by John Norman
I heard a bit of chain and looked up. Kamchak tossed me the other hobble. "Secure the barbarian," he said.
This startled me, and startled Elizabeth as well.
How was it that Kamchak would have me secure his slave? She was his, not mine. There is a kind of implicit claim of ownership involved in putting a wench in slave steel. It is seldom done save by a master.
Suddenly Elizabeth was kneeling terribly straight, looking ahead, breathing very quickly.
I reached around and took her right wrist, drawing it behind her body. I locked the wrist ring about her wrist. Then I took her left ankle in my hand and lifted it a bit, slipping the open ankle ring under it. Then I pressed the ring shut. It closed with a small, heavy click.
Her eyes suddenly met mine, timid, frightened.
I put the key in my pouch and turned my attention to the crowd. Kamchak now had his right arm about Aphris.
"In a short time," he was telling her, "you will see what a real woman can do."
"She will be only a slave such as I," Aphris was responding.
I turned to face Elizabeth. She was regarding me, it seemed, with incredible shyness. "What does it mean," she asked, "that you have chained me?"
"Nothing," I said.
Her eyes dropped. Without looking up, she said, "He likes her."
"Aphris, a slave?" I scoffed.
"Will I be sold?" she asked.
I saw no reason to hide this from the girl. "It is possible," I said.
She looked up, her eyes suddenly moist. "Tarl Cabot," she said, whispering, "if I am to be sold—buy me."
I looked at her with incredulity.
"Why?" I asked.
She dropped her head.
Kamchak reached across Elizabeth and dragged the paga bottle out of my hand. Then he was wrestling with Aphris and had her head back, fingers pinching her nose, the neck of the bottle thrust between her teeth. She was struggling and laughing and shaking her head. Then she had to breathe and a great draught of paga burned its way down her throat making her gasp and cough. I doubt that she had ever before experienced a drink stronger than the syrupy wines of Turia. She was now gasping and shaking her head and Kamchak was pounding her on the back.
"Why?" I again asked Elizabeth.
But Elizabeth, with her free left hand had seized the paga bottle from Kamchak, and, to his amazement, had thrown back her head and taken, without realizing the full import of her action, about five lusty, guzzling swallows of paga. Then, as I rescued the bottle, her eyes opened very wide and then blinked about ten times. She exhaled slowly as if fire might be sizzling out instead of breath and then she shook, a delayed reaction, as if she had been thumped five times and then began to cough spasmodically and painfully until I, fearing she might suffocate, pounded her several times on the back. At last, bent over, gasping for breath, she seemed to be coming around. I held her by the shoulders and suddenly she turned herself in my hands and, as I was sitting cross-legged, threw herself on her back across my lap, her right wrist still chained to her left ankle. She stretched insolently, as well as she could. I was astounded. She looked up at me. "Because I am better than Dina and Tenchika," she said.
"But not better than Aphris," called Aphris.
"Yes," said Elizabeth, "better than Aphris."
"Get up, Little She-Sleen," said Kamchak, amused, "or to preserve my honor I must have you impaled."
Elizabeth looked up at me.
"She's drunk," I told Kamchak.
"Some men might like a barbarian girl," Elizabeth said.
I hoisted Elizabeth back up on her knees. "No one will buy me," she wailed.
There were immediate offers from three or four of the Tuchuks gathered about, and I was afraid that Kamchak might, if the bids improved, part with Miss Cardwell on the spot.
"Sell her," advised Aphris.
"Be quiet, Slave," said Elizabeth.
Kamchak was roaring with laughter.
The paga had apparently hit Miss Cardwell swiftly and hard. She seemed barely able to kneel and, at last, I permitted her to lean against me, and she did, her chin on my right shoulder.
"You know," said Kamchak, "the Little Barbarian wears your chain well."
"Nonsense," I said.
"I saw," said Kamchak, "how at the games when you thought the men of Turia charging you were prepared to rescue the wench."
"I wouldn't have wanted your property damaged," I said.
"You like her," announced Kamchak.
"Nonsense," I said to him.
"Nonsense," said Elizabeth, sleepily.
"Sell her to him," recommended Aphris, hiccuping.
"You only want to be First Girl," said Elizabeth.
"I'd give her away myself," said Aphris. "She is only a barbarian."
Elizabeth lifted her head from my shoulder and regarded me. She spoke in English. "My name is Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, Mr. Cabot," she said, "would you like to buy me?"
"No," I said, in English.
"I didn't think so," she said, again in English, and put her head back on my shoulder.
"Did you not observe," asked Kamchak, "how she moved and breathed when you locked the steel on her?"
I hadn't thought much about it. "I guess not," I said.
"Why do you think I let you chain her?" asked Kamchak.
"I don't know," I said.
"To see," he said. "And it is as I thought—your steel kindles her."
"Nonsense," I said.
"Nonsense," said Elizabeth.
"Do you want to buy her?" suddenly asked Kamchak.
"No," I said.
"No," said Elizabeth.
The last thing I needed in the dangerous mission ahead was to be burdened with a slave girl.
"Will the performance start soon?" asked Elizabeth of Kamchak.
"Yes," he said.
"I do not know," said Elizabeth, "if I should watch."
"Permit her to return to the wagon," suggested Aphris.
"I suppose," said Elizabeth, "I could hop all the way on one foot."
I myself doubted that this would be feasible, particularly in her condition.
"You probably could," said Aphris, "you have muscular legs—"
I did not regard Miss Cardwell's legs as muscular. She was, however, a good runner.
Miss Cardwell lifted her chin from my shoulder. "Slave," she said.
"Barbarian," retorted Aphris.
"Release her," said Kamchak.
I reached into the pouch at my belt to secure the key to the hobble.
"No," said Elizabeth, "I will stay."
"If Master permits," added Aphris.
"Yes," said Elizabeth, glowering, "if Master permits."
"All right," said Kamchak.
"Thank you, Master," said Elizabeth politely, and once more put her head on my shoulder.
"You should buy her!" said Kamchak.
"No," I said.
"I will give you a good price," he said.
Oh, yes, I said to myself, a good price, and ho, ho, ho.
"No," I said.
"Very well," said Kamchak.
I breathed more easily.
About that time the black-clad figure of a woman appeared on the steps of the slave wagon. I heard Kamchak hush up Aphris of Turia and he gave Elizabeth a poke in the ribs that she might bestir herself. "Watch, you miserable cooking-pot wenches," he said, "and learn a thing or two!"
A silence came over the crowd. Almost without meaning to, I noticed, over to one side, a hooded member of the Clan of Torturers. I was confident it was he who had often followed me about the camp.
But this matter was dismissed from my mind by the performance which was about to begin. Aphris was watching intently, her lips parted. Kamchak's eyes were gleaming. Even Elizabeth had lifted her head now from my shoulder and was rising on her knees a bit for a clearer view.
The figure of the woman, swathed in black, heavily veiled, descended the steps of the slave wagon. Once at the foot of the sta
irs she stopped and stood for a long moment. Then the musicians began, the drums first, a rhythm of heartbeat and flight.
To the music, beautifully, it seemed the frightened figure ran first here and then there, occasionally avoiding imaginary objects or throwing up her arms, ran as though through the crowds of a burning city—alone, yet somehow suggesting the presence about her of hunted others. Now, in the background, scarcely to be seen, was the figure of a warrior in scarlet cape. He, too, in his way, though hardly seeming to move, approached, and it seemed that wherever the girl might flee there was found the warrior. And then at last his hand was upon her shoulder and she threw back her head and lifted her hands and it seemed her entire body was wretchedness and despair. He turned the figure to him and, with both hands, brushed away hood and veil.
There was a cry of delight from the crowd.
The girl's face was fixed in the dancer's stylized moan of terror, but she was beautiful. I had seen her before, of course, as had Kamchak, but it was startling still to see her thus in the firelight—her hair was long and silken black, her eyes dark, the color of her skin tannish.
She seemed to plead with the warrior but he did not move. She seemed to writhe in misery and try to escape his grip but she did not.
Then he removed his hands from her shoulders and, as the crowd cried out, she sank in abject misery at his feet and performed the ceremony of submission, kneeling, lowering the head and lifting and extending the arms, wrists crossed.
The warrior then turned from her and held out one hand.
Someone from the darkness threw him, coiled, the chain and collar.
He gestured for the woman to rise and she did so and stood before him, head lowered.
He pushed up her head and then, with a click that could be heard throughout the enclosure, closed the collar—a Turian collar—about her throat. The chain to which the collar was attached was a good deal longer than that of the Sirik, containing perhaps twenty feet of length.
Then, to the music, the girl seemed to twist and turn and move away from him, as he played out the chain, until she stood wretched some twenty feet from him at the chain's length. She did not move then for a moment, but stood crouched down, her hands on the chain.
I saw that Aphris and Elizabeth were watching fascinated. Kamchak, too, would not take his eyes from the woman.
The music had stopped.
Then with a suddenness that almost made me jump and the crowd cry out with delight the music began again but this time as a barbaric cry of rebellion and rage and the wench from Port Kar was suddenly a chained she-larl biting and tearing at the chain and she had cast her black robes from her and stood savage revealed in diaphanous, swirling yellow Pleasure Silk. There was now a frenzy and hatred in the dance, a fury even to the baring of teeth and snarling. She turned within the collar, as the Turian collar is designed to permit. She circled the warrior like a captive moon to his imprisoning scarlet sun, always at the length of the chain. Then he would take up a fist of chain, drawing her each time inches closer. At times he would permit her to draw back again, but never to the full length of the chain, and each time he permitted her to withdraw, it was less than the last. The dance consists of several phases, depending on the general orbit allowed the girl by the chain. Certain of these phases are very slow, in which there is almost no movement, save perhaps the turning of a head or the movement of a hand; others are defiant and swift; some are graceful and pleading; some stately, some simple; some proud, some piteous; but each time, as the common thread, she is drawn closer to the caped warrior. At last his fist was within the Turian collar itself and he drew the girl, piteous and exhausted, to his lips, subduing her with his kiss, and then her arms were about his neck and unresisting, obedient, her head to his chest, she was lifted lightly in his arms and carried from the firelight.
Kamchak and I, and others, threw coins of gold into the sand near the fire.
"She was beautiful," cried out Aphris of Turia.
"I never knew a woman," said Elizabeth, her eyes blazing, showing few signs of the paga, "could be so beautiful!"
"She was marvelous," I said.
"And I," howled Kamchak, "have only miserable cooking-pot wenches!"
Kamchak and I were standing up. Aphris suddenly put her head to his thigh, looking down. "Tonight," she whispered, "make me a slave."
Kamchak put his fist in her hair and lifted her head to stare up at him. Her lips were parted.
"You have been my slave for days," said he.
"Tonight," she begged, "please, Master, tonight!"
With a roar of triumph Kamchak swept her up and slung her, hobbled as she was, over his shoulder and she cried out and he, singing a Tuchuk song, was stomping away with her from the curtained enclosure.
At the exit he stopped briefly and, Aphris over his shoulder, turned and faced Elizabeth and myself. He threw up his right hand in an expansive gesture. "For the night," he cried, "the Little Barbarian is yours!" Then he turned again and, singing, disappeared through the curtain.
I laughed.
Elizabeth Cardwell was staring after him. Then she looked up at me. "He can do that, can't he?" she asked.
"Of course," I said.
"Of course," she said, numbly. "Why not?" Then suddenly she jerked at the hobble but could not rise and nearly fell, and pounded her left fist into the dirt before her. "I don't want to be a slave!" she cried. "I don't want to be a slave!"
"I'm sorry," I said.
She looked up at me. There were tears in her eyes. "He has no right!" she cried.
"He has the right," I said.
"Of course," she wept, putting her head down. "It is like a book—a chair—an animal. 'She is yours! Take her! Keep her until tomorrow! Return her in the morning—when you are finished with her!'"
Head down she laughed and sobbed.
"I thought you wished," I said, "that I might buy you." I thought it well to jest with her.
"Don't you understand?" she asked. "It could have been anyone to whom I was given—not just to you—but to anyone, anyone!"
"That is true," I said.
"To anyone!" she wept. "Anyone! Anyone!"
"Do not be distraught," I said.
She shook her head, the hair swirling behind her, and looked up at me, and through the tears smiled. "It seems—Master—" she said, "that for the hour I am yours."
"It would appear so," I said.
"Will you carry me over your shoulder to the wagon," she asked, lightly, "like Aphris of Turia?"
"I'm sorry," I said.
I bent to the girl's shackles and removed them.
She stood up and faced me. "What are you going to do with me?" she asked. She smiled. "—Master?"
I smiled. "Nothing," I told her. "Do not fear."
"Oh?" she asked, one eyebrow rising skeptically. Then she dropped her head. "Am I truly so ugly?" she asked.
"No," I said, "you are not ugly."
"But you do not want me?" she asked.
"No," I said.
She looked at me boldly, throwing back her head. "Why not?" she asked.
What could I tell her? She was lovely, but yet in her condition piteous. I felt moved on her behalf. The little secretary, I thought to myself, so far from her pencils, the typewriter, the desk calendars and steno pads—so far from her world—so helpless, so much at Kamchak's mercy and this night, should I choose, at mine.
"You are only a little barbarian," I said to her. Somehow I thought of her still as the frightened girl in the yellow shift—caught up in games of war and intrigue beyond her comprehension and, to a great extent, mine. She was to be protected, sheltered, treated with kindness, reassured. I could not think of her in my arms—nor of her ignorant, timid lips on mine—for she was always and would remain only the unfortunate Elizabeth Cardwell, the innocent and unwitting victim of an inexplicable translocation and an unexpected, unjust reduction to shameful bondage. She was of Earth and knew not the flames which her words might have evoked in t
he breast of a Gorean warrior—nor did she understand herself truly nor the relation in which she, slave girl, stood to a free man to whom she had been for the hour given—I could not tell her that another warrior might at her very glance, have dragged her helpless to the darkness between the high wheels of the slave wagon itself. She was gentle, not understanding, naive, in her way foolish—a girl of Earth but not on Earth—not a woman of Gor female on her own barbaric world—she would always be of Earth—the bright, pretty girl with the stenographer's pad—like many girls of Earth, not men but not yet daring to be woman. "But," I admitted to her, giving her head a shake, "you are a pretty little barbarian."
She looked into my eyes for a long moment and then suddenly dropped her head weeping. I gathered her into my arms to comfort her but she pushed me away, and turned and ran from the enclosure.
I looked after her, puzzled.
Then, shrugging, I too left the enclosure, thinking that perhaps I should wander among the wagons for a few hours, before returning.
I recalled Kamchak. I was happy for him. Never before had I seen him so pleased. I was, however, confused about Elizabeth, for it seemed to me she had behaved strangely this night. I supposed that, on the whole, she was perhaps distraught because she feared she might soon be supplanted as first girl in the wagon, indeed, that she might soon be sold. To be sure, having seen Kamchak with his Aphris, it did not seem to me that either of these possibilities were actually unlikely. Elizabeth had reason to fear. I might, of course, and would, encourage Kamchak to sell her to a good master, but Kamchak, cooperative to a point, would undoubtedly have his eye fixed most decisively on the price to be obtained. I might, of course, if I could find the money, buy her myself and attempt to find her a kind master. I thought perhaps Conrad of the Kassars might be a just master. He had, however, I knew, recently won a Turian girl in the games. Moreover, not every man wants to own an untrained barbarian slave, for such, even if given to them, must be fed—and, this spring, as I could tell from walking about the camp, there was no shortage of girls, freshly collared and branded perhaps, untrained perhaps, but yet, and most importantly, Gorean, which—most significantly—Elizabeth Cardwell was not, and in my opinion could never be.
For no reason that I am quite sure of I unwisely purchased another bottle of paga, perhaps for company in my lonely walk.