by John Norman
“What is wrong?” asked Desmond.
I wanted to weep with elation. I jerked at the bracelets, holding my wrists behind me.
The two of them regarded me, disbelievingly.
Then, wisely or not, but unable to help ourselves, we rushed to one another, they in the brief blue-and-yellow tunics, the Slaver’s colors, the chain on their neck, joining them, and I.
They, too, had their small wrists pinioned behind their back, as was required of kajirae in the Vennan stadium.
But, weeping, sobbing with joy, we kissed one another, I them, and they me, again and again.
I realized, suddenly, that they, too, as I, did not have permission to speak. They, as I, doubtless in their training, had learned fear, and discipline. In my joy, overwhelmed with emotion, I had inadvertently fled from my heeling position, behind and to the left of he in whose charge I was, to approach them, but he did not rebuke me. I think all there were surprised, the Lady Bina, Master Desmond, Astrinax, and Lykos, and the keeper of the pair on the chain, with his switch, who was in his holiday regalia, that of the Slavers. Often enough, they wear dark robing or tunics, with only a small pair of chevrons visible, one blue, one yellow, on the left sleeve of their robe, near the wrist, to indicate their caste. Sometimes they do not identify their caste, as when, say, approaching free women.
We pulled futilely at the bracelets on our wrists; were it not for the obdurate impediments of masters imposed upon us, we would have doubtless embraced one another, joyfully.
As it was, tears streamed down our cheeks.
Perhaps it was the slaver who first saw fit to impose order on this small scene.
“Down!” he snapped, and his two barefoot charges, in their tiny tunics, immediately knelt, with their heads lowered.
How moving it was to see them as slaves!
And how well they had been trained!
And doubtless this was the first time they had seen me, as well, as what I now was, barefoot, tunicked, and collared, a slave.
“Let us see them,” said the Lady Bina.
“Lift your heads,” said the slaver, and his two charges complied, instantly.
“Pretty,” said Astrinax, appraisingly.
I noted that their knees were placed closely together. I wondered how long that would be permitted to them.
Our eyes met, those of the two slaves, and mine.
Each was nicely collared, the thin, flat band, encircling the neck, closely. Their collars would be fastened on them, the lock at the back of the neck.
Both were now kajirae, and lovely. I thought they were now even more attractive, as I thought myself to be, as well, than they had been before, in the house, in the sorority, on Earth.
“You may speak,” said the slaver to his charges.
“Allison!” they cried.
I looked wildly, piteously, at he in whose charge I was. “You may speak,” he said.
“Jane!” I cried. “Eve!”
“Get on your knees,” said he in whose charge I was.
I knelt, instantly.
“Jane, Jane!” I said. “Eve! Eve!”
“Allison!” they cried, joyfully.
Chapter Eighteen
The road here was narrow, and rough.
I looked up, at the stone channel of the aqueduct, some hundred feet over my head.
I do not think the road really has a name, or, if it does, I did not know it. It is called, however, like other such roads, the Aqueduct Road, for it follows the line of the aqueduct, to enable the approach of crews and service wagons, which tend regularly to the massive conduit, bringing fresh water from the snows and streams of the Voltai to Ar. This was the Vennan aqueduct, one of some five supplying the city.
Master Desmond had informed me that the Vennan aqueduct, the third longest, was some eight hundred and ten pasangs long.
Eve, Jane, and I were identically tunicked, as I had been before, in brief white rep cloth. Too, we now had identical collars. Given the roughness of the terrain, we were now sandaled. We were grateful for this.
We had left Venna four days ago.
“I cannot read my new collar, Master,” I had said to Master Desmond.
“No,” he said, “you are illiterate. I like you that way. It makes you more helpless.”
“A girl,” I said, “would like to know what is on her collar.”
“Come closer,” he said.
I then stood close to him, and lifted my chin, that he might the more easily read my collar.
“You seem uneasy,” he said.
“Master is very close,” I said.
“You are very close,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“You would like to know what is on your collar?”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“You may then,” he said, “petition me properly. Kneel, kiss my feet, and make your request.”
I knelt, and pressed my lips to his feet, and kissed them.
I was thrilled to do this, before this man. How right it seemed to me that I should be so before him. But what was he to me? Could he be, I wondered, my master? Again and again I kissed his feet, I now only a slave, and he so far above me, standing, formidable and powerful, a Gorean male. How far I was now from my former world, from the former Allison Ashton-Baker.
“I would know what is on my collar, Master,” I said.
“Do you beg it?” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He then indicated that I should stand, and he took my collar in his hands, and lifted it a little.
“Master?” I said.
“It is very simple,” he said. “It says only ‘I belong to Lady Bina’.”
“There is nothing about the house of Epicrates, or Emerald Street?” I asked.
“No,” he said, “but do not be concerned. Many collars are similarly simple.”
“And if I were in your collar?” I asked.
“You are a bold slave,” he said. “It would presumably be something like ‘I am the property of Desmond of Harfax’.”
“It would not even contain my name?” I said.
“One may then change your name as often as one might wish, without changing the collar,” he said.
“It is fortunate I am not in your collar,” I said.
“It is perhaps more fortunate than you realize,” he said, quietly.
“I hate you,” I said.
“That might make it more pleasant to have you at my feet,” he said.
* * * *
The day’s races had been recently finished and our party, the Lady Bina, Astrinax, Lykos, Desmond, and myself, had descended the tiers, and were preparing to leave the grounds when we had encountered a neck-chained, matched set of slaves, both barbarians.
“In what way,” inquired the Lady Bina, “is this a matched set?”
“They are both barbarians,” had said the slaver, “and, apparently, speak the same barbarous tongue. Your girl seems to know them.”
“Can you speak to them, Allison?” asked the Lady Bina. “In their barbarous tongue?”
“Yes, Mistress,” I said. “It is called English.”
“There are several barbarian languages, Lady,” said the slaver.
“Speak to them, a little, in that English,” said the Lady Bina.
Words burst forth amongst us, eager, wild, grateful words. “We are all collared, all slaves!” I cried. “Yes, yes,” cried Jane and Eve. It seemed that my apprehension, which had been separate from the others, had been an accident of my location in the house. The rest had been brought to the parlor, stripped, bound hand and foot, gagged, and placed in a truck, as though they might have been kindling, and taken to a transportation point. Apparently Mrs. Rawlinson had much enjoyed the scene, observing the reduction of her former charges to the status of captures destined for Gorean markets. Jane and Eve had been brought to Venna. I, and perhaps others, had been delivered to Ar. Others must have been variously distributed.
“Tha
t is enough,” said the Lady Bina, sharply. We were then silent, frightened. One obeys free persons. One hopes to please them. One does not wish to be punished.
“Interesting,” said the Lady Bina.
“Yes,” said Lykos, regarding Eve.
The fair Earth-girl slave put down her head.
“Yes,” said Astrinax, scrutinizing Jane, as a slave may be scrutinized.
I saw that Jane knew herself so scrutinized. She looked to the side, her lip trembling.
I then saw my friends, Jane and Eve, familiar from a thousand interactions on a former world, afresh, as they now were, as I had never thought of them before, as mere slaves, as lovely, exquisite, delicate animals, half naked, purchasable, timid under the eyes of men. But why not, I thought. They were young, they were beautiful, they were desirable. And they were now, as I, on Gor.
How different were things now, from my former world!
How far were we all, now, from the banalities, the boredoms, the competitions, and trivialities of the sorority!
How meaningless we had been, how worthless!
We now had worth, some value, at least what coin we might bring. And we must strive to please!
We were now such that men would have their will of us.
We were slaves.
And had I seen something in Eve’s eyes, before she thrust down her head, frightened, before Lykos, and had I not noted a momentary start in the eyes of Jane, before hurrying to look away from the gaze of Astrinax?
How can a kneeling slave, looking up, not wonder if he who looks down upon her is not her master?
Surely she knows she has a price.
Perhaps he before whom she kneels will pay it. She does not know. She will then be his. She will then be bought.
The Lady Bina then addressed herself to the men. “Can you understand them?” she asked.
“No,” said the slaver. “No,” said the others.
“Nor I,” said the Lady Bina.
“I assure you that they are competent in Gorean,” said the slaver.
“I trust so,” said the Lady Bina.
“It is certified,” said the slaver.
It was in no way unusual, after the brief indulgence accorded us, consequent upon the curiosity of the Lady Bina, who was apparently curious as to the nature of our native speech, that we had been abruptly silenced.
In the presence of masters it is expected, of course, that the slave will speak in the language of the masters. Not to do so is to invite the lash. Whatever she says is to be comprehensible to the master. In all ways, verbal and otherwise, the slave is to be open to the master. This is fitting, as she is a slave.
“You are offering them, I take it,” said the Lady Bina.
“Certainly,” said the slaver.
“But you have failed to sell them,” she said, “and the races are over.”
“For the day,” said the slaver.
“But you do not wish to return to the house with them still on your chain,” she said.
“I would rather not,” he said.
“I wonder,” said the Lady Bina, “if these two slaves might be of interest to men.”
“Certainly they would be of interest to men,” said the slaver. “They are lovely. They would grace any block.”
“Astrinax,” she said, “do you think these two slaves might be of interest to men?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Assess them,” said the Lady Bina.
“Remove their bracelets, and the neck chain,” said Astrinax.
This was done.
“Tunics off,” said Astrinax.
I turned aside while they were assessed.
“Oh!” said Jane.
I heard Eve whimper.
“Kneel,” said Astrinax.
Both, I gathered, were found suitable for slave meat.
“I will let you have both for ten silver tarsks,” said the slaver.
“One, for both,” said the Lady Bina.
“Impossible,” said the slaver.
“You may as well debracelet Allison,” said the Lady Bina to Desmond. “We are leaving the grounds.”
I rubbed my wrists, the bracelets removed.
“Both for five silver tarsks,” said the slaver.
“They are barbarians,” said the Lady Bina.
“Then four, for both,” said the slaver.
“We are looking for cheap girls,” said the Lady Bina, “for we are going into the Voltai.”
“No, please, Mistress!” cried Jane, and then, frightened, put her hand before her mouth. “Forgive me, Mistress!” she begged. Clearly Eve was in consternation, as well.
“You may speak,” said the Lady Bina.
“Not the Voltai!” said Jane, kneeling with Eve, wearing only their collars, their knees in the dirt. “There are beasts, bandits!”
“You need have no fear,” said the Lady Bina, “for obviously you are not to be sold for a reasonable price.”
“Surely you could not be thinking of taking merchandise of this quality into the Voltai?” said the slaver.
“One silver tarsk for both,” said the Lady Bina, “if you throw in the tunics. They will do until something more suitable may be arranged.”
“More suitable?” said the slaver, looking at me, grinning. I stepped back. My tunic was such that I might have easily been thought to be a man’s slave.
“Let us return to the wagons,” said the Lady Bina.
“Three,” said the slaver. “No? Very well then, one for each!”
I was not a good judge in such matters. A girl often does not know what she will bring until she had been thrust from the block. I did know that I had never brought as much as a full silver tarsk.
I looked upon Jane and Eve. Slaves are often naked, and one thinks little of looking upon them, and, commonly, they think little of being so looked upon. Still, I had known them from my former world. Our eyes met, and they lowered their hands. I saw that they now realized they were slaves.
“The tunics must be included,” said the Lady Bina.
We were at the gate of the grounds when we heard the slaver’s exasperated cry, “Hold! Done!”
We turned about and watched him approach. He had Jane’s upper left arm in his right hand, and Eve’s upper right arm in his left hand, and was conducting them toward us. Each had her tunic thrust crosswise in her mouth.
The Lady Bina withdrew a silver tarsk from her pouch and gave it to the slaver.
“They will be reluctant to enter the Voltai,” the slaver warned the Lady Bina.
“We will keep them well chained until we are well in the Voltai,” said the Lady Bina. “Then we will unchain them and they may run off, if they wish, to be eaten by animals.”
Jane and Eve knelt before the Lady Bina, looking up at her, pathetically, and, against the tunics thrust in their mouths, whimpered.
“Of course,” said the Lady Bina. “You may clothe yourselves.”
The two slaves gratefully slipped into their tunics, drawn over their head, fastened at the left shoulder, with a disrobing loop. Their tunics, I noted, were not much more ample than mine. When one is offering a woman, of course, one wants it to be clear that she may be worth buying. To be sure, long ago, at the party, we had, all three of us, been even more scandalously clothed, for we had been camisked.
Desmond, at a nod from the Lady Bina, fastened Jane and Eve together with the bracelets which he had removed from me a bit ago, the left wrist of Jane fastened to the right wrist of Eve.
Astrinax removed his belt, briefly, and, looping it, struck Jane twice, sharply, across the back of the thighs, and then served Eve identically, and they cried out, softly, and better understood themselves slaves. Astrinax then replaced his belt, and we continued on our way.
I went beside Jane and Eve, at Eve’s side. “We are slaves,” said Eve, “slaves!” “We are all slaves,” I said. “We are afraid to enter the Voltai,” said Eve. “It will be done with us as masters please,” I said. “Yes,�
� said Jane, “it will be done with us as masters please.”
Lykos was a spare fellow, dark-haired, familiar with the wicked blade, called the gladius, who had been hired by Astrinax in one of the camps between Ar and Venna. He was, as far as I knew, a mercenary, with a possible background in the Scarlet Caste. It was well that we had at least one such with the wagons, for the two beasts, Lord Grendel and the blind Kur, who were usually concealed, or shadowing the wagons from a distance, could scarcely accompany the Lady Bina about, for example, to the races. I did not know the caste of Astrinax, but it seemed likely, if he had caste, that he was of the minor Merchants. Master Desmond, of course, as far as I knew at the time, was of the Metal Workers. He was seldom visibly armed, but I supposed that he would have a weapon somewhere, perhaps in his pack, at least a knife, as few male Goreans are likely to be without a weapon of some kind. Slaves, of course, are seldom permitted to touch weapons. They might lose a hand for doing so, if not be cast to leech plants or sleen. This had been so ingrained upon me, in my training, that I was afraid even to look upon a weapon, beside a chair, hanging on a wall, or such.
Astrinax, I recalled, had wished to hire two or three more men. It did not seem likely, however, that he would be successful, as few fellows, even of the Scarlet Caste, cared to enter the Voltai, particularly on some obscure mission which might prove to be of some indefinite duration.
So it was our last night in Venna, before leaving for the Voltai.
Astrinax would make one last try, it seemed, in one of Venna’s larger, more popular paga taverns, The Kneeling Slave. He would be accompanied by Desmond and Lykos. The Lady Bina would remain near the wagons, in the camp’s “palace of free women,” a small, closely guarded area, scarcely a palace, more a small house, supplied with certain amenities, cakes, ka-la-na, and such. It was also within earshot of our wagons, within one of which was Lord Grendel. The Lady Bina enjoyed the company of free women, which she found instructive, and, in its way, profitable. I well recalled Lady Delia, the companion of the pottery merchant, Epicrates. As a slave, I trusted that the Lady Bina, who was an apt pupil in many things, would not learn too much about the character and behavior of Gorean free women, or, at least, would not strive to adopt or emulate it. In the house of Tenalion, I had heard certain slaves, being readied for their sale, beseeching Priest-Kings that they not fall into the clutches of a free woman. I had gathered, more than once, that I was fortunate to be owned by the Lady Bina, who, while often demanding, petty, and vain, entertained toward me, as far as I knew, not the least animus or hostility. This was quite different from being the slave of a typical Gorean free woman, particularly if one should be attractive. Such slaves, it seems, can seldom please, and they are often scolded, humiliated, and beaten. If they so much as look at a man they may be tied and lashed.