Nomads of Gor (42 page)

 
"Release her," said Kamchak.

 
1 reached into the pouch at my belt to secure the key to

 
the hobble.

 
"No," said Elizabeth, "I will stay."

 
"If Master permits," added Aphris.

 
"Yes," said Elizabeth, glowering, "if Master permits."

 
"All right," said Kamchak.

 
"Thank you, Master," said Elizabeth politely, and once

 
more put her head on my shoulder.

 
"You should buy her" said Kamchak.

 
"No," I said.

 
`'I will give you a good price," he said.

 
Oh, yes, I said to myself, a good price, and ho, ho, ho.

 
"No," I said.

 
"Very well," said Kamchak.

 
I breathed more easily.

 
About that time the black-clad figure of a woman ap-

 
peared on the steps of the slave wagon. I heard Kamchak

 
hush up Ahpris of Turia and he gave Elizabeth a poke in the

 
ribs that she might bestir herself. "Watch, you miserable

 
cooking-pot wenches," he said, "and learn a thing or two!"

 
A silence came over the crowd. Almost without meaning

 
to, I noticed, over to one side, a hooded member of the Clan

 
of Torturers. I was confident it was he who had often

 
followed me about the camp.

 
But this matter was dismissed from my mind by the

 
performance which was about to begin. Aphris was watching

 
intently, her lips parted. Kamchak's eyes were gleaming.

 
Even Elizabeth had lifted her head now from my shoulder

 
and was rising on her knees a bit for a clearer view.

 
The figure of the woman, swathed in black, heavily veiled,

 
descended the steps of the slave wagon. Once at the foot of

 
the stairs she stopped and stood for a long moment. Then the

       
musicians began, the hand-drums first, a rhythm of heartbeat

       
and flight.

       
To the music, beautifully, it seemed the frightened figure

       
ran first here and then there, occasionally avoiding imaginary

       
objects or throwing up her arms, ran as though through the

       
crowds of a burning city alone, yet somehow suggesting the

       
presence about her of hunted others. Now, in the back-

       
ground, scarcely to be seen, was the figure of a warrior in

       
scarlet cape. He, too, in his way, though hardly seeming

       
to move, approached, and it seemed that wherever the girl

       
might flee there was found the warrior. And then at last his

       
hand was upon her shoulder and she threw hack her

       
and lifted her hands and it seemed her entire hotly was

       
wretchedness and despair. He turned the figure to hen and,

       
with both hands, brushed away hood and veil.

       
There was a cry of delight from the crowd.

       
The girl's face was fixed in the dancer's stylized moan of

       
terror, but she was beautiful. I had seen her before, of

       
course, as had Kamchak, but it was startling still to see her

       
thus in the firelight her hair was long and silken black, her

       
eyes dark, the color of her skin tarnish.

       
She seemed to plead with the warrior but he did not move.

       
She seemed to writhe in misery and try to escape his grip but

       
she did not.

       
Then he removed his hands from her shoulders and, as the

       
crowd cried out, she sank in abject misery at his feet and

       
performed the ceremony of submission, kneeling, lowering

       
the head and lifting and extending the arms, wrists crossed.

       
The warrior then turned from her and held out one hand.

       
Someone from the darkness threw him, coiled, the chain

       
and collar.

       
He gestured for the woman to rise and she did so and

       
stood before him, head lowered.

       
He pushed up her head and then, with a click that could

       
be heard throughout the enclosure, closed the collar a Turi-

       
an collar about her throat. The chain to which the collar

       
was attached was a good deal longer than that of the Sirik,

       
containing perhaps twenty feet of length.

       
Then, to the music, the girl seemed to twist and turn and

       
move away from him, as he played out the chain, until she

       
stood wretched some twenty feet from him at the chain's

       
length. She did not move then for a moment, but stood

       
crouched down, her hands on the chain.

 
I saw that Aphris and Elizabeth were watching fascinated.

 
Kamchak, too, would not take his eyes from the woman.

 
The music had stopped.

 
Then with a suddenness that almost made me jump and the

 
crowd cry out with delight-the music began again but this

 
time as a barbaric cry of rebellion and rage and the wench

 
from Port Kar was suddenly a chained she-larl biting and

 
tearing at the chain and she had cast her black robes from

 
her and stood savage revealed in diaphanous, swirling yellow

 
Pleasure Silk. There was now a frenzy and hatred in the

 
dance, a fury even to the baring of teeth and snarling. She

 
turned within the collar, as the Turian collar is designed to

 
permit. She circled the warrior like a captive moon to his

 
imprisoning scarlet sun, always at the length of the chain.

 
Then he would take up a fist of chain, drawing her each time

 
inches closer. At times he would permit her to draw back

 
again, but never to the full length of the chain, and each

 
time he permitted her to withdraw, it was less than the last.

 
The dance consists of several phases, depending on the gener

 
al orbit allowed the girl by the chain. Certain of these phases

 
are very slow, in which there is almost no movement, save

 
perhaps the turning of a head or the movement of a hand;

 
others ate defiant and swift; some are graceful and pleading;

 
some stately, some simple; some proud, some piteous; but

 
each time, as the common thread, she is drawn closer to the

 
caped warrior. At last his fist was within the Turian collar

 
itself and he drew the girl, piteous and exhausted, to his lips,

 
subduing her with his kiss, and then her arms were about his

 
neck and unresisting, obedient, her head to his chest, she was

 
lifted lightly in his arms and carried from the firelight.

 
Kamchak and I, and others, threw coins of gold into the

 
sand near the fire.

 
"She was beautiful," cried out Aphris of Turia.

 
"I never knew a woman," said Elizabeth, her eyes blazing,

 
showing few signs of the Paga, "could be so beautiful!"

 
"She was marvelous," I said.

 
"And l," howled Kamchak, "have only miserable cooking-

 
pot wenches!"

 
Kamchak and I were standing up. Aphris suddenly put her

 
head to his thigh, looking down. "Tonight," she whispered,

 
"make me a slave."

 
Kamchak put his fist in her hair and lifted her head to

 
stare up at him. Her lips were parted.

 
"You have been my slave for days," said he.

 
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162

        
NOMADS OF GOR

        
"Tonight," she begged, "please, Master, tonight!"

        
With a roar of triumph Kamchak swept her up and slung

        
her, hobbled as she was, over his shoulder and she cried out

        
and he, singing a Tuchuk song, was stomping away with her

        
from the curtained enclosure.

        
At the exit he stopped briefly and, Aphris over his shoul-

        
der, turned and faced Elizabeth and myself. He threw up his

        
right hand in an expansive gesture. "For the night," he cried,

        
"the Little Barbarian is yours!" Then he turned again and,

         
singing, disappeared through the curtain.
  
!

        
I laughed.

        
Elizabeth Cardwell was staring after him. Then she looked

        
up at me. "He can do that, can't he?" she asked.

        
"Of course," I said.

        
"Of course," she said, numbly. "Why not?" Then suddenly

        
she jerked at the hobble but could not rise and nearly fell,

        
and pounded her left fist into the dirt before her. "I don't

        
want to be a slaver" she cried. "I don't want to be a slave!"

 
       
"I'm sorry," I said.

        
She looked up at me. There were tears in her eyes. "He

        
has no right!" she cried.

        
"He has the right," I said.

        
"Of course," she wept, putting her head down. "It is like a

        
book, a chair, an animal. She is yours! Take her! Keep her

        
until tomorrow! Return her in the morning when you are

        
finished with her!"

        
Head down she laughed and sobbed.

        
"I thought you wished," I said, "that I might buy you." I

        
thought it well to jest with her.

        
"Don't you understand?" she asked. "It could have been

        
anyone to whom I was given, not just to you, but to

        
anyone, anyone!"