Conspirators of Gor (36 page)

I had made clear my business, that I was to deliver a message to the Ubar, or to some high officer, who might then convey it to him, and the note was then taken from me by an officer, not of high rank, perhaps the commander of a ten, who read it, laughed uproariously, slapped his thigh, and then, to my unease, shared it with others, while I knelt.

It, and its bearer, were obviously the cause of much amusement.

“Is there an answer, Master?” I had asked.

“Yes,” he said, and availed himself of a marking stick, and wrote something on the back of the note.

Still kneeling, I took the note.

“Thank you, Master,” I said.

“Is your ‘Mistress’ free?” asked the officer.

I fear he thought some jest was afoot, perhaps sprung from the humor of some fellow officer.

“Certainly Master,” I said.

Surely a mistress would be free.

“We will give you something for her then,” he said. Then to four of his subordinates, he said, “Seize and spread her wrists and ankles and belly her.”

“Master?” I said.

“This,” said he, “is for your Mistress.”

He then, and some others, with feet and spear butts, belabored a slave.

I wept with misery.

“Here is one for your Mistress!” said a fellow.

“And here is another!” said another fellow.

“And another!” said yet another.

“Aii!” I cried. “Please no, Masters! Please, no, Masters!”

Then I was released, and lay before them, on the stones, sobbing, and bruised, a beaten slave.

One may not, of course, strike a free woman. They are not to be struck. They are to be held immune from such corporeal indignities. They are free. Indeed, there are penalties for such things. On the other hand, I then learned, and later confirmed, that a slave may stand proxy for a Mistress’s punishment.

Supposedly this is disconcerting to the free woman, and she much suffers, being outraged, scandalized, and humiliated at her subjection to this vicarious chastisement.

The Lady Bina, however, who knew little of Gorean culture, failed to detect the insult intended, and bore up well under the ordeal.

“I do not think anything is broken,” said the beast.

“No,” I said.

When a slave is beaten the point is usually to correct her behavior, or improve her, not to injure or maim her.

Still they had not been gentle.

“It is past the Seventh Ahn, Allison,” said the Lady Bina. “Did you dally, flirting about the stalls and shops?”

“No, Mistress,” I said. I had been pleased, incidentally, that I had seen nothing of the offensive Metal Worker, for whom I had looked, the better to avoid him, of course. Certainly I would not have wished him to see me as I was then, stiff and aching, miserable and bruised.

“Four larmas for a tarsk-bit, especially in the morning, is quite a good buy,” said the Lady Bina.

“I did smile at the stallsmen,” I said.

“Excellent,” said the Lady Bina. “Men are such manipulable weaklings.”

“Some men,” said the beast.

“Squeeze the larmas,” said the Lady Bina. “There are biscuits, and honey breads, in the pantry.”

“Yes, Mistress,” I said.

“Wait,” said the beast. “There was a response to the note?” he said.

“Written on its back,” I said.

“It will not be important,” said the Lady Bina.

The large paw, five-digited, like a human hand, was thrust toward me, and I withdrew the note from my tunic, and, head down, handed it to the beast.

The beast perused the note.

Apparently he could read, unless he was merely taking the scent of the hand which had written the note.

“Oh!” I said, for the beast then did something which seemed shockingly incomprehensible. The lips of the beast drew back about its fangs, and it uttered a snorting exhalation of air, and then, three or four times, it leapt into the air and spun about.

I was muchly alarmed.

The beast was very large, and I did not know its ways. Had it gone suddenly, unexpectedly insane the apartment might have been damaged, and life lost. How long might such a behavior, or fit, endure? I backed away, on my hands and knees, terrified. The Lady Bina, on the other hand, seemed more annoyed than frightened.

I gathered she was familiar with such spontaneous, apparently irrepressible, exhibitions.

“Surely,” she said, “it is not so amusing as all that.”

Apparently the beast could read.

Such exhibitions I would later learn may, with slight variations, betoken enthusiasm or jubilation, high spirits, the appreciation of a deft witticism, an excellent move in a game, pleasure at unexpectedly glimpsing a friend, a fine shot in archery, a victory in the arena, one’s foe slaughtered at one’s feet, a splendid jest, and such.

“What does it say?” asked the Lady Bina, for the beast seemed in no hurry to surrender the paper.

“‘Put on a collar, and visit the barrack’,” read the beast.

“Do you think that would further my project?” she asked.

“No,” he said. Then he turned to me. “Squeeze the larmas,” he said to me.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

* * * *

And so I made my way toward the tower of Six Bridges.

I was wary, as I did not wish my laundry to be soiled.

There was a reason for my fear.

All this was before the incident of the blind Kur.

I had taken a roundabout way to Six Bridges, to avoid encountering the laundry slaves of the establishment of the Lady Daphne, a private laundering house in the vicinity of Six Bridges. In Ar there are several private laundering houses and they tend to live in an uneasy truce with one another, allotting districts amongst themselves. Six Bridges was in the district of the house of Lady Daphne. These houses do not relish intrusions into their territory, either by other houses or by independent services. Two of her girls, large girls, for such are best at such things, had intercepted me twice, once a month ago, and once last week.

“Discard your laundry,” had said one last month.

“No,” I had said. “Go away. Let me alone.”

“A barbarian!” had said the other.

“What do you have under that kerchief?” inquired the first. She yanked it back, down about my neck.

“Nothing!” laughed the second.

“Go away!” I had implored them, tears springing to my eyes.

“As bald as a tarn’s egg!” said the first. “She must have been quite displeasing.”

I was not bald now, but there was not much hair there either, little more than a brush of darkness, soft to the touch. Still I was happy to have so much.

“She does not please me,” had said the second.

“Is the laundry heavy?” asked the first.

“No!” I said, frightened.

“Yes it is. It is too heavy for you,” said the first.

“Stop!” I said.

The bundle was pulled away from me and cast into the gutter, which, in this district, runs through the center of the street. The two then trod it underfoot, into the drainage and mire.

“You are to accept no more customers here,” said the first girl.

“The tower of Six Bridges,” said the other, “belongs to the house of Daphne.”

I had then recovered the garments and returned to the house of Epicrates.

After that, for four trips, though I was terrified of the bridges, I had ascended a tower several Ehn from that of Six Bridges and warily made my way, by stairwells, and connecting bridges, to the tower of Six Bridges. Once I had seen the two ruffians lurking below in the street, presumably alert to intercept either me or another.

I kept to the center of the bridges as much as possible, kneeling to the side if a free person was passing. The bridges I utilized were not really narrow. Most were two to three paces in width. But they were high, and railless. Sometimes I became dizzy. It made me sick to look over the edge of such a bridge. I stayed as far from their edges as possible. “A barbarian,” laughed more than one person passing me. How superior they felt to me! How superior they were to me! Too, you tread roads, paths, and bridges to the left. I suppose this is natural, and rational. In this way your right hand, which might wield a weapon, a dagger or staff, faces the stranger whom you pass. Thus, on the left, you are better positioned to defend yourself, if necessary. On the other hand, in the part of my old world, that called Terra, or Earth, that part from which I derived, one treads to the right. How uneasy that would make you! Presumably there are historical, political reasons for that, perhaps involving a blatant declaration of differences amongst states, different symbols, different currencies, different customs, different practices, different ways of doing things. One does not know. In any event treading on the left, for a long time, made me uneasy, particularly on the high bridges.

To be sure, it was easy enough, soon enough, for the delivery girls of the house of Daphne to ascertain, from amongst their customers, that competition lurked about.

Accordingly, it took Lady Daphne’s ruffians, both natively Gorean, little time to extend their surveillance to the local bridges, this easily done from a higher bridge, or even from the roof of the tower of Six Bridges itself.

Accordingly, last week, seeing one of the two approaching rapidly on the connecting bridge, I turned about to flee, only, to my consternation, to see the other, who had been following me.

Caught between them, on the high bridge, I sank to my knees, dizzy and sick, and put down the bundle, frightened, trembling.

I knew, weak and unsteady, I could be easily swept from the bridge, and might even, trying to stand and move, stagger, and precipitate myself over the edge.

I began to shudder.

How close the edge seemed, the sharp drop much closer than it could have been in reality.

I could then not even manage to kneel.

So I lay on my belly, my hands at the side of my head, unable to move. I just did not want them to touch me. I felt wind on my tunic, I saw a wisp of cloud pass by.

“What is wrong with her?” asked one of the girls.

“I do not know,” said the other.

I was aware of the laundry being lifted, and, piece by piece, cast from the bridge, doubtless fluttering to the street far below.

The two girls from the house of Lady Daphne then withdrew.

I lay there for a long time, not daring to move, while occasionally a man or woman moved past me.

“Are you all right?” asked a man.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Do you want me to carry you into the tower?” he asked.

“No, Master,” I said.

Later, inch by inch, I crawled on my belly to the edge of the bridge and looked over the edge.

Here and there below, on a lower bridge, and on the street, I could see bits of the laundry, cast about, scattered, and crumpled. While I watched, a sheet was taken by a wind and swept from the lower bridge, whence it fluttered to the street below. An occasional person looked up, and then moved on.

After a time, I backed away from the edge, and then, on my hands and knees, carefully made my way to the security of the tower and the descending stairwell.

I recovered what laundry I could from the lower bridge, and the street, and returned to the house of Epicrates. I was not beaten. Lady Delia, companion of the pottery merchant, Epicrates, with coins received from the Lady Bina and the beast, later remunerated a number of customers who had lost their goods.

“It would be better, in the future,” said the Lady Bina, “if you kept to the streets, for it would then be easier to recover lost articles.”

“Mistress wishes to continue her enterprise?” I inquired.

“Certainly,” she said.

“Perhaps we could avoid the district of Six Bridges,” I said.

“If it were not the district of Six Bridges,” said the Lady Bina, “it would be another district.”

“Yes, Mistress,” I had said, in misery.

“Too,” she had said, “Six Bridges houses several of our best customers.”

“Yes, Mistress,” I had said.

And so it came about that I was taking a roundabout way to Six Bridges, this time, at least, again on the street level. Once more I was hoping to avoid the laundry slaves of the establishment of the Lady Daphne. I had first encountered them a month ago on the street, and then, more frighteningly, on the bridge last week. Usually, of course, I did not encounter them. Had I done so regularly our service would have been irreparably disrupted. Twice I had been accompanied in my rounds by the Lady Bina, and once by the Lady Delia. If the laundry slaves had been about then, and noted my passage, they had not disturbed me, as I was accompanied by a free person. The beast, of course, did not accompany me. It seldom went out while Tor-tu-Gor reigned amongst the towers. Had he been with me I would have had little doubt but what the laundry slaves of the Lady Daphne would have kept their distance, if not have fled altogether back to her house. Men sometimes became embroiled, as mercenaries, in the disputes between the laundering houses, but the routine policing of territories was generally entrusted to slaves.