by John Norman
I heard the man loosen the small gate behind my head. I did not know why he did this.
"Master?" I asked.
He let the gate then swing down on its hinges, and lie against its bolts.
He did not snap it shut.
"Master?" I asked, frightened.
He turned away. I heard him on the ramp.
"Master!" I screamed, terrified. "I will be silent! I will be silent!" I turned my head wildly, trying to look back. "Please, Master!" I begged. "Please! I will be silent, Master!"
The sharp, furred, cold snout of an urt could now, as the gate lay against its bolts, thrust between the gate and the side of the cage. The animal might now swiftly, furtively, slither into the cage which I, helplessly chained, must then share with it.
"Master!" I screamed. I was terrified of urts. "Master, please," I screamed. "I will be silent! I will be silent!"
I heard him pause on the ramp. He turned and returned to my cage.
"I will be silent, Master," I whispered, terrified. "I will be silent, Master," I whispered. "Please, Master."
He snapped shut the tiny gate, and left. In a few moments the hatch closed and we were again in total darkness. The ship shifted in the water, and I could hear the waves against the hull. In a few minutes, the man gone, I heard the urt, it or another, moving about on the wood between the meshes. I gritted my teeth so that I would not cry out from the misery of the lice. I drew my feet and hands, in their chains, as near the center of my space as I could. I made no sound.
* * * *
The vertical gate of the cage space, that gate behind my head, was thrown open and hooked back. I put my head back.
"Master," I said. But I could not speak for the spike of the bota was thrust between my teeth, and I must drink.
When the spike was withdrawn I again tried to speak. "Master," I begged. But his heavy hand thrust bread in my mouth, crusts of Sa-Tarna bread, wadding it in.
Then he went to the next cage, and the next, similarly watering and feeding their occupants.
I knew he would return, to finish the feeding, with another draft of water, a spoon of salt and a slice of the bitter tospit. Bit by bit, flake by flake, dampened, struggling, trying not to choke, I swallowed the crusts with which my mouth had been crammed.
I heard him again then behind my head. Almost never did I get to see the male at whose mercy I was chained.
The bota's spike was again forced into my mouth. I drank. When the spike was pulled away, I whispered, quickly, "Please, Master, may a slave speak?"
"Yes," he said.
"Remove me from the cage," I begged. "Let me go on deck. I will do anything!"
"You are a slave," he said. "You must do anything anyway."
"Yes, Master," I said, miserably. It was true. A slave had no bargaining power. All that she could possibly give was free to the master at his slightest glance or word.
"Open your mouth," he said.
"Select me out," I begged, "when next a girl is pulled from the cage for the sport of the sailors."
"No, me!" said the girl next to me.
"I am a pleasure slave," I said.
"I, too, Master," said the girl next to me, on my left.
I felt the spoon beside my mouth and I opened my mouth, and the salt was thrown into my mouth.
"You each," he said, "in your turn, will have half an Ahn on the deck."
"Thank you, Master," I said. The slice of tospit was thrust in my mouth. The cage gate behind me was snapped shut. I bit into the tospit. It was bitter, but juicy. It was relished by my body. I made each drop last as long as I could. I had not finished it even when the feeding was done and the hatch closed, shutting us again in the darkness of the hold of the slave ship.
* * * *
I threw back my head, reveling in the wind and sunlight. I could not believe the freshness of the air, the winds of Thassa, the brightness of the sky.
This morning I had been removed from the cage, a tether put about my left ankle, given a rag and pan, and set to clean the crawl space beneath the slave platforms. Four times had I vomited and fainted but each time, by the tether, I was drawn from beneath the platform and revived, and set again about my work. I was struck twice with the whip. With four other girls, later, with buckets, I emptied the bilge, which lies below and at the center of the floor of the hold, under a removable wooden grille.
We had then been permitted to ascend to the deck, to empty the wastes and seepage. After this we had been permitted to clean ourselves as we could, with sea water and brushes. The deck is kept clean by the girls in the deck cages. The girls in the deck cages are permitted to keep their hair. The hair of the below-deck girls, mercifully, is shaved off; indeed, our body hair, too, was shaved off, completely. These precautions prevent, to a great extent, the nesting of ship lice. After we were cleaned we were leashed and exercised for a few minutes on the deck. Then each of us, for the remainder of our time on deck, the precious half of an Ahn, was chained in a kneeling position, our hands before our bodies.
I had been taken by Tellius, the henchman of the Lady Elicia of Ar, by tarn, to Schendi. This infamous port is the home port of the famed black slavers of Schendi, a league of slavers well known for their cruel depredations on shipping, but it is also a free port, administered by black merchants, and its fine harbor and its inland markets to the north and east attract much commerce. It is thought that an agreement exists between the merchants of Schendi and the members of the league of black slavers, though I know of few who have proclaimed this publicly in Schendi and lived. The evidence, if evidence it is that such an agreement exists, is that the black slavers tend to avoid preying on shipping which plies to and from Schendi. They conduct their work commonly in more northern waters, returning to Schendi as their home port. The ship on which I was carried was the round ship, or cargo ship, Clouds of Telnus, registered in Cos, but with shipping papers clearing it for the waters of Schendi. It was some twenty feet wide at its broadest point and some one hundred and twenty feet in length. It had two masts, with permanent rigging. It was also equipped with oars, but these were primarily used in entering and leaving a harbor. The round ship, as opposed to the long ship, or war ship, relies predominantly upon its sails. The Clouds of Telnus was said to be a medium-class ship. Its deep hold, I gathered, would carry several tons of cargo. I found it a lovely ship, discounting the miseries of its hold, and it was particularly beautiful under sail. The sails, like those of most Gorean ships, were triangular. Telnus, our destination, is the capital city of the island of Cos, one of Gor's two largest maritime ubarates. Cos lies north of Tyros and west of Port Kar, which latter city is located in the Tamber Gulf, which lies just beyond the Vosk's delta. There are four major cities on Cos, Telnus, Selnar, Temos and Jad. Telnus is the largest of these and has the best harbor. The Ubar of Cos is Lurius, from the city of Jad. The capital of Tyros, Gor's other largest maritime ubarate, is Kasra. Its other large city is Tentium. Her Ubar is called Chenbar. He is from Kasra, and is spoken of, I understand, as the Sea Sleen. Some years ago Tyros and Cos joined fleets for war on Port Kar, but in a significant naval battle the two ubarates were defeated. Port Kar lacked the power and shipping to follow up its victory. Tyros and Cos, and Port Kar, remain to this day in a state of war with respect to one another.
The deck was white and smooth to my knees. It had been rubbed with deck stones, and washed down and scrubbed. The deck-cage girls, on their hands and knees, ankles shackled, attended to this work.
I looked out, across the water. The sky was very bright. It was precious being above deck.
"How ugly you are, Below-Deck Girl," said one of the girls in a small deck cage.
I looked at her. She was auburn-haired, and, like all the slave girls on the Clouds of Telnus, whether cage girls or below-deck girls, stripped; girls are not permitted clothing on a slave ship. She was sitting with her knees drawn up in the tiny cage. She could not completely stretch her body.
I did not bother to resp
ond to her. If her hair had been shaven away, she, too, would not be too beautiful. I would have liked to have stood over her, her control slave, whip in hand, when she had scrubbed on the deck. She would not then, I think, have spoken so insolently.
I heard the lookout cry out, from high above on the highest, the second, of the two masts. He spoke of a sail and its location. It could not be seen from the deck. Men ran to the left side of the ship, some climbed one of the two masts. The captain spoke swiftly to his crew.
The two men at the steering oars, one on each side of the ship, at its back, turned the vessel away from the left.
Men rushed to the benches and slid oars through the oar openings in the side of the ship.
Another man began to call to them and their oars, in unison, began to dip and pull.
Men ran here and there about the deck. Some attended to ropes. Some lashed down loose objects on the deck. Weapons were fetched, and sand and water. Hatches were closed, and secured.
I was very excited, but helpless. I could not participate in the least in what might ensue.
I knew the waters of Thassa were plied by many ships, and, among them, were the ships of pirates. Cos and Ar, I had heard, were now at war, the matters having to do with the piracy on the Vosk not having been satisfactorily adjudicated. But Ar had no navy, though it did have a fleet of river ships that patrolled the Vosk. The ship might, of course, be of Port Kar, or of one of the northern ports, or even of Torvaldsland.
I could not free my ankles, wrists and belly of their chains, which kept me, by their arrangement, on my knees. I was frightened. If the ship fell to pirates I, and the other girls, I knew, would fall helplessly to them, too, lovely spoils, naked slave booty, to the victors. I hoped that they would want us. If they did not, we would be thrown overboard. In such circumstances, girls try to be wanted.
"Get those slaves below deck," called an officer.
I and the other four girls, who had been on deck at the same time, were seized by the arms and dragged along the deck. The hatch to the slave hold was opened. To my horror I saw my sisters in bondage tumbled down the ladder. "No!" I cried. Then I, too, was thrown through the hatch, striking the stairs, rolling, chained, tumbling, to the flooring of the hold. I was much bruised. "No!" I heard cry. Then the girls from the deck cages, too, were taken to the hatch and rudely ordered to descend into the hold. "The smell!" screamed one of them, and then she was thrust stumbling, half falling, through the opening. The twenty girls from the deck were then with us. Looking up, we saw the heavy hatch close. The new girls screamed at the darkness. We heard the hatch bolts flung into place, and the two heavy locks snapped shut.
17
The Leash
The heavy door opened.
Some men were there, one of whom held a tiny lamp.
The room was long, and wide, and low, with many square wooden pillars. The walls and flooring were of stone. I think it may have been beneath a warehouse, near water. I did not know. I had been brought there, bound and gagged, in a closed sack, in a lighter from the pirate ship.
I had been in the room some four days.
The men entered the room.
I did not know where the room was.
I wore the slave oval locked about my belly, and was neck chained.
The slave oval is a hinged iron loop which locks about a girl's waist. Two wrist rings, on sliding loops, are fitted on the oval. It also has a welded ring on the back, through which a slave bolt may be snapped, fastening the girl to a wall or object, or through which a chain might be passed. My wrists were locked in the wrist rings.
I sat on straw, my legs drawn up.
My neck wore an iron collar, with its ring, behind my neck, through which a long chain passed, the chain, too, being held to the wall by its own rings. The chain, with its collars, was more than a hundred feet long. Some forty or fifty girls were chained on my side of the room, and another forty or fifty on the other side of the room. The room was dingy, and smelled of musty straw. The light of the tiny lamp the man carried seemed bright in the room.
"What girls here," asked one of the men, who seemed imposing, in helmet and cloak, with four fellows, of the man with the lamp, a short, fat fellow in the merchants' white and gold, "are from the Clouds of Telnus?"
"None, of course, Noble Sir," said the merchant.
"It is well known," said the tall man, the leader of the others, "that you deal in black-market slaves."
"Not I!" cried the shorter man, the merchant.
The taller man, in the helmet, looked down upon him, menacingly.
"Perhaps the Noble Sirs would like gold," suggested the fat man. "Much gold?"
The taller man extended his hand.
The fat man thrust gold into the other's palm. "That is twice the normal fee," he pointed out.
The tall man dropped the gold into his pouch. "What girls here," he asked, "are from the Clouds of Telnus?"
The fat man shook. "Two," he whispered.
"Show them to me," he said.
The short fat man led the way toward myself and the auburn-haired girl, who had been in a deck cage. We were chained side by side. She wore the normal Kajira brand. I wore the Dina. I felt uneasy, and so, too, doubtless, did she. We could not kneel before the free males for we were in close neck collars, held closely to the wall.
"Were you two from the Clouds of Telnus?" asked the tall man.
"Yes, Master," we said.
The tall man crouched down beside us, irritably. One of the men with him wore the green of the physicians. The tall man looked at us. As naked female slaves we averted our eyes from his. I smelled the straw.
"Wrist-ring key," said the tall man.
The merchant handed him the key that would unlock the wrist rings.
"Leave the lamp and withdraw," said the tall man. The short merchant handed him the lamp and, frightened, left the room.
The men crouched down and crowded about the auburn-haired girl. I heard them unlock one of her wrist rings.
"We are going to test you for pox," he said. The girl groaned. It was my hope that none on board the Clouds of Telnus had carried the pox. It is transmitted by the bites of lice. The pox had appeared in Bazi some four years ago. The port had been closed for two years by the merchants. It had burned itself out moving south and eastward in some eighteen months. Oddly enough some were immune to the pox, and with others it had only a temporary, debilitating effect. With others it was swift, lethal and horrifying. Those who had survived the pox would presumably live to procreate themselves, on the whole presumably transmitting their immunity or relative immunity to their offspring. Slaves who contracted the pox were often summarily slain. It was thought that the slaughter of slaves had had its role to play in the containment of the pox in the vicinity of Bazi.
"It is not she," said the physician. He sounded disappointed. This startled me.
"Am I free of pox, Master?" asked the auburn-haired girl.
"Yes," said the physician, irritably. His irritation made no sense to me.
The tall man then closed the auburn-haired girl's wrist again in its wrist ring. The men crouched down about me. I shrank back against the wall. My left wrist was removed from its wrist ring and the tall man pulled my arm out from my body, turning the wrist, so as to expose the inside of my arm.
I understood then they were not concerned with the pox, which had vanished in the vicinity of Bazi over two years ago.
The physician swabbed a transparent fluid on my arm. Suddenly, startling me, elating the men, there emerged, as though by magic, a tiny, printed sentence, in fine characters, in bright red. It was on the inside of my elbow. I knew what the sentence said, for my mistress, the Lady Elicia of Ar, had told me. It was a simple sentence. It said: "This is she." It had been painted on my arm with a tiny brush, with another transparent fluid. I had seen the wetness on the inside of my arm, on the area where the arm bends, on the inside of the elbow, and then it had dried, disappearing. I was not even sure the writi
ng had remained. But now, under the action of the reagent, the writing had emerged, fine and clear. Then, only a moment or so later, the physician, from another flask, poured some liquid on a rep-cloth swab, and, again as though by magic, erased the writing. The invisible stain was then gone. The original reagent was then again tried, to check the erasure. There was no reaction. The chemical brand, marking me for the agents with whom the Lady Elicia, my mistress, was associated, was gone. The physician then, with the second fluid, again cleaned my arm, removing the residue of the second application of the reagent.