by John Norman
“Even so,” said Callimachus, “do you think that he, a warrior of Ar, a captain, will simply disguise himself and hurry off to a rendezvous in Victoria? He is surely aware that many in Victoria bear those of Ar little love. He will be suspicious.”
“He will doubtless demand that the meeting be held in his headquarters,” said Tasdron.
“Then all we have to do,” said Callimachus, bitterly, “is to convince Callisthenes to put himself in the power of the men of Ar’s Station.”
“He may be bolder than we think,” I said.
“I do not understand,” said Tasdron.
“For what purpose has he come to Victoria?” I asked.
“To find the topaz,” said Tasdron.
“I have a plan,” I said.
“What?” said Tasdron.
“Do you have the common keys to the collars and bells of your girls on the premises?” I asked.
“Surely,” said Tasdron.
I then drew from my pouch a piece of silk. It was heavy, from what it was wrapped about. I placed it carefully on the table. “I think the matter will not be as difficult as you might suspect,” I said.
“I understand,” said Tasdron. He eyed the silk wrapped object which I had placed upon the table. He had detected the telltale sound.
“Masters,” said Peggy, approaching the table, kneeling beside it, bearing a tray. She placed the tray on the table, and removed three plates of bread and meat from it, a dish of assorted cheeses, a bowl of dates, a pitcher of water, a pot of black wine, steaming, and tiny vessels of sugars and creams, and three goblets. On the table, too, she placed small spoons, of silver, from Tharna, for use with the black wine, and, at each place, a kailiauk-horn-handled eating prong, from distant Turia. Finger towels, then, and silver fingerbowl, too, she placed upon the table. The bowl was also of Tharnan silver. When she had placed these things on the table, she looked about, still kneeling, and saw me close the door to the room, locking her within, with us. She suddenly trembled. She knew that she was a slave, and that absolutely anything could be done with her.
“Leave the tray where it is,” said Tasdron. “Remove your silk, and remain kneeling.”
“Yes, Master,” she said, swiftly slipping the silk back from her shoulders.
She reddened, kneeling as a naked slave before the man she loved. Yet he looked upon her as though she might be any girl casually stripped by the command of a master.
I smiled to myself. Peggy had obeyed immediately and unhesitantly. Gorean slave girls do not dally in their compliance.
I unwrapped then the object from the silk on the table. There was the sound of the metal clapper in the narrow, flattish, triangular-shaped bell, the rustle of the chain and lock, the sound of the small, metal, sturdy, rectangular, locked coin box. I dangled the chain, the girl bell and the coin box before her eyes.
“Do you know what this is?” I asked her.
“Yes, Master,” she whispered, frightened.
“Excellent,” said Tasdron, “excellent,” and he rose from the table, letting himself out of the room with a key, by means of a side door, one which led up a flight of stairs, presumably to private compartments. He locked the door behind him. He would return shortly with the keys to her bells and collar.
***
“Stand, Slave,” I said.
Peggy stood, beautifully.
Tasdron crouched beside her left ankle and, with his key, removed the slave bells from her left ankle. Such bells are seldom put on by the slave or removed by the slave. Almost always they are put on or removed by one who is in authority over the slave. The girl seldom puts them on or removes them; rather it is hers to wear them, and as a slave, for as long or briefly as masters see fit.
I then, not hurrying, lifted the heavy chain, with its bell and box, about the girl’s neck. I stood behind her. I then, not yet dropping the chain about her neck, but holding it about her neck, closed the lock. She shuddered. It was on her, though she could not yet feel its weight as I had not yet released it, that it might fall against the back of her neck. Tasdron then, with a key, removed his collar from her throat. I then dropped the chain about her neck. The heavy black links were obdurate against the small, soft hairs on the back of her slender, lovely neck. I then threw her hair back again, in place. I then walked about her, and before her. She who had once been Peggy Baxter, of Earth, then stood before me in the apparatus of a Gorean coin girl.
“An excellent idea,” said Tasdron. “Now she will attract only the attention natural to a coin girl in the streets.”
“Some may recognize her, of course,” I said.
“I do not think many will,” said Tasdron, “and if some do, they will simply assume that she has been put into the streets for discipline.”
“That, too, was my conjecture,” I said. Though the Gorean coin girl is commonly one of several girls, one of a stable thereof, so to speak, sent daily into the streets to earn money as the chattels they are for their master, under the penalty of whippings or tortures, or death, if their day’s work does not prove sufficiently lucrative, it is not unknown for this sensual charge to be also placed upon a private girl, usually as a punishment for having failed in some way, often trivial or negligible, to be fully pleasing. After having been sent into the humiliations and dangers of the streets it is a rare girl who does not hurry back, eager and chastened, to the intimate joys of a private slavery.
“Do you know what you are to do?” I asked the girl.
“Yes, Master,” she said. “You have explained the matter fully to me.”
“Do not fail, Slave Girl,” I said to her, menacingly.
“I shall do my best, Master,” she whispered.
“It may work,” said Tasdron, regarding the slave. He looked to Callimachus. “What do you think?”
“It may quite possibly work,” said Callimachus. “We shall hope so.”
“She is pretty, isn’t she?” said Tasdron. “What do you think of her?”
Peggy straightened her body, scarcely daring to breathe. She was beautiful.
“She is not totally displeasing,” said Callimachus.
Tasdron then took the girl by an arm and thrust her toward a rear door, before which he stopped, the girl then standing beside him, to unlock it.
The girl turned to face us. “But am I not to be given even a Ta-Teera to wear?” she asked.
“You will be more alluring, more fetching, without it,” I told her.
“Yes, Master,” she said, half choking.
Tasdron then had the door open, and he took her again by the arm.
“But in the streets,” she said, “seen as I am, what if others should wish to use me?”
“You are in the guise of a coin girl,” I told her.
“But what should I do?” she asked.
“See that you serve them well,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she whispered, and then Tasdron, by her arm, half dragging her, pulled her through the door and down the corridor toward the alley door. The sound of the bell on her neck was exciting. Then, the door unbolted and opened, she was thrust into the darkness of the alley. She looked at us, once, and then turned about and sped away, the bell on her neck, on our business. Tasdron closed the door and resecured it.
“Do you think she will be successful?” asked Callimachus of Tasdron, when he had returned to the room.
“She is a slave,” said Tasdron. “It will be in her best interest to be so.”
“Let us eat,” I said.
“I am hungry.”
“I, too,” said Callimachus.
“I, too,” said Tasdron.
Chapter 26 - FLORENCE; MILES OF VONDA
“Florence!” I said.
“Master!” she said, pleased.
“Is it you!” I laughed.
“Yes,” she said.
“How wonderful to see you,” I said.
“Doubtless it is wonderful for a man to see me, as I am now,” she laughed.
It was th
e eighteenth Ahn, two Ahn before the twentieth Ahn, the Gorean midnight, when we would hold our secret meeting in the back room of Tasdron’s tavern. I had finished my supper in the room and had, leaving Callimachus and Tasdron in conversation, emerged through the now-opened door into the main room of the tavern. I intended to walk until the twentieth Ahn.
“I see that you are well secured,” I said.
“My master has seen to it,” she said, proudly.
In Tasdron’s paga tavern, as in many, along one wall, there is a set of slave rings, to which one may chain or tie one’s slaves while drinking or dining in the tavern. This is a convenience for the customers.
“How beautiful you are,” I said. I crouched down beside her.
“Thank you, Master,” she said.
“I see that slavery agrees with you,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, softly.
I turned her face toward me, gently, with my hand.
“What an incredible transformation has come over you,” I said.
“It is only that you are not used to seeing me in the tunic and collar of a slave,” she said.
“No,” I said, “it is far beyond such things.” I lowered my hand.
“Yes, Master,” she smiled.
I examined her, with attention, as a man does an enslaved woman, as she put her head down, shyly. She wore a brief slave tunic, of gray rep-cloth. It was demure, as such garments go, but it left little doubt as to her charms. I saw that her master was proud of his slave’s beauty.
She knelt with her back to the wall and slave ring, her knees wide. Her hands were braceleted above and behind her head, the linking chain on the bracelets passing behind the slave ring. She also wore an ankle ring with a chain which looped up to the same slave ring, and was locked about it. The soft, rounded flesh of her forearms, below the steel, and the sweet, swelling flesh of her palms, above the steel, were lovely. I examined the lineaments of her body, the beauty of her breasts held high, as she was braceleted, the latitudes of her belly, the flare of her hips, the sweetness of her knees and thighs, the lovely curve of her calves, her ankles, the left clasped in steel, and her small feet. She was barefoot, of course, as slaves are commonly kept.
“You are astonishingly beautiful, Florence,” I said.
“Thank you, Master,” she said.
“You are doubly chained,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
This type of chaining, a double chaining, is usually done only by a man who is in a strange city, and does not know, fully, what to expect. If one is familiar with the city a single chaining is usually regarded as sufficient. Indeed, sometimes the girl is merely told to grasp the ring and to remain there until the master returns. She may not release the ring until given permission by a free person. Some girls have been raped at such rings, as helplessly as though they might have been chained to them, so great is the fear of their master, and so strict is the Gorean discipline to which they know them selves subject.
“Are you always, in a tavern, chained in this fashion?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“It would be hard to steal you,” I smiled.
“Yes, Master,” she smiled.
“Your master must find you very precious,” I said.
“I am only a slave,” she said, putting her head down, smiling.
“You have become very beautiful,” I said.
“Thank you, Master,” she said.
“Who is your master?” I asked.
“Miles of Vonda,” she said.
“I thought he might be,” I said.
“He purchased me at a secret auction,” she said, “held in the camp of Tenalion, the Slaver.”
“What did he bid?” I asked.
“A hundred pieces of gold,” she said, smiling, not lifting her head.
“Vain little she-sleen,” I laughed.
“It is true,” she smiled.
“Marvelous,” I said. “I myself received only ten silver tarsks for you when I sold you to Tenalion.”
“The gold was doubtless much more than I was worth,” she said.
“Not to Miles of Vonda,” I smiled.
“No,” she said, smiling.
“Are you happy?” I asked.
She lifted her head, happily. “Oh, yes,” she said, “yes, yes! I am so happy! I am so happy, Master!”
“Wonderful,” I said.
“He stripped me, and put me under his whip, and taught me instantly that I was his slave, his total slave.”
“I am very happy for you,” I said.
“I had never dreamed, when I was free, that he could be such a man. Had I even suspected it I would have torn away my clothes and thrown myself to his feet, begging his collar.”
“Had you been free,” I said, “he could not have been such a man.”
“That is true,” she said. “Had I been free he could not have handled me and treated me as he wished, and as I wished, as his lovely beast, to be ravished, and trained and taught her duties.”
I nodded. Enmeshed in legalities, negativities and socialized expectations it was difficult to relate as biological human beings. But the slave girl, standing outside the protections of such devices, stands before her master as an exposed, raw human female, without rights, his to do with as he pleases.
Similarly the master, owing the slave nothing, and knowing that she is completely his, his very property, may relate to her freely in the order of nature. In his treatment of her he is untrammeled by either conscience or law, and this she knows, and loves, and, accordingly, hastens to obey and be pleasing. She knows that she is owned, and that he is her unqualified master. The order of nature, and the obdurate and thematic equations of dominance and submission, denied though they might be, and even if hysterically repudiated, will continue to lurk in the microstructures of every cell in the human body.
The master/slave relationship is the institutionalization of dominance and submission. It is, under the enhancements of civilization, the institutionalization of the primitive biological relationship of the human male and female; he the master, she the slave. How lonely is the man who has not yet found his slave; how forlorn is the woman who has not yet found her master.
“I am pleased that you are so happy,” I said.
“But he is strict with me,” she said. “I must obey him in all things.”
“Of course,” I said.
“I fear only that he will tire of me, or sell me,” she said. “I try so hard to please him.”
“You do not wish to be whipped,” I said.
“I love him,” she said. “I love Miles of Vonda!”
“With the love of a free companion?” I asked.
“No,” she said, “with the helpless and total love of an owned slave girl for her master.”
“He is a fortunate man,” I said.
“I am his, fully,” she said. She smiled, shyly. The auburn-haired beauty was radiant. I looked at her. How marvelous is the transformation which slavery works in a woman.
“What are you called now?” I asked.
“‘Florence’,” she said.
“He put your old name on you, as a slave name,” I said.
“Was it not appropriate?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Yes,” she laughed, delightedly, “it was fully appropriate. I was a slave before, when I was free. I knew it in any heart, even then, that I was a slave. It is thus fully appropriate that I now wear my old name openly, and with full explicitness, as a slave name.”
“That pleases you, doesn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said, happily. “It pleases me very much.
“Florence, the slave,” I said.
“Yes, Florence, the slave,” she said.
“How is Miles of Vonda?” I asked.
Her eyes clouded. “He has fallen on hard times,” she said. “Warriors of Ar made hostel in his holdings, in their withdrawal to the south. He, in anger
, spoke ill of Ar in their presence. Accordingly they burned his holdings and scattered his hurt and tharlarion.”
“What is he doing in Victoria?” I asked.
“He is on his way west on the river,” she said, “to Turmus, where he has friends, that he may negotiate a loan to rebuild and replenish his holdings.”
“It is now dangerous to travel on the river,” I said. “River pirates are now bold and active.”
“We must take our chances,” she said.
“How large is his retinue?” I asked. This could make a difference with respect to the security of his venture.
“Only myself,” she said, “and Krondar, a fighting slave.”
“Only two?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “He sold his other slaves, to obtain moneys for the journey.”
“But he did not sell you,” I said.
“He kept me,” she smiled, moving in the chains.
“And Krondar,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “He is fond of Krondar, and a fighting slave may be useful upon the river.”
That is true,” I said.
I remembered Krondar. Indeed, I had once fought him in the pit of leather and blood, when I, too, had been a fighting slave. Krondar was a veteran of the fighting pits of Ar. He had fought even with the spiked cestae and the knife gauntlets. He was a short, stout, thick-bodied, powerful man. His face and upper body were disfigured with masses of scar tissue, lingering records of a bloody history in the pits.
“You should not leave Victoria,” I said, “until several ships, in convoy, are prepared to move westward.”
“My master is impatient,” she said.
“It has been wonderful to see you,” I said, adding, “Female Slave.” I stood up.
“It has been wonderful for me to see you, too, Master,” she said.
I turned away.
“Master,” she said.
I turned back to regard her.
“Thank you,” she said, “for, long ago, having captured and sold me. It was you who first taught me my womanhood. It was you who first taught me, incontrovertibly, that I belonged to men.”
I shrugged.
“If it were not for you,” she said, “I might never have come into the possession of my master, Miles of Vonda.”