by John Norman
I said nothing.
"I would not," she said, "have given up his collar for all the gold and silver in Tharna, not for all the stones of her grey walls."
"But you were not free in this dream," I said.
"Was I free in Tharna?" she asked.
I stared down at the intricate pattern on the rug, not speaking. "Of course," she said, "as one who wore the mask of Tharna I put this dream from me. I hated it. It terrified me. It suggested to me that I, even the Tatrix, might share the unworthy nature of the beast." She smiled. "When I saw you, Warrior, I thought that you might be the warrior of this dream. So it was I hated you and wanted to destroy you because you threatened me and all that I was, and at the same time I hated you I feared you, and I desired you."
I looked up, surprised.
"Yes," she said. "I desired you." Her head fell and her voice became almost inaudible. "Though I was Tatrix of Tharna," she said, "I wanted to lie at your feet on the scarlet rug. I wanted to be bound with yellow cords." I recalled that she had said something of a rug and cords in the council chamber of Tharna, when she had seemed consumed with rage, when it seemed she wanted to lash the flesh from my bones.
"What is the significance of the rug and cords?" I asked.
"In ancient days, in Tharna," said Lara, "things were different than they are today."
And then, in the slaver" s tent, Lara, who had been Tatrix of Tharna, told me something of the strange history of her city. In the beginning Tharna had been much as other cities of Gor, in which women were too little regarded and enjoyed too few rights. In those days it had been a portion of the Rites of Submission, as practiced in Tharna, to strip and bind the captive with yellow cords and place her on a scarlet rug, the yellow of the cord being symbolic of talenders, a flower often associated with feminine love and beauty, the scarlet of the rug being symbolic of blood, and perhaps of passion.
He who had captured the girl would place his sword to her breast and utter the ritual phrases of enslavement. They were the last words she would hear as a free woman.
Weep, Free Maiden.
Remember your pride and weep.
Remember your laughter and weep.
Remember you were my enemy and weep.
Now you are my helpless captive.
Remember you stood against me.
Now you lie at my feet.
I have bound you with yellow cords.
I have placed you on the scarlet rug.
Thus by the laws of Tharna do I claim you.
Remember you were free.
Know now you are my slave.
Weep, Slave Girl.
At this point the captor would untie the girl" s ankles and complete the rite. When she rose from the rug to follow him, she was, in his eyes and hers, a slave.
Over a period of time this cruel practice fell into disuse and the women of Tharna came to be more reasonably and huamenly regarded. Indeed, through their love and tenderness, they taught their captors that they, too, were worthy of respect and affection. And, of course, as the captors came gradually to care for their slaves, the desire to subjugate them became less, for few men long desire to subjugate a creature for whom they genuinely care, unless perhaps it be they fear to lose her should she be free.
Yet as the status of women became more ennobled and less clearly defined the subtle tensions of dominance and submission, instinctual throughout the animal world, tended to assert themselves.
The balance of mutual regard is always delicate and, statistically, it is improbable that it can long be maintained throughout an entire population. Accordingly, gradually exploiting, perhaps unconsciously, the opportunities afforded by the training of children and the affections of their men, the women of Tharna improved their position considerably over the generations, also adding to their social power the economic largesse of various funds and inheritances.
Eventually, largely via the conditioning of the young and the control of education, those superiorities which the female naturally possesses came to be enlarged on at the expense of those possessed by the male. And just as in our own world it is possible to condition entire populations to believe what is, from the standpoint of another population, incomprehensible and absurd, so in Tharna both the men and the women came eventually to believe the myths or the distortions advantageous to female dominance. Thus it was, gradually and unnoticed, that the gynocracy of Tharna came to be established, and honoured with the full weight of tradition and custom, those invisible bonds heavier than chains because they are not understood to exist.
Yet this situation, socially viable though it might be for generations, is not one truly productive of human happiness. Indeed, it is not altogether clear that it is preferable to the male dominated ethos of most Gorean cities, which, too, surely has its unfortunate side. In a city such as Tharna the men, taught to regard themselves as beasts, as inferior beings, seldom develop the full respect for themselves essential to true manhood. But even more strangely the women of Tharna do not seem content under the gynocracy. Although they despise men and congratulate themselves on their more lofty status it seems to me that they, too, fail to respect themselves. Hating their men they hate themselves.
I have wondered sometimes if a man to be a man must not master a woman and if a woman to be a woman must not know herself mastered. I have wondered how long nature" s laws, if laws they are, can be subverted in Tharna. I have sensed how a man in Tharna longs to take the mask from a woman, and I have suspected how much a woman longs for her mask to be taken. Should there ever be a revoultion in the ways of Tharna I would pity her women — at least at first — for they would be the object of the pent-up frustrations of generations. If the pendulum should swing in Tharna, it would swing far. Perhaps even to the scarlet rug and yellow cords. Outside the tent we heard Targo" s voice.
To my surprise Lara dropped to her knees, placing them in the position of a Pleasure Slave, and dropped her head submissively.
Targo burst into the tent carrying a small bundle and approvingly noted the girl" s posture.
"Well, Master," he said, "it seems with you she learns quickly." He beamed up at me. "I have cleared my records. She is yours." He thrust the bundle into my hands. It was a folded camisk, and in its folds was a collar. "A token of my appreciation of your business," said Targo. "There will be no extra charge."
I smiled to myself. Most professional slavers would have furnished far more. I noted that Targo did not even furnish the customary slave livery of Gor but merely a camisk, which had clearly been worn before.
Targo then dug into the pouch which he wore at his side and held out two yellow cords, about eighteen inches apiece. "I noted by the blue helmet," he said, "that you were of Tharna."
"No," I said, "I am not of Tharna."
"Ah well," said Targo, "how is one to know?" He tossed the cords to the rug before the girl.
"I have no more slave whips," said Targo, shrugging his shoulders sadly, "but your sword belt will do as well."
"I" m sure it will," I said, handing back the collar and camisk. Targo looked puzzled.
"Bring her the clothing of a free woman," I said.
Targo" s mouth dropped open.
"— of a free woman," I repeated.
Targo squinted at the Pleasure Rack at the side of the tent, perhaps looking for perspiration stains on the straps.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
I laughed and spun the fat little fellow about and, with one hand on the collar of his robes and the other hand firmly affixed south of the collar, flung him stumbling toward the exit of the tent.
He caught his balance there and, earrings swinging, turned to regard me as though I might have lost my senses. "Perhaps Master is making a mistake?" he suggested.
"Perhaps," I admitted.
"Where," asked Targo, "in the camp of a legitimate slaver do you expect me to find clothing suitable to a free woman?"
I laughed, and Targo smiled and left.
I wondered on how ma
ny nights free women, bound captives, had been thrown to his feet to be assessed and purchased, how many free women had in his camp exchanged their rich garments for a camisk and an ankle ring on his chain.
In a few moments Targo stumbled back into the tent, his arms bulging with cloth. He threw it down on the rug, puffing. "Take your pick, Master," he said, and backed out of the tent, shaking his head.
I smiled and looked on Lara.
The girl had risen to her feet.
To my surprise she went to the tent flaps and closed them, tying them shut on the inside.
She turned to face me, breathless.
She was very beautiful under the lamp, against the rich hangings of the tent.
She picked up the two yellow cords and, holding them in her hands, knelt before me in the position of the Pleasure Slave.
"I am going to free you," I said.
Humbly she held the cords up for me to accept, her eyes bright, entreating, raised to mine.
"I am not of Tharna," I said.
"But I am," she said.
I saw that she knelt upon a scarlet rug.
"I am going to free you," I said.
"I am not yet free," she said.
I was silent.
"Please," she begged, "- Master."
And so it was that I took the cords from her hand, and in the same night Lara who had once been the proud Tatrix of Tharna became according to the ancient rites of her city my slave girl — and a free woman.
Chapter Twenty-Three: RETURN TO THARNA
Outside the camp of Targo, Lara and I climbed a small hill and stood on its crest. I could see before me, some pasangs away, the pavilions of tha Fair of En" Kara, and beyond those the looming ridges of the Sardar, ominous, black, sheer. Beyond the Fair and before the mountains, which rose suddenly from the plains, I could see the timber wall of black logs, sharpened at the top, which separated the Fair from the mountains.
Men seeking the mountains, men tired of life, young idealists, opportunists eager to learn the secret of immortality in its recesses, would use the gate at the end of the central avenue of the Fair, a double gate of black logs mounted on giant wooden hinges, a gate that would swing open from the centre, revealing the Sardar beyond.
Even as we stood on the hill I could hear the slow ringing of a heavy, hollow tube of metal, which betokened that the black gate had opened. The sad, slow sound reached the hillock on which we stood.
Lara stood beside me, clad as a free woman but not in the Robes of Concealment. She had shortened and trimmed one of the gracious Gorean garments, cutting it to the length of her knees and cutting away the sleeves so that they fell only to her elbows. It was a bright yellow and she had belted it with a scarlet sash. Her feet wore plain sandals of red leather. About her shoulders, at my suggestion, she had wrapped a cloak of heavy wool. It was scarlet. I had thought she might require this for warmth. I think she thought she might require it to match her sash. I smiled to myself. She was free.
I was pleased that she seemed happy.
She had refused the customary Robes of Concealment. She maintained that she would be more of a hindrance to me so clad. I had not argued, for she was right. As I watched her yellow hair swept behind her in the wind and regarded the joyful lineaments of her beauty, I was glad that she had not chosen, whatever might be her reason, to clothe herself in the traditional manner.
Yet though I could not repress my admiration of this girl and the transformation which had been wrought in her from the cold Tatrix of Tharna to the humiliated slave to the glorious creature who now stood beside me my thoughts were mostly in tha Sardar, for I knew that I had not yet kept my appointment with the Priest-Kings.
I listened to the slow, gloomy tolling of the hollow bar.
"Someone has entered the mountains," said Lara.
"Yes," I said.
"He will die," she said.
I nodded.
I had spoken to her of my work in the mountains, of my destiny which lay therein. She had said, simply, "I will go with you."
She knew as well as I that those who entered the mountains did not return. She knew as well as I, perhaps better, the fearful power of the Priest-Kings.
Yet she had said she would come with me.
"You are free," I had said.
"When I was your slave," she had said, "you could have ordered me to follow you. Now that I am free I will accompany you of my own accord." I looked at the girl. How proudly and yet how marvelously she stood beside me. I saw that she had picked a talender on the hill, and that she had placed it in her hair.
I shook my head.
Though the full force of my will drove me to the mountains, though in the mountains the Priest-Kings waited for me, I could not yet go. It was unthinkable that I should take this girl into the Sardar to be destroyed as I would be destroyed, that I should devastate this young life so recently initiated into the glories of the senses, which had just awakened into the victories of life and feeling.
What could I balance against her — my honour, my thirst for vengeance, my curiosity, my frustration, my fury?
I put my arm about her shoulder and led her down from the hillock. She looked at me questioningly.
"The Priest-Kings must wait," I said.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"Return you to the throne of Tharna," I said.
She pulled away from me, her eyes clouding with tears. I gathered her to my arms and kissed her gently.
She looked up at me, her eyes wet with tears.
"Yes," I said, "I wish it."
She put her head against my shoulder.
"Beautiful Lara," I said, "forgive me." I held her more closely. "I cannot take you to the Sardar. I cannot leave you here. You would be destroyed by beasts or returned to slavery."
"Must you return me to Tharna?" she asked. "I hate Tharna."
"I have no city to which I might take you," I said. "And I believe you can make Tharna such that you will hate it no longer."
"What must I do?" she asked.
"That you must decide yourself," I said.
I kissed her.
Holding her head in my hands I looked into her eyes.
"Yes," I said proudly, "you are fit to rule."
I wiped the tears from her eyes.
"No tears," I said, "for you are Tatrix of Tharna."
She looked up at me and smiled, a sad smile. "Of course, Warrior," she said, "there must be no tears — for I am Tatrix of Tharna and a Tatrix does not cry."
She pulled the talender from her hair.
I reached to her feet and repleced it.
"I love you," she said.
"It is hard to be first in Tharna," I said, and led her down the hillock, away from the Sardar Mountains.
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The fires which had begun to burn in the Mines of Tharna had not been quenched. The revolt of the slaves had spread from the mines to the Great Farms. Shackles had been struck off and weapons seized. Angry men, armed with whatever tools of destruction they might find, prowled the land, evading the sorties of Tharna" s soldiers, hunting for granaries to rob, for buildings to burn, for slaves to free. From farm to farm spread the rebellion and the shipments to the city from the farms became sporadic and then ceased. What the slaves could not use or hide, they cut down or burned.
Not more than two hours from the hillock where I had made the decision to return Lara to her native city the tarn had found us, as I had thought he would. As at the Pillar of Exchanges the bird had haunted the vicinity and now, for the second time, its patience was rewarded. It lit some fifty yards from us and we ran to its side, I first and Lara after me, she still apprehensive of the beast.
My pleasure was such that I hugged the neck of that sable monster. Those round blazing eyes regarded me, those great wings lifted and shook, his beak was lifted to the sky and he screamed the shrill cry of the tarn. Lara cried out in terror as the monster reached for me with his beak. I did not move and that
great terrible beak closed gently on my arm. Had the tarn wished, with a wrench of its glorious head, it might have torn the limb from my body. Yet its touch was almost tender. I slapped its beak and tossed Lara to its broad back and leaped up beside her.
Again the indescribable thrill possessed me and I think this time that even Lara shared my feelings. "One-strap!" I cried, and the tarn" s monstrous frame addressed itself once more to the skies.
As we flew, many were the fields of charred Sa-Tarna we saw below us. The tarn" s shadow glided over the blackened frames of buildings, over broken pens from which livestock had been driven, over orchards that were now no more than felled trees, their leaves and fruit brown and withered. On the back of the tarn Lara wept to see the desolation that had come to her country.
"It is cruel what they have done," she said.
"It is also cruel what had been done to them," I said.
She was silent.
The army of Tharna had struck here and there, at reported hiding places of slaves, but almost invariably they had found nothing. Perhaps some broken untensils, the ashes of campfires. The slaves, forewarned of their approach by other slaves or by impoverished peasants, supplanted by the Great Farms, would have made good their departure, only to strike when ready, when unexpected and in strength.
The sorties of tarnsmen were more successful, but on the whole the slave bands, now almost regiments, moved only at night and concealed themselves during the day. In time it became dangerous for the small cavalries of Tharna to assault them, to brave the storm of missile weapons which would seem to rise almost from the very ground itself.
Often indeed ambushes were laid wherein a small band of slaves would allow itself to be trailed into the rocky passes of the ridge country about Tharna, where their pursuers would be assailed by hidden cohorts; sometimes tarnsmen would descend to capture a slave only to meet the arrows of a hundred men concealed in covered pits.