Swordsmen of Gor (65 page)

“Please, Master,” she begged. “Complete his work! I beg it!”

“What is your name?” I asked.

“Talena,” she said.

“No,” I said, suddenly. “You are not Talena!”

“It is the name I have been given,” she said, frightened. “If it does not please you, name me as you will.”

I fetched a nearby lantern, and held it over the supine slave, who half closed her eyes against the light.

“You are not Talena,” I said.

“I was of Cos,” she said. “They gave me a name of the mainland, of Ar.”

“As masters may,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

This was not surprising. Had she been of Ar and taken to Cos it was likely she would have been given a Cosian name. The same animal on Earth, say a dog, would be likely to receive one name in Britain, another in France, another in Italy, and so on.

“‘Talena’,” I said, “is the name of one who was Ubara of Ar.”

“A false Ubara!” she said. “That is known even in Cos.”

My hand tightened menacingly on the ring by means of which the lantern was suspended.

“Do not strike me!” she pleaded.

“Yes,” I said, drawing back, wearily, “she was a false Ubara.”

“There are many Talenas,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. ‘Talena’ was a not unfamiliar name on Gor, at least on the mainland. To be sure, it would be an unusual name for a slave. There was at least one other Talena, of course, who was a slave. I recalled the Metellan district. I had not changed her name on the embondment papers, but had permitted her to retain the name ‘Talena’, though then, of course, not as a free name but as a slave name, put upon her by the will of her master. Now, I supposed, she would, if somewhere collared, have yet a different name.

“I do not like the name ‘Talena’ for you,” I said. “It is too fine a name for a slave.”

“Forgive me, Master,” she said.

“When you have a private master,” I said, “should you be so fortunate, beg him for a different name. Masters are commonly indulgent in such matters.”

“I will!” she said.

Slave names are often short, and convenient, such as ‘Lita’, ‘Lana’, ‘Dina’, and such. Earth-girl names, it might be noted, are commonly accounted slave names on Gor, and may be put upon Gorean girls as well as slaves harvested from the fields of Earth. For example, ‘Jane’, on Gor, would be clearly understood as a slave name. There are many names on Gor, of course, both masculine and feminine, which are frequently encountered, as is the case on Earth. My own first name, ‘Tarl’, for example, was quite common in Torvaldsland.

I placed my hand on her right knee.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “Please, Master!”

I was annoyed at my reaction to being apprised of the slave’s name. Her voice had not been that of Talena. And I had even fetched the lantern to look upon her. She had not been Talena, of course, not
the
Talena.

Again I recalled the conversation with Seremides, in the darkness above the forest.

I gathered that the Ubara had not yet been brought before the throne of a Ubar’s justice.

Strange, I thought, that so mighty a bounty, ten thousand tarn disks, of gold, of double weight, had not yet been claimed.

What value might she have to someone, or something, which might exceed such a sum?

Did a captor wait for even so incredible a sum to be increased? Were negotiations now in progress? Perhaps a captor was amused to have the former Ubara at his slave ring for a time, before, say, tiring of her, and then delivering her to the justice of Ar. I could well imagine the slave, in such a situation, striving mightily to please whoever, or whatever, might be her master of the moment, to postpone as long as possible the day of her return to Ar.

“Please, Master,” whispered the slave.

I rose from her side and returned the lantern to its place.

I heard her sob behind me.

I returned to her side.

“Master?” she whispered, disbelievingly.

She had thought, I supposed, that I had abandoned her.

“Are you still in heat, girl?” I inquired.

One would seldom use so vulgar an expression, I supposed, in the case of a free woman, but it is often used in the case of animals, which makes it acceptable in the case of a slave, as she is an animal, a lovely form of domestic animal.

“Yes,” she said.

It is not unusual for a slave girl to approach her master, kneel before him, kiss his feet, straighten up, and inform him that she is in heat, openly, clearly, frankly, honestly, and innocently. The slave is not ashamed of her sexual needs, no more than it would occur to the free woman to be ashamed of her needs for, say, food and water. “Master’s girl is in heat,” she might say. “She begs for his caress.”

I lightly touched the interior of her right thigh.

“Yes,” she said. “A touch will free me, the least touch!”

I bent gently to her and, to her astonishment, put my tongue to her heat.

In an instant I had to place my right hand over her mouth, tightly, that her cries might not disturb the camp. It was hard to hold her in place, even with my right hand over her mouth, and my left hand grasping her arm, above the elbow. She thrashed wildly, gratefully, kicking mud about, half rising up, and twisting from side to side, and then lay back, and still. I became, only a bit later, aware that she was kissing and licking at the palm of my right hand, desperately, gratefully. I drew it away a bit and she still sought it with her kisses, on the side of the hand, on the back, and fingers, and wrist.

“Thank you, Master,” she whispered. “Thank you, Master!”

“You are not a Talena,” I informed her. “You are a Lita.”

“Lita, Master?” she said.

“You are a camp slave, are you not?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“You have been renamed ‘Lita’,” I said. “If any object, have them bring their complaint to me.”

“And who is Master?” she asked.

“Tarl Cabot,” I said.

“He who is captain, commander, of the cavalry?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Then I am Lita,” she said.

I then stood up and brushed away some mud, and wiped my hands on my tunic. I gathered in the edged buckler.

“Master!” called another girl.

“Please, Master,” called another.

“No,” I said, and continued on my rounds.

I had not realized that others had been aware of my presence.

I supposed we were bound for the Alexandra.

If there were ships there, they could not make voyage, of course, until the spring.

Yet, from the time of the attack on the camp, Lord Nishida had made it clear to me that his plans, whatever they might be, must be advanced. It seemed he would, at least, change camps. That must be all. He surely could not be mad enough to contemplate braving Thassa unseasonably, between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.

My interlude with the needful slave, a girl once of Cos, who had been named ‘Talena’, now ‘Lita’, put me naturally in mind of the former Ubara, and her possible fates.

I recalled that, long ago, Miss Margaret Wentworth, before she became the slave, Saru, had spoken of a hold over me, by means of a woman. This had made little sense to me at the time.

I thought now, however, from my rendezvous with Seremides, once of the Taurentians, the woman would be Talena.

But how could someone or something think they had a hold over me, in virtue of one such as she, a false Ubara, now deposed, last seen bound on the height of the Central Cylinder in Ar, kneeling at the feet of men, fearing apprehension, fittingly placed in the rag of a slave?

How could anyone, or anything, think that?

But, if so, how grievously then had someone, or something, whether human, Kur, or Priest-King miscalculated!

What now would Talena be to me?

I did not want her.

I would not now buy her, even as a pot girl for my kitchens in Port Kar.

She had been beautiful, but, too, she had been proud, ambitious, selfish, vain, and cruel. Had I not understood that, long ago? Had I not then understood that she belonged, if at all, only under the whip? I recalled how badly she had treated me and how with such delight and venom she had scorned me in the holding of Samos of Port Kar, when I had been confined to the chair of an invalid, thought perhaps never to walk again, imprisoned there by the lingering effects of a poison contrived by Sullius Maximus, a renegade captain of Port Kar, then in the fee of Chenbar, the Sea Sleen, Ubar of Tyros. Later, at the first opportunity, escaping her sequestration in the Central Cylinder of Ar where she, disowned by her father, had been confined in dishonor, having begged to be purchased, a slave’s act, in the northern forests, she had betrayed her Home Stone, conspiring with the forces of Cos and Tyros to bring down, belittle, and subdue her own city, mighty Ar, to achieve a meretricious ascent to a Ubara’s throne, to reign there as a puppet, her strings in the keeping of enemies and invaders. But then her father had somehow returned, it seemed from the Voltai, and the insurrection had subsequently occurred, casting forth, violently and bloodily, the occupying forces and restoring the rightful governance of the city.

I smiled to myself.

How fitting that I had had her trapped and embonded in the Metellan district, then arranging that she should be returned to the throne of Ar, though knowing herself, so secretly, as then a slave. How she must have lived in terror, fearing that this secret might be revealed, which was then indisputable and certifiable. What hubris that a slave should dare to don the garments of a free woman, let alone take a place on a Ubara’s throne! Would not each tiny particle of her flesh, one after another, have been publicly removed over weeks, or months, on a needle’s point?

I had seen to it that she was enslaved, in her own city, making use of a couching law of Marlenus himself, Ubar of Ubars.

It had been easily and perfectly done. I trusted that she, to her rage, consternation, and chagrin, in all her utter helplessness, that of a female in the hands of men, had realized that.

How pleasant it is to enslave a woman.

How better can one degrade them? But how strange it is that they so thrive in their degradation. Do they not understand what has been done to them, or do they understand it only too well? How is it that they kiss your feet in gratitude, leap instantly to do your bidding, kiss their fingertips and touch them to their collars, buck and squirm in your arms, gasping and writhing in grateful, uncontrollable, orgasmic ecstasy, kneel, heads bowed, before you. How radiant and joyful they are in their collars! Are they not born to thongs? Is it so strange that they find their joy and fulfillment at a man’s feet, or is it merely to be expected, given a genetic heritage of the surrenders of love, without which a woman cannot be whole?

Who is the man who truly loves a woman, he who denies reality or he who recognizes it, and embraces it, he who betrays her and panders to propagandas, or he who consents to answer the cries of her heart?

So Talena was now a slave, no different from any other slave, save for the bounty on her head.

Excellent, I thought, save for the bounty.

I did not think I would buy her even for a pot girl. And surely many were the slaves more beautiful than she!

She had thought herself the most beautiful woman on all Gor.

How absurd that was!

She had never been ranged naked in a coffle, standing, legs widely spread, hands clasped behind the back of her head, for assessment.

Yes, she was beautiful, but there were thousands more beautiful than she. Had she not once been the daughter of a Ubar, what might she have brought? Perhaps three silver tarsks? Much would depend on the market, and the season. Spring is a good time for selling slaves.

If then some thought to have a hold over me in virtue of a slut named Talena, doubtless even now somewhere in a collar and a slave’s rag, if that, they were muchly, and profoundly, mistaken!

I wondered where she might be.

In any event, it was no concern of mine.

There was suddenly a rush from my left, and something emerged from the darkness, from the trees, and I knelt down, on my right knee, heard the scrape of a blade on the metal, and, almost simultaneously, rose up, swinging the edged buckler up, violently, to the left, and it met resistance, and there was an ugly gurgling cry, and something stumbled back, and fell, away from the buckler. I crouched down, alert. At the same time, from within the trees, I heard a screaming, and a shaking and a tearing, as though an arm might be being torn from its shoulder. Within moments lanterns were rushing toward me, and men, and guards. “Call Lord Nishida!” I heard.

In the light of the lanterns I looked down on the shape at my feet. The edged buckler had caught it under the chin, and taken the head half from the body. From the trees there was a hideous wailing and four Pani, glaives ready, slipped amongst the trees. In moments they drew forth from the darkness, dragging it, a sobbing, mauled figure, the left arm missing. It was trying to stanch the flooding stream bursting from its body with its free hand, and then it was thrown to the mud amongst us, several mercenaries and Pani now having hurried forward.

I watched the living figure twitch before us. Then I thought perhaps it felt no pain, its body perhaps then flooded with endorphins. Its eyes were wide with shock. Blood ran freely between the fingers of its right hand.

“Stanch his wound,” I said.

The fellow’s hand was pulled away and cloth was thrust into the hole in his body.

“Where is the arm?” asked a man.

Two Pani, with lanterns, entered the forest.

I became aware of Lord Nishida, now standing at my side. “What is going on?” he asked.

“I know not,” I said.

“Give me a lantern,” said Lord Nishida, and was handed a lantern. He bent down, to examine the two fellows before us. And then he stood up.

The two Pani who had just entered the forest returned. One carried a crossbow.

“The assassin’s weapon,” said Lord Nishida.

“A weapon commonly employed by assassins,” I granted him.

“We could not find the arm,” said one of the Pani, he without the crossbow. “It was a sleen attack,” said the other. “The beast must have carried it away, into the trees, to feed.”