Blood Brothers of Gor (81 page)

"What is that?" I asked.

"Herself," she said.

"It is nothing," I said.

"Howo, Oiputake," called her red master, turning about. He was Wapike, "One-Who-Is-Fortunate," of he Isanna.

"Ho, Intancanka!" she cried, sprining to her feet, joyfully, and running to follow him.

Two hunters
 
I saw returning, friends; one was Cotanka, "Love Flute," of the Wismahi, and the other was Wayuhahaka, "One-Who-Possessess-Much," who had elected to remain with the Isbu. Once he had been Squash, a lad of the Waniyanpi. Across the back of he kaiila, before the lad, lay a tabuk. I was reminded that the Kaiila, in spite of the stores acquired from the Yellow Knives, much of which had been their own, from the summer camp, must still do hunting for the winter.

Hurrying at the flank of Cotanka's kaiila, welcoming him back to camp, was a blonde, barefoot, collared and wearing a brief shirtdress. It was she who had functioned, in effect, as a "lue girl" in one of he actions at the summer camp. She now belonged to him. A thousandfold and more, doubtless, had Cotanka seen that she had repaid him for her part inthe duplicity which had endangered him before permitting her to lapse into the stringencies of a more common slavery, that of the absolute and uncompromising bondage in which female

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slaves are typically, and without a second thought, held on Gor.

The hunters and the slave were met at the entrance to Wayuhahaka's lodge by another slave, a blond, barefoot girl in a brief, tightly-belted tunic of Waniyanpi cloth. She greeted her master radiantly. She lowered her head and knelt, crossing her arms over her breast. This, in effect, was a mixture of sign and Gorean convention. Crossing the arms over the breast indicates love in sign. That she had done this kneeling and lowering her head, then, signified submission, love and that she was a slave. She sprang to her feet at a command from wayuhahaka. The name 'Strawberry' was still being kept upon her. This seemed a suitable name for a slave. The tabuk was then slid from the back of the kaiila into the girls' arms. They staggered under its weight as it was, for such a beast, a large one. While the women worked the men would sit before the entrance o the lodge and talk.

"Wasnapohdi!" I called, seeing her passing by, a roll of kailiauk hide on her shoulder.

She, delighted, ran to me and knelt before me.

"Are you pleased with your new maser?" I asked.

"Oh," she cried, breathlessly, rapturously, "he is my master! He is my master! For years, in my heart, I have known I belonged to him! Now, at last, I am his legal slave! He is so strong with me, and perfect! I am so happy!"

Her new master was a lad of the Napoktan, some two years her senior, Waiyeyeca, "One-Who-Finds-Much," who, long ago, had once owned her when they were both children. He was now a fine young warrior and she a needful, curvaceous slave. One who found Wasnapohdi in his arms, I thought to myself, would indeed be one who had found much.

"I was so fearful that he would not buy me," she said. "I was fearfully overpriced by Grunt, my former master!"

"What did you bring?" I asked. I already knew, of course.

"Four hides of the yellow kailiauk!" she said.

I whistled, softly, as though astonished.

"Can you believe it?" she asked.

"I think so," I said. "You are, after all, a property not without certain charms."

"And Grunt, my master, would not even bargin," she said. "The price was put on me as a fixed price."

"I see," I said. This was unusual in the Barrens, and unusual, too, even in the cities.

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"And I," she said, "only a white female and a slave!"

"Grunt is a shrewd trader," I said. "Doubtless he was sure of his buyer."

"My master was not pleased to pay so much," she said. "When he took me to his lodge he was angry, and beat me. Then he made lengthy love to me, and I was his."

"I see," I said. Grunt had doubtless priced Wasnapohdi as high as he did in order that the young man might never again be tempted to lightly dispose of such a property. Yet I think this precaution was not truly necessary on Grunt's part. I di dnot think that Waiyeyeca, now having come again into the ownership of his former childhood slave, would ever be likely to let her go again.

"I shall miss my former master, though," said the girl. "Though he was strict with me, as is fitting, for I am a slave, he, too, was very kind to me."

"He saved your life at the summer camp," I said, "utting you on a tether and enforcing slave sanctions upon you, to lead you to safety."

"I know," she said.

"Doubtless, Slave," I said, "you are on an errand. That you not be whipped for dallying I permit you to be on your way."

She put down her head and, tenderly, kissed my feet. Then, with a smile, shouldered again the roll of kailauk hide she was carrying, she leapt up, and sped on her way. She was going toward the lodge of waiyeyeca. Something, I supposed, had been exchanged for the hide. Perhaps it would be used to repair one of the skins in Waiyeyeca's lodge. He had a woman now to attend to such matters. He had recently purchased her.

I continued on, then, toward my own lodge.

"Hurry, hurry, lazy slave!" I heard. I heard then the hiss of a switch and a girl, carrying two skins of water, cry out in pain. She was a white female slave. She was naked, collared, red-haired and large-bosomed. She belonged to Mahpiyasapa. One of Mahpiyasapa's wives, with a switch in her gnarled, mutilated hand, the woman with whom I had once spoken outside of his lodge before the attack on the summer camp, was supervising her in her duties.

The large-bosomed, red-haired girl looked at me. My face was expressionless. Then, crying out, she hurried on, struck twice more by the switch. She was now called Natusa. 'Natu' designates corn silk, or the tassel on the maize plant; it can also stand for the hair on the side of the head. These things,

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of course, are all silky and smooth to the touch. 'Sa' stands for red. The name, accordingly, has no precise translation into either Gorean or english. "Red Silk" will not do as a translation because corn silk, or the hair at the side of the head, is quite different from silk, the cloth. Similarly, the expression 'red silk' in Gorean, tends to be used as a category in slaving, and also, outside the slaving context, as an expression in vulgar discourse, indicating that the woman is no longer a virgin, or, as the Goreans say, at least vulgarly of slaves, that her body has been opened by men. Its contrasting term is "white silk," usually used of slaves who are still virgins, or, equivalently, slaves whose boies have not yet been opened by men. Needless to say, slaves seldom spend a great deal of time in the "white silk" category. It is common not to dally in initiating a slave into the realities of her condition. The translation "Red Corn Silk," too, does not seem felicitous. The best translation is perhaps "Red Tassel," the tassel being understood as that of the maize plant, prized by the red savages. The connotation in all these cases, with which the red savage, in the fluency and depth with which he understands his own language, is fully cognizant, and to which he responds, is tha tof something red which is pleasant to feel, something that is soft and smooth to the touch.

It was no mistake or coincidence that the red-haired, large-bosomed Natusa had come into the ownership of Mahpiyasapa. Canka, as a protion of his loot from teh Yellow Knives, had taken five hides of the yellow kailiauk. These he had given to Mahpiyasapa, as a gift, in a sense, but also, in a way, as a payment for his earlier acqusition of Winyela, whom Grunt had brought originally into the Barrens as a property for Mahpiyasapa. In taking these five hides Mahpiyasapa, in effect, forgave Canka for his exercise of the warrior rights which had brought Winyela's pretty neck into his beaded collar.

I had then, luckily, among Yellow-Knife slaves, discovered she who was now called Natus. Upon my expression of interest she had been given to me as a part of my portion of the loot. I had kept her for a bit, subjecting her to discipline and use, and then I had given her to Grunt. Grunt, happily, of course, sold her to Mahpiyasapa for the five hides of the yellow kailiauk which Mahpiyasapa had received from Canka. Canka, thus, cleared his accounts, so to speak, with his chief and acquired, thereby, a clear moral as well as legal title to Winyela. Grunt, of course, received his five hides and

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Mahpiyasapa recieved the rare, red-haired woman he had, in effect, ordered from Grunt last year. Mahpiyasapa, incidentally, was more then pleased with these developments. It had been so secret in the camp that he had regarded Winyela's breasts, at least for his tastes, as too small. Red savages often, like many men of the Tahari, tend to find a special attractiveness in large-breasted women.

On the way back to my lodge I passed a bargaining place, an open area serving for trading and exchanges, not unusual in an intertribal camp. There I saw Seibar, who had once been Pumpkin, of the Waniyanpi, trading, in sign, with a Dust-Leg warrior. Seibar was offering a netted sack of maize. The Dust Leg was bidding sheaves of dried kailiauk meat. No longer must those who had been Waniyanpi content themselves with the consumption of their own produce and deliver supluses witout recompense into the hands of masters.

The community was now, in effect, a small freehold in the Barrens, and yet, strictly, in theletter or the law, stood to the Kaiila as a leased tenancy. Not a square hort would the Kaiila surrender, truly, of their tribal lands. Yet the rend for the tenancy had been set at one ear of maize per year, to be deliverd to the reigning chieftain of the Isbu Kaiila. Yesterday this ear of maize had been deliverd, with suitable ceremonies, to Mahpiyasapa. The tenancy was subject to certain conditions, recorded suitably on two hides, each bearing the marks of the appropriate signatories. One of these hides remained with the Isbu; the other went to the leased tenancy. The two major conditions specified onthe hieds were that the tenancy was subject to review, to be followed by revocation or renewal, every tenth winter, and that the numbers of individuals in the tenancy were to be strictly limited, and excess in population to be removed by emigration to the lands west of the Ihanke. The red savages did not wish to countenance increasing white populations within their territories.

Thus, first, those who had been Waniyanpi were no longer slaves of the Kaiila and, second, they now maintained what amounted, for most practical purposes, to a small free state within the Barrens. These things were given to them as gifts by the Kaiila, in appreciation for the services rendered during the time of the war with the Yellow Knives and soldiers, for providing us with a tarn base within striking distance of Council Rock, and sheltering and supporting our men during the period of their training.

The community of those who had been Waniyanpi, of

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course, was not identified with a particular area of land, and certainly not with a territory occupied under the conditions of a leased tenancy. It now, in the Gorean fashion, for the first time, tended to be identified with a Home Stone. The community could now, if it wished, the Home Stone moving, even migrate to new lands. In Gorean law allegiances to a Home Stone, and not physical structures and locations, tend to define communities.

Seibar had wished to call the small community New Ar, but had abandoned this proposal in the face of an unfavorable reception by his fellows. Ar was not as popular with some of his fellows as it was with him, and that redoubtable municipality, the largest city in the Gorean north was unfamiliar to many of them, even in hearsay. After much discussion it was decided to call the tiny community Seibar's Holding, this being a manifestation of the respect and affection they bore their leader. The only reservations pertaining to this name seemed to be held by Seibar himself who, to the end, remained the stubborn champion of "New Ar."

The red savages, themselves, incidentally, have their own names for the new, small community. In Kaiila it is called "Anpao" or, sometimes, "Anptaniya." The expresion 'Anpao' means "Dawn" or "Daylight." The expression 'Anptaniya' has a more complex meaning in translation. It means, rather literally, "the breath of day." It is used to refer, for example, to the first, lovely glimmerings of morning. The expression is related, of course, to the vapors raised by the sun in the early morning, these perhaps, poetically and beautifully, as is often the case in the languages of the red svages, suggesting "the breat of day." In both expressions, of course, the connotations are rather clear, that darkness is over, that a new day is at hand.

I di dnot call myself to the attention of Seibar. Last night we had feasted. I did not wish to renew the bitterness of farewells.

I had soon, then, returned to the vicinity of my lodge. I was met there by Mira. She knelt before me and put her head to my feet. Then she lifted her head. "Word has come from the lodge of the dark guests," she said, "brought by Akihoka. The dark guest has pointed to the translator."