Captive of Gor (46 page)

to the tents of the warriors.

“Tonight,” had cried Rask of Treve, blood on his shield, his eyes like those of

laughing tarns, “we will feast!”

The men had clashed their weapons on their shields and the girls had scurried

away that the feast might be prepared.

I would not serve, of course, for Ute would excuse me. She knew I was not as the

other girls.

(pg. 321) In the shed, scornfully, I watched them, eagerly speaking about the

evening, laughing and joking. Such might well serve men.

Then, at Ute’s call, they went from the shed, happily, to receive silks and

bells.

How I scorned them, such pitiful weaklings!

I remained in the shed. I would retire early. I would need rest, for I must work

tomorrow.

“El-in-or, come forth!” I heard. It was Ute’s voice.

I was puzzled.

I got to my feet and went outside the shed. There was a mirror there, and

cosmetics and silks and bells. There were no men about. The girls were preparing

themselves.

I looked at Ute.

“Remove your clothing,” she said.

“No!” I cried. “No!”

I quickly, in anguish, removed the garment. There was a jangle of slave bells,

wrapped in a bit of silk, as Ute threw me bells and silk.

“Please, Ute!” I wept. “No!”

The other girls looked up from their work, and laughed.

“Ute,” I begged, “please, please no!”

“Make yourself pleasing, Slave,” said Ute, and turned away.

I slipped on the bit of silk. I looked in the mirror and shuddered. I had been

naked before men, many times, but it did not seem to me that I had been so naked

as this. It was Gorean pleasure silk. Not naked, I seemed more than naked.

I waited my turn before the mirror and applied the cosmetics of the Gorean slave

girl. I knew well how to do this, for I had been trained.

I buckled the slave bells on my left and right ankles, and then I went to Ute.

“Please, Ute,” I begged.

She smiled. “You come to ask to be belled?” she asked.

I put my head down. Ute was adamant. “Yes,” I said.

Ute took the other slave bells and buckled one strap, with its two small

buckles, like the ankle straps, except smaller, (pg. 323) about my left wrist,

and then buckled the other strap, with its two small buckles, about my right

wrist.

I was belled.

I stood about, miserably, while the other girls finished their primping. How

exciting they were in their silk, their bells and cosmetics.

“You are not unattractive,” said Ute to me.

I said nothing. I was miserable.

In a few minutes, Ute, who retained her work tunic, and would not serve,

reviewed us, commenting here and there, and recommending small changes upon

occasion. We were her girls, and she wished us to present ourselves well.

She stopped before me.

“Stand prettily,” she said.

Furiously, I did so.

Ute went to the chest of silks and bells and brought forth five more slave

bells, which she tied with bits of scarlet ribbon to my collar.

“There is something missing,” she said, standing back.

I did not respond.

She went again to the chest. The girls gasped. As I stood there two large,

golden earrings were thrust through the piercings of my ears and fastened on me.

There were tears in my eyes.

“And here,” said Ute, “lest the ardor of the men become too strong, this!”

The girls laughed. She took a white, silken ribbon and wrapped it five times

about the collar, not tying it.

I had been marked white silk.

Inge and Rena laughed. “Do not laugh,” smiled Ute, “for you, too, will be so

marked, lest Raf and Pron, huntsmen of Treve, in a careless moment, devour my

two other white-silk pretties.”

The other girls laughed. I could see, to my irritation, that Inge and Rena did

not much care to wear the white ribbon. I could not understand this. Did they

wish to be used as helpless slaves by handsome, powerful Raf and Pron? I

supposed they did, and I despised them in their (pg. 224) weakness. Inge had

been of the scribes and Rena had been free. She had been even the Lady Rena of

Lydius! Now they seemed to be naught but female slaves. I was pleased that I was

not such as they.

But how shamed I was, that I, Elinor Brinton, of Park Avenue, must appear before

men and serve them, so clad and so belled.

Ute touched me, and the others, then, with a bit of perfume. I was in anguish.

“Serve, Slaves!” laughed Ute, clapping her hands, and the girls fled to the

center of the camp, where I heard the shouting of pleasure of men, welcoming

them.

Ute and I stood facing one another.

“Serve, Slave,” said Ute.

Angrily I, perfumed and rouged, belled and silked, turned and followed the other

girls to the center of the camp, near the great tent of Rask of Treve, of

scarlet canvas lined with scarlet silk, on its eight poles.

* * *

“Wine! Bring me wine!” shouted the warrior.

I, a slave girl, with a rustle of silk and slave bells, hurried to him, a

master, to serve him.

Kneeling, I filled his cup.

The music of those of the caste of musicians was heady, like the wine.

There was shouting and laughing, the pleasurable moaning and crying out of girls

used beyond the rim of firelight.

There was much feasting, and drinking.

On the sand, before the warriors, belled, in scarlet silk, the girl, Talena,

danced.

Some of them shouted, and threw bones and pieces of meat at her.

I tired to rise, but the warrior whose cup I had filled had his hand in my hair.

“So, you are a liar, and a thief, and a traitress?’ he asked.

“Yes,” I said, terrified.

He turned my head from side to side, looking at the earrings. He was drunk, and

I could tell that he was aroused.

(pg. 325) “More wine,” he said.

I again filled his cup.

“Your ears are pierced,” he said, shaking his head, trying to clear his vision.

“If it please Master,” I whispered. “If it please Master.”

“Wine!” cried the other man.

I tried to rise.

Talena was driven from the sand and another girl, belled, stood forth to please

the men.

At the head of the feast sat the magnificent Rask of Treve, in his victory. At

his side, cross-legged, sat Verna, the panther girl, who was served by we girls

as might have been a warrior. How I envied her her freedom, her beauty, her

pride, and even the simple opacity of the brief garment she wore. She was not

clad in a bit of silk, a touch of cosmetics, a scent of perfume and the bells of

a slave.

The man whom I had served wine reached clumsily for me.

“I am white silk!” I cried, shrinking back.

“Wine!’ cried the other man.

I tried to rise, but the man’s hand was knotted in the silk. If I moved I would

strip myself.

Another girl, on her knees, reaching for him, holding his head, insinuated

herself between us. “I am red silk,” she murmured. “Touch me! Touch me!”

His hand left my silk and I darted away.

I fled to the other man and served him.

“Wine!” called Verna. I ran to her and, kneeling, filled her cup.

“Wine,” said Rask of Treve, holding forth his cup.

I could not meet his eyes. All of me blushed red before him, my master. I filled

his cup.

“She is pretty,” said Verna.

“Another girl, with jeers, was driven from the sand, and another took her place.

“Wine!” cried another man, about the circle.

I leaped up and, carrying the vessel, with a clash of slave bells, ran to serve

him.

(pg.326) I tipped the vessel, but the wine was gone. I must fetch more.

“Run, Girl!” he cried. “Fetch wine!”

“Yes, Master!” I cried.

I fled from the firelight. I stumbled over two figures, rolling in the darkness.

A warrior cursed. I suddenly saw, rolled on her back, her dark hair loose, under

the moons of Gor, Techne, her lips parted, reaching for the warrior. I fled into

the darkness, toward the kitchen shed. Before I reached it I felt myself seized

in a man’s arms, and felt his leather. His bearded face pressed to my softness.

“No!” I cried. He took my face in his hands. There were bells on my collar. “You

are the slave, El-in-or,” he said, the little liar, the thief and traitress.” I

tried to twist away. He saw the earrings of gold, and I felt his hands hard on

my arms, hurting them. “I am white silk!” I cried. He shook his head and looked

at the collar. About it, wrapped there by Ute earlier, was the ribbon of white

silk. He was furious. He did not release me. I could hear, from back at the

fire, yet another girl jeered from the sand. “Please,” I whispered. “I am white

silk! I am white silk.” Another shout from the fire indicated that a new girl

now addressed herself to the pleasure of the feasters, and one, it seems,

pleasing to them. “I would like to see you dance, little traitress, “ he said.

“I must fetch wine,” I said, and twisted away, running toward the kitchen shed.

There I found Ute. “Do not send me back, Ute!” I wept. “Fetch your wine and

return,” said Ute. I dipped the wine vessel into the great stone jar, again

filling it. “Please, Ute!” I wept. I could hear more shouting back at the fire.

“El-in-or!” I heard shout. “El-in-or, the traitress!”

I was terrified.

“They are calling for you,” said Ute.

“Come, Slave, to the sand!” ordered a man’s voice. It was the fierce, bearded

fellow, who had accosted me as I had fled to the kitchen shed.

“Hurry, Slave!” cried Ute. Hurry!”

With a cry of misery, spilling wine over the brim of the (pg. 327) vessel, I

slipped past the man in the doorway of the kitchen shed, and ran back to the

firelight.

When I reached the feasters another girl took from me the wine.

I was thrust rudely to the center of the sand. I felt a hand tear away the bit

of silk I wore. I cried out in misery and covered my face with my hands.

“Liar!” I head cry.

“Thief!” “Traitress!” I heard cry.

The musicians began to play.

I fell to my knees.

The girls began to jeer. The men shouted angrily. “Bring whips!” I heard cry.

“Dance for your master, Slave,” I heard Verna call out.

I extended my hand to Rask of Treve, piteously. I was suddenly aware, behind me,

of a warrior, standing. In his right hand, the lashes looped in his left, he

held a slave whip. I cried out with misery, my hand extended to Rask of Treve,

my eyes pleading. He must show Elinor Brinton mercy!

Burt she would be shown no mercy.

“Dance, Slave,” said Rask of Treve.

I leaped to my feet, my hands held over my head. The musicians again began to

play.

And Elinor Brinton, of Park Avenue, of Earth, a Gorean slave girl, danced before

primitive warriors.

The music was raw, melodious, deeply sensual.

I suddenly saw, scarcely comprehending, the awe in their eyes. They were silent,

their fierce eyes bright. I saw their hands tighten, the shoulders lean forward.

I danced.

Well had I been trained in the pens of Ko-ro-ba. Not for nothing had it been I

and Lana who had been among the most superb of the slave females then in the

pens.

In the firelight, in the sand, before warriors, I danced. My feet, belled,

struck in the sand. The perfume was wild about me, swift in the brightness and

the shadows. On my lips I wore slave rouge. I danced.

I could see the eyes of the men, the movements of their bodies.

(pg. 328) I realized, suddenly, in the dance, that I had power in my beauty,

incredible power, power to strike men and stun them, to astonish them in the

firelight, to make them, if I wished, mad with the wanting of me.

“She is superb!” I heard whisper.

I danced toward him, he who had said this, and he leaped toward me, but two of

his fellows seized him, holding him back. I danced back, my hands held to him,

as though I had been torn from him.

“Aiii!” he cried.

There were shouts of pleasure.

I saw the girls watching too, their eyes wide, too, with pleasure.

I threw back my head and the bells flashed at my ankles and wrists, and in my

body the music, in its bright flames, burned.

I would make them mad with the wanting of me!

I would do so.

Something deep and female within me emerged, something I had never felt before.

I would torture them! I did have power. I would make them suffer!

I was white silk!

It was safe to dance before them as I pleased.

And so Elinor Brinton danced to torment them.

They cried out with anguish and pleasure. How pleased I was in my power!

As the music changed so, too, did the dancer, and she became as one with the

music, a frightened girl, new to the collar, a timid girl, delicate and

submissive, a lonely slave, yearning for her master, a drunken wench, rejecting

her slavery, a proud girl, determined to be defiant, a raw, red-silk slave, mad

with the need for a master’s touch.

And, too, as I danced, I would sometimes dance toward a warrior, sometimes as

though begging him his glance, sometimes as though seeking his protection in my

plight, sometimes as though I could not help myself, but was drawn to him,

helplessly, in the vulnerability of the female slave, sometimes, when I chose,

to deliberately, overtly and cruelly, (pg. 329) taunt him with my beauty, my