Magicians of Gor (51 page)

“You may go,” I said.

“Thank you, Master!” she cried, and leaped up. She was in such a hurry that she

sped past the basket of laundry a pace or two, but then, suddenly recollecting

it, hurried back, picked it up, and then, balancing it on her head with two

hands, sped through the gate of the villa and up the path to the house. The

fellow had, in the meantime, seeing her approach, withdrawn into the house. We

saw her on the veranda where she turned once, to look at us, then hurried

within.

“A superb slave,” said Marcus.

“Yes,” I said.

“I expect she will be cuffed a bit,” he said, “either for dallying or for

permitting herself to be seen so provocatively on the road, with a dampened

tunic.”

“I expect you are right,” I said.

“To be sure,” said Marcus, “he will doubtless understand that she did not expect

to meet folks about, surely not at this Ahn, and that the tunic was dampened for

his benefit.”

“He will presumably, if he pleases, take such matters into consideration,” I

said.

“By now she has probably been cuffed,” he said.

“I would suppose so,” I said.

“Or stripped and lashed,” he said.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“And now who knows to what lingering, pleasurable purposes she is being put?”

“I do not know,” I said, “but it is my conjecture that she will serve well.”

“I do not doubt it,” said Marcus.

I looked about, turning in the saddle of the tharlarion. “I see no one on the

road,” I said. “let us now retrace our steps. By noon I wish to be southwest of

Ar, in the vicinity of the sul fields.

* * *

(pg. 299) “That is she,” I had whispered to Marcus.

“I am not sure I understand your plan,” he had said.

“Let us approach,” I had said.

The sun was now high overhead. It was much hotter here, in this area, and at

this time of day, than it had been earlier in the villa districts, in the hills

northeast of Ar, the Fulvians, foothills to the Voltai.

In the softness of the dust, then among the vines, moving across the field, our

tharlarion in stately gait, we approached the girl, she at the large wooden

tank, filling the vessels which would be slung over her yoke. She wore a brief,

brown rag, perhaps from some other girl who had been given something better. Her

hair had been cropped rather closely to her head, as is not uncommon with field

slaves. She was barefoot and her feet and calves were white with dust. She

lifted the large vessel from the tank with both hands, and then, her head down

for a moment, rested it on the rim of the tank. She then, after a time,

carefully, slowly, lowered it to the ground. It would not do to spill the water.

She moved slowly, as though her body might be stiff and sore. I conjectured that

her muscles ached. She was not accustomed, I supposed, to such labor.

As it was shortly before noon the shadows were small, and behind us, but she

heard the movement of the feet of the tharlarion in the dirt behind her and spun

about, frightened, immediately kneeling, putting her head to the dirt.

We halted the beasts some feet from her. She trembled. It would have done her no

good, of course, to have run, even would it have been permitted that she do so.

She could have been easily overtaken or ridden down, even trampled. It would not

have been difficult to head off or turn her back, or to have her between us in

sport, like some object in a game, a terrified, confused quarry, buffeted, or

struck to the ground, again and again, until perhaps she lay quietly in the

dust, trembling, and the tharlarion would come and gently, firmly, place its

great clawed foot on her back, holding her in place for our binding fiber. Also,

had we been slavers, she might, in her hasty flight, as we overtook her, have

been roped or netted. In the south, the Wagon Peoples sometimes use the bola in

such captures, the cords and weights, whipping about the girls legs and ankles,

pinning them together, hurling her to the ground, where, in an instant, before

she can free herself, the captor, leaping from the saddle, is upon her.

I let her remain in her current posture for a time. It is a good for a master to

be patient. Let the girl well understand the meaning of such things.

(pg. 300) “You may look up,” I said.

She kept her head low, but turned it, looking up at us. Her hair was light

brown, much lighter than that of the girl we had encountered to the north, in

the Fulvian hills. That girl’s hair had been very dark. I remembered it from the

camp outside Ar long ago. This morning, as we had seen it, freshly washed, and

still wet, it had seemed almost a glossy black. They were, as I have mentioned,

similarly bodied. This girl, however, I would have supposed, was not a dancer.

To be sure, she could undoubtedly be trained as such. As the female by nature

has feminine dispositions, needs, instincts and aptitudes, such things being

genetically coded within her, functions of her behavioral genetics, as opposed

to her property genetics, controlling such matters as eye and hair color, there

is a template, or readiness, for self-surrender, service, sensuousness and love

within her. These are, of course, familiar aspects of the female slave.

Accordingly the readiness for, and the aptitude for, slave dance, so intimately

associated with beauty and sexuality, displaying the female in her

marvelousness, excitingness and need, scarcely need be noted. These things,

incidentally, fit into a harmonious physical and psychological dimorphism of the

sexes, in which the male, unless reduced, denied or crippled, is dominant. This

sexual dimorphism and the dominance/submission equations do not require

institutionalized slavery. It is only that that institution is an expression

within the context of a natural civilization of certain primal biotruths. In

this sense of civilization need not be the antithesis of nature but can

represent its natural enhancement and flowering.

“Kneel straight,” I said.

She knelt then with her back straight, and looked up at us.

I stared down at her, at her knees, not speaking.

She put her head down, quickly, and spread her knees more widely. They made two

small furrows in the dust, and there was now a ridge of dust on the outside of

each knee. Did she not know how to kneel before men?

She looked up again, and then lowered her head again, spreading her knees even

more widely.

She looked up again, frightened, anxiously, seeking my eyes. Then she shuddered,

in relief. Her position now acceptable.

Her skin was burned from the sun. It was red and rough, peeling. In places it

was cracked from the heat and mud.

I glanced to the two vessels, to the side, now filled with water, and the

associated yoke, thrice drilled, with slender leather straps wrapped about it,

at the center and near the ends. The wooden vessels would be heavy in themselves

for (pg. 301) such a small, lovely creature, let alone when weighted with a

filling of liquid. She, too, following my eyes, regarded these things. “Your

labors seem arduous,” I said.

“It is as my master pleases,” she said, looking up at me once more.

“And your day is long?” I said.

“As my master pleases,” she said.

“You are a field slave,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“And that, too,” I said, “is as your master pleases.”

“Yes, Master,” she said, “that, too, is as my master pleases.”

“Your hair has been cropped, as is not unusual for a field slave,” I said.

“That it might be sold, Master,” she said.

“But doubtless it will grow again,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“And it may then be again shorn,” I said.

Tears sprang to her eyes.

“Verr are shorn,” I said, “and so, too, is the bounding hurt.”

“Of course, Master,” she said.

“Do you object?” I asked

She sobbed.

“Your head could have been shaved,” I said.

She looked up at me. I gathered she had not thought about that.

“Are you not grateful your head was not shaved?” I asked.

“—Yes, Master,” she said.

“Say it,” I said.

“I am grateful that my head was not shaved,” she said.

Whereas a girl’s hair might be cropped, just as her head might be shaved, as a

punishment, such a punishment would be quite unusual. After all, the master

commonly delights in the long lovely hair of a slave. Indeed, in most cities,

long hair is almost universal with slaves. There are many things that can be

done with such hair. not only can it please the master by its beauty and feel,

but it can serve to secure the slave, to gag her, and so on. The major reason

for cropping the hair of field slaves, both male and female, and certain other

forms of work slaves, it to protect them from parasites. For a similar reason

the bodies of the women transported on slave ships are almost always shaved,

completely. Even then it is common, shortly after debarkation, and this is

required by the rules of many port authorities, to subject them to an immersion

in slave dip.

“Whose fields are there?” I asked, looking about.

“The fields of my master, Appanius,” she said.

(pg. 302) “He is a rich man?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“And he has many girls,” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“He must have a great many girls,” I said.

She looked up at me.

She had a common black, strap collar on her neck, no more, really, than a strip

or plate of black iron. It was riveted shut, behind the back of her neck. I had

noted this earlier, given the shortness of her hair, and her earlier position,

facing away from us as she drew water. The legend would probably be a single

one, not even containing the girl’s name, probably something like “I am the

property of Appanius.”

“That a woman such as you is in the field,” I said.

Tears coursed down her cheeks.

“Keep your knees spread,” I warned her.

Swiftly she once more increased the angle between her knees.

She certainly did not seem to me a field slave. Rather she seemed to me the sort

of woman one would have expected to find in a house, hurrying about barefoot on

the tiles, one ankle perhaps belled, in a bit of silk, serving, a small,

luscious woman, well curved, smooth-skinned, and soft, her body perfumed for the

pleasure of men, the sort of woman one keeps in mind, the sort of woman who is

difficult to forget, the sort whom one might wish to keep close by, perhaps

keeping her at night at the foot of one’s couch, on her chain.”

“What is your name?” I asked.

“Lavinia,” she said.

“That seems rather a fine name for a slave,” I said, “particularly for a field

slave.”

“It was my name as a free woman,” she said.

“Then it is a different name now,” I said, “put on you as a slave name.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Stand, Lavinia, slave,” I said, “and turn slowly about, and then resume your

present position.”

She obeyed.

“You have good legs,” I said.

She did not speak. Her legs were a bit short, but excellent, rather like those

of the girl we had seen earlier. Such legs are excellent for slave dance.

“I suspect you were once a rich free woman,” I said. That seemed to me likely.

Surely only such would have been likely to have managed a tryst with the famous,

handsome Milo. She did not know, of course, that I had witnessed her netting,

and taking.

(pg. 303) She looked up at me, puzzled. “Yes, Master,” she said.

“But you are not rich now,” I said.

“No, Master,” she said, putting her head down. Now she would not own even the

rag she wore, or her collar. Such things, as simple as they were, were, like

herself, the property of her master.

“How came you to be a slave?” I asked.

She looked up, her eyes clouded. She bit her lip.

“Consider your reply carefully,” I said.

“I was taken to the levies,” she said.

“You have earned yourself discipline,” I said.

“Please, no!” she cried. “Have pity on me! I am only a poor slave!”

“Do you think it is permissible for you to lie to a free man?” I asked.

“No, Master!” she said. She put down her head, her head in her hands, and

sobbed.

“Your reticence is interesting,” I said. “The matter is doubtless entered in

your papers.”

“Yes, Master,” she sobbed.

“Speak, girl,” I said.

“I was taken pursuant to the couching laws,” she said.

“I see,” I said. Any free woman who voluntarily couches with another’s salve, or

readies herself to do so, becomes the slave of the slave’s master. By such an

act, the couching with, or readying herself to couch with, a slave, as though

she might be a girl of the slave’s master, thrown to the slave, she shows

herself as no more than a slave, and in this act, in law, becomes a slave. Who

then should own her, this new slave? Why, of course, he to whom the law consigns

her, the master of the slave with whom she has couched, or was preparing to

couch.

(pg. 304) “With what slave,” asked I, “did you couch?”

“I was only preparing to couch!” she said.

“But that is sufficient.” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

It seemed then that the rich beauty had received very little of Milo, scarcely