime of the march, but she realized that the motivation underlying the provision of this welcome opportunity was surely unlikely to be simply that of generous impulse. They were livestock, doubtless being readied for its sale. Naturally their owner, the state of Cos, would wish them to be exhibited at their best, to be clean, healthy, rested, presentable, attractive. It would wish to enhance their sales value. It would want them to be appealing, attractive items of merchandise when it came time to offer them to buyers.
If these were sobering thoughts, the girls, oblivious of such considerations, and with all the innocence of the lovely, curvaceous animals they were, laughed and chatted, and sported about in the water, splashing and playing, the heat and dust of the march put now behind them.
Ellen, bending down, rinsed and washed her hair as best she could.
In a few momen
ts she feared they must leave the water, to apply the cleansing oils, thence to scrape them from the body, with the strigil-like pebbles, after which they would re-enter the water to rinse once more. After that they would emerge and dry themselves with the towels, and then apply the soothing and fragrant lotions. Then they would be conducted whence masters might wish, perhaps to chains and stakes, or even, as they were in the vicinity of Brundisium, perhaps to exhibition cages.
“Look,” said the girl to Ellen’s left, who had preceded her in the ankle coffle.
Ellen turned to look, and placed her fingers, defensively, before her lips. Approaching the pool was the line of prisoners, or slaves, which contained Portus Canio and Fel Doron. The miserable line, moving slowly, carried large earthen jars on their shoulders, presumably filled with water drawn from the stream.
Ellen drew away as she could, put down her head and brushed her hair about her face. She did not wish to be seen by either Portus Canio or Fel Doron. But her concern seemed unnecessary, for none in the slowly advancing line looked about themselves.
They were in the keeping of two soldiers of Cos, in the hands of one of which was a whip.
More than once the whip fell here and there on the line.
It seemed that the miserable occupants of the chain could scarcely cry out in pain, or groan under the blows.
One by one, painfully, they poured the contents of the vessels into the pool.
Then Ellen noted two other figures now approaching the pool. She gasped, for these were the figures of the Cosian subcaptain, known to her from the tarn loft of Portus Canio in Ar, and from the coffle, and Tersius Major, who had been in the employ of Portus Canio, and who had left Ar with them.
“So, the noble Portus Canio, of Ar, who dared conspire against the might of Cos, now carries water, as though he might be a slave, to replenish the contents of a cistern, one devoted to the drinking of tharlarion and the ablutions of slaves,” said the subcaptain. “It is fitting,” he laughed.