Conspirators of Gor cog[oc-31

by John Norman

  The mistakes I had made, I unaware of them, had been taught to me, that they would mark me as a slave. Too, I was certain I had been taught certain pronunciations of words I was not likely to frequently hear, which were also, in their subtle way, entrapments. The free, of course, do not correct such mistakes, and let them pass, deliberately, as a matter of course. In this way it is difficult for the slave to understand what she might inadvertently be doing, which may call attention to her bondage. I had, some days ago, when out of the gambling house on an errand, barefoot, in my short, purple tunic, with its lettering on the back, seen a seemingly free woman, in lovely robes and veils, seized and stripped by guardsmen. Normally, when there is doubt as to the status or condition of a woman she is given to free women, who may then, with respect to her modesty should she be free, examine her body, for a possible collar, or brand. This one, however, was simply disrobed, bound hand and foot, and put in a wagon, for delivery to a market praetor, who would see to her return to her master, or, that failing, to her lashing, fugitive branding, and resale. I would not dare to speak to a free person, but I hurried to a tower slave in the crowd, trying to learn what had happened. The tower slave, however, would not demean herself by responding to the inquiry of a “half-naked, gambling-house girl.” A laundress, however, fresh from the troughs and bearing her bundle, looked at me, frightened, and said, “Slave Gorean.” “I see,” I had said. “It is an extra chain on us,” she said, “one we do not even know we wear.” “Yes,” I had said, uneasily, and hurried on, about my way. I, too, I was sure, wore such a chain.

  “I am interested in an ignorant barbarian,” said the woman.

  “A stupid barbarian?” asked the man.

  “No,” she said, “one ignorant.”

  Why, I wondered, would anyone want an ignorant girl? I supposed I was ignorant. I had not been that long on Gor. I hoped she did not want me for a serving slave. I did not even know the subtle fastenings of the robes of concealment, the layerings and arrangements of veils, the order of a woman’s bath, or such.

  “Girl,” said the man.

  “Master?” I said.

  “When were you first collared?” he asked.

  “In En’Kara,” I said, “in the house of Tenalion, of Ar.”

  “That is a good house,” said the man to the woman.

  “What year?” he asked me.

  “This year, Master,” I said.

  “There,” said the man. “This is your slave.”

  “Twenty tarsks,” she said.

  “Fifty,” he said.

  “She is a barbarian, an untutored, ignorant barbarian,” she said.

  I was not at all sure that the speaker herself was all that informed. Might she be a barbarian, as well? But I did not know the accent. Perhaps it was from the islands, or the far south.

  “Barbarians make excellent slaves,” said the man. “They come from a world where there is little opportunity for their bondage. Slaves are mostly held in secret. On her world many men are crippled, confused, divided, set against themselves, taught to suspect their most basic, virile impulses. They are taught to fear manhood, and hold it as a thing of regret or shame. Accordingly, the women wander about, neglected, forlorn, lacking masters, denied the chain and whip.”

  “I see,” said the woman.

  “I did not, of course, mean women such as you, your graciousness,” he said.

  “I trust not,” she said.

  “But the slaves on this slave’s world,” said the man, presumably indicating me, I kept my head down, “are treated with great cruelty, a cruelty so great that it is difficult for such as we, scions of a high civilization, to even comprehend it, for they are denied what they need, and without which they cannot be fulfilled, their masters. It is little wonder they come hot from the block, tear-stained and needful, to put themselves to a man’s feet. They have come from a desert, to the green meadows of Gor. No longer do they thirst, no longer do they starve. Here they are put in collars.”

  “Twenty,” said the woman, evenly.

  “Perhaps forty-five?” suggested the man.

  “No,” she said.

  “Many men are fond of barbarians,” he said.

  “I am not a man,” she said.

  “You should have seen her,” he said, “in the tunic of the gambling house.”

  “I am sure she was attractive,” said the woman.

  “She was almost nude,” he said.

  “If I buy her,” said the woman, “I may put her in a sack, left over from the transportation of suls.”

  Such sacking is plain, coarse, and ill-woven.

  Too, such garmenture is unflattering, and likely to solicit ridicule from one’s sister slaves.

  “Behold the high slave!” they might laugh. “A slave?” might laugh another. “I must look more closely. I thought it a sack of suls!”

  Such cloth, too, scratches.

  It is a torment to put a slave in such a garmenture.

  Some men avail themselves of such a means to demean or punish a girl.

  “If you are interested in her attractiveness to men,” he said, “for example, you might wish to give her to one or another, for an evening, or such, for some purpose of yours, you might think in terms of a camisk, a ta-teera, a bit of rep-cloth, such things.”

  I knew that camisks, and ta-teeras, were frowned on in the streets, in public. The streets of Ar were not the aisles of taverns, the vestibules and stairwells of insulae, the corridors in a military camp. Still one would see them. Indeed, in some of the lower paga taverns, the girls wore only their bells and collars. Little kaissa was played in such taverns.

  “Twenty,” said the woman.

  “Let us say, forty,” suggested the man.

  “I wish you well,” she said, turning about, with a swirl of garmenture.

  “Thirty!” he cried. “Yes, yes! Then twenty!”

  She spun about. “Done,” she said.

  I saw a twenty-tarsk piece put in his hand.

  I had been sold, again.

  “What is your name?” asked the woman.

  “Whatever Mistress wishes,” I said.

  Her eyes narrowed, and I sensed, within the veil, she wrinkled her nose. “What of Dung-of-Tarsk?” she asked.

  “Whatever Mistress wishes,” I said.

  “What have you been called?” she asked.

  “Allison,” I said.

  “I do not know that name,” she said.

  “It is a barbarian name, your graciousness,” said the man.

  “Good,” said the woman. “We will keep it. That way others will know that she is a barbarian, or no better than a barbarian.”

  “It will help to keep her in her place,” said the man.

  “What is your name, girl?” she asked.

  “Allison, Mistress,” I said, “if it pleases Mistress.”

  “I will have her picked up later this evening, after dark,” said the woman. “In the meantime shave her head and scrub her clean, with kaiila brushes.”

  “It will be done,” said the man.

  Why, I wondered, was I to be picked up after dark?

  Why would she not take me with her, from the market? The men could thong-bind my wrists behind my back and cord-leash me.

  Suitably bound and tethered I could no more escape from her than from a man. A slave is often made helpless, absolutely so.

  Surely it would not take long to cleanse a slave, or, if one wished, to shave her head.

  Why was I to be picked up after dark?

  I was uneasy.

  I was looking up, from my knees, these positioned closely together, as though I might still be white-silk, when the woman’s veil seemed to slip, as though inadvertently. I think, however, this lapse was not inadvertent, as she did not immediately restore it, but let it lay loose for a moment, as she smiled.

  “Aii,” said the man, softly.

  I myself gasped, as well. She was surely one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. Her featur
es were exquisite, her eyes a deep, soft, lovely blue. At the side of her hood, there was a strand of bright, blondish hair.

  “I am the Lady Bina,” she said. “It is in this name that my agent will call for the girl.”

  She then refastened the veil.

  I gathered she had well tested her power, to her satisfaction, on the hapless fellow.

  I recalled the sternness of her bidding.

  This was no ordinary beautiful woman.

  “You may find my agent unusual,” she said. “But do not be afraid. He is harmless, save when aroused, or angered.”

  I did not understand this.

  “I have men,” said the fellow. “Let them conduct you from this place. It is a low place. The streets are not well lit. It will soon be dark.”

  “I do not understand,” she said, in a way which suggested she well understood.

  “The streets are dangerous,” he said. “Your graciousness should be guarded.”

  “I am guarded,” she said, and turned, and left.

  “She is beautiful enough to be a Ubara,” said the man to his fellow, who had held the lamp.

  “That is an odd name,” said his fellow.

  I thought it odd, as well, for ‘bina’ is a common word for beads, generally cheap beads, of colored wood, slave beads.

  “I do not think she is Gorean,” said the man.

  “What then?” asked the other. “She does not seem barbarian.”

  “Did you see her?” asked the man.

  “Of course,” said the other.

  “What do you think?” asked the man.

  “Ten golden tarn disks, at least of double weight,” said the other.

  “I think so,” said the man.

  “Such women are well guarded,” said his fellow.

  “This is an honest house,” said the man.

  “Yes,” said the other. Then he looked down at me. “So,” he said, “twenty tarsks.”

  I put my head down.

  “It is not a bad price for her,” said the man.

  On Gor, commonly, slaves are cheap, even beautiful slaves. They are easily obtained. Almost anyone may own one, or more.

  “Allison,” said the man, “follow Petranos. He will conduct you to the tubs. There he will shave your head, and then the girls will scour you.”

  “May I speak, Master?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  I put my hands to my hair. “Must my head be shaved?” I asked.

  He put his left hand in my hair, holding me, as I knelt, and then, first with the back of his right hand, and then with its palm, cuffed me, sharply, stingingly.

  “Forgive me, Master,” I said.

  I then rose to my feet, and hurried after Petranos.

  I knelt under the sheet, it wrapped closely about me, sobbing, in an outer room, one with access to the street. I could see the street, through the opened door. It was already dark. My left ankle was chained to a ring anchored in the floor.

  It is usually the left ankle which is chained.

  My body was sore, for the slaves who had cleaned me had not been gentle. They were larger slaves, thick-bodied, and coarse. They tend to have something of the attitude of free women toward slaves of a sort likely to be of greater interest to men. They tend to despise the needful, lovely, feminine slave, the sort men are likely to seek, capture, collar, and put to their feet.

  I was now much different from what I had been.

  I was now sparkling, doubtless.

  The cleaning slaves had seen to that.

  The smell of tarsk was no longer on me. Surely that was to the good. But I was miserable. I put my hand to my head. I remembered the feel of the razor on my scalp. I cried out in misery. Petranos had done his work well.

  How ugly I now was!

  How could I now attract a desirable master?

  For what had I been purchased? For the mills, or the mines, for work at the carnariums, the filth pits, for work in the sewers, in the tharlarion stables, at the tarsk pens? I did not know.

  Clearly I would now be of little interest in the taverns, in the brothels, in the gambling houses, even in the towers, or inns.

  Who now would want the former Allison Ashton-Baker? Not even the boys I used to torment!

  I heard then a cry of alarm from the street.

  I jerked against the chain, startled, and nearly rose to my feet, but then swiftly resumed my kneeling position. I was a slave. No free person had given me permission to rise.

  We are on our knees as easily, and naturally, and as appropriately, as the free person is on his feet, or sits on his bench or chair, or reclines, at ease, on his supper couch.

  Two or three men, from the market, who had been loitering outside, in the warm night, backed through the door, warily.

  Something very large, and bent over, boulder-like, was in the doorway. It was huge, the form muchly concealed within the ample, thick, sheet-like, hooded cloak it wore.

  The hood moved, from side to side, and I sensed that something deep within the hood was considering the room.

  “Away!” cried one of the men.

  I then heard a noise, a sort of noise, which, this first time I heard it, dismayed and terrified me. It was a noise such as one might expect from some large, wary, suspicious, predatory, carnivorous beast. It was clearly bestial. But, strangely, it seemed no ordinary noise, some sort of signal, or a revelation of a mood, but a subtly articulated stream of sound, and scarcely had it ceased than I heard Gorean, the words clearly sounded, but oddly spaced, produced, apparently, by means of some sort of device, some sort of machine or contrivance.

  “Do not be afraid,” it said. “I bear no weapons. I mean you no harm. I come in peace. I come in the name of the Lady Bina, that I might claim on her behalf a female slave.”

  “Who are you?” said a man.

  “What are you?” said another.

  “Are you human?” asked another.

  “What is human?” rejoined the mechanical voice. “A mind, a shape, a form? Are you human?”

  “It is a beast,” said another. “They are dangerous. They are hunted. They lurk in wildernesses. Some are north, in Torvaldsland.”

  “I come on behalf of Lady Bina, to claim a slave,” said the voice.

  “We await another,” said a man, he who had bargained unsuccessfully with the lovely Lady Bina, “her agent.”

  “I am he,” said the voice.

  “How do we know that?” asked a man.

  “I come in her name,” said the voice.

  I knelt, chained in place, in terror. I do not think I could have spoken, had I wished to do so.

  “What is the name of the slave?” asked the fellow who had dealt with the Lady Bina.

  “My translator,” said the voice, “does not carry the name.”

  “Translator?” said a fellow, puzzled.

  “The speaking thing,” said another.

  “Then,” said the man who had sold me, “you cannot have her.”

  At this point a sound came from within that enormous, cloaked, hooded figure which was not translated, but its menace was clear, and the men moved further back.

  I found my voice, to scream, and hide my head.

  A hairy, large, paw-like thing had come from under the cloak and brushed back the hood, revealing a broad, furred head, perhaps a foot in width, with large eyes. The ears, large and pointed, moved back, gently, against the sides of the head. The mouth opened, enough to see the movement of a large, restless tongue, and afford a glimpse of thick, spike-like, moist, curved fangs.

  I had the sense that those massive jaws might have been capable of biting through a beam, and could easily, like tearing paper, snap away a man’s head, or woman’s.

  The beast approached me, the cloak dragging behind it. I could now see its furred chest, and could see, against the chest, the small device, the translator, which was slung about its neck. One massive paw reached toward me.

  “Do not!” said the leader of the men,
he who had dealt with the Lady Bina. “She is chained! You would tear her foot off!”

  The beast reached to the chain that fastened me to the ring, and wrenched it from the floor, with a splintering of wood.

  “Stop!” said the leader.

  The beast turned and looked at him.

  I would not care to have such a thing so look at me.

  “I will unchain her!” he said.

  “The slave is female,” came from the translator, mechanically, unemotionally, a placidity quite at odds with the roiling, tensed power that seemed to rise now like lava within that immense, living frame, “the price was twenty tarsks, and the buyer is by name Bina, and by title, the Lady Bina.”

  “I will unchain her,” said the man. “Forgive us. We wished to be sure of matters. Our mistake is natural. We were not warned, or sufficiently warned. We did not expect an agent such as yourself, noble Master.”

  I did not think the beast was flattered.

  He seemed to be measuring the distance between himself and the rear entrance, leading to the cage area. The ears were lifted. I heard nothing. There was moisture about its jaws and the fangs were wet with saliva.

  Words came again from the translator.

  “Tell them not to use their bows,” it said. “Before they could appear in the portal, I could strike away your head.”

  “I do not understand,” said the man, disconcerted.

  “Tell them to put their bows down, in the portal, where I can see them.”

  The man turned about. “Is anyone there?” he called.

  “Now,” came from the translator.

  “There is no one there,” said the man.

  “Now,” repeated the translator.

  “There is no one there,” said the man.

  “Do you wish to live?” came from the translator.

  “Do it, do it,” said the man, “put your bows down, in the portal.”

  Two fellows, whom I recognized from the market, then appeared in the portal, and placed crossbows on the floor.

  I had heard nothing, nor, apparently, had the others in the room, only the beast.

  Could one hear a step so soft, the drawing of a cable, the laying of a quarrel in the guide?