Plunder of Gor (16 page)

“Yes, dear sister,” I said. “It was I who called. I am one such as you, but in desperate need of succor.”

“‘Sister'?” she said. “One such as I?”

“Yes, dear sister,” I said. “I appeal to you with confidence, relying on the commonality we share, our sweet sex, that you will relieve me of my predicament, that you, in your gentleness, and profound sympathy, will beneficently and generously buy and free me, your sister.”

“I have no sister,” she said.

“A figure of speech,” I said.

She moved a bit to the side. “You are marked,” she said.

“It was done with an iron,” I said. “I could not help it.”

“Marked!” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“You,” she said, “a slave, a stinking slave, dare to call yourself ‘sister', and compare yourself with me?”

“Do not be offended,” I said, and, thinking it judicious, I added, “Mistress.”

“I have a Home Stone,” she said, “that of Victoria, jewel of the mighty Vosk!”

“Yes, Mistress,” I said. I did not really know what a Home Stone was, but it was apparently something of importance. As far as I knew, I did not have a Home Stone. Certainly no one had told me I had one.

I would later learn that slaves, no more than other animals, had Home Stones, no more than tarsks and verr, though they, like tarsks and verr, would often find themselves the properties of those who did.

Indeed, it is something of an honor for a slave, I suppose, to be the property of one who possesses a Home Stone.

“I beg to be bought and freed,” I said.

“Bought, and freed?” she said, disbelievingly.

“Yes, Mistress,” I said.

“Why you?” she asked.

“I am wrongly caged!” I said.

“I can see by your lineaments,” she said, “you belong in a cage. You are suitably caged.”

“No!” I said.

“Your Gorean is strange,” she said. “You are not from the valley of the Vosk. Perhaps you are from Ti, or mountainous Thentis, or distant Turia. I do not mark it as Cosian.”

“I am from far away,” I said.

“Merchant! Merchant!” cried the free woman.

“How may I be of service?” inquired the dealer, hurrying to us, not pleased.

“I have been accosted by this stinking slave,” she said, pointing, accusingly, to me. I saw the veil move, as she spoke so forcibly, so intensely, within it.

“
Ela
!” cried the dealer, as if horrified.

“I dare not bespeak the insults to which I have been subjected,” she said. Her voice suggested youth. She may not have been much older than I, perhaps even a bit younger, but she was Gorean, and free. “I want her fed to eels,” she said, “flayed, cast to sleen, honeyed and bound down for urts! Let her sleep this night with leech plants!”

“Is it true, girl,” asked the dealer, “you spoke to this fine lady?”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Without having been addressed?”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“At least you show respect to a male!” said the free woman.

“Forgive me, Master!” I said.

“What did she say?” asked the dealer.

“One of high caste, with intent, could not have insulted me more grievously,” she said. “I dare not repeat it, lest I swoon with shame.”

“Unfortunate, piteous, wronged, delicate lady,” said the dealer, sympathetically. He spread his hands widely in a gesture of apology, and futility. What action or what words, I gathered, could make amends for so dreadful an offense. How could so profound a distress be soothed?

The dealer turned to me. “Perhaps you are sorry for your transgression?” he asked.

“Yes, yes!” I cried. “Forgive me, dear Master! Forgive me, dear, noble Mistress!”

“Do not mind the slave, noble lady,” said the dealer. “She is simple, she is stupid, her wits are addled.”

“She does not seem so to me,” said the woman, acidly.

“Yet she spoke to you without permission,” said the dealer.

“That is true,” she said. “But what would men want with a simple, stupid, wit-addled slave?”

“As you know, delicate lady,” said the dealer, “men are inclined to overlook such things. Consider her ankles.”

“Men are stupid,” said the free woman.

“I fear that is well-known amongst free women,” said the dealer.

“What will it be,” she asked, “urts, sleen, leech plants, nailing to a slave board, the flaying knife?”

“Perhaps you would care to buy her?” he asked.

“I do not wish to buy her,” she said.

“You must understand my position,” said the dealer. “I have an investment.”

“I do not have money for buying slaves,” she said. “What do you want for her?”

“Five gold tarsks of Ar,” he said.

I thought I heard the girl, a new girl now, caged to my right, suppress a laugh. I did not understand what might precipitate such a response. Surely any amount would be a bargain, for one such as I.

“She is not worth that much,” said the woman.

“Doubtless not,” said the dealer. “But you know men. Look upon her ankles.”

“I do not care to look upon her ankles,” she said. “Let men do that.”

“
Ela
,” said the dealer. “They might do so.”

“You do not think she knew what she was doing?” said the woman.

“Certainly not,” said the dealer.

“Perhaps then,” she said, seemingly mollified, “she need only be lashed to within a bit of a hort of her life.”

“That could easily be arranged,” said the dealer, “though one must measure such things exactly, calculating to the portion of a hort.”

“Surely you are adept at such judgments,” she said.

“We do our best,” he said.

“Perhaps you would error on the behalf of leniency, or mercy,” she said.

“Do not think such a thing,” he said, shuddering with disbelief that such a thought might have occurred to her. “But there is one thing in this sad affair I do not understand.”

“What is that?” she asked.

“How one as wise as you, as refined as you, and doubtless as lovely as you, how one free in condition and noble in mien, could possibly be insulted by a slave?”

“I do not understand,” she said.

“A slave, even were she so inclined, could not possibly insult one such as you,” he said. “Surely you might be stung by a gnat, but you could not be insulted by a gnat. For an insult to take place there must be a commonality of levels, free to free, person to person, citizen to citizen, even slave to slave, even beast to beast, but levels cannot be crossed. Only an equal can insult an equal.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Surely,” he said. “One might step upon an ost and suffer, but one cannot be insulted by an ost. The urt who nibbles the cheese of a Ubar, even from his plate, does not insult the Ubar. Would the Ubar not be thought strange, or even mad, if he thought himself insulted by the urt? The sleen who hisses at a hunter does not thereby become the equal of the hunter.”

“Of course not,” she said.

He bowed to her. “I wish you well,” he said. He then turned politely away.

The free woman's eyes glared down upon me.

“You cannot insult me,” she said, “stinking slave.”

“No, Mistress,” I said.

“I am not insulted,” she said.

“No, Mistress,” I assured her.

“But I am displeased,” she said.

“Forgive me, Mistress,” I said.

She then, in rage, lashed at the cage with her switch, striking it on the roof, and across the bars, again and again. I heard the whistle of the disciplinary device, and its shattering ringing about the cage. I drew back, frightened. None of the blows, of course, had touched me.

She then spun about, and hurried away.

A moment later the dealer appeared, who must have been attendant to the matter, watchfully, at a discreet distance.

“Free persons,” he said, “are not to be addressed, unless, mayhap, it be in response to some invitation, inquiry, or such.”

“Yes, Master,” I said. I had known that of course, from the house of training, but the dealer may not have realized that. If he had, I would doubtless have been punished. As of now, of course, I had been informed, officially, so to speak.

“It is fortunate you were caged,” he said. “If such an incident had occurred on the street, you might have had a tunic cut to pieces on your body.”

I shuddered.

“I would not want your value reduced,” he said. “I would not want you maimed or blinded.”

“Am I truly worth only five pieces of gold?” I asked.

The dealer regarded me, startled. The girl in the cage to my right laughed aloud, and I heard sounds of mirth from the other cages. These kajirae, I gathered, had not been unaware of the recently transpired incident.

“Five pieces of gold?” said the dealer, disbelievingly.

“Only five pieces?” I asked.

“You are all only copper-tarsk girls,” he said. “I had most of you for a pittance, and certainly you, from a low dealer. The girl was young. She does not yet know her robes and veils, let alone her embroidered slippers. She has no concept of the values of slaves. She had probably never been permitted to attend a sale. I said five gold tarsks, to assure myself that she would not buy you, as the price is absurd.”

“Master was kind,” I whispered.

“Had I set a realistic price,” he said, “I feared she might buy you. Would you have cared to belong to her?”

“No, Master!” I said.

“Beware free women,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“There are better things to do with a slave than abuse them, beat them, hate them, and torture them.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

I recalled then my instructresses, and their admonitions with respect to free women, and their encouragement to look to men for comfort and protection. There was safety in wearing a man's collar. Men were fond of kajirae; free women were not.

What, I wondered, might account for the alleged reservations of free women pertaining to slaves?

“Copper-tarsk girls?” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“But my ankles, Master,” I said.

“The girl was young, naive,” he said. “And what does a free woman know of men, or of what men might prize in the ankles of slaves?”

“But they are attractive, my ankles, are they not?” I said.

“They will do,” he said. “But they are too slim. They are the ankles of a pot girl.”

“I thought such ankles were desirable,” I said. Surely my experiences on Earth would suggest that, my awareness of public images, countless pictures in fashion magazines, and such.

“Some men may find them of interest, like the rest of you,” he said.

“I see,” I said.

I would later learn that the taste of Gorean men, rather as that of most men throughout Earth's history, given the evidence of mosaics, statues, paintings, and such, tended to favor the more familiar forms of womanhood, the statistically familiar woman, young, lovely, nicely curved, apparently the result of thousands of generations of sexual selections. To be sure, there are countless intriguing, exciting variations of the feminine symmetries, producing wondrous diversities of beauty. Many types ascend the blocks on Gor, and fetch remunerative prices.

“She believed me,” said the dealer. “And though it is difficult to tell, I suspect she has similar ankles.”

“I see,” I said. Perhaps then, I thought, she and I were not so different after all. “I suspect,” I then said, “she was exquisitely lovely.”

“Perhaps,” said the dealer. “Perhaps I will have her in a cage one day, and see.”

“A cage?” I said, aghast. She was, after all, a free woman.

“Quite possibly,” he said. “Being a free woman can be a precarious thing to be, particularly if one is lovely. There are wars, raids, seizures, abductions, predatory slavers, as opposed to trading slavers, and such. One of a young tarnsman's first ventures is to procure a free female from an enemy city and bring her home to his family and friends as his slave.”

I did not know what a tarnsman was, no more than some other things I had heard of on this world, such as sleen or tarsks. But I did not think it an opportune time to inquire. Doubtless the master thought I knew. Should I exhibit what might be construed as profound ignorance? That would scarcely put me in good with him. Might it not seem to confirm possible suspicions of stupidity? Too, curiosity, I recalled, was not becoming in a kajira.

I was sure the whip would be unpleasant.

“Surely she was extremely beautiful,” I said. I certainly supposed so, if she were rather like me.

“Who knows,” he said. “She might be quite average on a sales block. She was veiled. She might have the face of a tarsk.”

“Surely free women are safe on this world,” I said.

“‘World'?” he said.

“Here,” I said, “in this place.”

“Where do you think slaves come from?” he said. “It takes time to breed them. Too, it is pleasant to take a free woman and teach her that she is now a slave.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Why do you think they are veiled, and hidden inside robes?” he said. “And why do you think, on the other hand, veils are forbidden to slaves and slaves are scarcely clad, if clad at all?”

“I do not know, Master,” I said.

“Do you think the only reason slaves are slave-clad, in brief tunics, and such, is because men enjoy seeing them so?”

“I do not know, Master,” I said.

“Too,” he said, “to distract attention from free women. Why should a raider or slaver risk his life to carry off a free woman, who might turn out to be more ugly than a tharlarion, when he might steal a slave, where he can see what his capture rope encircles?”

“I see,” I said.