Captive of Gor (23 page)

“Yes, Master,” I said, and went to the side of the large slave room in the

public pens of Ko-ro-ba.

“I, too, am of the leather workers,” Ute told the leather worked, with the

needle.

“No,” he said, “you are only a slave.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

I saw her kneel, very straight, on the wood, and watched the needle pass through

her right ear lobe. She did not cry out. Perhaps she wished to show courage

before one who was of the leather workers.

The lady Rena of Lydius flung herself naked, on her knees, before Targo. She

lifted her hands to him.

“You took me on contract,” she said. “You captured me for another! Surely you

will not do this to me! My master would surely object! Do not do this cruel

thing to me! My master would not wish it!”

“Your master,” said Targo, “he who arranged for your capture and delivery,

instructed that you be delivered to him with the pierced ears of a slave girl.”

“No,” she wept. “No!”

A guard dragged the distraught Lady Rena of Lydius, a slave girl, back to her

place in the line.

Inge then knelt before Targo. “I am of the scribes,” she said, “of high caste.

Do not permit this to be done to me!”

“Your ears will be pierced,” said Targo.

She wept, and was dragged back to her place in line.

Lana then approached Targo.

I hated her.

She knelt before him, ingratiatingly, and put her head down. “Please, Master,”

she wheedled. “Let it be done to the other girls, if you wish, but not Lana.

Lana would (pg. 159) not like it. It would make Lana sad. Lana would be happy if

master would not have it done to her.”

I stood against the wall, in fury.

“Your ears will be pierced,” said Targo.

I smiled.

“It will lower my price!” cried Lana.

“I do not think so,” smiled Targo.

Ute had now had her left, as well as her right, ear lobe pierced, and had had

the tiny steel rods and disks fixed in her ears. She was trying not to cry. She

came and stood next to me.

She looked at me. “You are so brave, El-in-or,” she said.

I did not answer her.

I was watching Lana and Targo.

“Please!” wept Lana, now genuinely frightened, and distressed, fearing that

Targo would not yield to her entreaties. “Please!”

“Your ears will be pierced,” said Targo.

“No,” cried Lana, terrified, weeping. “Please!”

“Take this slave away,” said Targo.

I smiled as Lana was dragged, weeping, by a guard to her place in line.

The Lady Rena of Lydius now left the platform, the rods fixed in her ear wounds.

She could scarcely walk. A guard, holding her by the arm, half carried her to

the wall, where he left her. She fell to her knees, and covered her face with

her hands, weeping.

“I am a slave girl,” she wept. “I am a slave girl.”

Inge, terrified, was now thrust onto the wooden platform.

I had no impulse to comfort the Lady Rena of Lydius. She was a fool. So, too,

were Ute, and Inge, and the others.

It was interesting to me that the girls so objected to the piercing of their

ears. What fools they were. I had never had my ears pierced on Earth, of course,

but I had contemplated having it done. I might have had it done, if I had

remained on Earth. Surely a great many of the girls and women I knew on Earth

had had their ears pierced. How else would one wear the finest earrings? What

fools these girls were.

(pg. 160) Inge shrieked, more with humiliation than pain, as the needle thrust

through her right ear lobe.

“Be quiet, Slave,” said the leather worker.

Inge stifled her sobs.

“Do not move,” he cautioned her.

“Yes, Master,” she whimpered.

The piercing of the ears of women, only of slave girls, of course, was a custom

of distant Turia, famed for its wealth and its nine great gates. It lay on the

southern plains of Gor, far below the equator, the hub of an intricate pattern

of trade routes. Some two or three years ago it had fallen to barbarians,

nomadic warriors, and many of its citizens, in flight from the city, had escaped

north. With then had come certain articles, techniques and customs. One could

tell a Turian because he insisted on celebrating the New Year at the summer

solstice, for instance. They also used very sweet, syrupy wines, which were now,

in many cities, available. The Turian collar, too, a looser ring of steel, large

enough for a man’s fist to grasp on the girl’s throat, was occasionally seen now

in the northern cities. The piercing of the ears of slave girls, that they might

have earrings fastened in them, was another Turian custom. It has been known on

Gor before, but it was only with the flight of the escaping Turians that it had

become more widespread recently.

The Turian camisk was also now occasionally see. It is rather like an inverted

“T”, the bar of the “T” having beveled edges. It passes from the girl’s throat,

in front of her body, between her legs, and is then lifted, pulled tight, and

wrapped about the thighs. Its single cord fastens the garment behind the girl’s

neck, behind her back and then, after passing about her body once or twice, ties

in front. It conceals her brand but exposes her back. The cord makes it possible

to adjust the garment to a given girl. Tightening the cord accentuates her

figure. The Turian camisk is worn tightly. Turians are barbarians. In private

pens of Ko-ro-ba, where we were taken daily for training, we were taught to wear

the garment. A master might require it of us. It is said that only a man knows

how to tie a Turian camisk on a girl properly. There are many such saying on

Gor.

(pg. 161) Inge was thrown, forcibly, against the wall, weeping. In her ears were

the tiny metal rods. She tried to pull them from her ears and the guard,

angrily, cuffed her, and , with a foot of binding fiber, lashed her wrists

behind her body.

Inge was such a fool.

She knelt against the wall, the side of her face thrust against the boards,

staining them with tears, her entire body shaking.

Ute was kneeling beside the Lady Rena of Lydius, who seemed uncontrollable. She

had her arms about her shoulders, trying to soothe her.

Ute looked up at me. “You are so brave, El-in-or,” she whispered.

“You are a fool,” I told her.

Lana crept to the wall and knelt there, her face in her hands.

“I hate Turians,” screamed the Lady Rena of Lydius.

Ute held her more closely. She kissed her. The Lady Rena put down her head,

weeping.

Turia, I had heard, had not been destroyed. Indeed, I had heard that it now

stood once again, much as before, the sovereign city of the southern plains, and

that much of its wealth, by exchanges and trading, had been regained. It was

fortunate, I gathered, for the economy of Gor, particularly the south, that the

city had not been destroyed. Much of the hides, the horn and leather which found

its way northward came from Turia, obtained from the Wagon Peoples of the

treeless, southern plains, and many of the manufactured goods, and goods of

price, which found their way to the far south, and even to the Wagon Peoples,

were produced in, or passed through Turia. Perhaps the Tuchuks, one of the

fierce Wagon Peoples, traditional enemies of Turia, her conquerors, had spared

her for such reasons that they might have outlet for their goods and a source of

goods they could not well manufacture, or acquire, for themselves. For whatever

reasons, Turia, though once conquered, had been spared. It was the best known of

the Gorean cities below the equator, sometimes called Ar of the south.

(pg. 162) “I hate Turians!” screamed the Lady Rena of Lydius. “I hate them!”

“Be silent, Slave,” I told her.

“Do not scold her, El-in-or,” chided Ute. “She is sad.” Do not cry so, Lady

Rena,” said Ute to the girl. She again held her and kissed her.

I looked away. I was hungry. The last of the girls, her ears pierced, fled from

the low, wooden platform, running to crouch among us, weeping, at the wall.

I hoped that we would have a good lunch. The food was better in the private

pens, where we were trained, than in the public pens of Ko-ro-ba, areas of which

were available for rent to passing slavers, where we were housed at night. In

the public pens, state slaves are kept as well as the merchandise of slave

caravans passing through the city. A master of the city, of course, who might be

leaving the city temporarily, could also rent space in the public pens, to board

his slaves, there. Most masters, however, if inclined to board their slaves,

would do so at the private pens, where the food and facilities were better.

Another reason for a master to board a slave at the private pens, of course, is

that she might, while there, be given training, or further training, that she

might be more delicious slave to him upon his return. Indeed, even if a master

does not leave the city, it is not unknown for him to send a girl to the private

pens, that her value to him, and to others, if she be sold, might be improved.

Girls, incidentally, do not care to be boarded. Life in the pens, intentionally,

is made hard. When released from the pens, a girl is almost always desperately

eager to please her master, that she not be returned to them, for further

training.

We trained during the day, commonly in private facilities, under the tutelage of

pleasure slaves, but in the evening we would be returned to the long tiers of

cages in the public pens. These cages are heavily barred, and the bars are

rather, irritatingly, widely set, but we cannot squeeze between them. The cages

are strong enough to hold men, which, doubtless, sometimes they do. Straw is

spread on the metal plating which is the floor. There are four girls to a cage.

I shared (pg. 163) mine with Ute, Inge and Lana. We are supposed to keep our own

cage clean, but Lana and I let Inge and Ute do this work. We are too valuable to

do such work.

I did not care particularly for the wooden bowls of stew and bread we commonly

had at the public pens, but I was hungry and ready to eat even such, and with

enthusiasm. In vegetables and fruits, and, if our group had trained, acceptably,

after the evening meal, before being returned, hooded, to the public pens, we

would be given candies or pastries, or, sometimes, a swallow of Ka-la-na wine.

Once Inge had broken down in training, and wept, and we had been denied our

little delicacies. When we reached the cage at the public pens Lana and I had

beaten her, preventing Ute from interfering.

“El-in-or” snapped Targo.

I gathered he must have called once before, and I had not heard.

I ran to him and knelt before him.

“To the platform,” he said.

I looked up at him. “Why?” I asked.

He looked at me.

Quickly I leaped up and ran to the low wooden platform, and knelt again upon it.

I did not understand.

The leather worker had not left the room. He was reaching into his leather bag.

I was puzzled. Then it occurred to me that he must want to check the rods in my

ears, to see that they were fixed properly.

I knelt quite straight, but impatiently. I wanted my lunch.

I wished that he would hurry.

“Put your head back,” he said.

I looked at him with sudden apprehension. In his hand he held something which

looked like a pair of plies, except that the claws were extremely slender, and

bent in such a way as to touch one another, at the tips scarcely more than a

needle’s width.

“What is that?” I asked.

(pg. 164) “A punch,” said Targo.

“Put your head back,” said the leather worker.

“No,” I whispered. “What are you going to do?”

“Do not be afraid, El-in-or,” called Ute. “It is nothing.”

I wished she would be quiet.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, frightened.

“Someday a master may wish to put a nose ring on you,” explained Targo. “This

way you will be ready.”

“No!” I screamed. “No! No!”

The other girls looked up, from their own misery, puzzled, watching me.

“No!’ I wept. “Please! Please!”

“Put your head back,” repeated the leather worker, irritated.

Targo looked at me puzzled. He seemed genuinely disappointed. “But you are

brave,” he said. “You are the brave one.”

Suddenly I went to pieces, horrified, hysterical. “No!” I screamed. I tried to

scramble from the platform. The leather worker seized me. “Hold her!” he said.

“Bind her,” said Targo.

I, held by the leather worker, cast wild eyes on Targo, “No, Master!” I

implored. “Please!” but already my ankles were being tied together. Another

guard pulled my hands behind my back and my wrists were lashed together.

“No!” I screamed. “No!”

Two guards held me by the arms on the platform. Another guard put his left arm

about my throat, from behind, and with his right hand in my hair, pulled my head

back, holding it still.

I could not scream. The guard’s arm on my throat was tight.

“Do not move,” commanded the leather worker.

I felt the back of the claws of the punch enter my nostrils, distending them.

There was a tiny, sharp click. Tears burst into my eyes. I felt acute pain for

an instant, and then a prolonged, burning, stinging sensation.