Plunder of Gor (76 page)

“The masters,” I said, “do not fear pursuit.”

“Perhaps not,” said Paula. “Why do you think not?”

“We move on the road,” I said. “We move in daylight. We do not endeavor to conceal ourselves or hasten. The wagon is drawn by a single beast. The wagon is large, ponderous, slow, and conspicuous.”

“And,” said Paula, “two kajirae are attached by leads to two rings, behind the wagon, which assures that the wagon cannot move more swiftly than two secured, tethered kajirae, that they not be lost or harmed.”

“That, too,” I said.

“How better then, so openly, so conspicuously,” she asked, “could one conceal one's presence?”

“Paula?” I said.

“What fugitives,” she asked, “would behave so, so foolishly, seemingly frustrating their own designs?”

“I see,” I said.

“But perhaps you are right,” she said. “Perhaps Kurii, perhaps Decius Albus, do not concern themselves with us, perhaps they do not begrudge us a quiet and unimpeded exit from Ar.”

“It seems so,” I said.

“Indeed,” she said.

“You suspect our tethering,” I said, “to be a part of a disguise, suggesting confidence and ease?”

“I suspect so,” she said.

“And if it were not,” I said, “if no danger threatened, and all was safe, where would we be?”

“Precisely where we are now,” she said, “chained to the back of a wagon.”

“I see,” I said.

“We are slaves,” she said.

Many times in the past few days, I had felt the urge to throw myself to my belly before Paula, weeping, and beg her forgiveness for the wrong I had so gratuitously done to her, confessing my miserable attempt to seduce Drusus Andronicus. How grievously I had betrayed her friendship and trust! Clearly Drusus Andronicus had never referred to the matter. It remained, thus, a secret, my terrible secret, a secret that, daily, grew harder to bear.

“—Paula,” I said, plaintively.

“Yes?” she said.

“—Nothing, nothing,” I said.

“We are drawing to the side,” said Paula. “There is a well there, by the pasang stone. Perhaps we will be fed and watered. Perhaps our neck chains will be lengthened, so that we may lie down on the grass, under the wagon.”

The wagon rolled from the Viktel Aria, and stopped in the shade of a Tur tree, some yards from the well. We welcomed this. Our neck chains were lengthened, and, as we knelt and lifted our heads, we, by means of a bucket brought from the well, held to our lips, were watered. Kurik allowed some of the water to wash down our bodies, for which we were grateful. Shortly thereafter our wrists were freed from the slave bracelets, and we were given a round, flat loaf of bread, which we eagerly divided between us. We had been attended to by Kurik, while those in the wagon were served by Drusus Andronicus.

“I think we may be allowed to rest,” said Paula.

We climbed under the wagon, in the slack of chain allowed, and stretched out, on our stomachs, our bodies damp from the water Kurik had poured upon us, on the soft grass. As we lay, rising a bit on our elbows, we could see the Viktel Aria, and the passing traffic.

“Where will we stop, where will we camp?” I wondered.

“In some public place, I think,” said Paula. “The masters seem determined that all should proceed with apparent normality.”

Various wagons, some moving toward Ar, some away from Ar, passed. Occasionally one stopped, to draw water from the well.

“What are you looking for?” asked Paula.

“There was a wagon,” I said, “that lingered behind, neither exceeding our pace, nor slackening its pace, and falling behind.”

“I remember,” she said.

“I do not see it now,” I said. “I do not think it passed us.”

“Perhaps it has turned off the road,” said Paula. “There are many side roads.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Or,” she said, “it may have paused, as we are pausing.”

“I am afraid,” I said.

“It is probably nothing,” said Paula.

We continued to watch the traffic on the Viktel Aria.

“I am filthy,” I said. “I hope we can soon bathe.”

“If we stop at a public camp, or such,” said Paula, “there will be arrangements for the washing of slaves.”

We suddenly heard the snap of a whip, and a cry of pain. We were startled, and winced. The crack of a whip is a sound slave girls well know. The sound came from the road, from our left.

“Look,” I said, “a coffle.”

It was moving toward Ar.

“Hold!” called a mounted guard, on a saddle tharlarion, placing his long, slender lance across the bosom of the lead slave.

She stopped instantly, and, with a sound of chain, the coffle arrested its progress.

“They are stopping,” I said.

“The shade, and well,” said Paula. “They are going to rest and water the slaves.” This made sense, as the slaves were all female. Whereas the desiderated attributes of the male slave are stamina, endurance, strength, and such, and male slaves may be driven hard and long, and treated mercilessly, the most obvious desiderated attributes of the female slave are such things as beauty, grace, softness, and femininity. One does not want to bring female slaves to the market exhausted, spent, half-crippled, and burned. The male slave, putting aside the male silk slave, is essentially a work animal. The female slave, though she may be well worked by her master, is essentially a pleasure animal. Accordingly, the marches endured by coffled female slaves are quite different from those commonly enforced on male slaves, for example, in such things as the length of the march, the time marched in a day, the pace of the march, the frequency of waterings and rest periods, and so on. Women are not men. This is something well understood by Gorean slavers, and by Gorean men in general. This is not to deny that coffled women, proportional to their stamina, size, and strength, may not be as weary, worn, driven, and miserable as coffled men. But commonly, after two or three days of rest, water, and food, they are ready for the sales block.

“I think it is a long coffle,” I said.

Paula rose to her hands and knees, her head low, under the wagon. “Yes,” she said. “Many slaves. I cannot see from here. Perhaps more than a hundred, perhaps considerably more.”

The girls were chained together by the neck. In such a way, unshackled, they may be easily moved. They also may be more easily moved when chained together by the wrist. The left wrist is the wrist invariably chosen, rather as, if the chain is ankle-shackled, by the left ankle. Indeed, if a woman is chained to a slave ring by the ankle, it is commonly the left ankle that is selected for the fastening. The most-favored coffle fastening is by the neck. The neck is favored in many chaining arrangements, whether a coffle is in question or not. The neck mount is both aesthetic and secure. Too, a chain on the neck, as a collar on the neck, have their symbolic aspects, each leaving the girl in no doubt that she is a slave. Too, as is well known, chaining, collaring, camisking, tunicking, and such are sexually stimulating, both to the slave and the onlooker.

“To the right,” called the coffle guard, and the girls began to cross the road, approaching the well and nearby shade.

“Their feet are not wrapped, not protected, as are ours,” I said to Paula.

“Do not be concerned,” said Paula. “We were protected, as the stones are hot, and we were following the wagon, which holds to the road. The coffle is marched to the side of the road, on the dirt, the soft grass.”

The girls in the coffle were, of course, stripped. That is the common way women are moved in coffle. It saves the soiling of tunics. In this way, at the end of a journey, after the slaves are washed, brushed, combed, and such, they may, if the masters wish, be placed in fresh, well-pressed tunics. Nudity in Gorean streets is rare, and usually reserved for a new slave, usually one who has recently been a free woman, or a slave being disciplined. An interesting exception to this, sometimes encountered, is male laborers, free men, commonly of the lower castes, who might be engaged in heavy tasks. Little is thought of this.

As we watched, we saw some of the girls being ankle shackled. They were then freed from the coffle and sent to the well. Shortly thereafter, with buckets and dippers, some from the following supplies wagon, some from the vicinity of the well itself, they were distributing water. The water is taken by the slaves while they are on their knees. They were, however, permitted to hold the dipper themselves. The slaves distributing the water are not permitted drink until the coffle has been watered. That apparently encourages them to complete their task in a timely manner.

“Your master,” said Paula, subsiding again to her stomach on the grass, under the wagon, “is conversing with one of the coffle guards.”

“He is of the Slavers,” I said.

“What do slavers talk about?” asked Paula.

“I suppose,” I said, “business.”

“Doubtless,” said Paula.

Shortly thereafter, Kurik sauntered over, and snapped his fingers. “Out from under the wagon,” he said, “and kneel, here, before me.”

Still on our chains, they considerably slackened from when we were fastened closely to the rings on the back of the wagon, we complied.

“You see the coffle,” said Kurik.

“Yes, Master,” we said.

It now rested, muchly gathered together, in the shade.

The water bearers had now been returned to the coffle, where they had been deshackled.

“It is a large one,” he said. “How many slaves do you think are beaded on that particular ‘slaver's necklace'?”

“A great many,” said Paula, “perhaps one hundred and fifty.”

The common coffle seldom exceeds more than a hundred girls. Common coffles usually contain twenty to fifty “beads.”

“Two hundred,” said Kurik.

“That is very large,” said Paula.

“It is moving, of course, toward Ar,” said Kurik.

Ar was generally credited with having the most slave markets in the northern hemisphere, a distinction that was held by Turia in the far south. The slavers of Ar also boasted the finest markets in the northern hemisphere, but there were few of the other “high cities” that would not dispute this claim. The most prestigious market in Ar was clearly the Curulean, where Paula, I recalled, not at all pleasantly, had been sold. Two other important marketing centers in the northern hemisphere were the port, Brundisium, and, on the Vosk, Victoria. The latter tended to sell almost as much to slavers, seeking eventual resales, as to private masters. The locations of Brundisium and Victoria had not a little to do, it was speculated, with their economic importance. Brundisium, with its great harbor, did not only command the coast, but was the nearest major port to the island Ubarates of Cos and Tyros, and, of late, to the “World's End.” And Victoria, as I understood it, was the largest port on the Vosk, this providing a favored access to one of Gor's major arteries of commerce.

“It should be of some interest to you,” said Kurik.

“How so, Master?” asked Paula.

“They are all barbarians,” said Kurik.

“Master?” said Paula.

“You did not know?” said Kurik.

“No, Master,” said Paula.

“To be sure,” said Kurik, “there is little to choose from, between a stripped woman of Earth and a stripped Gorean woman. They all collar nicely.”

“Yes, Master,” said Paula.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Surely so many seized slaves on Earth would attract attention,” said Paula.

“Not at all,” said Kurik. “There are a great many countries on Earth. One can pick a slave here, a slave there. Earth has millions of female slaves, lacking only their collars.”

“They would come then from a great many countries,” said Paula.

“Indeed,” said Kurik, “from dozens of what you call ‘countries'. There are slaves from America there, slaves from England, French slaves, German slaves, slaves from Russia, and Japan, and so on. But now they will learn Gorean, the language of their masters.”

“They are very beautiful,” I said.

“Of course,” said Kurik. “One intends to sell them.”

“Would that we were as beautiful,” said Paula.

“You are,” said Kurik. “Otherwise you would not be kneeling before me, on the grass, in your collars.”

“I am yours! Have me, Master!” I begged.

“Please tell my master, Drusus Andronicus,” said Paula, “that his slave, Paula, oils, oils profusely, and begs to be touched.”

“You both stink from sweat and the road,” said Kurik.

“Forgive us, Master,” said Paula.

“We stop this night at a caravanserai,” said Kurik. “Perhaps then you can be washed, and may then belly, and beg use.”

“Yes, Master,” we said.

“But neither of you have noticed what is most interesting about the coffle,” said Kurik.

“What is that, Master?” inquired Paula.

“It is an unusually large, and publicly displayed, coffle of barbarians, moving openly, on a major public road, barbarians, in the midst of daylight. It is not a string of a dozen or so girls, or a handful or two, chained in a slave wagon.”

“I do not understand,” said Paula.

“The blockade seems porous,” said Kurik. “Few ships seem challenged. Have Priest-Kings grown lax? I think something is different, somewhere, perhaps in the Sardar itself.”

I understood nothing of this, nor, I think, did Paula.

At this point, Drusus Andronicus descended from the wagon.

“It is time we were on our way,” he said.

“The slave Paula,” said Kurik, “begs the hands of her master on her worthless body.”

“She can wait,” said Drusus Andronicus.

“Please, Master,” said Paula, “the belly of your slave is afire. It flames with need. I am grievously tormented. Please it. I beg it! Relieve my need, I beg of you!”