Conspirators of Gor (93 page)

“Thank you, Allison,” said the Lady Bina, glancing briefly toward the door to her sleeping chamber.

“I did not think him such a scoundrel,” said Astrinax.

“Nor I,” said Lykos.

I shrugged, and looked down.

“Let us address ourselves to our feast,” said Astrinax.

Jane and Eve made to rise to their feet, to serve.

“Hold,” said the Lady Bina, smiling. “Allison has recently brought a package from the shop of Amyntas. Let us see what it contains.”

Lord Grendel produced the small sack from a pouch at his harnessing, and the Lady Bina undid the knot. “It is the signature knot of Amyntas,” she said. “Yes,” she said, “it is a deck of cards, all doubtless in proper order.” She placed the sack on the table, beside her plate. Lord Grendel then, also from his pouch, handed her a folded sheet of paper, which the Lady Bina opened. “Allison will help us,” she said. “She is illiterate, of course, but she recognizes cards by the designs, and she is quite adept at arranging them.”

“Should we not eat?” I said.

“Let us first see what we have here,” said the Lady Bina.

She then began to read the list of cards from the card sheet, and, as the deck was in order, the cards easily located, I quickly put the cards in the order called for by the card sheet.

“Good,” said the Lady Bina. “Here is the message.”

Astrinax and Lykos were smiling, which did not make me easy.

Moreover, I remembered the differences attendant on my last visit to the shop of Amyntas, at which visit I had received the sack just opened.

This recollection did little to assuage my lack of ease.

“Oh, look!” said the Lady Bina, brightly. “There is something additional in the sack.” She drew forth from the sack two coins. They were clearly not copper, but silver.

“Two,” said Astrinax.

Lykos looked at me. “That seems about right,” he said.

“Here is the message, Allison,” said the Lady Bina, holding one side of the deck toward me. “It is simple, it is short, it is in clear Gorean. Would you like to try to read it?”

“I cannot read, Mistress,” I said.

“It has to do with you,” she said.

“I cannot read, Mistress,” I said.

“Astrinax?” said the Lady Bina, handing the deck to him.

“‘As agreed,’“ read Astrinax, “‘here are two silver tarsks, for full and clear title to the barbarian slave currently known as Allison, the property of the Lady Bina of Ar, resident in the house of Epicrates, pottery merchant, of Ar.’“

“Mistress?” I said.

“You have been sold, Allison,” said the Lady Bina.

“To Amyntas, of Ar?” I said.

“Not at all,” she said.

“To whom then, Mistress?” I said.

“It is written there, clearly,” said the Lady Bina.

“To whom, Mistress?” I begged.

The Lady Bina looked to Astrinax.

“To Desmond of Harfax,” he said.

I looked about, wildly, from face to face.

“Sold?” I said.

“He did not want you as a gift,” said the Lady Bina. “He wanted you to know that you were bought and paid for as the animal, the property, you are. He thought that would help you to better understand that you are a slave, that you not only could be bought and paid for, but that you were bought and paid for. Coins have changed hands and now you are his.”

“He has bought me?” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“I have been purchased?” I said.

“As might be a tarsk,” she said, “or any other form of animal.”

“He now owns me?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Oh, Mistress!” I cried, elated.

“Surely you are plunged into despair,” said Astrinax.

“Oh, please, please, dear Lady, and dear Masters,” I said, suddenly, frightened, plaintively, “do not tell my master how I spoke this evening, do not tell him what I said!”

“We will not say a word to him,” said the Lady Bina.

“Not a word,” said Astrinax.

“Not a word,” said Lykos.

“Thank you, Lady,” I breathed, “thank you, Masters!”

“It will not be necessary,” said the Lady Bina. “He has heard every word.”

I looked toward the door of her sleeping chamber. In the threshold stood Desmond of Harfax.

“Master!” I cried, and threw myself to my belly before him, crying out in joy. I tried to press my lips, fervently, again and again, those of a slave, his slave, to his boot-like sandals, but I could not do so. He drew back. “Strip,” he said. I knelt up and slipped the tunic over my head, putting it to the side. “Master!” I said. But then he turned me about, and thrust me down, to my belly. My wrists were jerked behind my back, and bound together. In a moment my ankles had been crossed, and lashed, the one to the other, closely. “Please, Master!” I said. “Forgive me! I did not mean what I said! I love you, my Master! In my heart, though muchly resisting, I knew myself your slave, even from the Sul Market, long ago! And did you not look down upon me, kneeling at your feet, and know that I was your slave?”

But then I could speak no more, for the large leather ball, with its inserted, buckled strap, which had been forced into my mouth. Then it was secured in place, the strap pulled back, and buckled shut, tightly, behind the back of my neck. No longer might I utter intelligible sounds. Such were not now permitted to me. I whimpered, but his hand was placed in my hair, and twisted, and I winced, and knew I was to be silent.

He then knelt across my body. I was conscious of a flash of metal before my eyes, and then I felt the placement of a collar about my neck. It fit, closely. There was a clear, decisive snap, and it had been locked on me. I still wore the collar, as well, of the Lady Bina. “Key,” said Desmond of Harfax, extending his hand to the side. The Lady Bina placed the key of her collar into the palm of his hand. In a moment that collar, which remained her property, as I had been, had been removed. Desmond of Harfax then adjusted the new collar, his collar, on the neck of his newly purchased slave, Allison, a barbarian. At no time had she been without a collar, even in the brief moment of a transition between collars.

“What are you going to do with her?” asked Astrinax.

“What I please,” said Desmond of Harfax.

“You heard what she said?” asked Lykos.

“Every word,” said Desmond of Harfax.

“You were badly bespoken,” said Astrinax.

“Had a free man spoken so,” said Lykos, “it would doubtless be daggers on the high bridges.”

“Axes outside the great gate, swords at dawn, on the Plaza of Tarns,” suggested Astrinax.

“A free woman, however,” said the Lady Bina, “might utter such calumnies with impunity.”

“Yes,” said Lykos, “unless she were seized, stripped, and collared.”

“But this is a slave,” said Astrinax.

“She was insufficiently deferent,” said Lykos, “and she spoke ill of a free man.”

“Feed her alive to sleen,” said Astrinax.

“Too quick,” said Lykos.

“Throw her into a pit of osts,” suggested Astrinax.

“Too quick,” said Lykos.

“A pool of eels?” said Astrinax.

“Better,” said Lykos.

“There are many excellent possibilities,” said Astrinax. “A dark cell filled with hungry urts, a garden of leech plants, smearing her with honey and staking her out for insects, ants, jards, or such.”

I whimpered, on the floor, on my belly, nude, gagged, bound hand and foot. I squirmed, utterly helpless. I had no hope of freeing myself. I had been bound by a Gorean male. My fate was wholly in the hands of others. How could I sue for mercy? How could I perform the desperate placatory behaviors which I had learned in the house of Tenalion, behaviors which might mean the difference of life or death for a slave?

“She cannot plead for mercy, Mistress and Masters,” said Jane. “Permit us to plead for her! Show her mercy!”

“I am sure she did not mean what she said,” said Eve. “She spoke in misery and unhappiness. She was distraught. She thought herself rejected, and scorned!”

“She is a slave,” said Astrinax. “It is perfectly acceptable for slaves to be rejected and scorned.”

“Let them learn that they are slaves,” said Lykos.

“Show her mercy!” begged Jane.

“Please, please, Mistress and Masters, be merciful!” said Eve.

“She has not been fully pleasing,” said Astrinax sternly.

Jane and Eve regarded him, frightened. Eve regarded Lykos. She touched her collar. Her fingers trembled.

“Now be silent,” said Astrinax.

“Yes, Master,” said Jane.

“Yes, Master,” whispered Eve.

“Now, Jane and Eve,” said the Lady Bina, “let us be up, and about, and serve. Fetch fruit and salads. Warm the main dishes. Bring more ka-la-na.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Jane and Eve.

“And later,” said the Lady Bina, “remove your tunics and serve the ka-la-na to your masters, as befits female slaves. I understand that that is a beautiful ceremony, and afterwards, on mats I will provide, you may serve your masters the ka-la-na of beauty, of which I have heard.”

“Here, Mistress?” asked Jane.

“Yes,” she said.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Jane and Eve.

“Let us feast,” said Astrinax.

“By all means,” said Lykos.

Desmond of Harfax reached down, took my bound, right ankle, and dragged me into the sleeping chamber of the Lady Bina. There he shackled my left ankle to a floor ring, and returned to the main room to join the feasters. For Ahn, until dawn, I listened to the conversation, the recollections, the pleasantries, the merriment, in the next room. Then it was quiet outside the room, and, after a bit, after struggling a little, futilely, and hearing the light sound of the chain on the floor, which held me to the ring, I fell asleep. I did not know what would be done with me. Knowing that Desmond of Harfax was a decent and honorable man, though he might be a fearsome and demanding master, I was not afraid that I would be fed to sleen, cast to leech plants, or such. I was afraid that I might not be kept, that I might be given away, or sold. I knew I had not been pleasing, and it is a frightening and terrible thing for a slave not to be pleasing to her master. I did not awaken for several Ahn, because it was late morning, or early afternoon, when I stirred, and, as my consciousness and remembrance returned, found myself as I had been before, a bound slave. I think that Astrinax and Lykos, and their slaves, had departed. I sensed that Lord Grendel was outside, on the roof, where he commonly slept. The Lady Bina was in the room, on her couch, asleep.

Turning a little, I saw Master Desmond in the threshold.

I struggled to a kneeling position, and put my head down to the floor.

He pulled my head up, by the hair, not hurting me, but as a master might do such a thing. He then unbuckled the gag, and pulled the leather ball from my mouth. I was afraid to speak, and so remained silent. He unbound my ankles, and thrust a wastes bucket to me, and then exited the room. Gratefully I relieved myself. I then edged the bucket away, and remained kneeling, but up, as he had left me, my hands tied behind my back, my left ankle chained to the ring. I kept my knees closely together. When he reentered, I lowered my head. He was bearing a goblet of water, and he helped me drink from it. He then left the room again and, when he returned, he had some meat and bread, which he fed to me by hand. I looked up at him, grateful for his kindness. I wondered if he could read the gratitude, the hope, and tenderness, and the fear, in the eyes of a slave. I still did not dare to speak.

“Stand,” he said, coldly.

Frightened, I stood. He then put my wrists in slave bracelets, and then untied the binding fiber with which I had been hitherto secured. I gathered we were going into the streets. Binding fiber can be cut with a knife. It, and that which had bound my ankles, he returned to his pouch. Then, from the pouch he produced a leash and collar. I would then be leashed and collared in the streets. I saw nothing of a tunic or camisk, or ta-teera, or slave strip, and so I understood I was to be marched naked through the streets on a leash, as a low slave or punished slave. How amused would be other slaves, to see me so. To be sure, I was a barbarian.

Lastly, as I was now braceleted and leashed, he freed me of the shackle on my left ankle.

“Precede me,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

Chapter Fifty-Two

I cried out, in misery.

I was tied on my knees, my hands before me, fastened to the ring, in the small, bright courtyard, behind a house on Clive, that in which Desmond of Harfax had rented a room.

The lash fell again.

“Know that you are a slave,” said Desmond of Harfax.

Again the lash fell.

“Yes, Master,” I wept, “I know I am a slave! I am whipped! I am whipped! I am whipped as the slave I am! I am a slave, a slave!”