Kur of Gor (81 page)

Lord Grendel crouched down, jaws red with blood.

Cabot fired three times more.

With these three charges, he had managed to hit one other Kur.

Cabot's rifle, as most of its model, contained five charges, one in the bore, four in the magazine, which five had now been expended.

His foes having now clearly discerned his presence, and the nature of his weapon, and being quite as well aware as he of the likely expenditure of ammunition, began to approach his position, though warily.

Cabot, naturally, shifted his location, as he could. His rifle now was of little more use than would have been a metal club.

There was a bleating from the herd as Kurii now began to burn their way through the massive, obstructive flesh, almost as one might have set fire to a palisade, in order to clear a line of fire to its garrison. The herd then, many of its members stung and burned, several now no more than smoking meat, confused and tormented, finally alarmed, wildly bleating, piteously squealing, began to hurry away.

Some of the Kurii were buffeted one way or another, but then the herd was muchly scattered, and Lord Grendel would not move from his place, which was near small, torn flesh, and Cabot walked to join him, presumably that they might die together.

The remains of Agamemnon's Kurii then raised their rifles, but were almost immediately cut down in a withering torrent of flame.

"Are you all right?” called Statius.

Archon raised his rifle and brought down one of the two fleeing Kurii. The other made it to the habitats.

With Statius and Archon were more than a dozen Kurii and humans, armed with power weapons.

Lord Grendel reached down and lifted, tenderly, in his arms the limp, lacerated form of the Lady Bina.

He stood there, in the field, silent, in the grass, amongst bodies, those of cattle humans and Kurii, holding her.

"Is she alive?” asked Cabot.

Lord Grendel was looking toward the habitats.

"She is still bleeding,” said Archon.

"She is alive,” said Statius.

"It might be better were she not,” said a Kur.

"What is wrong with our commander?” said a Kur.

"There is water on his face,” said a Kur.

"Those are tears,” said Cabot.

"Kurii cannot weep,” said Statius. “They lack the means."

"He is partly human,” said Cabot.

Lord Grendel turned about and slowly made his way back to the insurrectionists’ lines, the unconscious, torn body of the Lady Bina in his arms.

Cabot, bending down, picked up a tiara, and followed them to the insurrectionists’ lines.

Chapter, the Sixty-Fourth:

THOUGHTS BEHIND THOUGHTS

"She is no longer beautiful,” said Archon.

The bell had been removed from the neck of the Lady Bina.

For four days she had been unconscious, and had then awakened raving, in delirium, her body burning with fever. In all this time Lord Grendel had remained at her side, watching over her, tending her, while the governance of the camp was surrendered to the human ally, Peisistratus, and the rule of the insurrectionists’ lines, the orders of the day, the arrangements of signs and countersigns, the inspection of weaponry, the postings of guards, the arrangement of patrols, and such, was accorded to Statius, who had once been a nondominant.

"If there should be any sign of enemy activity,” had said Lord Grendel, “I am to be notified, immediately."

But the habitats were quiet, and the field below was largely deserted, save for some cattle humans who had drifted back, to scavenge.

Flavion was missing.

This had been discovered shortly after the return to the insurrectionists’ lines.

Some ten days after her escape and recovery, and six days after it had begun, the Lady Bina's fever broke. She then, after imbibing some broth administered to her by Lord Grendel, slept soundly for a full day. When she awakened her delirium had passed, and she looked about herself, wonderingly, trying to gather together her thoughts, and comprehend what had happened to her. She then suddenly half sat up in the coverlets and screamed, but was gently pressed back by Lord Grendel. She felt about her neck for the bell, but it was not there. “Sleep,” he advised her, tenderly, and she again slept. Once she thrashed in her sleep and screamed, and awakened, but he again soothed her, and she again slept. It was on the twelfth day after her return to the insurrectionists’ lines that she awakened, lay there awake, not moving, for a long time, and then dared to touch her fingers to her face, and she then cried out, a long, wavering wail, one of horror. She then demanded a mirror. Lord Grendel demurred and tried to soothe her, but she would not be soothed, and would have the mirror. She looked into the mirror and then flung it away and begged to be brought a knife. This request Lord Grendel refused. “Kill me,” she begged. “Kill me!” This request was also refused.

"She is hideous,” said Peisistratus.

"Lord Grendel does not think so,” said Cabot.

"Then he sees something other than we see,” said Peisistratus.

"I think he does,” said Cabot. “I think he always did."

"I could not sell her for a pot girl, let alone a kettle-and-mat girl,” said Peisistratus. “She is good for nothing now but sleen feed, if that."

"She was refusing to eat,” said Statius, “until our friend Cabot spoke to her."

"What did you say?” asked Archon.

"Not a great deal,” said Cabot. “I merely informed her that if she did not eat she would be stripped and lashed, and then force fed, as might be a slave, and that her hands would be fastened behind her, that she not be able to rid herself of the food, that she would not be permitted to starve herself any more than a new slave, who does not yet understand that the will is her master's and not hers, one who does not yet understand fully, as she shortly will, that such things are not permitted to her, and that she is truly a slave, is to be treated as such, and will be treated as such, in short, that she is no longer hers, but is now the master's, that she is now property, his property."

"And Lord Grendel permitted this?” said Statius.

"He authorized me to do whatever I thought useful, or necessary, in the matter."

"How did it turn out?” asked Statius.

"When he entered with food,” said Cabot, “she fed, with neither protest nor dissent."

"Good,” said Peisistratus.

"But you treated her, in effect, as a slave,” said Statius.

"Every free woman, from time to time,” said Cabot, “should be treated as a slave."

"They are all slaves,” said Peisistratus. “The only difference is the collar."

"She may be quiet now, but I fear she will watch,” said Archon, “and, when the opportunity permits, destroy herself."

"She will not be given the opportunity,” said Cabot.

"How is it to be precluded?” asked Archon.

"We will keep her in slave chains,” said Cabot.

"But she is a free woman,” said Statius.

"She should be a slave,” said Cabot. “Thus it is appropriate that she be placed in the chains of a slave, and become accustomed to them."

"Cestiphon, who is a killer human, inured to the sights of the arena, and such, caught a glimpse of her, and cast up his food,” said Statius.

"She need no longer fear then,” said Cabot, “her stripping beneath his appraising glance, his accosting, the callous, imperious grasp of his strong hands on her defenseless beauty."

"I questioned Cestiphon,” said Peisistratus. “It was Flavion who encouraged his advances to the Lady Bina."

"I was sure of it,” said Statius.

It may be recalled, the look, perhaps one of puzzlement, or resentment, that Cestiphon had cast at Flavion. Cestiphon had not anticipated the intervention or fury of Lord Grendel. It had only recently become clear to Cestiphon that Flavion had put him to use, to further his own ends, to bring Lord Grendel hurriedly to the assistance of the Lady Bina, thus betraying his concern for a traitress, and, thus, he hoped, undermining and compromising his position in the camp.

"Not that he would have required a great deal of encouragement,” said Cabot.

"No,” said Peisistratus, “no more than any other healthy human male."

"She need no longer fear a rope on her neck, fastening her amongst his other women,” said Archon.

"Unfortunately,” said Cabot.

"It is my understanding,” said Archon, “that she has begged a sheet, a covering of some sort, with which to conceal her face and body."

"That is true,” said Cabot. “And I have no doubt it will be granted to her."

"Good,” said Peisistratus. “It sickens one to look upon her."

"At least Kurii no longer call for her blood,” said Peisistratus.

"Why should they?” said Archon. “What could they do to her now that she would not welcome?"

It would be injudicious, and certainly unnecessary, in a reportorial narrative of this sort, to delineate in any detail the terrible moments which were spent by the Lady Bina in the clutches of the cattle humans. They had, of course, their nails and teeth, small stones, sharpened sticks, and such. With these there had been a brief frenzy of tearing, poking, stabbing, gouging, and cutting, such things, which attentions had not been restricted to any particular portion of her small body, but had been delivered almost randomly, with a violent, vengeful, doltish zeal.

"Many,” said Statius, “feel she should be turned out of the camp."

"To die?” asked Cabot.

"Presumably."

"Lord Grendel would not permit it,” said Cabot.

"Her presence depresses many in the camp,” said Statius.

"She will cover herself,” said Cabot.

"Have any heard aught of the traitor, Flavion?” asked Archon.

"No,” said Statius.

"I should not like to be he, should Lord Grendel learn of his whereabouts,” said Archon.

"Nor I,” said Statius.

The reader notes that Archon referred to Flavion as a traitor. This was now common knowledge in the camp, given the freeing of the Lady Bina, the attempt on the life of Lord Grendel, his flight, and such.

The Lady Bina had confirmed, as was scarcely necessary, the collusion of Flavion in her escape. She had regarded him as a secret friend, concerned to protect her, as possible, from the wrath of Kurii. After all, had she not once served Agamemnon? She had thus been overwhelmed with gratitude at having been accorded an opportunity to escape. She had not understood, of course, her unwitting role in the attempt on the life of Lord Grendel, who was certain to follow her. Nor did she understand the nature of the cattle humans through which she was to make her way, identified in her tiara, to the lines of Agamemnon, of whose shelter, contrition, gratitude, and affection she had been assured by Flavion. It is true she had betrayed Peisistratus and Arcesilaus to Lord Agamemnon long ago but the profit she had hoped to accrue from that act had been persuasive, and, of course, although this consideration would do little to mitigate or extenuate the treachery of her act, it might be recalled that she was not a member of a party to which she would have owed an allegiance. Her act then could be conceived of as primarily one of shrewd calculation. Greed for significance, importance, power, and wealth is a motivation to which many humans are susceptible, and we must, in all honesty, acknowledge that it is one to which some Kurii, perhaps surprisingly, are not immune. That motivation, too, we might speculate, might be particularly acute for a certain type of human female, perhaps one at war with herself, self-estranged, self-alienated, discontented with her sex, envying males, or such, as she often finds herself precluded in virtue of her slightness and body from utilizing the usual routes to such advantages, leadership, dominance, aggression, charisma, violence, physical superiority, prowess with weapons, and such. Gorean males, in particular, it seems, prefer women on their knees, stripped and in collars, their lips pressed to their feet. They feel that is where they belong, by nature, and they will have them there, that nature's loveliest gift to them is the natural female; their slave. Too, many females, despite disparaging and alienating acculturations, sense that they rightfully belong at the feet of masters. Often they silently beg for the collar. Many is the female who has brought herself to the feet of a master. Many is the female who has knelt, lowered her head, and extended her arms, piteously, beggingly, wrists crossed, for binding. “I am a slave, Master. I beg to be yours. Please, I beg you, accept me."

Too, how is a woman a woman, truly, until she kneels, ineradicably submitted, hopelessly and irredeemably feminine, in the fullness of her vulnerable femininity, before a man, her master?

How tragic it is that many human females, the product of pathological cultures, cultures and civilizations at war with nature, are unhappy with their sex, even resentful of it. What an astonishing epiphany it is for them, then, to accept that they are females, and are profoundly different from males, that they are gloriously and wonderfully other than males, and come to understand the value, preciousness, and delicious specialness of their sex. Certainly this becomes clear to them when they find themselves being auctioned, offered to heated, competing, eager buyers.

Too, of course, considering matters of motivation, it seems the Lady Bina may have been displeased that Cabot had not proved more amendable to her considerable charms, that whilst both were clasped in breeding shackles.

Beyond the matter of the betrayal of Peisistratus and Lord Arcesilaus, she had, incidentally, as it turned out, no particularly active role in either the debacle of the arsenal or the projected massacre in the Vale of Destruction. Her first escape, that following her acquisition from the place of the slaughter bench, prior to the ambush of the arsenal, had been arranged by Flavion, that all suspicion would fall upon her, whilst he himself, in a putative scouting excursion, had earlier informed Kur patrols of the plan. The girl herself had been picked up shortly after her escape by a Kur outpost, and remanded to the palace. There, taken before Agamemnon, who had viewed her from one of his bodies, her hands had been pinioned behind her, though she was a free woman, in the shameful, but perfectly effective bracelets of a slave. She had then been taken into the forests and released, to be hunted down by, and devoured by, one or another of the sleen which had been released into the world to prey on humans. There were fewer such sleen, however, than Agamemnon realized, as traps had been set, one of which, we may recall, had snared the giant sleen, Ramar, and, too, humans, and their Kurii, had often defended themselves with vigor, often killing the animals, or, if their scent had not been taken, driving them away. After several days, miserable and half starving, still helplessly braceleted, she had stumbled upon a womb tunnel, in which she took shelter, and in which she managed to feed on the remains of small scavengers and compete with them for the nourishing blood ensuing so liberally from the rent wombs, consequent upon a Kur birth. She had been noted by killer humans, and was fleeing them, when she was apprehended by Lord Grendel, Statius, and the human, Tarl Cabot, which party brought her back, a prisoner, to the camp. It was Flavion's expressed speculation that she had earlier lurked about the camp, and learned the plans for marching on the palace, after first meeting at the Vale of Destruction, and that then she had conveyed these plans to the forces of Agamemnon. Supposedly it was after this that she had been captured by human patrols and back-braceleted, patrols from which, however, she had managed to escape, this accounting for the condition in which Lord Grendel and his confreres had found her. Thus, most in Lord Grendel's camp had considered her guilty of three betrayals, the first of Peisistratus and Lord Arcesilaus, the second pertaining to the arsenal, which was costly, and the third, which turned out well due to no fault of hers, given the intervention of the mariners. It was thus no wonder that many Kurii had hungered for her blood. In Lord Grendel's camps, that of the forest, and that later within their lines, she had been terrified to protest her innocence or even to speak, as she had been warned that her tongue might be torn out. Too, as she had no translator, and few were in her vicinity, and she could understand very little of Kur, she was not even clear as to what the nature and extent of the charges against her might be. It had been made clear to her, of course, by Flavion, the dreadful danger in which she stood, information which, if nothing else, would motivate her desire to escape at all costs.