by John Norman
I felt a knotted, double strand of leather looped about my left wrist and pulled tight.
"Master," I said.
It was the fellow who had earlier opened the Kalmak and kissed me. I was not displeased to see him, nor to be on his thong.
"Come to the alcove," he said. I placed the tray I carried on a rack. The fight continued below. I was pulled by the leather thong on my left wrist toward an alcove in the wall of the level of the high balcony. There was shouting below. Several had now joined the fight. I heard the musicians begin to play, on Aurelion's orders, to attempt to pacify the crowd, to distract it. A dancer, I supposed, had been sent to the center of the floor. Usually such fights are stopped by the separation of the combatants and the awarding to each of a girl for the night. I supposed Lyrazina would be given to one, and an even more exquisite beauty to the other, thus contenting both. But if this strategy was to be successful, it did not seem to be yet successful. I heard glass break below.
"This one," said the man, indicating an alcove.
He released the thong on my wrist and stood behind me. I climbed the five steps into the alcove and crawled within.
It occurred to me that none had noted him conducting me to the alcove. All eyes had been on the fight below.
I crawled to the back of the alcove and, there, turned to face him, he whom I must now, as he chose, please.
He turned his back to me and, with the belts and buckles, closed the leather curtains on the alcove, that we might be closed within, and be undisturbed from the outside.
He gestured that I should remove my garments, and I did so, even to, reading his eyes, the red Koora on my head. He then gestured that I should crawl to him, and kneel, back on my heels, facing away from him. I did so. I felt my wrists, with binding fiber, tied behind my back.
"Master?" I asked.
"Do not face me," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
I sensed him remove, with a rustle of leather, an object from his tunic. Suddenly I felt the wadding of the gag of a slave hood thrust in my mouth and, with its straps, secured. It was done swiftly. I could utter no sound. I was gagged. Then the hood itself was pulled up and jerked down, over my head, and buckled under my chin. He threw me forward and I fell on the furs on my right shoulder. He tied together my ankles. I sensed him move aside some furs. Then I felt my body doubled up and my feet slipped inside the mouth of a slave sack. The sack was drawn up, over my body; I sat, doubled up; my head was pushed down a bit; the sack was drawn shut over my head and, with a snap, locked shut.
Then to my wonder I heard him open a door. It must have been behind the hanging at the rear of the alcove. I felt the sack being lifted through the opening, and then it was dragged along a wooden-floored passage; then he threw it lightly to his shoulder, and began to descend short flights of stairs.
Things had gone very smoothly for him. Then I realized that the fight below, probably, had been staged.
I squirmed in the sack but was helpless. He was very strong.
19
I Bead a Necklace, and am then Used for Wench Sport
I was kneeling.
I felt hands untying the binding fiber on my ankles, and at my wrists.
The slave hood was unbuckled and pulled up, over and off my head. I could see! Its leather lay against my breasts, held by its attachments to the gag. The gag straps were loosened. A hand extracted the heavy wadding, letting it fall open, to dry. I almost vomited, freed of the gag. Then I put my head back, and breathed deeply. The hood and gag were then pulled away. One of the men put them, with the binding fiber, in his belt. Two other men crouched beside me. Two others stood nearby. The man on my left, in his two hands, took my left wrist; the man on my right, with his two hands, took my right wrist. They stood, throwing me upright to my feet, between them.
I was unclothed, save for the black, enameled, belled collar, and the black, enameled belled ankle ring, as I had been in the alcove of the Chatka and Curla. My face was red from the slave hood. My body was broken out from the moisture and heat of the slave sack.
I stood between the two men, their hands on my wrists. I was in a torchlit anteroom, of large size. A long rug, some forty yards in length, narrow, red, led toward a large pair of white doors, which opened from the center. Two guards, helmeted, with spears, stood at that door. There were shields and crossed spears on either side of the door.
I shrank back, looking at the tall doors.
I felt pressure on my wrists. "Come, Animal," said one of the men. "Yes, Master," I whispered.
By the wrists I was led toward the great door. I was very frightened, for I knew these must be the men associated with the Mistress, Lady Elicia of Ar. They thought that I bore a message for them, but I did not. They would be disappointed. They would be angry. Gorean males are not patient with displeasing slave girls. I did not wish to be disfigured or tortured, or slain. I was innocent! I would plead my innocence! Perhaps then I would be only whipped.
The doors were swung open by the helmeted guards. I was flung to my knees. "Kiss the floor, Slave," said one of the men.
I did so, my arms held high, straight behind me, thrusting me down. Then again, rudely, I was thrown to my feet and led into the room.
It was a lofty, beautiful room, as though in a palace. It was floored with purple, glossy tiles, broad and shining. There were slender, lofty white pillars, golden hangings. I was led toward a dais on which a large, corpulent man sat, one of enormous weight, reclining on cushions. He wore white robes, stained with wine, swollen with fat, bordered in laced gold. His face was heavy, coarse, pitted where whiskers, one by one, had been pulled from it by tweezers. He was balding, and wore upon his head a crown of grape leaves, from the famed Ta grapes of the terraces of Cos. I sensed in him intelligence, vanity, wealth, cruelty and power.
I saw that at the foot of the dais, before me, before where I now knelt, released by the men who had held me, there was a low table, and, on this table there were strands of thread and, in small cups, beads, wooden slave beads, beads of various colors, of many colors.
I looked down at the low, wooden table, the beads in the tiny cups. I trembled. It seemed I had knelt here before, or somewhere like this, in a dream which had once tormented me in Tabuk's Ford. I wondered if I had ever knelt in such a place as this before, or if it were merely the figment of a slave girl's dream. The dream had seemed real. I wondered if it were in some odd sense a recollection or anticipation. I dismissed such nonsense from my mind. But the similarity of this setting to that of the dream was uncanny and frightening.
A slave whip, by one of the nearby men, was lifted before me. I then was truly frightened, for this, too, had been in the dream.
"What is this?" I knew a voice would ask.
"What is this?" asked the man.
"A slave whip, Master," I said, knowing that I would.
"And what are you?" inquired the voice.
"A slave, Master," I said. I wanted to scream out to them that I knew nothing of their messages or whatever it was they might seek. I wanted to scream out to them that I was only a miserable slave, and knew nothing. I wanted only a bit of mercy from them.
"Do you obey?" asked the voice.
"Yes, Master," I said.
I trembled. These things had been said, too, in the dream. I did not think the dream was prophetic. Rather I understood now that in some way the dream had recalled to me, or touched upon, a ritual in which I had been rehearsed.
I pulled back my head, fearing the press of the slave whip to my lips.
This puzzled the man, I sensed. But then, as was his part, he thrust the whip against my lips. He did it angrily. He had not been pleased to have been anticipated. The heavy leather of the whip, folded back about its handle, bruised my lips. I tasted a drop of blood. I could feel the whip hard against my teeth, lying across them diagonally.
"Kiss the whip, Slave," said the man.
I kissed the whip.
There was a silence.
"Who commands me?" I asked. I had sudden respect for whoever had devised the ritual we were enacting. My last question was not the sort of question a slave girl, in such a situation, would ask. It was too bold. The master, if he wishes, will inform the girl as to who it is who commands her. If he does not wish to inform her, he does not. The girl needs to know only that she is a slave and that it is hers to obey. Yet the question was not utterly uncontextual. A bystander might simply infer that the girl was new to her collar and did not understand that such a question might bring the whip down upon her. Another subtlety was that the expression 'Master' had not been included in the question.
The gross, corpulent man looked at one of his lieutenants, a helmeted fellow who stood nearby. They exchanged glances.
I had, by this response, identified myself for them. The identification would be confirmed by the next responses.
The corpulent man looked at me, and shifted his weight, rotund, immense and slack, on the cushions.
"You are commanded by Belisarius, Slave Girl," he said. I did not know if 'Belisarius' was his true name, or a code name for the contact.
I knew now, however, incontrovertibly, that this was the contact, this was the specific individual to whom I was expected to communicate the intelligence which I supposedly conveyed.
I wanted to cry out that I knew nothing. The small eyes, deep in the fat of the heavy face, regarded me.
"What is the command of Belisarius, the slave girl's master?" I asked. I could scarcely hear myself speak.
"It is simple," said the voice.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Bead a necklace, Slave Girl," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
A strange state of consciousness seemed suddenly to come over me. I was aware of what I was doing, and yet it seemed as though I behaved in terms of some prearranged pattern.
It was again almost as though I were in a dream.
I reached toward the strands of thread on the table, and toward the cups of tiny beads.
I do not know why I first chose a yellow bead, but I did. And then I chose a blue bead and a red, and then another yellow. I began to bead a necklace.
I knotted the end of the thread on the necklace.
I lifted it to Belisarius. One of his men took it, carefully, and handed it to him. He placed it on the dais before him.
I shook my head. Strangely, as soon as the necklace had been taken from me, my natural state of consciousness returned. The behavior, whatever might have been its import, had been discharged. It was as though I awakened from a dream.
I saw Belisarius looking carefully at the beads before him. I had strung the same order of beads more than once, to complete the necklace. Too, the necklace was long and loose, like most slave necklaces. It would loop at least twice about a girl's throat. It seemed to be indistinguishable from thousands of necklaces which I had seen on the throats of slave girls.
It did not take Belisarius long to regard the necklace.
Suddenly he pounded his heavy fist on the dais with pleasure. "At last!" he said. "At last!"
The men about him did not ask what significance he had found in the necklace, nor did Belisarius explain to them what he had seen in the arrangement of the beads.
I felt a knife at my throat. "Shall we kill her?" asked a man behind me.
"No," said Belisarius. "The message has now been delivered."
"What if she falls into the wrong hands?" asked a man.
"It would not matter," said Belisarius. He looked at me. "Bead the same necklace, Slave Girl," he said.
I trembled. Suddenly I knew I could not. I could not remember the order of the beads.
"I cannot, Master," I said. "Please do not kill me!"
"Even if she could rebead the necklace," said Belisarius, "its message could not be understood, and, even if it could be understood, it would be meaningless to others." He laughed. "And even if its meaning could be understood, it would be too late for the enemy to act. They could then understand only the danger in which they would then stand."
The knife was drawn away from my throat. I almost fainted on the tiles.
Belisarius regarded me. "Besides," said he, "the Lady Elicia wants the pretty little thing for a serving slave."
"The Lady Elicia," said one of the men, "would, I wager, look well naked and in a collar."
The men laughed.
"Perhaps later," said Belisarius, "when she has served her purposes."
The men laughed.
I felt my hands being tied behind my back. The wadding of the gag of the slave hood was rolled and thrust deep in my mouth. The gag straps were drawn back, deeply, between my teeth; I winced; then, behind the back of my neck, they were cinched, tightly.
I looked at Belisarius, bound and gagged before him. "Use her for wench sport," he said, "and then return her to the Chatka and Curla."
The slave hood was pulled up, and opened, and then pulled down and over my head; it was folded and tucked under the chin, taking up its slack, and the leather belt, looped twice about my neck, was drawn through its loops, tightened and buckled shut.
By one ankle I was pulled across the tiles to the side of the room.
20
A Slave Girl's Revenge
I walked in the morning, an Ahn before noon, on the wharves of Telnus. I could see the great gates of the harbor some two pasangs across the water. The harbor was filled with many craft. I avoided the tar on the planks of the wharf. Beneath the planking of the wharves, here and there, I could see water, and small boats tied at pilings. Men came and went, going to and from ships, and disembarking and embarking cargo. I passed the throne of the wharf praetor, he in his robes, with the two scribes, for the settling of disputes which might occur on the quays. Four guardsmen, too, were there.
They grinned at me as I walked past, and I smiled back at them. They were handsome guardsmen, and I was a slave girl.
But I must not annoy them, soliciting their patronage for the tavern, for they were on duty. I had been struck five times across the back of the legs, my wrists held, when I had made this mistake before. The praetor was a sour fellow.
After I had delivered the message to Belisarius, and had served to amuse his men, I had been returned to the Chatka and Curla, still hooded, and bound in the slave sack, as I had been brought from it, by the same men, through the secret door in the rear of the alcove. I had been removed from the sack in the alcove, unbound, unhooded and ungagged. The man who had taken me from the alcove and returned me to it then swiftly used me for his pleasure, and left, through the customary, leather-curtained door. I was left behind in the alcove, naked and had. I put on the garments of the tavern. I looked behind the hanging at the rear of the alcove. There was a stout door there, made of iron. I put my finger tips on it. Timidly, softly I tried the handle. It was now locked. It had been locked, apparently, behind the man who had brought me back into the alcove. There was no key or lock mechanism on my side of the door. It may have been, of course, that the door had been left unlocked originally, and that it had locked automatically, when closed, behind the man when he had re-entered the alcove, returning me to it. I did not know. I did know that it was now locked, and that I could not open it. I let the hanging fall back, concealing the door. Even had I been able to open it, I would not have dared to go through it. Suppose I had been found in an area where I was not supposed to be. I did not know what would be done to me. On the whole surface of the planet there was nowhere to run, nowhere to go. I was a slave girl. I left the alcove, to return to my duties on the floor, those of a paga slave. The man who had taken me from the alcove and returned me to it had not, incidentally, as nearly as I could tell, conducted me to and from the house of Belisarius. I had been carried and transported for a time in a small boat, and, for a time, in a cart. Hooded, and captive in the slave sack, I had no sense of direction and very little of time. I gathered, from what I had heard, that contacts had been made by men wearing masks, who spoke signs and c
ountersigns. I doubted that my original captor himself knew the identity of these other men.
I continued on, down the wharves.
After I had delivered the message I was no longer under the same security which I had earlier experienced at the Chatka and Curla. Sometimes now, like certain other girls, I was permitted to wander forth, before the busy hours of the tavern, to solicit patronage for its proprietor, my master, Aurelion of Cos. I wore the belled collar, and belled ankle ring, of the tavern, and a bit of black silk. On the silk, in yellow, there were words, which Narla had translated for me. "I am Yata. Own me at the Chatka and Curla." I was barefoot. I wore a red kerchief, for my hair had not as yet fully regrown.
"Greetings, Slave," said a man.
"Oh!" I cried, for his hand had suddenly, unexpectedly, thrust upward, beneath my brief silk.
I backed away from him.
I regarded him, uncertainly. I could not feign displeasure, or outrage, of course, for I was a slave. On the other hand, I did not want to encourage him to seize me as I was, on the wharves, and further his explorations.