Vagabonds of Gor

by Norman, John;

  "Do you think you can prepare Phoebe for presentation tomorrow morning," I asked.

  "Of course," she said.

  "I would like to have her ready for presentation at the ninth Ahn," I said. This was an Ahn before noon. There are twenty Ahn in the Gorean day.

  "As master wishes," she said.

  "I want her cleaned and brushed," I said, "but with absolutely no makeup or adornments. It is the female as she is in herself, at least on the whole, that I wish to present. She is, however, of course, as she is a free woman, to be presented in the modesty of a belly cord and slave strip. The strip, however, is to be narrow and the cord no more than a lace, these things conforming to her status as captive and full servant."

  "I understand!" said Liadne.

  "And I want her to kneel, and hold herself, with perfection," I said.

  "She will be beautiful," said Liadne. "I will train her with the switch!"

  "That is the condition?" inquired Ephialtes.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Do not fear, Master," said Liadne. "She will shine!"

  "Excellent," I said. "My thanks for the meal, Ephialtes. Attend as you can to the business we discussed. I wish you well."

  "I wish you well," said he, rising to his feet, and clasping my hand.

  I then took my way from his camp. As I left I glanced into the wagon, to see the slave sack there, the two chains running into it, one toward the bottom, the other toward the top. Tomorrow Phoebe was to be presented. I also noted Amina and Rimice at their stakes. They looked up at me with fear, as I strode past. Their fates had been decided at supper. Tomorrow, if all went as expected, both would have new masters.

  38

  There will be News from Torcadino

  "There will soon be news from Torcadino," I told Marcus.

  He looked at me, puzzled.

  "Here, girl," I said to Ina, and she hurried to me.

  "Why are you hooding me?" she asked.

  "It may already be in the paga taverns," I said.

  "I myself," he said, "have heard something the import of which I might like to convey to you."

  "I think I have heard the same," I said. "It is much about the camp."

  "I cannot see," said Ina.

  "That is the purpose of a slave hood," I said.

  "I am not a slave," she said.

  "They fit quite as well on free women," I said. "You refer," I said to Marcus, "to the supposedly secret news, that which is not to be posted on the boards in the Cosian camp."

  "I would imagine so," said Marcus.

  "That which pertains to the sum of one hundred pieces of gold?"

  "Yes," he said.

  "A tidy sum," I said.

  "Why are you leashing me?" asked Ina.

  "Why should there be news soon from Torcadino?" he asked.

  "I have reason to believe that such will arrive soon," I said.

  "Perhaps you would enlighten me as to the source of your conjectures?" he remarked.

  "It has to do with something which I saw this evening, returning from the sutlers' area, on the road, near the Cosian camp."

  "That is all you will tell me?" he asked.

  "That is all, for now," I said. "Put your hands behind your back," I told Ina.

  I then snapped them into slave bracelets.

  She moved her hands behind her back, her wrists fastened closely together, helplessly confined in the light, attractive, inflexible restraints.

  I gave the leash two tugs, testing the leash ring against the collar ring.

  "Where are you going?" he asked.

  "Brundisium," I said. "With good fortune I should be back toward morning."

  "Why are you removing my sandals?" asked Ina.

  "You will be led barefoot," I said.

  "Shall I accompany you?" he asked.

  "I think it best that I go alone," I said.

  "As you wish," he said.

  I gave Ina's leash another tug, this one to alert her to the fact that she would soon be led, and the direction in which she would move.

  "Why are you going to Brundisium?" he asked.

  "There are three reasons," I said.

  "Perhaps you would be so good as to enlighten me as to at least one of them."

  "Certainly," I said. "One is that I seldom forget a slave."

  "Tomorrow," he said, "you will finish your business with your friend?"

  "I think so," I said.

  "Then you will wish to start for Torcadino."

  "That will no longer be necessary," I said.

  "I do not understand," he said.

  "Dietrich of Tarnburg," I said, "is no longer at Torcadino."

  "Where is he?" asked Marcus.

  "In Brundisium," I said.

  "What makes you think that?" he asked.

  "I have an excellent memory for slaves," I said.

  39

  The Alcove

  I struck lightly on the door of the paga tavern, the alley door. A panel slid back. "Entrance," I said.

  "Come around to the front," said a voice.

  "I would have entrance here," I said.

  "As you wish," he said.

  I looked back, down the alley. I thought I detected the shadows which had been with us since the camp, darknesses in the darkness, moving furtively to the side, to the edge of the buildings. Such things, fellows I had seen lurking about our camp the last day or so, were one of the reasons I had elected to come to Brundisium, and without Marcus. I did not wish to involve him in difficulties which were not his concern.

  The door opened a little, and I shoved Ina, barefoot, hooded and braceleted, the leash dangling from a buckled leather collar on her neck, inside. I followed her. I watched the fellow slide shut the bolts on the door.

  We were now inside the back door of the tavern, in a small, dimly lit corridor. The tavern was the Jeweled Whip, one of a large number of such taverns on Dock Street in Brundisium.

  "Thigh," said the fellow who had admitted us, looking at Ina. He wished, of course, to ascertain that she was a slave.

  "She is a free woman," I said.

  "We do not want her kind here," he said.

  "Where am I?" asked Ina, from within the hood.

  "It is against the law," said the fellow. "We do not need more trouble with the authorities. And such, too, inhibit the girls."

  "Prepare her," I said.

  He looked at me.

  I held up a full copper tarsk.

  "Ah," he said.

  In this tavern the girls came for a tarsk bit, and that with some pick of food, and paga.

  He took the coin.

  I gave him the key to Ina's bracelets.

  He then, taking Ina by the upper left arm, conducted her down a side corridor. I myself kept to the main corridor and, in a moment or two, thrusting open a door, entered into the main paga room.

  I caught a glimpse, between bodies, of a naked slave writhing in a net on the dancing floor. Four other slaves were dressed in such a way as to suggest that they might be slave hunters, but their costumes were such as to leave no doubt as to their own sex, and considerable charms. They were on their feet and had light staffs. They whirled about the captive, preventing her escape, and exulting over her, pretending to prod and torment her. There was much skilled staff work in progress, the staffs often behaving in unison, circling about, changing hands, striking on the floor together, seeming to poke at the victim, to strike her and such. It was a version of the dance of the netted slave. Slave nets, of course, are used by many slavers, constituting standard items in their hunting equipment. To be sure, they are usually used in rural areas, as when raiding small villages, and such. In a city, nooses, gag hoods, chemicals, and such, are more often used. To be sure it is sometimes regarded as amusing to take a sophisticated urban woman in a net, a device usually reserved for the acquisition of rustic maids.

  I sat back from the dancing floor, my back to the wall, the musicians to my left.

  "Paga, Master?" asked a girl
, kneeling beside the low table, behind which I sat, cross-legged.

  I regarded her. She was well made up, with lipstick, eye shadow, and such, a painted slave, as it is said. There was a pearl droplet on a tiny golden chain, on her forehead. She was clad in a snatch of yellow slave silk. She was necklaced, as well as collared. Her left arm was encircled with a serpentine ornament. Her wrists were heavy with bracelets. Two of these, one on each wrist, were locked there. On them were snap rings. They could thus be joined, and she could not free herself from them. Her left ankle was belled, these bells being attached to a locked anklet.

  "Yes," I said, but I would nurse that paga.

  She rose to her feet humbly, head down, and then, with a swirl of slave silk and a flash of bells, turned and hurried to the paga counter.

  I studied the fellows in the tavern. I did not see any here who had been in the vicinity of our camp.

  I had thought that they might make their move outside, in the alley. They had not done so.

  The dance was coming to an end and the slave who had been "netted," now well in custody, bound and leashed, was being displayed by the "hunters" to the patrons. Now the captive knelt in the center of the dance floor, the "hunters" exultant about her. Then, as the music swirled to a conclusion, the captive lowered her head, humbly. There was much Gorean applause, the striking of the left shoulder with the palm of the right hand. There was then, suddenly, the snapping of a slave lash, and the "hunters" swiftly stripped themselves, cast aside their staffs and knelt with the prisoner. Then one of the fellows from the tavern took the net and cast it over the lot of them. No longer then were the hunters hunters. Now, they, too, were only netted slaves. Then, to a passage of music, all rose up, hunted and hunters, all now in the net, and, in the small, pretty running steps of hastening slave girls, hurried from the floor. There was more applause.

  The girl who had gone to fetch my paga now returned and knelt before the table. She kissed the goblet, and then, her head down, between her extended arms, proffered it to me. "Paga, Master?" she asked.

  I took the paga and put it on the table.

  "Sipa, Master?" she asked. She came, of course, with the price of the drink.

  "You may go," I said

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  Often, of course, one does not make use of the girl who comes with the drink. Many men, for example, come to such a tavern merely to drink, to hear the news, to visit with friends, such things. Some come to them to play Kaissa. If one is interested in a particular girl, of course, it is a simple matter to summon her to your table.

  I looked about the floor, at the numerous patrons. Although most of them were doubtless fellows from Brundisium, citizens of that polity, there were many others about, as well, in particular, oarsmen from the galleys in the harbor, not far away, and soldiers from the camp outside the walls, mostly mercenaries, on which Cos depends heavily, but some, too, who were apparently regulars.

  I considered the doors leading off the main paga room. Some of those were undoubtedly the doors to private dining areas.

  One of those doors opened and a luscious, dark-haired slave emerged, clad in a light brown tunic. She hurried to the paga counter to fetch paga, which she then, carefully, carried back into the other room, closing the door behind her.

  The last time I had seen the luscious wench had been earlier this evening, when I was returning from the wagon of Ephialtes. She had been naked, her hands braceleted behind her back, being marched at her master's stirrup, chained to it by the neck.

  I had, of course, seen her before, and not merely this evening, neck-chained at the stirrup. I had seen her months ago, helpless in chains beside her master's desk. Indeed, at that time, she had not even been a legal slave, the legalities of her condition, to her distress, given what had been done to her, and what she had become, being denied to her by her master. Now, however, she was not merely a natural slave, aware of herself, reduced, and self-confessed, begging the resolution and solace of the collar, but a legal slave, fully and perfectly embonded in law. Once she had been the Lady Cara, of Venna. She had been overheard making disparaging remarks about a certain city. A mercenary captain from that city, learning of this, saw to it that she was brought naked and in chains into his keeping. Soon she had learned what it was to be in the power of such a man. In his office I had heard this female, who had spoken disparagingly of his city, who had then been well taught her chains, beg from him the brand and collar. What now would be done with her? Even though she had then been turned in effect into a pleasure slave, much as might be purchased in any market, he had, it seems, considered having her serve in his city as a mere house slave, or even, in spite of what she had now become, if it pleased him, denying her the collar, as a mere cleaning prisoner, a confined servant, a mere housekeeper in captivity. But he had, it seems, relented, acceding to her piteous entreaties, at length accepting her as the slave she begged to be, for earlier this evening, she in a position of the display slave, at her master's stirrup, given her exposure, there had been no mistaking the brand on her thigh, the common Kajira mark. There had been some other slaves, too, following the slim line of mercenaries on the road, beauties serving as pack slaves, bearing burdens. I had recognized one among these, as well, one struggling, bent over, with a burden perhaps somewhat heavier than those of the others. She had once been Lucilina, the preferred slave of Myron, Polemarkos of Temos, cousin to Lurius of Jad, Ubar of Cos, commander of the Cosian forces in the south. Indeed, she had been not only a high slave, and the preferred slave of the Polemarkos, but his confidante, as well. She had, thus, been privy to many secrets. Too, through her wiles and his weakness, she had exercised great influence over him. She had, thus, though ultimately only a slave, become a force in his retinue. Even free men had shamefully courted her favor. Her influence might be the difference between the favor and the disfavor of the Polemarkos, between advancement and neglect, between promotion and disgrace. Then, tricked and captured, she had been smuggled out of the Cosian camp, to a nearby city, to find herself there in common chains as a common girl. She had then been put under suitable disciplines and subjected to exact, sustained Gorean interrogation. Later, emptied of all sensitive and pertinent military and political information, and retaining merely her values as a female, she was given away as might have been any other spoil of war, she in this instance, and by design, to one of the captain's lowest soldiers, a rude and common fellow of the lowest rank, to serve him in absolute and uncompromising bondage, as one of the lowest and most common of slaves. Her name, at last I had heard, had been Luchita. I did not know if it would be the same now or not. Similarly, I did not know what might now be the name of the former Lady Cara, of Venna. I would have supposed 'Cara', that seeming to me suitable for a slave name, but I did not know. It could be anything. The city of which the former Lady Cara had spoken disparagingly, before being brought into the custody of the mercenary captain was Tarnburg. The city to which the former Lucilina, the former preferred slave of Myron, the Polemarkos, had been smuggled was Torcadino, then held by the same mercenary captain, Dietrich of Tarnburg, of course. This evening I had seen a line of mercenaries, perhaps a hundred in all, with some slaves, mostly pack slaves, some eight or ten of them, approaching Brundisium. The leader of the mercenaries, and several of them, astride their tharlarion, wore wind scarves, rather like those worn in the Tahari, protecting themselves from the dust of the journey. These served, as well, doubtless inadvertently, to conceal their features. I would have thought little of the passage of these mercenaries, what with so many hundreds about, here and there, coming and going, had I not recognized the slave at the leader's stirrup, and, indeed, later, one of the beauteous pack slaves. As I stood back, with others, off the road, as they passed, the leader, and the others, I was sure, would not recognize me. I had made inquiries tonight in Brundisium, of course, to ascertain the whereabouts of these fellows. I learned first what quarter of the city they had entered, and, later, what inns, hotels and taverns the
y might be patronizing. This was not difficult for most mercenaries in the vicinity of Brundisium were not quartered in the city but in the Cosian camp. Accordingly, they would not be entering the city with their units, but rather, if they entered it at all, as individuals, or in small groups.

  "We present to you, Master," said one of two slaves, conducting a woman before my table, "a female."

  The two slaves then removed their hands from the woman's arms, and deferentially knelt, on either side of the woman, who remained standing.

  I indicated that the two slaves might leave and they did so.

  I then indicated that the woman might kneel, and she did so. There was a tiny, sensuous rustle of bells.

  "You are belled," I said.

  "Yes!" she whispered.

  "Have you seen yourself?" I asked. "Did they show you to yourself?"

  "Yes!" she said.

  She might have been a paga slave. She had been made up, with slave cosmetics. On her forehead, suspended on a small tiny golden chain, there was a pearl droplet. About her neck, which wore no collar, there were wound several necklaces, some dependent upon her even to her belly. On her upper left arm was coiled a serpentine armlet. Her body was ill concealed, clothed, if such be the word, in a bit of open-sided, diaphanous slave silk, suitable for a casual lifting aside. It was a slave garment, and would have well mocked the modesty of even a bond girl. As her thighs were bared, it could easily be seen that there was no brand there. How absurd, how incongruous this seemed! Her thigh seemed to cry out for the brand.

  "Have you ever worn slave silk before?" I asked.

  "No!" she said. "Of course not!"

  "Some free women," I said, "purchase it secretly, and wear it in the privacy of their own compartments, sometimes weeping with need and sleeping at the foot of their own bed."

  "How could you know such a thing?" she asked.

  "From slavers," I said, "some of whom have caught the women there."

  "I wanted to do that," she said, "but I lacked the courage."

  "No matter," I said.

  "'No matter'?" she asked.

  "No," I said. "A slaver could always put you in it, if he chose."