Swordsmen of Gor

by John Norman

  Lord Nishida then looked at me. “Now,” he said, “we may address ourselves to matters of importance.”

  Chapter Eleven

  CECILY AND I LOOK IN ON THE FORMER MISS WENTWORTH

  A few days after her interview with Lord Nishida in his pavilion, curious, I decided to look in on the former Miss Wentworth, and so, after an inquiry or two, I made my way, heeled by Cecily, to one of the large stables in which draft tharlarion were housed, those which aided in the logging, and drew the wagons down the narrow path between the trees, to some destination, to the southeast. The stable was a long, large building, with a towering roof, to contain the longer-necked tharlarion. It would house several beasts, but I supposed, at this time of day, most, if not all, of the tharlarion would be about the camp, or active on the road to the southeast, hauling logs, or returning. By nightfall, as these things go, before the beasts returned, the stable should be cleaned, fresh straw strewn about, deeply, and the feed and water troughs filled. I chose the late afternoon for my visit, supposing the time one opportune to encounter the former Miss Wentworth alone. Late in the afternoon many of the “strange men” enjoy a pleasant soak in a warm tub. I trusted that the stable grooms might be enjoying this homely indulgence. Several collar-girls, such as those who had been former free women of Ar, were humbly, attentively, silently, here and there, bathing the men. I did not think that the former Miss Wentworth would be engaged in this activity, as it is regarded as a great privilege for a collar-girl to be permitted to bathe a master. Indeed, it is one of the lovely services in which a contract woman, naked beside her client in the pool, was expected to excel.

  I found the former Miss Wentworth toward the back of the stable, on the right, as one would face the large double gate which gave access to the structure. She was facing the back of the stable. I watched her for a time. She was on her knees, moving about, leaning forward, a small, pathetic figure. She would reach down and, again and again, with her small, lovely hands, quite bare, her bare arms stained to the elbows, scrape together tharlarion dung. When a suitable heap had been formed, she would lift it, again with her bare hands, and place it on a low flat cart, which she drew beside her.

  She was naked, not yet permitted a tunic, and was filthy, and doubtless stank.

  She had not yet been permitted even a slave strip.

  The common slave strip is a single, narrow, dangling piece of cloth anchored in binding fiber, double-looped about the waist of the slave. It is usually tied snugly, to accentuate the figure of the slave. It is fastened with a slip knot that it may easily, with a tug, be undone. The binding fiber, of course, is long enough to bind the slave, hand and foot, or, if one desires, to serve as a leash, the slave strip then usually folded and placed between the slave’s teeth, which she dare not drop. Sometimes the binding fiber, in its double loop, is looser, that it may ride low on the hips. The point of this is to exhibit the navel of the slave, which, in Gorean, is known as “the slave belly.” The Gorean free woman, as I understand it, who often mates while gowned, commonly refuses to reveal her “slave belly” to her companion, because of the shame of it. What if he should become excited, tear off her gown, and put her to use with the same audacity, aggression, exhilaration, and exultation with which he might use a vulnerable, meaningless animal, say, a chain-slut or paga girl?

  I watched the former Miss Wentworth for a time, she unaware of my presence.

  They were teaching her what it was to be a slave.

  Yet I feared she had not even, as yet, begun to learn.

  I considered her.

  How far she was now from the seats of commercial power, far from the treasure houses of wealth, far from paneled board rooms, long corridors, marshaled desks, and bright offices.

  This was a world other than that to which she had been accustomed, and which she had thought to leave behind only for a life of wealth and leisure.

  I continued to regard her.

  I saw there was a collar on her neck. The lock was in the back, as is common. It was doubtless that of Lord Nishida.

  I had no doubt she had no access to its key.

  Now, doubtless as never before, she knew what it was to be in a slave collar.

  “Saru,” I called.

  She threw herself to her belly in the straw, facing away from me, and covered her head with her hands. “Please, please do not whip me!” she begged.

  The slave had been given the name ‘Saru’.

  The saru is found variously on Gor, but usually in tropical areas. For example, it is common in the jungles of the Ua. Also, I had learned from Tajima, it is found, here and there, in the home, so to speak, of the “strange men.” The saru is a small, usually arboreal animal. It is usually regarded with amusement, or contempt. It figures in children’s stories as a cute, curious, mischievous little beast, but also one that is stupid, vain, and ignorant. Although the saru, as far as I can tell, is not a monkey zoologically, it surely occupies a similar ecological niche, and resembles the monkey in its diet, habits, groupings, and such. It is tailless. I think it would not be amiss to think of the saru as a Gorean monkey. In any event Tajima, when he put the slave before him on her knees, in the stable, to be named, told her, in English, that there be no mistaking the matter, and she clearly understand what was being done to her, what ‘Saru’ meant, its connotations, and such. She was, in effect, he told her, going to be named “Monkey.” “Yes Master,” she whispered. The slave, of course, is named by masters. She has nothing to say as to what she will be named, no more than a sleen or kaiila. Names may be changed, from time to time. Some names, like ‘Saru’, are belittling names, or contempt names. Other names may be fit for low slaves, others for prized slaves, and so on. Names may be used to punish or commend, to humiliate or delight, and so on. Earth-girl names, which may be put on any slave, regardless of her world of origin, are commonly used for low slaves. ‘Cecily’, the name of my slave, had once been one of her free-woman names. Now, of course, it was not the same name, for I had given it to her as a slave name. The slave understands, of course, that she has no name, not in a legal sense, and that the name she is given is a name bestowed on her by a master, and removable by a master. Even the name which appears on formal slave papers is a slave name.

  “You are no longer Miss Margaret Wentworth,” Tajima explained to her. “As soon as you were entered on an acquisition list, months ago, you were only a nameless slave.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said, kneeling before him.

  “I have explained to you the meaning of ‘Saru’,” he said. “You have understood?”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “I am now going to name you,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she whispered.

  “You are Saru,” he said. “Rejoice that you are no longer a nameless slave.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said, frightened.

  “You may thank me,” he said.

  “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  “‘Saru’, Master,” she said.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Saru,” she said, “Master.”

  He then turned about, and left her, and she collapsed to the straw of the stable, wracked with sobs.

  She shuddered in the straw, naked. “Please do not whip me!” she begged.

  “It is I, Tarl Cabot,” I said. “Do not be afraid. I have not come to whip you.”

  She rose to all fours, and turned about, and regarded me, in the gloom of the stable, almost half-uncomprehendingly.

  Cecily stood, behind me, to my left.

  “Do not be afraid,” I said. Then I snapped my fingers, and pointed to the floor, before me, and she crawled to that place, on all fours, and looked at me.

  Her head had been shaved.

  I thus inferred that the gifting of her, amongst other gifts, to a shogun by Lord Nishida, which I understood to be his intent, would not be imminent, but perhaps months away.

  Surely
she was in no condition to be presented, now, to anyone, even a herder of tarsks, a lowly shearer of the bounding hurt.

  But her bondage journey had begun. By the time she had learned her collar, and her skin would again sparkle, and her hair would be again a glory, and her eyes would no longer reflect terror but rather the eagerness of a surrendered slave, hoping to be found pleasing by her master, she would be worthy, I was sure, of having the vestiture of a silken presentation sheet removed before a shogun, or even a Ubar.

  “Master?” she asked, her head lifted to me.

  “Slave?” I said.

  “Has Master Pertinax inquired after me?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “Why do you ask?”

  She put down her head, “Nothing, Master,” she said.

  “Perhaps,” I said, “it is his whip you would like to feel?”

  Among slaves, a common way for one slave to inquire of another her owner is to ask, “Who whips you?”

  To be sure, the slave may never have been whipped. She is, of course, subject to the whip of the master, for she is a slave. Sometimes a slave may be bound and whipped, to remind her that she is a slave. After this, she is under no illusions as to her condition. She now knows well what she is; she is slave, only slave.

  The slave was silent, but trembled.

  “As a slave, of course,” I said, “you are unworthy of any free man.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said. Then she looked to Cecily. “She is standing,” she said.

  “Of course,” I said. “You are a slave. If you were a free person, she would be on her knees.”

  She looked at Cecily. “I am sorry,” she said, “that I was cruel to you.”

  “It is nothing,” said Cecily.

  Saru looked up from all fours, her knees and hands in the straw. “May I kneel, Master,” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She had not asked for permission to stand. She knew herself in the presence of a free man.

  I wondered if Thrasilicus was looking into a different slave for Lord Nishida. Perhaps a better slave would be sought.

  “Back straight, head up,” I told her.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Knees,” I said.

  “Before her?” asked Saru, in misery. Cecily was standing.

  “Before me,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Wider,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “I see you are collared,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “And you have been branded?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  I crouched beside her. “It is an excellent mark,” I said. It was, as I had expected, the common Kef.

  “I am told so,” she said. “I am now well marked. There will be no confusing me now with a free woman.”

  “Nor should there be,” I said.

  “No, Master,” she said.

  “You look well, kneeling, with your knees spread,” I said.

  “Thank you, Master,” she whispered.

  “A slave is pleased, if she is found pleasing,” I said.

  “I am pleased if I am found pleasing,” she said.

  “Understand it,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  A tear coursed down her cheek.

  She would soon, I was sure, as a slave, aside from fear, take great pleasure in being found pleasing, and be genuinely grateful for having been found so, and, if not, there was always the leather.

  How desperate, I thought, are slaves, once they understand their condition, to be found pleasing. Surely the switch, the lash, are unpleasant. Saru was new to her bondage, but, thanks to the grooms, she was already well aware of the consequences of failing, in any particular, to be pleasing to free men.

  But most desirably the slave should eventually desire to be found pleasing, should strive to be so, for the joy of being found pleasing by her master, and not from dread of the boot or leather.

  “To whom do you belong?” I asked.

  “To Lord Nishida,” she said.

  I had supposed that that would be the case. On the other hand, if a different slave were being sought, with her coloring, and such, it was quite possible that she might have been given to another.

  I examined the collar. “I cannot read the collar,” I said. I supposed it was in Gorean, but it was not in a common Gorean script. I had encountered something similar, long ago, in the Tahari, where Gorean was written in a quite different script, a flowing, beautiful script common in the Tahari.

  “It was shown to me,” she said, “but I, too, could not read it.”

  “Can you read Gorean?” I asked.

  “It was not thought necessary that I learn it,” she said.

  “Many Earth-girl slaves are kept illiterate in Gorean,” I said. “Why should a slave be taught to read?”

  “I was not a slave!” she said.

  “In the view of some, it seems, you were,” I said. “But, in any event, illiteracy would seem a suitable aspect of your disguise.”

  “And I understand,” she said, bitterly, “they had a collar in mind for me, even from the beginning.”

  “Certainly,” I said.

  “Yes, certainly,” she wept.

  “I assume your collar was read to you,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What does it say?” I asked.

  “‘I am the property of Nishida of Nara’,” she said.

  This was doubtless Lord Nishida.

  “What is Nara?” I asked.

  “I do not know,” she said.

  On the common Gorean collar it might be a city, a district, even a cylinder. On her collar, for all I knew, it might be a place, a port, a caste, a family, a clan, or something else. I did not know what. I would later learn it was a citadel, a lofty fortress castle.

  “Were you given slave wine?” I asked. I recalled she had had “the wine of the noble free woman.”

  She closed her eyes and, involuntarily, shuddered with misery. Then she looked at me, shaken. “My hands were tied behind my back,” she said, “and then I was knelt and my head yanked back by the hair, and held in place, and the spout forced between my teeth, and my nostrils pinched shut, and it was poured into me, and I must imbibe the beverage or suffocate. It was most bitter, most foul. And then, unable to disgorge the brew, even later, for the tying of my hands, I must endure to have my head shaved.”

  “The shaving of the head was doubtless to help you understand better your bondage,” I said, “but, too, it is perhaps not entirely regrettable considering the applications to which you have been put. Your hair was very beautiful, as well you knew, in your vanity, and it would have been a sorry thing for it to have been fouled in the ordure of tharlarion.”

  “I protested my work, and as they would have me attend to it,” she said, “and my face was forced down, into the dung of tharlarion. I protested no more.”

  Whereas, as suggested earlier, the effects of slave wine and “the wine of the noble free woman” are identical, the common ingredient being sip root, there is a considerable difference in the two drinks. Slave wine makes no attempt to conceal the bitterness of ground, raw sip root, whereas “the wine of the noble free woman” is flavored, spiced, and sweetened in such a way that it offers no offense to the delicate and more refined sensibility of the free woman. A slave, of course, as any domestic animal, is to be bred only if and when, and how, the master wishes. A releaser, interestingly, deliciously palatable, is administered to the slave prior to her mating. In the mating, which is supervised by masters, she will be crossed with a male slave. Both slaves will be hooded, and are forbidden to speak, that neither will later, should they meet, know the other.

  “As I recall,” I said, “on the beach, several days ago, you informed me that you were, at that time, a virgin.”

  “Yes,” she said, looking down.

  “Why?” I asked.
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  “I hated men,” she said. “I despised them. I could not bear the thought of one of them doing that to me. How vulgar it would be, and how helpless I would be! I would be in their arms no better than a slave.”

  “Are you still a virgin?” I asked.

  Saru cast a swift, distressed glance at Cecily, who was standing behind me, a bit to my left.

  “Must I speak?” she asked,

  “Yes,” I said.

  “No,” she said, looking down to the straw, “I am no longer a virgin.”

  “Lord Nishida opened you,” I said.

  She looked up.

  “‘Opened’?” she said.

  “Yes, to have you more ready, for the pleasure of men,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “It was not he who opened me.”

  “I am surprised,” I said.

  “After the pavilion,” she said, “he had no more interest in harvesting the virginity of one such as I than of harvesting that of a she-tarsk. I was hooded, and given to grooms.”

  “Are you different now?” I asked.

  “They use me as they wish,” she said.

  “Are you different now?” I asked.

  “But not so much as before,” she whispered. “Now, often, they make me wait.”

  “Doubtless at Lord Nishida’s command,” I suggested.

  “Perhaps,” she said. “I do not know.”

  “I see you are different now,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, “I am different now.”

  “They have put squirmings in your belly,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, lowering her eyes. “They have put squirmings in my belly.”

  “I see,” I said.

  She looked up, agonized. “Can you not understand me?” she cried. “I can no longer help myself!”

  “Nor should you,” I said. “You are becoming vital. You are coming to a state of health scarcely suspected by a free woman. You are being redeemed as a female.”

  “I find myself, again and again, in heat, like a she-tarsk!” she cried.

  “As a slave,” I suggested.

  “Yes,” she said, “as a slave!”

  “Excellent,” I said. “To be sure, there are often miseries in such things.”