Prize of Gor (113 page)

Whereas most slaves have a great deal of freedom, as hitherto mentioned, most will be expected to ask permission to leave the domicile of the master, and will be expected to return by a designated Ahn. The ambulatory freedom of the slave girl ends, however, at the city gate. No woman in a collar is allowed out of the city except in the keeping of a free person, usually the master or his agent.

Amongst the boys in their little clouds or gangs, roaming about, looking for some “good ones” amongst the “ring girls,” those chained to the public rings, there will occasionally be one or two older ones, who will carry switches. This is in case they find a slave who has been a free woman taken from an enemy city, particularly recently. They may then switch her, and she will kneel, and cover her head, and cry. She cannot escape, of course, as she is chained in place. Soon, hopefully, her master will return and good-naturedly shoo the boys away. She must expect such things, I suppose, given her antecedents. They still think of her as a woman of the enemy. This is, however, a mistake. She is not free. Thus, she can no longer be a woman of the enemy. Now she is only another slave. She would remain a slave, incidentally, even if she were to be returned to her original city. Indeed, there, she would be treated with great cruelty, perhaps even slain. In becoming a slave, you see, she has dishonored its Home Stone. She would beg piteously not to be returned to that city. There she could expect nothing better than a paga tavern or brothel. You can imagine her misery, in such a situation, finding herself at the mercy of spurned suitors, and such. And perhaps she would be purchased by a free woman who was once her rival and enemy, to be her serving slave. Better to wear her collar at the feet of foreign masters, scions of the city whose warriors or raiders first acquired and stripped her. Women understand such things.

Ellen struggled to a sitting position, and looked down at the hobbles. They were of heavy iron. She did not try to rise. She was not sure she could do so.

I have caused dissension, Ellen thought to herself. Perhaps I am beautiful. Of course, I am the only slave in the camp. But I think that I may be beautiful, or, at any rate, desirable. She felt warm, and thrilled. I am an object of desire, she thought. Men, or at least some men, want me. Literally want me, in the fullest sense of that word. But perhaps that is not so strange, as I am a slave.

She still did not turn to look at Selius Arconious.

She did look at Mirus, but then, smiling, looked away, tossing her head. “Insolent slave!” he hissed. She did not respond, of course. She had not been given permission to speak. There was no point in inviting a beating. I am in part your handiwork, she thought. How do you like it? It was in your house that I was first put in a collar. But now I am not yours. You let me go. You were even outbid in open auction. Too bad, dear Mirus.

“Sir!” cried one of the soldiers.

The officer went immediately to where the man had called out.

“Behold!” cried another soldier.

“Be vigilant!” ordered the officer.

“What is it?” asked Selius Arconious, struggling at the wheel. The roped, kneeling prisoners, had turned about, trying to see. Ellen, turning, peering under the righted wagon, saw one of the three beasts shamble, bent over, on all fours, to where a soldier was standing.

“Kajira!” snapped Selius Arconious.

“Master?” cried the startled Ellen.

“What is it? Look!”

“I cannot see, Master!”

“Get up!” he said.

“I cannot!” she wept.

“Try!” he demanded.

Ellen struggled. She fought the hobbles. She could not even get to her knees. Had she been front-braceleted, or in normal ankle chains, or had someone lifted her to her feet, she might have been successful. Too, of course, if she had worn only hobbles, she could have used her hands to gain her feet.

“I see the hobbles are excellently effective,” he said, acidly.

Ellen went to her side, looking up at her master. Her feet were separated by the six inches of plating, the left ankle held off the ground. She lay in the mud and grass. The brief tunic had been thrust up, about her waist. Her right thigh was bruised, and she could feel it now, from the turning of the wagon. The bootlike sandal of the final soldier to make use of her, in its spurning blow, at her left, had not marked her. It had been little more than a reminder that she was a slave.

“You look well, hobbled, slave,” he said, irritably.

Tears sprang into the eyes of the well-restrained slave.

His eyes examined the curves of her, her bosom beneath the tunic, the narrow waist, the flare of the hips, the thighs, the calves, all of which he owned.

He had seen her yield to others, those not her master, and with the yieldings of a slave.

She could not reach him easily, for he was some seven or eight feet from her, but she went to her belly, and, as nearly as she could manage, to the common second position of obeisance, and lifted her head, and looked up at him, piteously, her small wrists braceleted behind her. Her eyes were wild, and begging. Seldom had she felt more owned. Then, as she could not, as she lay, reach his sandals, she put her head down before him, and pressed her lips to the grass, kissing it, pathetically.

She hoped that this placatory behavior might avert his wrath, perhaps even save her life. In the house of Mirus, long ago, she had been taught to crawl to a man on her belly and cover his feet with fervent, supplicatory kisses.

She lifted her head, frightened, then lowered it, to kiss again at the grass. She felt the moist, narrow blades upon her lips.

“You grovel well,” he said. “Like all women you belong in a collar.”

She sucked in her breath, in relief. She was sure then that she would be spared, if only for the time.

“I yielded, Master,” she said. “Forgive me, Master!”

“Of course you yielded,” he said. “If you had not, I would have seen to it that you were beaten.”

She looked up at him, in reddened astonishment.

“Slaves must yield,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

Unlike Mirus then, it seemed, to her relief, that he would not think the less of her because of the commanded naturalness, and vitality, of her responses. Frigidity may be a virtue of free women, but that dignity is not permitted to slaves. His anger, then, she understood, was not directed against her, but against the Cosians, who had made use of her without his acquiescence. Who blames the kaiila who responds to the digging heels, the reins and quirts of diverse riders?

Suddenly she was suffused with anger, and remembered that she hated Selius Arconious.

“Can you see now?” he asked.

She struggled to her side, and up, on her right elbow. “Master!” she said, suddenly, startled.

For at that moment, about the wagon, carried by two Cosians, was brought the body of a gagged, bound man.

Selius Arconious, as soon as she, saw that it was the spokesman, bound hand and foot.

Some soldiers, and the officer, and the great, shambling beast, Kardok, came about the wagon, to the cleared space there, in the center of the camp.

There was a great bruise on the side of the spokesman’s head, where he had doubtless been dealt a grievous blow.

Now, however, he was clearly conscious. He pulled weakly at the thongs that bound him. His eyes were open, widely, over the gag.

The officer was angry.

“How came this urt to the camp?” he demanded.

“Doubtless brought here, in the storm, or later,” said one of the soldiers.

“No,” said another. “The grass beneath the body, where we found him, was dry.”

“That means someone entered the camp, in the night, before the storm, between the guards, and left this tethered urt amongst us!”

“He lay in a small depression,” said one of the soldiers. “We only saw him moments ago, in the moonlight.”

“It will be morning in a few Ehn,” said a soldier.

“Who can come and go thusly amongst us?” said the officer, in fury.

“Who knows?” said one of the soldiers.

The officer strode to the kneeling, bound prisoners. “Who?” he said. “Who?”

“A warrior, perhaps,” said Portus Canio.

“Let us withdraw,” said one of the soldiers.

The officer returned to the center of the camp, near the wagon, near the place where a woman, or, better, a girl, had been subjected to diverse usages suitable for one such as she, one who was slave.

“Remove the gag from his mouth,” said the officer.

A dagger was thrust rudely behind the outer binding of the gag, and slashed it away. A streak of blood was then at the side of the jaw. The soldier then, with the tip of the dagger, poked through the wadding, and forced it out. The man began to choke, and then babble pathetically. “Sleen,” he said. “Sleen!”

“Prairie sleen,” said a soldier.

“He was a fool to leave the camp,” said another.

“I do not like it,” said another soldier. “Sleen will follow the scent. He will have brought sleen to the vicinity of the camp.”

“They may have been about in any event,” said one of the soldiers. “We saw two in the vicinity, some pasangs away, whilst we were in flight.”

“Yes,” said another soldier.

“They may have caught the scent of the gray sleen, the hunting sleen,” said another, “and surmised them to be tracking, and then followed, for days, hoping to share the kill.”

“Possibly,” said the officer.

“Let us take him out into the grass, and kill him there,” said a soldier. “If he has sleen on his tracks, that should satisfy them.”

“No,” begged the spokesman. “No!”

“Who did this to you?” asked the officer.

“I do not know,” whined the spokesman. “I was struck in the darkness.”

“He is well thonged,” said a soldier.

“Bound by a warrior,” said one.

“Or a slaver,” said another.

Ellen shuddered. Goreans, of all castes, are skilled at thonging, braceleting, binding and such. That is to be expected in a natural society, a society in which a prized and essential ingredient is female slavery, a society in which it is an accepted, respected, unquestioned, honored tradition, an institution sanctioned in both custom and law. Even boys are taught, under the tutelage of their fathers, how to bind female slaves, hand and foot. They are also trained in gagging and blindfolding, two useful devices for controlling and training slaves.

“Get some food,” said the officer. “Feed the prisoners, and the slave, as well. We trek at dawn.”

“Sir!” called Portus Canio.

The officer went to stand before him.

“With all due respect, sir,” said Portus Canio, “if you would save yourself, and your men, I would free us, and take your leave. I do not think those outside the camp are greatly interested in your blood.”

“I am thinking of having all of you killed,” said the officer, “all except the slave, who would make a nice gift for some ranking officer.”

“I want her,” said Tersius Major.

“To be sure,” said the officer, “perhaps we will merely auction her off — sell her naked from a slave block in Cos.”

“I want her!” said Tersius Major.

“Be silent,” said the officer.

“If you slay us,” said Portus Canio, “I do not think you will reach Brundisium alive.”

“Am I to return empty-handed?” asked the officer. “The purloined gold, the fees for mercenary cohorts, is presumably gone by now. Now you would have me return without even prisoners for interrogation?”

“For torture, you mean,” said Portus Canio.

“The testimony of slaves is commonly taken under torture,” said the officer.

“We are not slaves,” said Portus Canio.

“That can be changed.”

“Torture will not obtain the truth for you, only what you want to hear.”

“You do not know the truth?”

“None of us do, now,” said Portus Canio.

“I would take something back with me,” said the officer.

“I do not know what it could be,” said Portus Canio.

“Have those outside the camp an interest in your colleagues?” asked the officer.

“I do not think so,” said Portus Canio. “And they are not our colleagues. They pursued us. I think they sought gold. Too, they wished, apparently, to obtain the slave, and kill her. I think they would have slain us, as well. I am not clear as to their motivations. There is more here than I clearly understand. Tension stood between us. We stood on the brink of war. You arrived. You attacked. We fought together, thrown side by side, unwilling, unexpected allies.”

“They had forbidden weapons,” said the officer.

“Only forbidden,” said Tersius Major, “because the Priest-Kings would keep such things for themselves.”

“If that is their will, then it is their will,” said the officer. Then he regarded Mirus. “Who are you, and what is your business?”

“I am a merchant of Ar,” said Mirus, “dealing in various commodities, including slaves.”

“An urt of Ar,” said the officer.

“No,” said Selius Arconious, bound at the wheel. “He may reside in Ar, but he is not of Ar. He has no Home Stone.”

He is jealous, thought Ellen.

“I see,” said the officer. “Then he is not even an urt of Ar?”

“No,” said Selius Arconious. He cast a look at Mirus. Mirus might have been powerful, and rich, but the look directed upon him, though that of a mere tarnster, was one of superiority, of condescension, the look that one with a Home Stone might bestow upon one not so favored.

Surely he hates Mirus, thought Ellen. I think he is jealous of him. Can that be because of me? Could he be jealous because of a mere slave? What are his feelings toward me? He hates me! And I hate him! I must hate him! But he cannot be jealous. How could one be jealous of me? I am a mere slave!

The officer threw a look at the sleenmaster, who looked away.

“There are mysteries here, forbidden weapons, and such,” said the officer.

Portus Canio shrugged. He knew as little of such things as the Cosians.

“Beware the Priest-Kings,” whispered a soldier.

“I think I know one who is voluble,” said the officer, “one who might be persuaded to speak.”

Kardok lifted his large, shaggy head.