Dancer of Gor

by John Norman

  I noted the eyes of one of the men across the way on me. I had inadvertently, it seems, let my knees draw a bit too closely together. I immediately spread my knees much more widely, as I could, as was compatible with the binding on my ankles. This was appropriate for one such as I, a kajira, before a free male. He smiled. I put my head down.

  The small fellow returned, angrily, to squat behind the blanket, across from the leader of the five men.

  "Twenty-five!" he said. "And meat, much more meat!"

  He had been very angry, almost from the moment these five fellows had appeared, coming through the trees, for they had not simply completed the transaction, according to the terms which, I took it, had been previously agreed upon, but, it seems, had chosen to have, or appear to have, second thoughts. They had even seen fit, as, under the circumstances, would have seemed superfluous, to conduct, or seem to conduct, critical examinations of the merchandise.

  The fellow across the way grinned at me. I put my head down again. How I had squirmed, bound kneeling and helpless, the rail tight behind the back of my neck, my neck roped to it, under his touch! The work tunics of Mina and Cara had been thrust back, over their arms, and torn down. The remains of the bodices of these tunics now hung back about their wrists. The remainder of the garments, in front, torn apart, hung low on their bellies, below their navels. Their breasts were very beautiful, and the line of their waists, and the beginning of the flare of their hips. Too, their skirts, and Tupita's, too, and the slave strips, or G-strings, of Tela and myself had been lifted up, or aside, and let fall again, perhaps to see if we were depilated, or shaved, or if such cloth might conceal some defect. All in all, we had been handled intimately, and with authority. We were slaves.

  "Twenty-five!" said the small fellow.

  The small fellow, I had gathered, might have once been from Tharna. That is a city far to the north and east of Venna. It is well known for its silver mines. So, too, incidentally, is the city of Argentum, where I had been owned by Tyrrhenius of Argentum, and had served him as a lure girl. One can usually recognize a man of Tharna by two yellow cords, each about eighteen inches long, thrust over the belt. Such cords are suitable for binding a female, hand and foot. In seeing such cords the woman understands that it is possible for them to be used to put her at a man's mercy. The meaning of these cords has something to do, apparently, with the history of the polis of Tharna. Interestingly there are supposedly almost no free women in Tharna. Further, it is said that the slavery of a woman in Tharna is one of the strictest, most uncompromising and complete of slaveries on Gor. Similarly, interestingly enough, almost all of the female slaves in Tharna are native-born to the city. Tharnans seldom bring slaves into the city or, indeed, sell them out of the city. It is their own women, it seems, whom they keep in bondage, and a bondage of a very severe sort. Even when a slave begs to be sold out of the city, this is usually denied to her. One might almost think that the slavery of the women in Tharna was not an ordinary slavery but in some sense rather different. It is almost as though it had been imposed upon them as a punishment; it is almost as if they had been sentenced to it. Surprisingly, however, and scarcely to be expected in such a stern polity, the city itself is ruled by a Tatrix. Her name, it is said, is Lara. Also, paradoxically, Tharna's first minister, who stands second only to the Tatrix, is not of high caste but of lowly origin, only of the metal workers. His name, it is said, is Kron. Such things, I think, make Tharna an unusual city. She defends herself well, incidentally, and some, though perhaps they jest, speculate that her silver may be safer even than that of Argentum, which is an ally of Ar. One man of Tharna, it is said, is a match for ten from most cities. Whereas that is doubtless not true, it is not disputed that Tharnan warriors are among the most dangerous on Gor. It is indicative of this sort of thing that Tharnan mercenaries usually command high fees. Many mercenary companies use them as cadre and officers.

  "No," said the bearded man, squatting across the blanket from the small fellow.

  The small fellow, however, did not wear in his belt the two cords of Tharna. This suggested to me that if he had ever been of Tharna he now, at any rate, was no longer of Tharna. Perhaps he had been cast out of the city. Perhaps he had been banished or sent into exile. The bearded fellow had jested to him, somewhat cruelly, I thought, about the mines. Perhaps he had once served in them? If so, that suggested he might have once been a slave or criminal. In such a case then, surely he would not be anxious to return to them. Perhaps it had been in the mines that he had been injured, in them that he had been so disfigured, in them that perhaps he had acquired even the impediment in his gait.

  "Yes!" cried the small fellow.

  "I do not want to stay long in this vicinity," said the bearded fellow. "We were in the camp of Pietro Vacchi this morning. There is much concern there over this second disappearance of a wench from the camp. There may be a search. There is even a fellow in the camp now who has a sleen. He came in from the Viktel Aria, from around Venna, last night."

  "A sleen does not exist who could follow the trail," said the small fellow.

  "You are not afraid of sleen?" asked the bearded fellow, skeptically.

  "No," said the small fellow.

  "What is more to be feared than sleen," he asked, "saving perhaps a larl?"

  "There are things," said the small fellow.

  "Men," grinned the bearded fellow.

  "Sometimes," said the small fellow, uneasily.

  "Your girls are pot girls," said the bearded man, "kettle-and-mat girls, laundresses, stable sluts."

  I heard Tupita gasp in anger, tied to my right. She had been "first girl" in a much-frequented tavern in Brundisium. Then she shrank back, very quiet. She was afraid she might have attracted their attention. Sometimes a slave wants very much to attract the attention of a man, but sometimes, too, she does not. Sometimes she hopes that he, at least officially, will not take notice of her. It is not pleasant to be cuffed. Too, the whip hurts. I myself, too, however, though I was more restrained than Tupita, was not much pleased either. I had been first, at least for a time, on at least some of the lists at the baths in Brundisium. Too, I had been a fine dancer, one of the finest, I suspect, in Brundisium! If they could have seen me curling about a man's feet in an alcove, licking and kissing them, then inching upward, piteously, hopefully, then kneeling beside him, looking up, kissing, licking, pleading, I do not think they would have been so quick to dismiss me as a mere "pot girl." Tela, too, I am sure, was angry. After all, not only had she once been a rich free woman, of high family and significant station, of a fine city, Lydius, but even after her capture, and her prompt reduction to total and absolute bondage, she had been found so beautiful, so luscious and desirable, that she had been chosen over many women for the rectangle of red silk in the tent of Aulus. Mina and Cara, too, I think, were not too pleased. Certainly the beauty of neither was negligible, and I am sure they were both well aware of this. Both, and I am sure they understood this, would be likely to bring a high price on the slave block. Had there been originally any doubt in the minds of these fellows as to our desirability, or potential, those doubts, surely, should have been dispelled earlier, in the authoritative, intimate examinations to which we had all been helplessly subjected. What more would they have wished to do, put us to their full pleasure? Perhaps they could take us home for a week on a trial basis!

  "Very well," said the little fellow. "Consider them pot girls, cleaning slaves, laundresses, what have you, it matters not to me. Put them to your lowest servile tasks. Whip them back when they would crawl pleading on their bellies to your couches! What does it matter to me!"

  I think we were all startled to hear him exclaim in this fashion. Certainly we were exquisite slave flesh, all of us! I doubted that there were many slave bars on Gor to which five women such as we were fastened. To be sure, almost all female slaves on Gor must expect to be put to domestic labors, cooking, sewing, cleaning, washing, ironing, and such. We were women. Even free women, i
n households without slaves, perform such labors. How, then, could we expect to be exempt from them? Sometimes even high pleasure slaves in the palaces of ubars must, if only to remind them that they are slaves, on their hands and knees, stripped and chained, scrub floors. Still, surely we were good for far more than such things. Did the beauty of our faces, and our slave curves, not suggest that? Surely the first and most essential office of the female slave, and, indeed, of any sort of female slave, is to be pleasing to the master.

  "But," said the small fellow, "whatever you choose to call them, or however you choose to think of them, we made a bargain!"

  "You have no Home Stone," said the bearded man.

  I shuddered. In such a fashion he had informed the small fellow that he was not such that one need keep faith with him. There is a Gorean saying that only Priest-Kings, outlaws and slaves lack Home Stones. Strictly, of course, that is an oversimplification. For example, animals of all sorts, such as tarsks and verr, as well as slaves, do not have Home Stones. Too, anyone whose citizenship, for whatever reason, is rescinded or revoked, with due process of law, is no longer entitled to the protections and rights of that polity's Home Stone. That Home Stone is then no longer his. This suggested to me, again, that the small fellow might have been cast out of Tharna, perhaps exiled or banished. He did not seem to me a likely candidate for an outlaw, at least in the fullest sense of the word. Indeed, the fellows with whom he was dealing, such rough, unkempt brutes, seemed to me much more likely candidates for such an appellation.

  "Beware," said the small fellow.

  The leader of the five men regarded him, puzzled. "What then is your Home Stone?" he asked.

  The small fellow looked down, angrily. He pulled up a handful of grass.

  "You do not have a Home Stone," announced the leader, with a grin.

  "Twenty-five silver tarsks for the women," said the small fellow. "And meat, much meat!"

  "You do not have a Home Stone," grinned the leader.

  "Five for each," said the small fellow, "not three!"

  "Very well," said the leader.

  "Good," said the small fellow.

  "Not three," said the leader, "but two."

  "No!" cried the small fellow.

  "Then one for each," said the leader.

  "Beware!" cried the small fellow.

  "'Beware'?" inquired the leader. "Are you mad? To whom will you sell these pot girls, if not to us? Will you take these two back to Vacchi, to see if he will buy them back? Will you take the other three back to Venna?"

  "Deal with us fairly," said the small man.

  "There are five of us here," said the leader, indicating himself with a jerk of his thumb, and then the others, behind him. "I have three more waiting with a closed slave wagon on the other side of the trees. That is eight. There are three of you."

  "There was to have been more meat," said the small fellow.

  The leader laughed. "Apparently you are reluctant to sell these women to us, in spite of your agreement to do so. Very well. The decision is yours. We shall not buy them. We shall simply take them with us."

  Tupita and I, and the others, shrank back in our bonds, then, in terror, pushing back against the rail to which our necks were tied. If we could have we would have forced it from its posts.

  The leader of the five men looked at us, and laughed. But did he think our terror was motivated by the fear of coming into the clutches of such masters, distressing though such a disposition might be? The small fellow, and his two cohorts, squatting behind him, to his left, did not move. They were all very still.

  "What is wrong?" asked the leader.

  Then suddenly one of his men screamed weirdly, lifted up, his legs jerking wildly. We screamed. The thing must have been eight feet tall. We had seen it lift its head, in the tall grass, some seven or eight yards behind the five men, and to their left. It had perhaps been hidden in a pit, or burrow. Its ears had been upright. It bit through the back of the neck of the man and cast the body down, with the quarter of the dried tarsk which they had brought.

  Almost instantly another of the men had begun to draw his sword, but the beast, before the blade was half from the sheath, on all fours, scrambling, tearing the grass behind it, moving with incredible swiftness, not like anything on two legs, seized him and tore open his throat with a single slash of those terrible fangs.

  We screamed in terror, bound, twisting at the railing, half choked.

  "Do not draw your swords!" cried the small fellow. "Do not draw your swords! It is harmless. It is harmless!"

  The beast then regarded the men, who shrank back from it, their hands at the hilts of their swords but not daring to draw them. The beast then took the second body and threw it with the first, together with the quarter of a dried tarsk.

  "Do not run," said the small fellow, quickly. "It will pursue you then. Stay here. Do not move. Do not draw your weapons. It is friendly. It will not hurt you."

  The beast now crouched near the two bodies. Its mouth was red, and the fur about its jaw and snout. It looked up at the men, balefully, and a deep growl warned them back.

  "Do not approach it closely," said the small fellow.

  That I surmised was the last intent of the three men.

  The beast then lowered its head, but its ears remained up. I think even a tiny sound, perhaps a movement of grass, might have been audible to it, certainly the slipping of steel from a scabbard.

  I looked away, sick.

  "There is little to fear," said the small fellow. "It prefers tarsk."

  "It is not eating tarsk," said one of the men.

  "It is hungry," said the small fellow. "Do not be harsh with it. The tarsk is dried. The other is fresh. You should have brought more meat."

  The beast looked up at them, feeding.

  "See the hand," said one of the men.

  The paw, or hand, had long, powerful, thick, multiply jointed digits. Such hands, those of this creature, or of one like it, had held the bars of the girl pen, and thrust them apart, admitting its bulk.

  "There are six fingers," whispered another man.

  "What is it?" asked the leader of the men.

  "A beast," said the small, lame man, noncommittally. "I do not really know what it is called. I met them outside of Corcyrus, last year."

  "Them?" asked the leader.

  "Yes," said the small fellow. "There are two more, somewhere about."

  The men looked about, frightened. Even the two cohorts of the small fellow, who had remained much in their places, seemed uneasy. This thing had arisen as though by magic from the grass. As large as these things were they were apparently not unskilled at concealment, and perhaps stalking.

  "What do you mean, you 'met them outside of Corcyrus'?" said the leader.

  "When Corcyrus fell to Argentum, in the Silver War," said the small fellow, "when proud Sheila, the ruthless Tatrix of Corcyrus, was deposed, they apparently fled the city."

  I had heard something of the Silver War when I was in Argentum. Sheila, the Tatrix, said to be as beautiful as she was proud and ruthless, had apparently escaped for a time but, later, had been caught in Ar, actually, and amusingly, and doubtless to her shame and humiliation, by a professional slave hunter. She had been put in a golden sack and taken back to Corcyrus to stand trial. Her final disposition was as follows: she became the property of the man who had taken her, the professional slave hunter.

  "They broke from their confinements in the confusion, in the taking of the city?" said the leader.

  "I do not think they were confined," said the small fellow.

  "They were kept as pets?" said the leader, awed.

  "No," said the small fellow.

  "I do not understand," said the leader.

  "I was encamped not far from Corcyrus," said the small fellow. "I had come there hoping to make cheap purchases of valuable loot, from the soldiers. These things came to my camp. They had smelled food, I think. I threw them my food, in terror. That was where I first met
them. Before that I had not even known there were such things."

  "They have been with you since?" asked the leader.

  "Yes," said the small fellow.

  "Look!" said one of the men, pointing to the beast.

  At his exclamation the beast, curious, looked up at him.