Captive of Gor (51 page)

not badly treated, though I was forced to do my work perfectly. My master, Bosk,

a large man, very strong, did not use me. His woman was the striking, beautiful

Telima, from the marshes, a true Gorean beauty, before whom I felt myself only

an Earth woman and a slave. There were other beauties in the house; slender,

dark-haired Midice, the woman of a captain, Tab; large, blond-haired Thura, the

woman of the great peasant, master of the bow, Thurnock; and short, dark-eyed

Ula, woman of silent, strong Clitus, once a fisherman of the isle of Cos. Too,

there was a slender, strong youth, a seaman, whose name was Henrius, said to be

a master of the sword. There was (pg. 359) too a free dancing girl, a beauty

with high cheekbones, named Sandra, who much pleased herself with the men of

Bosk, and earned much moneys in the doing of it. She had been taught to read by

another girl, also free, of the Scribes, a thin, brilliant girl, whose name was

Luma, who handled much of the intricate business of the great house. And, too,

of course, there were many lovely slaves. I was somewhat uneasy. Only too

obviously Bosk had an eye for beauty. But he did not use me. His affections, and

his touch, were for Telima. How superb she must have been, to have held him

among such girls. A Gorean girl, who has a first-rate man, and wishes to keep

him, fights for him. There are generally girls, collared girls, only too eager

to take her place.

“Hurry with the wine!” cried Publius, from the kitchen, looking after me.

Then he disappeared in the kitchen.

I took the packet of poison from my rep-cloth kitchen tunic, and dissolved it in

the wine. I had been told there was enough there to bring a hundred men to an

excruciating death. I swirled the wine, and discarded the packet.

It was ready.

“Wine!” I heard from the hall.

I hurried forward, running toward the table. I would serve none but Bosk, he

first and he alone. I did not wish more blood on my head.

I stopped halfway to the table. The feasters were watching me.

Rask of Treve must live!

I had recalled how Haakon of Skjern had laughed over his captive.

I asked myself, would he, Haakon, such a mortal enemy, release Rask of Treve,

even if I keep my bargain.

I feared he would not, and yet what choice had I. I must trust them. I had no

choice.

I did not wish to poison anyone. I knew nothing of such work. I had not been a

good person, but I was not a murderess. Yet I must kill.

I remembered, briefly, irrelevantly, that my mother had (pg. 360) once poisoned

my small dog, which had ruined one of her slippers. I had loved that tiny

animal, which had played with me, and had given me the affection, the love,

which my parents had denied me, or had been too busy to bestow. It had died in

the basement, in the darkness behind the furnace, where it had fled, howling and

whimpering, biting at me when I, a hysterical, weeping child, had tried to touch

it and hold it. Tears sprang to my eyes.

“Elinor,” said Bosk, at the head of the table. “I want wine. He was one of the

few men, or women, on Gor who spoke my name as it had been spoken on Earth.

I slowly approached him.

“Wine!” called Thurnock.

I did not go to the peasant.

“Wine!” cried Tab, the captain.

I did not go to him.

I went to Bosk, of Port Kar. I would pour the wine. Then I would be seized, and,

doubtless by nightfall, tortured and impaled.

He held forth the goblet. The eyes of Telima were upon me. I could not look her

in the eyes.

I poured the wine.

“I am of Treve,” Rask of Treve had told me, in the warehouse, where he stood

bound to the wall. “Do not stain my honor.”

I hated then men, and their wars, and their cruelties, and their frivolous

honors. It was we, their women, who suffered in their madness. No, Rask of Treve

would not purchase his life for the price I had agreed to pay, but the decision

was not his, but mine, mine and I loved him, and could not let him die!

“Do not stain my honor,’ he had said.

Bosk of Port Kar lifted the cup to his lips.

(pg. 361) I put forth my hand. “Do not drink it, Master,” I said. “It is

poisoned.”

I put my head down in my hands. There were shouts, of fury, of anger, at the

table, goblets spilled and men and women leaped to their feet.

I felt Thurnock, the peasant, with his great belt, pinning my arms to my sides

and I was thrown to the tiles of the great hall.

“Torture her!” I heard cry.

“Impalement!’ I heard cry.

The door to the hall burst open, and in, wild-eyed, ran a man with

short-cropped, white hair, with earrings.

“It is Samos!” I heard cry.

“I have just made landfall,” he cried. “I have learned that a woman, without my

knowledge, has been entered into this house. Beware!”

He saw me, my arms belted to my sides, kneeling on the tiles.

Publius ran forward, the kitchen master. His face was white. He held a drawn

sword.

Bosk poured the wine forth on the table, slowly. The vessel of wine I had

dropped, and its contents now trickled among the tiles.

“Return to your feast,” said Bosk to the table. Then he said, “Tab, Thurnock,

Clitus, Henrius, Samos, I would be pleased it you would join me in my chambers.”

I saw Telima held a knife. I had little doubt she could cut my throat, and might

swiftly do so. “Thurnock, unbind the slave,” requested Bosk. He did so. I stood

up. “Elinor,” said Bosk, “we must speak.” He then held his arm to Telima, that

she might accompany him. I, numbly, followed them to his chambers.

* * *

That night men swiftly left the house of Bosk. I had told them all that I knew.

I expected to be tortured and impaled.

When I had spoken Bosk had said to me, “Go to the kitchen, for there is work for

you there.”

Numbly I had returned to the kitchen, where Publius, himself astonished, gave me

my work. That night, with double chains, he fastened me to the wall.

(pg. 362) “We could not save Rask of Treve,” said Bosk to me the next day.

I put down my head. I had known it would be so.

My master, Bosk, was smiling. “He had already escaped,” he said.

I looked at him, wild-eyed.

“Those of Treve,” he said, “Are worthy foes.”

I looked at him, trembling. I put forth my hand.

“He had broken free,” said Bosk. “When we arrived, he was gone.”

“The others?” I said.

“We found three bodies,” said Bosk, Merchant of the Port Kar. “One, with an

empty scabbard, was identified as that of Haakon of Skjern. Another, that of a

small man, was not identified. The third was strange, that of a large, and, I

fear, most unpleasant beast.”

I put down my head, sobbing hysterically.

“They were cut to pieces,” said Bosk. “The heads were mounted on stakes beside

the canal. The sign of Treve was cut into each of the stakes.”

I feel to my knees, sobbing and laughing.

“Those of Treve,” mused Bosk, as though he might have known them as enemies,

“are worthy foes.”

“What of me?” I looked up.

“I am letting it be known in the camp of Terrence of Treve, a mercenary, that

there is, in my house, a wench, whose name is Elinor.”

“Rask of Treve no longer wants me. He sold me,” I said.

Bosk shrugged. “I am informed by Samos, who keeps spies, that Rask of Treve came

free to Port Kar, and alone, where he was captured.” He looked at me. “What

might it have been that he sought?”

“I do not know,” I whispered.

“It is said,” said Bosk of Port Kar, “that he sought a slave, whose name was

Elinor.”

“That cannot be,” I said, “for when I was brought to Port Kar, Rask of Treve was

already captive.”

“It could easily be,” said he called Bosk, “for it requires only that rumor in

the camp of Rask of Treve to be spread (pg. 363) that you are in this city. And

surely it would be preferable, to the plans of some, my enemies, that you not be

in this city when Rask of Treve arrives, lest they fail to capture him and he

finds you, and carries you away.” He looked at me. “Were you in a place where

they could have you when they wished, and yet not seem to own you, not risk

identifying themselves with you prematurely, lest others take note?”

“For months,” I said, “I served as a slave in a paga tavern.”

“They may even have seen you sold,” said Bosk. “It was the Curulean, was it

not?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“A most public block,” he said. Then he looked at me, a bit sadly. “I once saw a

most beautiful woman sold from that block.”

“What was her name?’ I asked.

“Vella,” he said. “Her name was Vella.”

I looked down.

“It is my speculation,” said Bosk, “that only when Rask of Treve fell captive

were you then picked up and brought to Port Kar, where you might be confronted

with him.”

“Rask of Treve,” I said, “sold me. He does not want me.”

Bosk shrugged. “Go to the kitchen,” he said, “there is work for you there.”

I went to the kitchen, and put myself at the disposition of Publius. He wanted

to leave the employ of Bosk of Port Kar, so stricken had he been that he had

ignorantly purchased me, and that I had nearly brought about the downfall of the

house, but Bosk would not hear of it, and bade him remain. “Where shall I find

another kitchen master your equal?” he had asked. Publius remained in the house.

He would not, however, allow me to prepare or serve food. He watched me closely.

At night he would double chain me.

I sang at my work, for I knew that Rask of Treve lived. Further, those who had

sought to employ me as a tool to their dark purposes had been destroyed. I knew

that he did not want me for he had sold me, but I was content in the knowledge

that he, whom I loved, lived. I did not believe that my master, Bosk, was

correct in his conjectures that the warrior of Treve had come to Port Kar to

find me, for he had sold me. His informants were mistaken, or confused. I tried,

from time to time, to put Rask of Treve from my mind, but I could not do so.

Sometimes, at night, the other girls would waken me, and scold me, for I had

disturbed them, crying his name in my sleep. Rask of Treve did not want me. But

I wanted him, with all of me and my weeping heart. But he lived. I could not be

unhappy. I could be lonely, and hunger for his touch, his mouth, his words, his

hand on mine, but I knew he lived, so I could not be truly sad. How could I be

sad when somewhere he was proud and alive, and free, doubtless once again bold

and violent, fighting, raiding, feasting with his cup companions and his

beautiful slaves.

“Sell me, Master,” I once begged Bosk, for I did not wish to remain in the house

where I had so nearly committed so great a crime. I wished to go where I might

not be known, where I would be only another collared girl, another wench in

bondage, anonymous in her submission and degradation.

“You have work in the kitchen,” had said Bosk of Port Kar.

I had returned to the kitchen.

* * *

It is time now for me to conclude this narrative.

I have written it at the command of my master, Bosk, of Port Kar, of the

Merchants, it seems, but, I suspect, once of the warriors, I do not understand

all of what I have written, in the sense of knowing its implications, or what

knowledge others, better informed, may draw from it. But I have written down

much, and, I think, honestly. My master has commanded that it be so written. As

a Gorean slave girl I dare not disobey, and, in this case, I would not care,

also to do so. Further, he had commanded me to speak in this my feelings,

perhaps, in his kindness, thinking it would be well for me to do so. I have

tried to comply.

I am happier now, than I have been, though I still beg, upon occasion, that I

might be sold from this house. I have learned that Rask of Treve did indeed come

to Port Kar to (pg. 365) find me, and this has given me indescribable joy,

though it is mingled now with great bitterness, and sadness, for I shall never

be his.

On the piazza, before the Hall of the Council of Captains, Rask of Treve

confronted Bosk of Port Kar, demanding that I be surrendered to him. Bosk, I am

told, set my price at twenty pieces of gold, that he might, as a merchant, take

his profit of me. But Rask of Treve does not buy women, for he is of Treve. My

price could have been an arrow point or a copper tarn disk, but his answer would

have been the same. He takes women. He does not buy them. But I fear I may not

be taken from Bosk of Port Kar. He is said himself to be a master swordsman,

much feared, and his house is strong, and there are men here, some hundreds, who

pledge their lives and their blades to him. This house has withstood a siege of

thousands, within the last two years, in the time of the warrings of the Ubars

and the Council of Captains, and the great engagement between the fleet of Port

Kar and that of Tyros and Cos, on the twenty-fifth of Se’Kara, 10,120 Contasta

Ar, from the Founding of Ar. And surely Rask, a captain of Treve, cannot bring

the tarn cavalries of Treve to distant Port Kar, for a mere slave girl, and too,

such action would mean long and bloody war. I am, unfortunately, safe in this