Nomads of Gor (17 page)

 
amber fluid, into which he shook a dark, bluish powder. He

 
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62

                       
NOMADS OF GOR

      
then took Elizabeth Cardwell in his left arm and with his

      
right hand gave her the drink. Her eyes were frightened, but

      
she drank. In a few moments she was asleep.

      
Once or twice that night, to Kamchak's annoyance and my

      
own loss of sleep, she screamed, jerking at the chain, but we

      
discovered that she had not awakened.

      
I supposed that on the morrow Kamchak would call for

      
the Tuchuk Iron Master, to brand what he called his little

      
barbarian; the brand of the Tuchuk slave, incidentally, is not

      
the same as that generally used in the cities. which for girls,

      
is the first letter of the expression Kajira in cursive script. but

    
  
the sign of the four bask horns that of the Tuchuk standard;

      
the brand of the four bask horns, set in such a manner as to

      
somewhat resemble the letter "H." is only about an inch

      
high; the common Gorean brand, on the other hand, is

 
     
usually an inch and a half to two inches high; the brand of the

      
four bask horns, of course, is also used to mark the bask of

      
the Tuchuks, but there, of course, it is much larger, forming

      
roughly a six-inch square; following the branding, I supposed

      
that Kamchak would have one of the tiny nose rings affixed;

      
all Tuchuk females, slave or free, wear such rings; after these

      
things there would only remain, of course, an engraved

      
Turian collar and the clothing of Elizabeth Cardwell Kajir.

      
In the morning I awakened to find Elizabeth sitting, red-

      
eyed, at the side of the wagon, leaning back against one of

      
the poles that supported the wagon hides, wrapped in the pelt

      
of the red larl.

      
She looked at me. "I'm hungry," she said.

      
My heart leaped. The girl was stronger than I had

      
thought. I was very pleased. On the dais of Kutaituchik I had

      
feared that she might not be able to survive, that she was too

      
weak for the world of Gor. I had been troubled that the

      
shock of her radical transposition between worlds, coupled

      
with her reduction to servitude, might disarrange her mind,

      
might shatter her and make her worthless to the Tuchuks,

      
who might then have simply cast her to the kaiila and herd

      
sleen. I saw now, however, that Elizabeth Cardwell was

      
strong, that she would not go mad, that she was determined

      
to live.

  
    
"Kamchak of the Tuchuks is your master," I said. "He will

      
eat first. Afterward, if he chooses, you will be fed."

      
She leaned back against the wagon pole. " right," she

      
said.

      
When Kamchak rolled out of his furs Elizabeth, involun

tartly, shrank back, until the pole would permit her to with-

draw no further.

Kamchak looked at me. "How is the little barbarian this

morning?" he asked.

"Hungry," I said.

"Excellent," he said.

He looked at her, her back tight against the wagon pole,

clutching the pelt of the larl about her with her braceleted

hands.

She was, of course, different from anything he had ever

owned. She was his first barbarian. He did not know exactly

what to make of her. He was used to girls whose culture had

prepared them for the very real possibility of slavery, though

perhaps not a slavery as abject as that of being a wench of

Tuchuks. The Gorean girl is, even if free, accustomed to

slavery; she will perhaps own one or more slaves herself; she

knows that she is weaker than men and what this can mean;

she knows that cities fall and caravans are plundered; she

knows she might even, by a sufficiently bold warrior, be

captured in her own quarters and, bound and hooded, be

carried on tarnback over the walls of her own city. More-

over, even if she is never enslaved, she is familiar with the

duties of slaves and what is expected of them; if she should

be enslaved she will know, on the whole, what is expected of

her, what is permitted her and what is not; moreover, the

Gorean girl is literally educated, fortunately or not, to the

notion that it is of great importance to know how to please

men; accordingly, even girls who will be free companions,

and never slaves, learn the preparation and serving of exotic

dishes, the arts of walking, and standing and being beautiful

the care of a man's equipment, the love dances of their city,

and so on. Elizabeth Cardwell, of course, knew nothing of

these things. I was forced to admit that she was, on almost

all counts, pretty much what Kamchak thought a little

barbarian. But, to be sure, a very pretty little barbarian.

Kamchak snapped his fingers and pointed to the rug,

Elizabeth then knelt to him, clutching the pelt about her, and

put her head to his feet.

She was slave.

To my surprise Kamchak, for no reason that he explained

to me, did not clothe Elizabeth Cardwell Kajir, much to the

irritation of other slave girls about the camp. Moreover, he

did not brand her, nor fix in her nose the tiny golden ring of

the Tuchuk women, nor did he even, incomprehensibly, put

      
her in the Turian collar. He did not permit her, of course, to

      
bind or dress her hair; it must be worn loose; that alone,

      
naturally, was sufficient to mark her slave among the wag-

      
ons.

 
     
For clothing he permitted her to cut and sew, as well as

      
she could, a sleeveless garment from the pelt of the red larl.

      
She did not sew well and it amused me to hear her cursing at

      
the side of the wagon, bound now only by a collar and chain

      
to the slave ring. time after time sticking the bone needle into

      
her fingers as it emerged through the hide, or fouling the

      
leather-threaded stitches, which would either be too tight,

      
wrinkling and bunching the fur, or too loose, exposing what

      
might eventually lie beneath it. I gathered that girls such as

      
Elizabeth Cardwell, used to buying machine-made, presewn

      
garments on Earth, were not as skilled as they might be in

      
certain of the homely crafts which used to be associated with

      
homemaking, crafts which might, upon occasion, it seemed,

      
come In handy.

      
At last she had finished the garment, and Kamchak

      
unchained her that she might rise and put it on.

      
Not surprisingly, but to my amusement, I noted that it

      
hung serveral inches below her knees, indeed, only about four

      
inches or so above her ankles. Kamchak took one look and,

      
with a quiva, shortened it considerably,-indeed, until it hung

      
even more briefly than had the quite short, delightful yellow

      
shift in which she had been captured.

      
"But it was the length of the leather dresses of the Tuchuk

      
women," Elizabeth had dared to protest.

    
  
I translated.

      
"But you are slave," had said Kamchak.

      
I translated his remark.

      
She dropped her head, defeated.

      
Miss Cardwell had slim, lovely legs. Kamchak, a man, had

      
desired to see them. Besides being a man, of course,

      
Kamchak was her master; he owned the wench; thus he

      
would have his desire. I will admit if need he that I was not

      
displeased with his action. I did not particularly mind the

      
sight of the lovely Miss Cardwell moving about the wagon.

      
Kamchak made her walk back and forth once or twice,

      
and spoke to her rather sharply about her posture, then, to

      
the surprise of both Miss Cardwell and myself, he did not

      
chain her, but told her she might walk about the camp

      
unattended, warning her only to return before dusk and the

      
release of the herd sleen. She dropped her head shyly, and

 
smiled, and sped from the wagon. I was pleased to see her

 
that much free.

 
"You like her?" I asked.

 
Kamchak grinned. "She is only a little barbarian," he said.

 
Then he looked at me. "It is Aphris of Turia I want," he

 
said.

 
I wondered who she might be.

 
On the whole, it seemed to me that Kamchak treated his

 
little barbarian slave notably well, considering that he was

 
Tuchuk. This does not mean that she was not worked hard,

 
nor that she did not receive a good drubbing now and then,

 
but, on the whole, considering the corneas lot of a Tuchuk

 
slave girl, I do not think she was ill used. Once, it might be

 
noted, she returned from searching for fuel with the dung

 
sack, dragging behind her, only half full. "It is all I could

 
find," she told Kamchak. He then, without ceremony, thrust

 
her head first into the sack and tied it shut. He released her

 
the next morning. Elizabeth Cardwell never again brought a

 
half-filled dung sack to the wagon of Kamchak of the

 
Tuchuks.

 
Now the Kassar, mounted on his kaiila, his lance under the

 
tip of the girl's chin. who knelt before him, looking up at

 
him, suddenly laughed and removed the lance.

 
I breathed a Sign of relief.

 
He rode his kaiila to Kamchak. "What do you want for