by John Norman
“It is nothing,” he said, a Gorean remark.
Perhaps, she thought to herself, to you it is nothing, Master, but to me it is everything!
Then she again lowered her head and, gratefully, kissed his feet, again.
He moved back a little.
The men then exchanged farewells.
“You have taught me something of this world,” said Mirus to Selius Arconious. “It is my hope that I may one day be worthy of a Home Stone.”
“It is nothing,” said Selius Arconious.
The two men clasped hands, and then embraced, and Mirus put his shoulders into the ropes. At the edge of the small camp he paused and turned, regarding Ellen. He smiled. “Farewell,” said he, “slave girl.”
“Farewell,” said she, “Master.”
Chapter 29
WHAT OCCURRED NEAR THE VIKTEL ARIA,
In the Vicinity of Venna
The slave had run on ahead.
“Masters!” she called, delightedly, emerging from between the trees. Never before had she seen such a road. It was seated with large, fitted stones. She knew that these went down to a depth of several feet. In making such a road, a great trench is dug, and then the stones are laid, wall-like, within the trench. The road is, in effect, a sunken wall, and such a road will last for hundreds, even thousands, of years, with little repair. How old the road might be she had no idea, but she could see ruts worn in the stone, presumably by the continuing passage of carts and wagons, season in and season out, decade in and decade out.
She stepped back a little, as a caravan was passing, and there was a ringing of the bells on a kaiila harness. Guards flanked the caravan, and regarded her idly, appraisingly, as they rode past, conjecturing, as she wore a collar, her lineaments. She stood straighter, but did not dare smile, for fear one of the riders might, on an impulse, loosening his rope, spur toward her and in a moment, as she fled, have his cast, tightening loop upon her. But she did stand straight, and beautifully. She was no longer ashamed of her body, or embarrassed by it, now that it was owned. She loved it, and prized it, and was proud of it. But she knew that it was not only her body that was owned, but the whole of her. All of her was slave, and belonged to her master. There were pack kaiila aplenty with the caravan, in files, most roped together, but, too, there was a long train of wagons, behind, some open and some closed. A caravan this size, she conjectured, would not be the property of a single merchant, but doubtless of a number of merchants leagued together, traveling thusly for purposes of safety in what were doubtless unsettled, dangerous, troubled times.
From the pommel of one saddle, seemingly not that of a guard, but perhaps of a civilian or merchant’s agent accompanying the caravan, there looped downward a light, graceful chain to the throat of a naked, blond slave. She walked proudly. How beautiful she is, thought Ellen. Their eyes met. The blonde tossed her head, and gave her no more notice. This angered Ellen and she ran forward and then alongside the slave. “Do not toss your head at me!” said Ellen. “I have a tunic! You are only a naked slave! You are naked! Naked! Only a naked slave, publicly marched on a chain, exposed on a common road!”
The slave cast a furious glance at her but the fellow about whose pommel was looped the chain put back his head and laughed loudly, and gave the chain a little, admonitory shake. “Eyes front, Marga,” he commanded her.
“Yes, Master,” she said, frightened, and turned her head forward, and held it deliberately, fixedly, in that attitude, and kept her eyes, too, squarely ahead, not so much as glancing to the side.
Ellen was muchly pleased by this. She laughed delightedly, but muchly to herself. She is afraid, she thought. She is afraid of her master! She is well mastered! Let them all be well mastered!
Eyeing the guards then, one of whom, as though to frighten her, turned his kaiila toward her, Ellen retreated to the trees at the edge of the road. Selius Arconious was now there, having come forward at her call, from the wagon.
“The road! The Viktel Aria, surely, Master!” said Ellen.
“Yes,” he said.
The kaiila and wagons continued to pass.
“Were you discomfiting that slave?” he asked.
“Yes, Master!” laughed Ellen. “She dared to toss her head at me, so I ran to her and called her attention to my tunic, that I was clothed, be it only so minimally, so revealingly, and to the fact that she was only a naked slave, only that, and one publicly marched on a chain, one blatantly exposed on a common road.”
“She was quite lovely,” said Selius Arconious.
“I suppose that that was not difficult to see, Master,” said Ellen, “as she was chained and naked.”
“Quite lovely,” he said.
“Perhaps a little tall, Master?” said Ellen.
“Not necessarily,” he said.
“Oh,” said Ellen. Ellen would have conjectured that the blonde was some two inches taller than herself.
“It was thoughtful of her master to so display her,” said Selius Arconious.
“Master?” asked Ellen.
“Yes,” he said. “It is in the nature of a generous, welcome gift to fellow itinerants, to accompanying wayfarers, a way to lighten the burdens, sometimes the unrelieved boredom, of long marches. The sight of such as she, you see, provides a pleasure, a luscious glimpse, a pleasant interlude, for weary travelers upon a long road, at the least an incentive to increase one’s pace, to hurry one’s steps to the nearest paga tavern.”
“Paga tavern, Master?”
“Yes,” said he, “where the use of such as she goes with the price of a drink.”
“I see, Master,” said Ellen.
“Yes,” he said.
“Perhaps, Master,” said Ellen. “But well did I humble her!”
“Doubtless,” said Selius Arconious.
“Oh, look, Master!” said Ellen, pointing, having then first noticed towers in the distance.
“That is Venna,” said he. “Ar is but two day’s journey south from Venna. Indeed, those of Ar often have villas in the vicinity of Venna, and enjoy the races there.”
“Will we enter upon the road when the caravan passes, Master?” asked Ellen.
“Perhaps tomorrow morning, early,” said Selius Arconious. “The heat of the afternoon is now upon us. Portus Canio and Fel Doron are even now unhitching the tharlarion and preparing a camp.”
“I will stay here a moment, and watch,” said Ellen.
Selius Arconious turned about, and made his way back through the trees.
Ellen supposed that she should have asked permission to stay near the road, but then she dismissed the thought. Surely this little bit of assertiveness on her part, if that is what it was, was unimportant. Too, she was not too pleased with Selius Arconious, for he had, as in the grasslands, muchly ignored her, and had not put her to the usages of a slave, those usages which were appropriate for her, and which she, collared, craved. Indeed, some of her earlier feelings of ambiguity pertaining to Selius Arconious had begun to reassert themselves. I should hate him I suppose, she thought, as I am a woman of Earth, and he put a collar on me, a collar, but I do not. I love him and love him dearly. And I want to love him in the deepest way possible, as a slave. But I fear he is a weakling. Indeed, sometimes, as she lay in her place at his thigh in the night, begging his attentions, and failing to obtain them, she had, occasionally, petulantly, pettily, as in the morning before the attack of the beasts, challenged him to prove that he was her master, or to give or sell her to another, to one who would be a master to her slave, to one who was a man. In her frustration she had lashed out at him, in her petty way. To be sure, she did not wish to belong to another, though she was sure that another would not be as understanding, as patient, as kind, as boring, as neglectful, as trivial with her as Selius Arconious, but would see to it, firmly, severely, whip in hand if need be, that the finest and fullest of her slave service would be unhesitantly and perfectly, even fearfully, rendered.
She waited by the road while the cara
van passed. One of the wagons was a slave wagon, with bars. Most of the women in it crouched down, below the low siding, a foot above the wagon bed, hiding, that they not be seen. Ellen supposed they might be free women, captured, or new slaves. In such a wagon they would doubtless be stripped, as women usually are in such a conveyance. Certainly she could see bared shoulders. They are perhaps shy, thought Ellen, or embarrassed to be seen as they doubtless now were, denied even the mockery of a tight thong and slave strip, presumably slave naked. One woman, however, was standing, and clothed, or partially so, in the remnants, or residual rags, of what might have been the final undergarments worn beneath the cumbersome Robes of Concealment. She clutched the bars, with two hands, looking out, in misery, in terror. Did she think to find succor, or rescue, or to elicit pity, from behind those narrow, closely set bars? Did she not know she was in a slave wagon? Did she not know she was on Gor? Did she not know that there were men here? Ellen thought that perhaps she had been troublesome, and that that was why she had been permitted, for the time, to retain some covering, that its removal then, at the hands of captors or masters, might be all the more momentous and shattering to her. It looked as though she had good legs, and her left shoulder, too, was exposed. Doubtless she will soon be in a collar, thought Ellen. In a few Ehn the last wagon had passed, and the following guards, carrying lances, mounted on kaiila, as well. Some tinier carts, some drawn by hand, followed the main column, though doubtless not associated with it, rather merely hoping in its shelter to shield themselves from brigandage.
Ellen supposed she had been away a rather long time, but she did not give this matter much thought. She smiled to herself. By now the camp would be largely made, and much of the work would be done. Excellent, she thought.
She cast one last look at the distant towers of Venna, and thought again of the former Lady Melanie of Brundisium, she sold at the festival camp, now doubtless a lovely, suitably embonded, obedient chattel behind those far walls.
I wish her well, she thought. And I hope she has a master who knows how to master her! Then she turned and made her way back through the trees, to where the men would have made the camp.
Selius Arconious is a weakling, she thought.
Most of the camp work will be done, she thought. Good!
When she reached the camp the men were waiting for her. Though in the presence of free men she decided she would not kneel.
“Greetings, Masters,” she said. Certainly it would not be wise to neglect such an obvious token of deference as an appropriate form of address.
“Remove your tunic,” said Selius Arconious.
“Master?” she asked. Her voice broke, slightly.
His gaze was not pleasant.
Certainly she did not wish for a command to be repeated, as that is a common cause for discipline. She slipped the tunic over her head. She hoped that she had not hesitated too long before doing so.
She then decided it would be a good idea to kneel, and so she did so, and, a moment later, trembling a little, before their gaze, carefully widened her knees. She now regretted not having knelt when she had first come into their presence. It is common for a slave to kneel when she comes into the presence of a free person, and to kneel, too, should they, as in entering a room, come into her presence. She clutched the tunic in two hands, desperately, frightened.
Selius Arconious approached her. He held out his hand. “Give it to me,” he said.
She lifted the tunic up to him.
“Hold your wrists before you, closely together, veins to veins,” he said.
“Master?” she asked. But she did as she was told, and wasted no time in doing so.
Her wrists were then bound together, tightly, separated only by looping cordage, but in such a way that a length of rope was left free in front, extending from her wrists, falling to the ground. By this free portion of the rope she could be led about, by her bound wrists. It constituted, in effect, a tether.
“Surely I have not displeased masters,” she said.
“There is an abandoned tarsk pen nearby?” Selius Arconious asked Fel Doron.
“Yes, as I said,” said Fel Doron. “I gathered some of the firewood there.”
“Then let us show our little she-tarsk,” said Selius Arconious, grimly.
Ellen was yanked rudely to her feet by the tether. She almost lost her balance. Then she was dragged, stumbling, perforce, trying not to fall, behind her impatient, precipitate master.
The tarsk pen, with its shed, was in ruins. But there was, at one side, the remains of the pen’s siding. It consisted of horizontal poles, some four inches thick. Here Selius Arconious angrily kicked away two of the lower horizontal poles, and left one horizontal pole in place, which was about four feet above the leaves, wood chips, rotted straw, and turf.
“Master, please!” said the slave.
She was forced down on her knees before the pole, facing it, and the interior of the pen, and then, in a moment, her wrists were lashed to the pole. She then knelt there, before it, her wrists up, fastened to it.
“What are you going to do, Master?” she wept.
But Selius Arconious had returned to the wagon, and there, as nearly as the slave could tell, looking wildly over her right shoulder, began rummaging through his belongings.
In a moment or two he had returned to where she knelt before the pole, her wrists up, bound to it. Portus Canio and Fel Doron were in the vicinity. “Masters?” she asked. She had been unable to see well behind her, given the angle from which Selius Arconious had approached. Accordingly she was not clear on what he might have fetched, if anything, from the wagon.
“I purchased this at the festival camp, outside Brundisium,” said Selius Arconious.
“It looks like an excellent buy,” said Portus Canio.
“I think it will do, nicely,” said Selius Arconious.
“What is it, Master?” asked the slave.
“A whip,” he said. “A slave whip.”
“No, Master!” cried the slave.
“I thought I might need it,” said Selius Arconious.
“You were right,” said Portus Canio.
“It is a useful tool,” said Fel Doron. “One should keep such a thing on hand. One never knows when it will be needed.”
“No, Master!” wept the slave. “Please, no, Master!”
She struggled to her feet, before the pole, twisting about, wildly, pulling at her bound wrists. There was no mistaking the device in the hands of Selius Arconious. She had not realized, perhaps foolishly, that he owned such a thing, that he would even own such a thing. “Get back on your knees,” she was told. She returned to her knees, facing the pole, staring ahead.
“What are you going to do, Master?” she asked, quavering.
“What do you think, little fool?” he said.
“Master?” she said.
“Whip you,” he said.
“No, Master!” she cried, in alarm. “Do not whip me!”
“Prepare to be whipped,” said he.
Her hair was thrown before her body.
Normally a slave girl’s hair is behind her shoulders, that there be less impedance to the vision of masters. If she is naked the hair is sometimes placed before her shoulders, that it may be brushed back by the master, or put behind her by the slave, upon the command to do so. The beauty of the slave is, of course, a source of great pleasure to the master.
“It is a joke, surely a joke, Master!” she said. “You have frightened me! I will be good!”
“Prepare to be whipped,” said he, angrily, “slave.”
“You cannot whip me, Master!” she cried. “I am an Earth woman! You cannot whip an Earth woman! Earth women are never whipped! We are never punished, no matter what we do! Even if we ruin lives, and destroy men, we are never punished!”
“Embonded women do not ruin lives and destroy men,” he said. She heard the strands of the leather shaken out.
“I am an Earth woman!” she cried. “We are never punish
ed! Such things are not done to Earth women!”
“You are not now on Earth,” he said.
She began to sob.
“Surely you have been whipped before,” he said, “if not on Earth, where you should have been, and perhaps frequently, then on Gor.”
“Yes, Master,” she wept.
“Is it true,” he asked, “that Earth women, on Earth, are never whipped?”
“I do not know,” she wept.
“If they are free, of course,” he said, “it would be inappropriate to whip them.”
“Yes, Master,” she cried.
“But doubtless a whipping would do some of them a great deal of good,” said Portus Canio.
“Doubtless,” said Fel Doron.
“But what of the women of Earth who are not free?” asked Selius Arconious.
“All the women of Earth are free!”
“That is surely false.”
“Yes, Master,” she sobbed.
“So what of those who are not free?”
“If they are not free, then they are subject to the whip,” said Ellen.
“Do you feel that they should not be whipped?”
“It is up to their masters!” she said.
“But what of a woman of Earth who is brought to Gor and enslaved?” he asked. “What do you feel about such a one? Should she be whipped?”
“It is up to her master,” said Ellen.
“Precisely,” he said.
“What have I done to displease you, Master?” she cried.
This inquiry was met with silence, which was more terrifying to her than a response. A thousand subtleties, and fears, rushed in upon her. There seemed so much, great and small, that she might have done differently.
“For what reason would you whip me?”