Plunder of Gor (25 page)

Chapter Eighteen

“I do not even know your name!” I cried.

“Position,” said he.

Immediately I went to position. As he frowned, I hastened to spread my knees. How helpless and vulnerable does this make a woman feel! What could she be before a man, so positioned? Was the answer to that not clear? And how could such a position not enflame her?

“You will continue to think, and speak, of me as Tullius Quintus, of Ar,” he said. “That will be, I conjecture, most convenient.”

“That is not the name on my collar!” I said.

“You have learned to read?” he said.

“I have been informed,” I said.

“And what is the name?” he asked.

“I do not know,” I said. “I was not told.”

“It does not matter,” he said. “My name is neither Tullius Quintus nor the name on your collar.”

“I see,” I said.

“But rest assured,” he said, “the name on your collar will prove quite sufficient to have you returned to me should you be so unwise as to wander off or stray.”

“That is your name in Ar?” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Surely then I may know it,” I said, “as the supposed name of my master.”

“Continue to think of me as Tullius Quintus,” he said.

“I do not understand,” I said.

“I think it is better, at least a little better, that you do not know it, not now,” he said.

“Merely that I should be kept in greater ignorance?” I asked.

“Not really,” he said. “But there are things in the city, I am sure, that can no more read Gorean than you.”

“Things?” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Thus I could only mislead them,” I said, “able only to provide them with a useless name, that of Tullius Quintus.”

“Yes,” he said.

“But surely there are many about who can read Gorean,” I said. “To them the legend on the collar will be clear.”

“Doubtless,” he said, “but I am most concerned with those who, as yourself, are unlikely to be able to read Gorean.”

“Surely they would quickly enlist literate allies, or agents,” I said.

“Quite possibly they might already have them at hand,” he said. “But, if not, a delay might ensue, which would work to my advantage.”

“Permitting escape?” I said.

“Our escape,” he said.

“But I know this place,” I said.

“And might, under any name, Tullius Quintus or another, lead others to it,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said. “Forgive me, Master.”

“And under torture would doubtless do so,” he said.

“I fear so, Master,” I said.

“If you are accompanied, or watched,” he said, “lift the hammer ring, and then strike twice, and then, after a pause, once, again. This signal may be repeated.”

“But what if they propose themselves as your friends, or allies?” I said.

“I have no friends, or allies,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Do not be so concerned,” he said. “As Lita, you are unlikely to be known.”

“Why should I fear being known?” I asked.

“It is rather I who might fear it,” he said.

“I do not think you are of Ar,” I said.

“You will continue to respond so, if questioned,” he said.

“I do not even know my master's caste,” I said.

“Nor need you,” he said.

“I am uneasy, Master,” I said.

“Much is at stake,” he said. “Dark matters are afoot.”

“Inform me,” I begged.

“Curiosity,” he said, “is not becoming in a kajira.”

Chapter Nineteen

I lay on my mat, on the floor, at the foot of my master's couch. I drew my blanket more closely about me. I was naked, for slave girls are commonly slept so. I was chained to the couch by the neck. It was late, perhaps the second Ahn. The tiny lamp had long since gone out. The room was totally dark. How strange it seemed, late at night, in the utter darkness, to find myself lying on a floor, as I was, on a different world, at the foot of a man's couch, a couch I dared not ascend, chained to it. Yet how real it was! Had I ever lived so intensely, so explicitly, so fully? I felt the chain. I was in my place, at the foot of a man's couch, on a chain. In my heart I knew it was there that I belonged, at the foot of some man's couch, on some chain. Outside it was pouring. I could well conjecture the light of the door lantern falling on the glistening cobbles, the water, reflecting the light, rushing down the gutters, the water diverted at the intersection by the stepping stones, high enough to protect a woman's robe hems and slippers, spaced widely enough to allow for the passage of wheels. Earlier I had heard men passing by, outside, in the storm, probably fellows returning from some revel. They would have doubtless wrapped their cloaks about them, and drawn them over their heads. Rich men, abroad at night, will commonly be preceded by a lantern bearer and flanked by one or more guards. Arrangements for renting such, a bearer and guards, as with cooks, musicians, dress sandals, dinner robes, sedan chairs, palanquins, and such, if one does not have them in one's own right, are available through a number of enterprises in the city. I lay in the dark, holding the blanket about me, listening to the driving rain. I was not sure why I had awakened. It would be Ahn before I would be unchained and sent to the kitchen, to prepare breakfast for my master, a breakfast in which I, tunicked and kneeling beside him, often partook.

I listened to the driving rain.

I suppressed a whimper. My master had not touched me this night. Certainly he must have noted the simple loop of the bondage knot I had tied in my hair. What master could overlook so simple a thing? This simple loop mutely pleads with the master for his attention. To be sure, there are a thousand ways a girl can signify her needs, and her supplications that her master will condescend to satisfy them, glances, subtle movements, seemingly inadvertent proximities, tiny sounds, kneelings, licking and kissing the feet and ankles, and then raising one's eyes, tear-filled, begging, to the master. How much we are at the mercy of men, once the brutes have, at their inclination, or will, ignited our slave fires, latent in any healthy female. Do free women scorn us for our needs? Do they despise us for our vulnerability, our helplessness? Let them then wear the collar and strive to resist the flames burning in their own bellies! And will they not be successful until, at last, overcome, they crawl to their master, they, too, begging, whimpering, petitioning his pity?

I did not know why I had awakened.

Perhaps it was the rain, or the spillage from the gutters to the street below. Then I heard it, or thought I heard it, again.

Was it not a scrape, or a tiny scratching sound?

Surely not.

What could be heard in the storm? The rain would mask out a thousand noises.

I lay awake.

I had heard nothing. One could have heard nothing.

As I lay there, after a time, as it would, the storm gentled; no longer was it some lashing, frenzied assault on the walls and roof; no longer was it beating and savage; it had now become a sustained susurration, and then in time it became less, no more than a soft, quiet, persistent patter. There was now moonlight outside. The yellow moon was no longer obscured by clouds. I could hear the water move in the gutters.

Then I heard it clearly.

Something was outside the house, somehow on the wall, outside, how was it possible, near the barred window?

The house, as I may have mentioned, was on Venaticus. As many of the small houses in this district, it had two floors. We were on the second floor, and the sound came clearly from the wall, outside, near the window. It was a scratching sound, as if some clawed thing were climbing the wall. I listened, frightened. I heard bars grasped, and tested, shaken, quietly. For a moment I could not move. Then I dared not move. I did not know what I might see. Then, slowly, frightened, I forced myself to turn to the window. In the dampness, water dripping at the sill, and the moonlight, from the yellow moon, I saw, framed in the window, outside its bars, a broad, dark shape, or presence. I thought it might be a head but it was surely too broad for a head. I screamed, and it disappeared.

“Ho!” cried Tullius Quintus, leaping from the couch.

Clouds then obscured the moon again, and once more the room was in darkness.

I heard the rain, soft, outside.

How reassuring, and gentle, it seemed.

But something fearful, something large and alive, had been at the window.

In the darkness I heard the snap of a fire maker, and, a moment later, by means of its tiny flame, the tharlarion-oil lamp was alight, and I saw the room about, flickering, yellow, eerie, and empty. Tullius Quintus stood beside the couch. He held the lamp, lifted, in his left hand. In his right hand he held a dagger.

“The window,” I said, half pointing, my voice scarcely audible so frightened I was.

He went to the window, and looked out, for a time, down into the street, and then lowered the dagger, and turned back to me.

“It is nothing,” he said.

“I saw it,” I said, “outside the window, something fearful, something large.”

“You were dreaming,” he said. “A nightmare.”

“I saw it,” I repeated, now kneeling, the blanket down, about my thighs.

“There was nothing there,” he said. “The night has been foul. Nothing would be abroad in such a storm.”

“Master,” I protested, weakly.

“The window,” he said, “is high above the street. Nothing could be at the window.”

“Yet Master took a drawn dagger to the window,” I said.

“Go to sleep,” he said.

“I was not dreaming,” I said.

“The storm,” he said, “the height of the window.”

“Forgive me, Master,” I said, “but I was not dreaming.”

He looked down at me.

The lamp light fell upon me, at the foot of his couch.

“I was not dreaming,” I said.

“Perhaps not,” he said.

“No?” I said.

“No,” he said.

“Please enlighten your slave,” I begged. “What does it mean?”

“You wish to know?” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said. “Please, Master.”

“I think I have made contact,” he said. “It is as I have planned.”

“I do not understand!” I said.

“You are involved in this,” he said.

“Master?” I said.

“Doubtless you think you have value,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said, “forgive me, but perhaps a silver tarsk, perhaps more.”

“Vain slut,” he said.

“Forgive me, Master,” I said.

“But you do have value, shapely barbarian slut,” he said, “through no virtue, nor any fault, of your own, value unknown to you.”

“Master?” I said.

“—value well beyond what you would bring off a block, as collar-
­meat.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“You are an investment,” he said.

“I do not understand,” I said.

“I plan to sell you,” he said.

“Master will not keep me?” I said.

“No,” he said.

“Have I been displeasing?” I asked.

“Not particularly,” he said. “You are not hard to look at, and I approve your uncontrollable slave reflexes. Such reflexes improve a girl's price.”

I feared I was helpless in a man's arms, in any man's arms.

“But you have more in mind,” I said, “than the common things that go into a girl's block price?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Master has a buyer in mind?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said.

“I have been sold frequently,” I said.

“Many feared to keep you,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because of those who seek you,” he said.

“Who seeks me?” I asked.

“I think I will soon learn,” he said.

“And why am I sought?” I asked.

“I do not know,” he said.

“You are not afraid to keep me?” I said.

“One calculates,” he said. “One considers profit, one considers risk.”

“I understand nothing of this,” I said.

“Did I not tell you to go to sleep?” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Must a command be repeated?” he asked.

“No, Master,” I said. The repetition of a command is often cause for discipline.

I then lay down, again, at the foot of the couch, on my chain, and drew my blanket about me.

I was muchly uneasy.

How could I be sold for more than one or two silver tarsks, at best? How could I, one such as I, even a barbarian, have greater value than my likely block price?

How could that be?

I recalled Paula. On Earth I had dismissed her, even pitied her, poor, plain Paula, and considered myself far superior to her in beauty. Then I had heard it said that she was the beauty of our shipment, and had heard it speculated that she might bring as many as five silver pieces, presumably silver tarsks, in a first sale, that she might be marketed on a high block in the Curulean, perhaps even from the Central Block. And what then of me, poor thing that I might be, assessed as a copper-tarsk girl, a pot girl, a kettle-and-mat girl?

What had I to hope for, on this beautiful, perilous world?

How subject we are to our masters! The whip is theirs.

Who would bid more for me than perhaps two silver tarsks?

How could I, a slave, be of more value than that, if that?

I was to be sold.

My master had a buyer in mind.

I did not know who it might be.

And, oddly, I do not think he knew either. One, or those, who sought me, doubtless, but why?

I lay there, warm and dry, wrapped in my blanket, on the floor, on my mat, at the foot of my master's couch, on my chain.

At one time, certainly for me, it would have been a strange feeling, knowing that one can belong to anyone who can buy you. But now, it was no longer a strange feeling. I wore a Gorean slave collar.

I listened to the rain.

I could now see, once more, moonlight at the barred window.