John Norman - Gor 11 Read online

  My master then re-entered the tent. "Rape her later," he said to the soldier who held the first girl in the coffle in his arms. Reluctantly the soldier put the moaning girl from him.

  "Yes, Captain," grinned the soldier.

  "When we are to be raped, and must serve you as slaves," begged the first girl, she who had been in his arms, "let me be the first to be raped, the first to serve you as a slave."

  "You will not be forgotten, my beautiful little slut," he promised her.

  "Thank you, Master, " she whispered.

  "Do not forget Donna either," said the second girl.

  "Nor Chanda," said the third.

  "Nor Marla," said the fourth.

  "Lehna is first," said the first girl.

  The soldier regarded the fourth girl. Under his eyes she stood very straight in the coffle. The wrist ring was closed on her left wrist, inflexibly, fastening her with the other girls.

  "Nor Marla?" he asked.

  "Nor Marla," she said.

  "Are you not a woman's slave?" he asked.

  "Save me a place at your feet, Master," she said. "I am a man's slave."

  My master walked about the coffled girls. Then he returned to his original place of stand. "Four beauties," said he, "a good catch. We shall have much pleasure with them, and then, should we choose to sell them, we will get a good price."

  How right it struck me that he had said this of the beauties, and yet, in its way, how horrifying to me, an Earth girl. Why did these men not hide their dominance; why did they not pretend it did not exist; why did they not suppress it; why did they not thwart and repudiate the birthright of their nature; why did they not make themselves miserable; why did they not torture themselves and diligently cultivate weakness like the men of Earth, shortening their lives and praising themselves for the constriction and mutilation of their instincts? Were they not powerful enough to be manipulated, strong enough to be weak?

  "Coffle her," said my master, looking at me.

  I stiffened. Surely the coffle was not for me. I was his girl. I was not a new slave. I had served him well.

  The soldier whistled, as though lie might have been summoning a pet sleen, and lifted an open wrist ring, the last ring on the chain. I ran angrily to the chain.

  "We must make haste," said my master.

  I felt my wrist taken, and the metal of the wrist ring snap shut upon it. I was coffled.

  How angry I was to be chained with the new girls. I felt the chain hanging from my wrist, dangling from the wrist ring of the girl coffled before me. I was furious. I was well fastened. I could not escape.

  My master looked down at me.

  I lowered my eyes. I wore his chain.

  He turned away from the coffle and, moving the slashed silk of the rear wall of the tent with his hand, brushing it to the right, not looking back, disappeared into the darkness.

  "Marla was not kind to a poor slave when she was helpless," said Marla, the girl before me. "Maria is terribly sorry. Please forgive Maria."

  "What?" I said.

  "Marla is sorry, Mistress," she said. "Please forgive Marla." The girl was clearly frightened.

  It seemed strange to me, that she had addressed me as Mistress, and her fear. Then I realized the legitimacy of her fear, that of a slave girl. She was the one who had called me "Dina," and who, when I had been bound, had kicked me. Now she was owned by my master, and she was a newer girl than I. She did not yet know the nature of the relationships in which she was now helplessly implicated, relationships which could be every bit as perilous and significant as the physical bond of steel on her wrist. Was I first girl? Was I over her? Did I have switch rights upon her body, as Eta had upon mine? Would I be cruel to her? Would I make her suffer? Would she have to please the masters incredibly, and constantly attend them, that they might perhaps be moved to shield her to some tiny extent from my vengeance? Too, she was coffled before me, and this put her much at my mercy. Chained as she was I might, if I chose, make the march a misery of unexpected blows and torments for her. Her fears, in the light of these considerations, were understandable.

  "I forgive you," I told her.

  Immediately the girl straightened herself insolently, and dismissed me from her awareness. She had, she assumed then, nothing to fear from me, and I might be contemptuously ignored. This irritated me. Doubtless she considered herself, and quite possibly correctly, my superior in beauty, and thus planned to soon stand higher in the relationships of bondage than I, a lesser girl. Having nothing to fear from me she would freely and opportunistically insinuate herself among the men. Slave girls compete for the attentions of masters. Each strives to be more pleasing to them than the other. The quality of a slave girl's life is commonly a direct function of her pleasingness to her master. Whether she Is a treasured love slave or an ignored pot-and-floor wench depends much upon her. Gorean men, unlike the men of Earth, do not bother much with girls that are not pleasing to them. Yet even such may find their utility, and indirectly serve masters, perhaps sweating in the public kitchens of the high cylinders, or laboring, neck-locked, at the looms in the cloth mills, or digging, chained with others, in the sul fields. It is a rare girl who, having tasted the mills or sul fields, does not beg her proprietor to be sold again on the open market, that she may attempt anew, and perhaps more successfully this time, to be pleasing to a man.

  I was furious with the posture, so proud and sensual, of the girl before me. I wondered why I had forgiven her. It had seemed the natural thing to do. I had done it, unthinkingly. It was not irrational, of course. For example, she was beautiful, and any dominance which I might have over her might be temporary, and then our relationship might be reversed. What if she much pleased my master one night and he gave her switch rights over me? Also, on another march, it might be I who would be coffled before her, and at her mercy.

  Yet I was angry. She now ignored me. Her victory had been cheaply won.

  Suddenly, angrily, I kicked her.

  She cried out, startled. I stood straight, as though I had done nothing. The soldier with the coffle, who was gathering jewelry into a scarf from various coffers in the tent, pretended that he had not noticed my action. Masters do not much interfere in the squabbles of slaves. Let them impose their own internal order among themselves. On the other hand, they would not approve if one slave injured or marked, or reduced in value, another. That would be serious, and not to be tolerated.

  The girl before me now no longer stood proudly and sensually. She was now only a frightened, chained girl, at my mercy. She was coffled before me.

  "On the other hand," I said to her, "I may not forgive you either."

  "Marla begs forgiveness, Mistress," she whispered.

  "I may forgive you and I may not," I said.

  "Yes, Mistress," said the girl. She trembled. The chain shook on her wrist. I was pleased. Too, if she feared me, perhaps I could, for a time, frighten her away from my master. She was a lovely female, Marla, and I had little doubt she would be incredibly delicious in the arms of a man. I suppose that I was jealous of her.

  The soldier in charge of the coffle slung the scarf, loaded with jewelry from the coffers in the tent, over his shoulder. He grinned at me. I looked down, and smiled.

  "We must make haste, Slaves," said he. We readied ourselves. I looked at him. He was not regarding me.

  He was Gorean, and a man. It was not that he had dared to be a man. It was rather that he simply was a man.

  "Attend me, Coffle," said he, "for bondage march." He held his hand, the visible signal of preparation, poised over his thigh.

  We tensed.

  But, strangely, though of Earth, I did not object to a world in which men, like larls, were healthy. I wanted them that way, rich and glorious in their power. I sensed, perhaps, my complementarity to them. Only in a world where there were true men could there be true women.

  I felt the steel on my wrist, with its chain.

  He struck his right thigh with his open hand, su
ddenly, sharply. We moved out, slave girls, on the left foot, that the pace of the march be uniform.

  We were owned.

  As I passed the soldier, who stood behind, to follow the coffle, to guard it, I felt weak. I tried to brush my left shoulder against him, but he, with his hand, roughly thrust me to the side. He did not then desire my touch. I and the others must wait, to see if he would permit us to touch him later.

  Tears sprang to my eyes. I had wanted to touch him, and had not been permitted to do so. It was his will, the will of the man, which determined matters.

  "Har-ta," said he. "Faster." Lehna, who was first girl on the chain, hastened.

  Suddenly I was terrified. My will literally meant nothing. Anything might be done to me. The guard had not permitted me to do so much as brush against him. If I could not even placate a man sexually, I was completely without power. Even my attempt to please a man was dependent upon his permission that I should attempt to do so.

  I shuddered.

  I, hurrying, looked up into the black, starlit Gorean night. I trembled. I, though a girl of Earth, was chained in coffle under three barbaric moons.

  "Har-ta," said the soldier.

  Again Lehna hastened.

  In moments we were leaving the camp, wading the stream.

  I felt the cold water about my ankles, and then calves; then I felt it over my knees; then I felt it swirling at my thighs; we lifted the chain to hold it out of the water.

  "Har-ta," said the soldier, he in whose charge we were.

  Again we hurried. One does not daily under the command of a Gorean master.

  I felt the pebbles and stones of the bank beneath my feet. The chain pulled forward on my wrist. I looked up at the wild moons.

  I was a slave girl.

  "Har-ta!" I heard. "Har-ta!"

  The chain pulled forward again.

  I, hurrying, stumbled behind the others.

  I did not know into what bondage I was being led. I knew only that it would be absolute.

  6

  Tabuk's Ford

  My master extended his cup to me, and I, kneeling, filled it with Sul paga. I pressed my lips to the cup, and handed it to him. My eyes smarted. I almost felt drunk from the fumes.

  I withdrew.

  Sul paga is, when distilled, though the Sul itself is yellow, as clear as water. The Sul is a tuberous root of the Sul plant; it is a Gorean staple. The still, with its tanks and pipes, lay within the village, that of Tabuk's Ford, in which Thurnus, our host, was caste leader.

  "Excellent," said my master, sipping the Sul paga. He could have been commenting only on the potency of the drink, for Sul paga is almost tasteless. One does not guzzle Sul paga. Last night one of the men had held my head back and forced me to swallow a mouthful. In moments things had gone black, and I had fallen unconscious. I had awakened only this morning, ill, miserable, with a splitting headache, chained with the other girls.

  "Wine, Slave Girl," said Maria, holding her cup to me.

  Angrily I put down the Sul paga and fetched the flask of the Ka-la-na of Ar, and filled her cup. She did not look at me, nor thank me, for I was a slave. Was she not, too, a slave? I saw her, in the shreds of her white gown, cuddling with her wine in my master's arms. She had risen swiftly in favor among the masters, displacing even Eta as favorite girl. I had feared, even from the beginning, that she would become excessively popular. My master was, apparently, much taken with her. I hated her. Eta, too, did not regard her with unusual affection.

  Marla looked at me, and smiled. "You are a pretty slave," she said.

  "Thank you, Mistress," I said, restraining myself. Since she had become first girl in the camp we were all constrained to serve her and address her as Mistress. Even though she was given no jewelry or fine raiment, she was high slave in the camp.

  It had been five weeks since the strike on the camp of the Lady Sabina.

  Much of this time we had been engaged in a long overland journey.

  "Give me of drink," said Thurnus to me.

  "Yes, Master," I said. I took the flask of Ka-la-na to him.

  Thurnus was a shaggy haired fellow, with yellow hair, big, broad-shouldered, large-handed, clearly in his bones and body of the peasants. He was caste leader in Tabuk's Ford. Tabuk's Ford was a large village, containing some forty families; it was ringed with a palisade, and stood like a hub in the midst of its fields, long, narrow, widening strips, which radiated from it like the spokes in a wheel. Thurnus tilled four of these strips. Tabuk's Ford receives its name from the fact that field Tabuk were once accustomed, in their annual migrations, to ford the Verl tributary of the Vosk in its vicinity. The Verl flows northwestward into the Vosk. We had crossed the Vosk, on barges, two weeks ago. The field Tabuk now make their crossing some twenty pasangs northwest of Tabuk's Ford, but the village, founded in the area of the original crossing keeps the first name of the locale. Tabnk's Ford is a rich village, but it is best known not for its agricultural bounty, a function of its dark, fertile fields in the southern basin of the Verl, but for its sleen breeding. Thurnus, of the Peasants, of Tabuk's Ford, was one of the best known of the sleen breeders of Gor.

  Thurnus looked at me, and grinned. "I said, `Give me of drink,' small beauty," he said. He emphasized the word `drink.'

  "Forgive me, Master," I said, and, swiftly, turned to put back the Ka-la-na, and fetch the potent Sul paga. As I turned, hurrying, suddenly, frightening me, I realized the Ta-Teera had scarcely concealed me. This frightened me for I had become much aware, in the last few weeks, of the capacity of my beauty to excite men. Eta had told me that I was becoming more beautiful. I did not see how this could be. Yet, apparently, for no reason I clearly understood, I was becoming more provocative and stimulating to men. I suspect this. had to do with the gradual loss of layers of constriction and inhibition in my movements and attitudes, and expressions, the sluffing off of modes of impersonality and rigidity in which I had been conditioned since girlhood on Earth. I now related to men in a much more spontaneous and intensely personal way than once I would have dreamed possible. I now saw them as unique, exciting masters, each different and incredibly individual, who might, for a word or gesture, have me; how could I not regard them differently from a free woman; and, too, doubtless, they saw me in a similarly immediate and intensely personal fashion, not as an object shielded, by prejudice and law, and fear and pride, from them, even to touch whom could be a crime, but rather as a slave girl, vulnerable, exposed, at their mercy, unique in her exact helplessness and individuality, the same in some respects as all other bond girls and yet interestingly and profoundly different, too, from all the others. I shared the condition of slavery with other bond wenches, but each of us, of course, as masters know, in the depths and complexity of us, is a surprisingly and uniquely different individual, a latent prize for the chain, an astonishment fascinating to learn and subdue. I suspect the changes in me, at least in part, had to do with two things, the gradual stripping from me of negativistic Earth conditionings and, on the positive side, the Gorean acculturations to which I, a bond girl, was being exposed. I was learning my slavery. Oddly enough, in learning my slavery, I was experiencing an incredible sense of psychological freedom and liberation. I was liberated from political and economic roles of male impersonation and freed to be myself, a woman. The major difference in me, perhaps, however, was not behavioral, social or cultural, but biological. The cultural arrangements, as such arrangements should or may, liberated rather suppressed, constricted or thwarted my inner nature. My inner nature, thus, was permitted to open its petals to the rain and sunlight of a clean, honest, glorious world. I was becoming true to myself. I think that is it. In becoming true to myself, too, I was becoming happy. And, as Eta once told me, it is hard for a woman to be happy and not to be beautiful.

  I approached Thurnus with the Sul paga and knelt before him.

  But there is danger, too, in the slave girl's beauty, as any delight who wears the brand knows. As I had, naturally, inadverten
tly, almost in spite of myself, become more desirable and beautiful, the sexual aggressions of men against me, which I, as slave, might not resist, had become more frequent and powerful. Sometimes I was merely taken by the hair and thrown to the grass and raped, or seized by an ankle and thrown over a log, that I might be used for their pleasure, or kicked to my knees before them, that I might intimately please them. I was much at their mercy. They found me desirable. It is dangerous for a girl to be beautiful on Gor, particularly if she is a slave. The more beautiful and vulnerable she is the more likely it is that her beauty will be seized and dominated, and ruthlessly exploited, by masters. Consequently, though I loved my apparently increasing beauty, and desirability, and was incredibly thrilled with it, and my new attractiveness, I was not unaware that it was attended with risks. It was one thing to be raped by my master's men, and quite another to know that the same passions which I aroused in them I would similarly inspire in the breasts of complete strangers. I was not eager to be slave-raped by strangers, which, Eta assured me, was a not uncommon experience for a pretty slave. On the other hand, I feared slave rape less than abduction. I did not want to be carried away. It was one thing for a man to hastily use me and discard me; it was another to bind me and carry me away, to be his own slave. I did not wish to leave my master, whom I loved.