Witness of Gor (82 page)

Another fellow was thrust from the saddle by a spear, wielded by a warrior of the city. Tams of Treve flew overhead. The free women who had stripped themselves rose, dazedly, to their feet, by the wall. Dorna lay where she was. She seemed still in shock. I think she may have had only a dim sense of what was occurring. I could not speak to her, for the gag. One of the free women went from the wall, to recover her clothing. It was in the hands of one of the men from the group. But he did not give it to her. She looked at him, startled. His eyes were terrible. He pointed to the wall. Frightened, she shrank back, before him. He pointed to the ground, by the wall. She knelt. He pointed again to the ground, angrily. Then she lay there by the wall, frightened, on her belly. Another woman who had risen up from where she had been by the wall and had gone back to retrieve her clothing was being dragged back, naked, by the hair. She was then brutally thrown against the wall. She was then beside it, down on her right knee, next to it, the palms of her hands on it. And then she sank down beside it, on her knees, her hands on her thighs. Her right side was to the wall. She looked back over her left shoulder, frightened, at the man who had returned her to the wall. Another woman leaped up, but a fellow blocked her way. She stood before him. She regarded him, angrily. But then her lips began to tremble. Then she backed away from him, a foot. Then, suddenly, her head was snapped to the side, lashed to the side by the back of his hand. She spun about and fell against the wall. She was then on her knees by the wall. She looked up at him. There was blood at the side of her mouth. She remained on her knees. He looked down upon her. She crept closer to the wall. The six women who had proclaimed themselves slaves then huddled there, together, against the wall. Men stood about. They would remain, for the time, where they were. The slave girls edged farther away. To be sure, they remained, too, substantially where they were, at the wall, where the intruders had placed them.

I lay then at the foot of the wall.

I could scarcely move. I was alive!

The sun had now sunk behind the mountains. Some lamps were brought, and set in mounts on the wall, and elsewhere about the terrace. Bodies were being removed. Those of the city, and those of the intruders, I supposed, would receive quite different dispositions Artisans, in the light of lamps and torches, began to repair the tarnwire. In the morning, I supposed, slaves would clean the terrace.

It seemed very quiet now.

I realized that the bars had stopped sounding.

Dorna still lay quite near me.

It was well after darkness when I heard the sound of accouterments, and the light of a torch fell upon the wall. I struggled to my knees and put my head down. There must be free men present.

I saw a heavy, bootlike sandal, the sort worn by warriors, which can sustain long marches over stony soils, which provides protection from the slash of coarse grasses and the strike of leech plants, nudge Dorna.

She whimpered.

Again the bootlike sandal moved against Dorna's body, prodding it.

"Slave girl," said a voice.

"Master?" whimpered Dorna, questioningly. As she had said the word 'Master' it had not been simply as a customary form of deferential address, suitable for use in addressing any free man by a female slave, but in it, rather, it seemed that she had, to her relief, recognized, or thought she had recognized, the voice of her own master. And I, too, was sure I recognized the voice. He was not looking at me, but at Dorna, at his feet. I lifted my head a little, and then put it down, again, quickly. Yes, it was he, the officer! I did not think he recognized me. But how well I recalled him! In what detail and perfection he had had me! I had served his supper. I had danced before him, as a slave. I had been well put to his uses. He had slept me, later, nude, on the floor beside his couch. Toward morning he had once again drawn me to him and used me once more to slake his lusts. How I had leaped to his touch, how I had clung to him, how I had held him and kissed him, and licked him, and begged him, gratefully, sobbing, not to stop.

"Yes," he said.

He, being a total man, had made me a total woman. He, being a total master, had made me a total slave.

"Have they gone?" whispered Dorna, frightened.

"It is over now," he said.

I thought she sobbed, in relief.

He then kicked her, gently, with the toe of the bootlike sandal.

"Oh!" she said, wincing.

"Should you not be kneeling?" he asked. Quickly she knelt before him.

He regarded her.

She spread her knees.

"Master," she begged, frightened.

"Yes?" he said.

"Were they of Tharna?" she asked.

"They wore no insignia," he said. "There was nothing to identify them officially.”

"Were they of Tharna?" she begged.

"No," he said. "They were not of Tharna.”

She looked up at him.

"They had not come for you," he said.

"And they were not his men?”

"No," he said.

I was not certain that I understood her allusion. I did recall she had had a former master, one she much feared.

She regarded him, anxiously.

"They had not come for you," he said.

"But what was their purpose here?" she asked.

"It lay elsewhere," he said. "It lay in the tunnels, in the pits, in the depths. That is where the last of them died, some forty of them. They fought like crazed men. Few could stand against them. Every trap, every secret device, was sprung upon them. They sought alternate routes. In the corridors they met the war sleen and the hunting sleen of the pits.

Tharlarion, even, and worse, were permitted into the tunnels. Perhaps a hundred guards died.”

"Master is bloodied," said Dorna.

"The blood is not my own," he said.

Indeed, he seemed there at night, by the wall, in the torchlight, and the light of the small lamps, a very terrible figure. He was tall and broad-shouldered. Behind him there was a shield bearer. Over his left shoulder hung the scabbard of a sword, the hilt of the weapon visible within it. In his left hand he cradled a helmet. It would muchly enclose the head. On it, mounted over the crown, from front to back, was a crest of sleen hair.

The opening in the helmet was something like a "Y" in shape. There was blood on the helmet. Blood, too, was on his thighs. I had seen him before not as a warrior. I had seen him in robes on the height of a tower, on a great chair, as might have been some ruler, some dispenser of justice, and I had seen him in the softness of lounging robes, in his own compartments. In his size, his strength, his intelligence, his power, he had been fearsome enough, even then.

But I had not seen him until now in the garb of war, in the leather of the warrior, the sword at his shoulder, his helmet in hand. I did not want to look at him now. I was afraid. And I now understood, better than before, how a man might come to power on this world, and the sort of men that might rise to Sit upon the chairs of state.

"The intruders wore no insignia," he said, "but they were of Ar.”

"Master?" asked Dorna.

"There is no mistaking the accents," he said. "I know them well.”

Dorna shuddered, it seemed, in relief.

"And many," he said, "in receiving their death strokes, cried out 'Glory to Ar!'“

Dorna was silent.

"It is strange that they were here," he said, musingly. "They could not have been authorized.

They must have betrayed oaths.”

"I do not understand," said Dorna.

"It does not matter," he said.

"There is the matter of the slaves, and of the free women, Captain,”

said one of the men with the officer.

"Let the slaves return to their masters," he said.

A sign was given and one of the soldiers went down the wall, permitting what slaves were there to leap up and speed from the terrace, some through buildings, some over the bridge, others, crossing the terrace, to descend by the far steps.

"This one is chained," said one of the soldiers. I kept my head down. I did not wish to be recognized.

"Let me see her," said the officer.

I winced, my head pulled up, by the hair. Tears sprang to my eyes. I blinked against the torchlight, which fell fully upon my countenance.

"I thought so," said the officer. "It is the Earth-woman slave.”

I could not lower my head because of the soldier's grip in my hair.

"Did you know that Earth women make good slaves?" the officer asked one of his men, a subaltern.

"Yes, Captain," said the fellow.

"A stroke or two of the whip and they immediately understand the nature of their new life,”

said the officer.

"Yes, Captain," grinned the fellow.

"Why did you hide?" the officer asked me. "Were you afraid?”

I whimpered once.

"Is someone to come for you?" he asked.

I whimpered once, again. I did not know if the Lady Constanzia and the scarlet-clad figure would come back for me or not, but this seemed the most likely, and honest, answer I could give.

"Civilians will be soon be permitted to return to the terrace," said the officer.

I whimpered once, acknowledging that I understood him.

At a sign from the officer, the soldier released my hair. I sobbed with relief. His grip had been tight and painful. It is customary on this world, of course, for slaves to be handled in such a fashion, with uncompromising firmness and authority. The men here keep us precisely in line. They do not choose to be weak with us.

"She is a pit slut," said the officer. "If she is still here in the morning, see that she is remanded to custody, pending claiming.”

"Yes, Captain," said the man.

After all he had made me do, after all he had had from me, was this, then, all he now had to do with me, hardly even recognizing me? But then I recalled he was a free man, and I was only a slave.

He then turned to regard the girl beside me.

"Slave," said the officer.

"Yes, Master," said Dorna.

"You will return home," he said, "and prepare my bath. You will then wash me. You will then prepare a light collation and serve me. These things are to be done naked.”

"Yes. Master," she said.

Slaves are sometimes kept naked in a man's compartments, of course.

But, too, after men have risked death, it often pleases them to be served by naked women.

Perhaps such a thing, so simple in itself, speaks to them of joy and life. To be sure, the flavor of nudity, as so many other things, depends much upon context. There is the foolishly outraged and defiant nudity of the stripped free woman, in her capture noose, who does not yet know how she appears to men and what will be done with her; there is her trembling nudity when she lies upon her belly in a hunting camp, awaiting her shackling; there is the nudity of the exposition cages, in which one must move and pose for potential bidders, there is the exposure on the slave block itself, as one is auctioned; there is the sweaty nudity of work, as when she scrubs tiles on her hands and knees in her master's compartments; there is the nudity of the slave bathing her master; there is the nudity of the slave in the morning, kneeling before the master, waiting to learn if she may clothe herself; there is the beautiful warmth of a loving slave, nude and collared, serving wine in the light of a lamp of love, there is the nudity of the enflamed slave, aroused in her dance, who will beg for her master's touch; there is the nudity of the women of the enemy serving at the feast of the victors, a nudity that celebrates the prowess of the conquerors and proclaims the fate of fair spoils of war.

There are many nudities, with nuances and flavors.

The common denominator here is the beauty of the woman, the capture or slave. It excites and delights men. Accordingly, they will have the joy of it. They will, as masters, have it subordinate to their will-and as it pleases them-fully, completely, utterly.

"Then, tonight," he said, "you will be slept naked at the foot of my couch, chained by the neck to the slave ring.”

"Yes, Master," she said.

I did not doubt but what she would be used before being spurned from the couch to the floor at its foot. I envied her a private master.

"Go!" he said.

I wondered if he would grant her a sheet, as he had me. But, I hoped, no more, no more! She, too, was a slave!

Doubtless she would be in the same collar and chain that I had worn. I wondered how many women had been slept thusly, the master done with them, on the tiles beside his couch, their head to its foot. I supposed a great many. He was a powerful Gorean male, and highly placed.

I wondered if I were the first Earth-girl slave who had had that experience.

It did not seem likely.

"Yes, Master!" she cried, and leaped up, and fled from the terrace, leaving through one of the buildings, that from which, earlier, she and others had been herded forth.