Magicians of Gor (34 page)

moving, and then, again, she stood before me, looking up at me, but now

trembling.

“It is appropriate, is it not?” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

I regarded her.

She looked away.

She was trying to deal with her helplessness, to understand it, and its import.

I wondered what her feelings would have been had she been a legal slave, and

known herself totally at our mercy.

“Will it be necessary to leash you?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

I then leashed her. “Now you will not run away,” I said.

“I will not run away,” she said.

“I know,” I said. I looped the long end of the leash three times. She looked at

the swinging loops, apprehensively. Most slave leashes are long enough to serve

not only as a leash but also as a lash. The length, too, permits them to

facilitate a binding, both of hand and foot. A common technique is to run the

leash through a slave ring and then complete the tie as one pleases, simply or

complexly. Many leashes, such as the one I had just put on the girl, are cored

with wire. This prevents them from being chewed through.

“Tarry here a moment,” I said to Marcus. To the girl I said, “Precede me.”

She went ahead of me some paces down the alley before I stopped her. “Do not

turn about,” I said.

I then turned back to Marcus. I pointed to the remains of the chest and touched

the knife at my side.

He nodded and drew his knife. On the lid of the chest he carved a delka, and

then set the lid against the remains of the chest, that the sign might be

prominently displayed. As we were not in the officer’s chain of command, he in

charge of the guardsmen of Ar whom we had earlier encountered. I did not (pg.

196) think he would be likely to follow up the matter on the girl’s disposition.

He would presumably take it for granted, that she might even now be in the loot

pits of the district of Anbar, awaiting the technicalities of her enslavement.

Had he been interested in the matter he would doubtless have seen to it himself,

or had his men see to it. Perhaps, on the other hand, he did not trust them, as

they were of Ar. I did not know. If an investigation were initiated, which

seemed to me unlikely, as many women were delivered on one pretext or another to

the loot pits, and there would not be likely to be much interest in any

particular one of them, Marcus and I could always claim that she had come into

the power of the Delta Brigade, and we had thought it best not to gainsay their

will in the matter, and indeed, I suppose, in a sense, that was true, as Marcus

and I, were, or were of, as it seemed better to put it now, given the most

recent information at our disposal, the Delta Brigade. Too, even if the matter

were not perused further, there would now be at least one more delka in Ar.

In a few moments we were out on the streets. Even though such sights were not

rare in Ar, in the past months, a free woman, leashed, in the custody of

guardsmen or auxiliaries, presumably having been appropriated for levies, or

perhaps merely having been subjected to irrevocable, unappealable seizure at an

officer’s whim, yet men turned to regard her as we passed. In spite of her youth

she was well formed. In four or five years I had no doubt she would constitute

an extraordinary luscious love bundle helplessly responding in a master’s arms.

A fellow made a quick noise with his mouth as he passed her. She lifted her

head, startled, in the leash collar. The meaning of the sound would be

unmistakable, even to a girl, signifying as it did the eagerness and relish

which the mere sight of her inspired in him. her face was soft and lovely,

gently rounded. Her hair was long and dark.

“She moves well,” commented Marcus.

“Yes,” I said.

“I think she has just begun to sense how men might view her,” mused Marcus.

“I think so,” I said.

“It is interesting,” he said, “when a women first begins to sense her

desirability.”

“True,” I said.

“And hers is such that a price can be put on it,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. Her desirability was so exciting that it could only be that of a

slave.

“Look at her,” he said.

(Pg. 197) “Yes,” I said.

“She is ready for the block now.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“I am sure she would perform well,” said Marcus. “And if she were reluctant to

do so, or hesitated for a moment, I am sure any lingering scruples would be

promptly dissipated by the auctioneer’s whip.”

“Undoubtedly,” I said. I had seen such transformations take place many times at

the sales. It is not so much, I think, that the lash, in such a situation, as a

punishment, changes the woman’s behavior, that she obeys because she does not

wish to be whipped, but rather that the whip convinces her that she is not free

to be sensuous, sexual, marvelous creature which she is in herself and has

always desired to be. In this sense the whip does not oppress the woman but

rather liberates her to be herself, wild, uninhibited, free in a sense, even

though she may be bound in chains, and sexual. To be sure, the whip is also used

to punish women, and they do fear it, and mightily, for such a reason. Sometimes

it is used too, of course, merely to remind them of what they are, slaves.

“How graceful she is,” he commented.

“Yes,” I said.

I suspected that a perceptive master might have a woman such as she trained in

slave dance, that she might please him also in this way. I could imagine her,

even now, in the floor movements of the slave dance. I wiped sweat from my brow.

How beautifully walked the girl, how conscious now, how proud, how pleased, she

seemed, in the abundance of her beauty, her desirability and power. How

different she was from many of the free women we had seen earlier being led

through the streets, piteous, overfed, stumbling creatures following behind on

their leashes, their heads down, loudly bemoaning their fate. But even those, I

suspected, given diet, exercise and training, could in time, be transformed into

dreams of pleasure.

“Slave!” hissed a free woman to the girl. Then she was behind us. Her voice

fraught with hatred.

“She thinks you are a slave,” I said.

“Yes,” laughed the girl, delightedly.

For some reason free women hate female slaves. They are often quite cruel even

to those whom they themselves own. I am not certain of the explanation of this

seemingly unreasoning, inexplicable hatred. Perhaps they hate the slave for her

beauty, for her joy, her truth, her perfections, her desirability, her

happiness. At the root of their hatred, perhaps, lies their own unhappiness and

lack of fulfillment, their envy of the (pg. 198) slave, joyfully in her rightful

place in nature. In any event, this attack on the part of the free women, which

happily had been only verbal, as they often are not, and the abused slaves in

any event dare not protest or object, as they are at the mercy of free persons,

was in its way a profound compliment. So beautiful and exciting was the girl

that the woman had naturally assumed she was that most marvelous, helpless,

lovely and degraded of objects, the female slave.

“Turn left here,” I said to the girl.

“Masters?” she asked, stopping.

“Left,” I said. As she was free I did not demur to repeat a command. Also,

punishment for having to repeat a command is always at the option of the master.

For example, a command might not be clearly heard, or might not be clear in

itself, or might appear inconsistent with the master’s presumed intentions.

Whether punishment is in order or not is then a matter for judgment on the

master’s part. In this case, of course, as we were on Tarngate, at Lorna, she

has every reason to question my direction.

“Masters,” said the girl, “may I speak?”

“Yes,” I said.

“This is not the way to the district of Anbar,” she said. Perhaps she thought we

were strangers, brought in as auxiliaries, and did not know the city. To be

sure, there were many areas in Ar which I did not know.

“That is known to me,” I said.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“We are taking you home,” I said.

“No!” she cried, aghast.

I regarded her.

“You are to take me to the loot area in the district of Anbar!” she said. “When

I was within the chest I heard it so said!”

“You are going home,” I said.

“We could sell her,” said Marcus.

“Yes!” she said. “Sell me!”

“No,” I said. “You are going home.”

She tried to back away but in an instant was stopped, the inside of the leash

collar tight against the back of her neck. “Perhaps you have forgotten that you

are leashed, female,” I said.

She approached me and fell to her knees before me, the leash looping up to my

hand. She put her head to the stones, at my feet. I think she then, better than

before, understood her helplessness, and the meaning of the leash, and why I had

put it on her.

(pg. 199) “I thought you said you would not run away,” I said.

She lifted her head. “I cannot run away,” she said. “I am leashed!”

“Yes,” I said.

“I am in your power,” she said. “You can do with me as you wish. I beg to be

taken to the loot pits. I beg to be taken there, or sold?”

“No,” I said.

“Keep me then for yourselves!” she said, looking from me to Marcus, and back

again.

“No,” I said.

“Surely you do not doubt that I am a slave, and need to be a slave!” she wept.

“I do not doubt that,” I said. “But I think it is a bit early to harvest you.”

“Surely that is a matter of opinion,” said Marcus.

“True,” I granted him.

“Surely you have seen such slips of girls chained in the loot lines of conquered

cities,” he said.

“Yes,” I admitted.

“They do no discriminate against them there, do they?” he said.

“No,” I said.

“And surely you have been pleasured in various taverns by such,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “Even though they do not yet have the full perfections of their

femaleness upon them.”

“What scruple then,” asked he,” gives you pause?”

“She is rather young,” I said. “Also we owe something to her father.”

“What is that?” he asked.

“He is a brave man,” I said.

“Brave?” asked Marcus. “Did you not observe his wringing of hands, his wailing

unmaniless, his terror, his obsequiousness, not see to what extent he would go

to accommodate himself to Cosian will?”

“It is true, Masters,” said the girl, “if I may speak, as I gather I may, as you

seem to insist upon treating me as a free woman. My father is a negligible

coward.”

“No,” I said. “He is a brave man.”

“I believe I know him better than you,” she said.

“Surely Marcus,” I said, “you would not begrudge the fellow (pg. 200) a certain

dismay over the destruction of his shop and the grievous impairment of his means

of livelihood.”

“His reaction was excessive,” said Marcus.

“Exaggerated, you think?”

“If you wish,” he said.

“For the benefit of whom, do you suppose?” I asked.

“I do not understand,” said Marcus.

“What would you have done?” I asked.

“I would have scorned the Cosian openly,” said Marcus, “or set upon him, and the

others, with my sword.”

“Are you a tradesman?” I asked.

“No,” said he. “I am of the Scarlet Caste.”

“And what if you were a tradesman?”

“I?” he asked, angrily.

“Do you think that in castes other than your own there are no men?”

“I would have scorned them even if I were a confectioner,” said Marcus.

“And hurled sweets at them?”

“Be serious,” said he, irritably.

“And presumably, by now,” I said, “You would have been beaten, or maimed or

slain, and your property confiscated. At the least you would have been entered

on one of the lists of suspicion, your movements subject to surveillance, your

actions the objects of reports.”

“This is more of your Kaissa,” said he, distastefully.

“As a warrior,” said I, “ surely you are aware of the virtues of concealment, of

subterfuge.”

“No,” said he girl. “My father is a coward. I know him.”

“You have mistaken concern for cowardice,” I said.

“My father does not understand me,” she said.

“No fathers understand their daughters,” I said. “They only love them.”

“You saw to what an extent he would go to accommodate himself to Cosian will,”

said Marcus.

“To protect his daughter,” I said. “Surely you, in his place, in his

helplessness, lacking you sword, your skills, would have done as much, or more.”

“I do no want his protection,” said the girl. “He keeps me from myself!”

“He see you in terms of one ideal,” I said, “while it is actually another, one

more profound, which you manifest.”

“I do not want to go back to him,” she said.

“He loves you,” I said.

“I despise him!” she said.

(pg. 201) “It is true that sometimes strangers understand a woman better than

those closest to her, and see what she is, and needs. They see her more

directly, more as herself, and less through their own distorting lenses, lenses

they themselves have ground, lenses which would show her not as she is but as

they require her to be.”