Conspirators of Gor (60 page)

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you are of slave interest,” he said.

I, kneeling, clutched my collar, with two hands, as though I would tear it from my throat.

“Rejoice,” he said, “not every woman is of slave interest.”

“I hate you!” I said.

“How long will it take you to finish the harness?” he said.

“I am nearly done,” I said. “Two or three Ehn.”

“Finish it,” he said, “and then deliver it to Master Astrinax.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“We will leave within the Ahn.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

He then left.

I was so pleased that I was such as might be of slave interest. What woman does not wish to be of slave interest?

And I knew I was such, for I had been collared. It was for women such as I that men had constructed the elevated slave block, that we might be exhibited and sold.

I then bent again, to my work. I began to hum. It was only later I realized that it was a slave tune which I had heard, long ago, in the house of Tenalion.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Please,” I said, turning my head away, and I felt his mouth on the side of my neck, above the collar, and then at the side of my face, fierce, under my ear.

It was the heat of the day. We had stopped, for two Ahn.

It was the fourth day we had been following the caravan of Pausanias.

I was pinned against the wagon wheel. At least he had not tied me to it.

“No!” I begged. I felt his hand on my left thigh. “Please, do not, Master!”

I had seen both Jane and Eve fastened at a wheel, but, in each case, for discipline. Eve had been tied with her back to the wheel, her wrists bound widely apart to spokes, and her legs widely spread, fastened, too, to spokes. She, in the care of Lykos, had dared to speak without permission, when she had not received a standing permission to speak. She had perhaps been testing him, to see, as the saying is, how many links of chain were permitted to her, which is an unwise venture with a Gorean male. She had discovered, so to speak, as she should have known, that the chain was quite short. Afterwards she had been almost inseparable from him. Sometimes he had had to order her from his presence. “I want him to buy me,” she had later whispered to me, in the darkness, in the wagon, when Jane was asleep. “I think I am his slave.” Jane, who was in the care of Astrinax, had been tied facing the wheel, naked, wrists widely apart, ankles widely apart, fastened to spokes. She had been lashed. She had tied a narrow, folded strip of cloth about her head, to hold back her hair and keep sweat from her eyes. This could be interpreted as a talmit, which is a common sign of a first girl, the girl in charge of other female slaves, who usually reports directly to a master. First girls are common when there are many slaves in a group, or household. They keep the other girls in order, assign tasks, settle disputes, and such. Many masters, if several girls are involved, do not care to involve themselves in such matters. It is enough for him to issue instructions to the first girl, usually in the morning, as she kneels before him, and she, according to her lights and biases, her choices and favorites, sees to their implementation. In a house containing a hundred or more slaves, there may be more than one first girl, there being various groups of slaves, and these first girls, in turn, will report to the first girl of first girls, so to speak. She, in turn, of course, reports to the master, or the master’s representative. In such a household the lower first girls will wear a talmit of one color, and the high girl, or first girl of first girls, she who reports to the master or his representative, the kajira sana, will wear one of a different color. The colors depend on the customs of cities, the whims of particular masters, and such. In any event, Jane, who was not first girl, as we had no first girl, had seemingly, without permission, arrogated to herself a talmit, commonly understood as a badge of authority. I had no doubt this was done in all innocence, and I am sure Astrinax himself thought it to have been done in all innocence, as well, but, still, it had been done, and the prestige of the talmit was deemed to have been compromised. Certainly Jane, and Eve and myself, who, to our misery, were forced to be present at the lashing, had had well impressed upon us the significance of the talmit. One lives in terror of it. She who wears the talmit is as Mistress to the other slaves, who will address her as Mistress. Slaves often live in terror of the first girl, speak deferently to her, kneel to her, and such. As is often the case, as with free women, we hope that men, given our beauty and sex, will protect us. Jane, like Eve, it seemed to me, should have known better. It is easy enough to knot a cloth about one’s neck and use it to wipe away sweat, and men, for some reason, seem to find sweat-wet hair, loose about a kajira’s features, attractive. Are they not lovely, even when hot and working?

“Please, stop, Master,” I begged Trachinos.

I heard a tearing of cloth.

“Please do not strip me, Master,” I begged, “not here, beside the wagon.”

“Elsewhere then,” he said.

“Please, stop, Master!” I said.

“You must have a use fee,” he mumbled, the words now blurred against my bared shoulder.

“Oh!” I said.

“Ah!” he said, triumphantly.

“Please, stop, Master!” I begged.

“You want it, slut,” he said.

“Please release me, Master,” I said.

“Do you resist?” he asked.

“I may not,” I wept. “I am a slave.”

“Do you doubt that I could make you leap to my touch?” he growled.

“No, no,” I said. I knew any man could do this to me. I was kajira.

How defenseless we are, in our collars!

“You do not own me!” I said.

“Who will dispute my use?” he said. “A woman, a Metal Worker?”

“Honor, honor!” I said.

“Honor,” said he, “is for fools.”

I was miserable, and his hands were strong, and I was kajira!

“Allison,” said a voice, pleasantly. “You have torn your tunic.”

I pulled away from Trachinos, and slipped to the side. I held the tunic, as I could, about me.

Trachinos had turned about, angrily, to see Desmond of Harfax.

“Be off,” growled Trachinos, “Metal Worker.”

Desmond of Harfax was unarmed. Trachinos, claimedly of Turia, had his blade at his left hip, suspended from the belt slung over his right shoulder.

“Do you find her pleasant to hold?” inquired Desmond. “I would think she would be such.”

“Go,” said Trachinos.

“It is not I alone with whom you might deal,” said Desmond, “but with Lykos, and Astrinax, and perhaps others.”

“Others?” said Trachinos, uneasily.

“I believe so,” said Desmond, politely.

I noted that Akesinos, lean and swarthy, as though from nowhere, was now in the background, rather behind Desmond. His shadow, however, was on the wagon, so I am sure that Master Desmond was aware of his presence. I supposed he was not so much concerned to conceal his presence as to have Desmond placed between him and Trachinos. One can face in only one direction at a time.

“What is her use fee?” asked Trachinos, angrily.

I suspected Trachinos was unwilling to bring his enterprise, his band in the hills, to a premature closure, thus perhaps precluding an access to a greater wealth, one which might await a more patient man.

“That would have to be arranged,” said Desmond, “with the Lady Bina, but I think I can speak for her, and that she would support my recommendations in the matter.”

“So?” said Trachinos.

“For most,” said Desmond, “I would suppose her use fee should be a tarsk-bit. Unfortunately there is no smaller coin. Perhaps one might split a tarsk-bit in two.”

I backed against the wagon, clutching my tunic to me. The boards were rough and hot.

How angry I was!

How I hated Desmond of Harfax! Was I, the former Allison Ashton-Baker, worth so little?

To be sure, she was now only kajira.

A tarsk-bit is not unheard of for a use, but the use would presumably be brief, as, say, for a coin girl, used on the stones of a street. It might be two or three tarsk-bits if one is going to keep a girl for the evening. To be sure, a slave may be rented for a day, or two or three, at some negotiated rate. Sometimes this is done to try out a prospective slave, to see if she is worth buying. If she wishes to be bought, she is zealous to please her rent master. If she is bought, and is truly owned, she may be sure that her former rent master, now her owner, will see to it that she is now held to standards of performance which she had scarcely dared to conjecture might exist when she was a mere rent girl. This is to be expected, of course, as he then owns her. The rent fee, incidentally, is often applied to the purchase fee. Apparently this encourages sales.

“A tarsk-bit then,” said Trachinos.

“For most,” said Desmond of Harfax, “but for you, a golden tarn disk, of double weight.”

Trachinos smiled.

“It is not that I think her worth that, of course,” said Desmond. “I would suppose her use worth would be something like a quarter or an eighth of a tarsk-bit, if that. Indeed, one would be embarrassed to charge anything for the use of such a slave, so inferior she is, but it is, rather, that, this afternoon, I do not feel disposed to deal with fellows from Turia.”

“I am not from Turia,” said Trachinos.

“You said you were,” said Desmond.

“Teletus,” he said.

“I see,” said Desmond.

“So?” said Trachinos.

“And I am even less disposed to deal with liars,” said Desmond of Harfax.

The blade of Trachinos leapt from its sheath.

I screamed.

At that moment, from somewhere on the other side of the wagons, I heard Jane scream, and Astrinax cry out, “Tarsk, tarsk!”

Trachinos turned about, startled.

I heard something, several things, seemingly large things, scrambling, and grunting and squealing, descending the hillside on the other side of the wagon.

“Into the wagon!” said Desmond.

Something from the other side buffeted the wagon, and it tipped toward us, and I heard a squeal, angry and piercing. Then, emerging from under the wagon, half lifting the wagon with its passage, was a large, hairy, humped, four-footed form, shaggy and immense, and it sped past. The wagon righted itself. I had had a glimpse of tiny, reddish eyes, a wide head, and a flash of four curved, white tusks, two like descending knives, two like raised knives, on each side of a wide, wet jaw.

Trachinos ran to the left, and Akesinos darted to the first wagon, and drew himself within.

“Into the wagon!” cried Desmond.

Dust was all about.

I coughed. It was hard to see.

The tharlarion had been unharnessed.

Master Desmond seized me by the upper right arm and right ankle, and thrust me into the wagon, over the wood, under the canvas, and I found myself on all fours, over the central bar. In a moment he was beside me.

The wagon shook, as it was struck again.

I heard Eve scream. She was sheltering herself behind the first wagon.

The wagons for the most part divided the running tarsk, like rocks dividing a stream.

These were the first Voltai tarsk I had seen. Though they were shorter and squatter, they were like small bosk. Several might have come to my shoulder. The wagon, struck, tipped again, and I cried out, but it settled back into place. Then it was half turned about, in a swirl of dust. There had been a splintering of wood. The wagon tongue had been half snapped apart.

Desmond of Harfax lifted the canvas and peered out.

I could see past him.

Suddenly a new form came bounding down the hillside, scattering rocks, and I put down my head as a bipedalian tharlarion, mounted by a brightly capped, lance-bearing rider, literally leapt over the wagon, and landed on the far side.

“Hunters,” said Desmond.

I was close to him. I wanted to be close to him.

Following were four other riders, similarly mounted.

One tarsk, snorting, spun about, head down, to face the riders. They were then about him, lances thrusting. I saw blood on the hump, running in the dust with which the beast was covered, and the beast then, with an enraged squeal, charged the nearest hunter. The tharlarion, its jaws unbound, moved to the side, and bit at the tarsk as it lunged past. The rider lost his saddle, and plunged to the dirt. The tarsk spun about to charge, again, but the tharlarion, apparently trained, interposed its body between the tarsk and the rider, its head down, jaws gaping. The beast never reached either the tharlarion or the rider, for its body had been penetrated by three lances, which pinned it in place. The dismounted rider then hurried about the beast, and leapt on it from behind, seized its long hump mane, and plunged his dagger into its side. The lances, which are smoothly pointed, to allow for an easy retrieval, were removed from the animal. The dismounted rider then regained his saddle and he, and the others, sped about the wagon, raising dust, following the first rider, and the running tarsk. The struck beast rolled in the dirt, bleeding, blood coming in gouts from its mouth, as the heart might beat, reddening the tusks, and then, after a time, it lay still, beside the wagon.