Swordsmen of Gor (54 page)

“You would like some clothing?” I asked.

“Yes, Master, yes!” she said, fervently.

I smiled to myself.

Usually the clothing permitted to slaves was such as was fit for slaves. Usually there was not much to it, and it was designed to leave few of the slave’s charms to conjecture. The slave did not realize, it seemed, that in many slave garments the slave might seem more naked, given its judicious suggestions and such, than if she were literally stripped. Some new slaves must be whipped from the house, to embark upon an errand, so terrified they are at the scantiness of the garmenture in which they have been placed. Certainly it is a change from the stiff, heavy, ornate, cumbersome robes of concealment, and the multitudinous hoods and veils, of the high cities.

I wondered what Saru would look like in armlets and anklets, in bangles, belled and necklaced, perhaps in a swirl of diaphanous, scarlet dancing silk.

I was sure she might please the senses of a man, perhaps even those of a
shogun
.

I suspected that it was for such a purpose, ultimately, that she had been brought to Gor.

The
Ashigaru
approaching from the central camp were now closer.

Saru, on her hands ands knees before Pertinax, cast a glance toward the approaching torches. I sensed she was desperate, and had no idea when she might, again, if ever, have a moment with him. I recalled how she had wanted him to call upon her in the stable, and recalled that he had not chosen to do so. I was sure that she, now well knowing herself a slave, wanted to nestle, collared, subdued, submitted, obedient, in his arms. I suspected she had dreamed of him, even long ago, on Earth. She had selected him, as I recalled, to accompany her to Gor. Too, I had no doubt he had found her excruciatingly attractive, even on Earth, even as a free woman. It was not difficult then to conjecture that he would now find her a thousand times more attractive, and in a thousand ways, now that she was a female slave.

“What are you doing!” he cried, in anger.

Saru was on her belly before him, her hands on his ankles, her lips pressed to his feet, weeping, covering them with piteous kisses.

Pertinax drew back, in fury.

She lifted her head to him. “I want you as my master!” she sobbed. “Be my master!”

“You do not know what you are saying!” he exclaimed. “What is wrong with you? You are of Earth! You are a woman of Earth! Where is your pride, your dignity! Be ashamed of yourself. Shame! Shame! Get up! Get up! You make me sick! You are disgusting! Disgusting!”

She put her head down to the dirt, crying.

“She is not a free woman,” I said to Pertinax. “Do not address her as such.”

“Can you not accept her femininity,” asked Tajima, “her needs, her womanhood, her helplessness, her defenselessness, her desire to submit?”

“Do not impose your values upon her,” I said. “Do you want her to lie? She is a woman. Why can you not accept her for what she is, not what you feel she should be? Are you only interested in women who have adopted, who have yielded to, who have succumbed to, the masculine values prescribed for them by an odious, inhuman, unnatural, self-alienating culture?”

Pertinax regarded me angrily.

“She is not a man, even if you demand it of her,” I said. “Let her be what she is, a woman, and a slave.”

“Let him alone,” said Tajima. “He understands nothing of these things. Let him belittle and shame her, humiliate and scorn her, if it pleases him. Is it not amusing, an exercise in power, though one somewhat cruel? Let him see to it that she is distraught, confused, uncertain, and miserable. She is only a slave, after all. Is this not a pleasant, gratifying torture to which he may subject her? Let him strive to deny her to herself, if he wishes. Let him demand such a denial of her. Let him disrupt and divide her. Let him torture her, as he will. Let him attempt to estrange her from her deepest being and needs, if it pleases him. He is, after all, Master, and she is merely slave. Let him strive then, by tearing and torture, to remake her, in an alien image, in his own image, to force her to discard and surrender herself, and hide herself behind a wall on which he would prefer to look.”

I supposed that the former Miss Wentworth, for years on Earth, had longed for what she felt was missing in her life, for the precious, incredible womanhood which she had only recently found, on Gor, and she was now, it seemed, to be shamed and punished for discovering on an alien world what had eluded her for so long on her native sphere.

“She is scum,” said Pertinax.

“Yes, Master,” wept the slave, at his feet.

“Slut! Slut!” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she wept.

“But surely,” I said, “you find this slut, this bit of scum, of some interest. I suspect you would not mind owning it.”

“‘Owning’!” cried Pertinax.

“Precisely,” I said, “owning.”

“She is worthless,” he exclaimed.

“She was worthless on Earth,” I said. “She is not worthless in a collar. She would go for a price, perhaps better than a silver tarsk.”

“Worthless!” he insisted.

“Doubtless worthless as a female slave is worthless,” I said, “but some men find them of interest.”

“Worthless!” he sobbed.

“But pretty,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, angrily.

“And on Gor,” I said, “you can buy such things.”

“I think you want her, my dear Pertinax,” said Tajima, “and as what she is, and should be, a slave.”

“Is that not what you have always wanted,” I asked, “from the first moment you laid eyes on her, her as a slave?”

“I think your desire was so fierce,” said Tajima.

“Was it not?” I asked.

“She belongs to Lord Nishida,” he said, angrily.

“Yes,” said Tajima, “and she was selected with care, in compliance with a very special order, one requisitioning a particular sort of slave, one worthy of a being a suitable gift for a
shogun
.”

“More is involved in these matters,” I said to Pertinax, “than intelligence, a lovely figure, a particular coloring of hair and eyes, and such.”

“What?” asked Pertinax, uneasily.

“Dispositions, needs, and latencies,” I said. “Slavers are alert to such things.”

“I do not understand,” said Pertinax.

“They can read the language of the body and eyes, and voice,” I said, “in general, and in given contexts, and situations, sometimes even contrived stimulus situations.”

“I do not understand,” he said.

“Perhaps the woman hears the word ‘slave’ or ‘collar’ spoken in her vicinity, seemingly innocently, seemingly inadvertently, it having supposedly nothing to do with her. But someone notes her subtlest response, the slightest alertness, or fear, or hesitation, or such. Perhaps a
kajira
on Earth, owned by a slaver, briefly, so briefly, by design, arranges a scarf or such and, for an instant, the other woman glimpses a collar. What is her reaction? Is it such as to suggest that she, too, belongs in a collar and, perhaps in her fantasies, has had one about her neck, snapped shut, locked? Perhaps the
kajira
sees the woman’s awareness, and smiles shyly, even apologetically, before adjusting the scarf, and hurrying away, leaving the woman standing there, astonished, unsteady. Is the glance of the
kajira
, radiant in her bondage, a hint, or an encouragement, or reassurance? Perhaps she hopes that the other woman, whom she instantly likes, will be found suitable, will qualify for the chains of a slave. Does that glance not say to the woman, however briefly, “I am happy. Are you my sister?” A slaver, of course, perhaps from over a newspaper, or one standing nearby, perhaps on a subway, clinging to a support, or one apparently merely waiting in a corridor or doorway, notes the woman’s reaction. Does it say, in effect, “I, too, belong in a collar. I wish I knew such a man, a man such as you know, lovely sister, one strong enough to put me in a collar. I am a woman. I belong in a collar. I want one!” Too, of course, there are such obvious things as the natural feminine grace of the woman, the width of her love cradle, the betraying movements of her body within her garmenture, the noted movements of her thighs, and such.”

“The
Ashigaru
are here,” said Tajima.

“Wait, a moment,” I said to them.

“It is dark,” said Tajima to the officer with the men. “In the morning you may search for the body of a scoundrel, in the forest, nearby.”

They would not be likely, of course, to find it.

The officer looked to the prostrate slave.

“Wait, a bit,” I said.

Saru struggled to her knees, before Pertinax.

“I have failed to please you,” she said.

He looked down on her, angrily. “Are you a slave, truly?” he asked.

I smiled to myself. There was clearly no question about the legalities of the matter. His question, I gathered, went far beyond legalities.

“Yes, Master,” she said, not looking up at him.

“Truly?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “A slave may not lie.”

“I find you disgusting,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “Thank you, Master.”

“You are covered with dirt,” he said, “and sweat dampens and streaks the dirt. Tears stain your cheeks. Your body is soiled and foul. You stink.”

“She smells of the stable,” I said.

“I no longer respect you,” he said to her.

“I do not want to be respected,” she whispered. “I am a slave. I am not to be respected, no more than a tarsk. But I do want to be owned, and mastered.”

“You will be,” said Tajima.

I gestured to the officer of the
Ashigaru
.

He approached the slave and indicated that she should stand. He then said, very sharply, “
Lesha
!”

Instantly the girl turned away from him, lifted her head, turned it to the left, and placed her small wrists, crossed, behind her back.

Pertinax uttered an angry sound.

In a moment the girl’s wrists were thonged together, tightly, behind her back. A leash was then snapped about her neck, and she was led from the fire, toward the road, toward the central camp.

Pertinax went to the wall of the stable, and, in fury, sobbing, struck it with his fists. There would be dried blood there in the morning.

I then bid goodnight to Tajima and returned toward the central camp, and the hut I shared with Pertinax. Near the hut I removed Cecily, who was asleep, from the rope circle, and carried her, gently, to the hut. I did not awaken her. I put her on a slave mat, at my side. Her tunic had slipped up, about her waist, and I drew it down a bit, and smoothed it. She was an incredibly beautiful slave. She had originally been selected by Priest-Kings to tempt me to the subversion of my honor, and had been, accordingly, with all their wisdom and expertise, chosen with exquisite care to attain that end. She had been chosen to appeal to me in ways of which I had not even dreamed, and, by a parity of design, her own needs and desires had been taken into consideration, and mercilessly exploited, as well, and unscrupulously so, in that she had been selected as one who by her own nature would find herself similarly attracted, and, indeed, helplessly so, and, indeed, as might be a slave before her master. In short, by the devious machinations of Priest-Kings, to forward their own dark purposes, we had been matched to one another, superbly, and helplessly. The plan of Priest-Kings would have succeeded, sooner or later, I was sure, had it not been for the intervention of Kurii, in a raid on Gor’s Prison Moon. She was, of course, in the beginning, when we first became acquainted, in our imprisonment, a free woman. Had she not been, my honor would have not been the least in jeopardy. She was English, as I, and was a student at an Oxford College, as I had once been. She was unusually intelligent, and extraordinarily beautiful. She had been spoiled, and she derived from a wealthy mercantile background with pretensions, mistaken pretensions it seemed, to an aristocratic origin. To be sure, a lovely ancestress of hers had apparently been selected out from the fields in the Fifteenth Century to be a stirrup mistress to a knight, but the resultant, oblique line, as it turned out, was without spurs. This fact, however, seems to have been regarded as negligible to the line in question. It was not important, it seems, that a snapping of fingers might have once brought the lips of a low-born lass to a knight’s boot. In any event, she had been haughty, arrogant, supercilious, refined, and insolent. She had despised men, though on some level had found them fascinating and troubling, and had enjoyed leading them on and tormenting them with her wit and beauty. Too, however, she had had strong slave urges, something of which the Priest-Kings undoubtedly took note. Later, on the Steel World to which the raiding Kurii took us, I brought her into my collar.

I regarded her, but would not awaken her.

Her intelligence was high. Her features and figure were delightful. Her slave needs were overpowering. The slave fires were always ready to spring into flame in her belly. In a fair market I thought she might go for two tarsks or more. Under a man’s touch she was helpless. I was pleased to own her.

She was tired. I would not put her to use.

Pertinax had not yet returned to the hut.

I had little doubt he was wandering about, angrily, trying to sort out a variety of thoughts and feelings, most of which were doubtless troubling. I trusted he would remember to retrieve his Jane, the former Lady Portia Lia Serisia of Sun Gate Towers, near the Street of Coins in Ar, from the rope circle. I did not think she would be pleased with his lateness.

I dropped off to sleep, but later, I am not sure how much later, but it was not yet light, Pertinax returned to the hut, his Jane following him. She was modestly tunicked. To be sure, her neck was in his collar. I wondered if I should have purchased her for him.

I gave no indication that I was awake.

She seemed in a foul mood and Pertinax, of course, given the events of the day, and particularly of the evening, was possibly even less benignly disposed.

“Where were you?” she asked. “What kept you? I spent Ahn in the rope circle! My hands were raw from standing and clutching the rope, under the eyes of the
Ashigaru
. Too, they dared to look at my legs and ankles! How could they help themselves? You have them bared, you brute! Then we were knelt and we must still cling to the rope! Ahn later our waists were encircled, and we were permitted to recline! Only then we were given gruel and water! I was the last to be freed! The very last! The
Ashigaru
had even left! Why were you so late! You are never again to keep me waiting in such a fashion!”