Rogue of Gor (3 page)

"Thank you, Master," she whispered.

She was a slave. I would permit her to attempt to placate me, in one of the ancient fashions of the female slave.

"I must soon be on my way," I said.

"Master searches for a slave, does he not?" she asked.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Do not ever let her forget that she is a slave," said the girl.

"I must be on my way," I said.

"Have me, but once again," she begged.

I did so, and then, later. I rose to my feet. I unbuckled the leather curtains and threw them back. The tavern was now empty and closed. I turned about and again regarded the girl.

She had replaced the loops of her jewelry and knelt before me, in the position of the pleasure slave.

"It is hard for me to think of you as a girl from Earth,” I said.

"I am now only a Gorean slave girl," she said.

"You danced well," I said.

An attendant approached from a side door. "I will put her in her kennel," he said. He snapped his fingers at her. "Come, Girl," he said

"Yes, Master," she said. She rose quickly to her feet and ran softly to him. He took her by the arm.

"She whom you seek is a slave, is she not?" she asked me.

"She is a legal slave," I said. "She is not a true slave."

She was then conducted to the small side door, through which the attendant had emerged. Beyond it, I gathered, would lie such things as the kitchens, the offices, the cellars and pantries, the storage rooms, the dressing rooms, the discipline chamber and the kennels. At the door the attendant let her pause and she turned to me. "Good hunting, Master!" she called to me. "Show her no mercy," she said. Then she brushed a kiss to me with the tips of her fingers in the Gorean fashion. I returned this gesture. She was then conducted through the door. In a short time I heard the sliding downward and locking in place of a kennel gate. Shortly afterward the attendant returned to the floor and let me out, through the main entrance. I heard it being bolted shut behind me. I stood then in the streets of Ar. I looked up at the moons and stars, beyond the cylinders and bridges. I then turned my steps toward the Street of Tarns, that somewhere among its many shops and cots I might arrange transportation northward, toward the Salerian city of Lara.

2

THE VICTORY CAMP

"Greetings, Lady Tima," I said

"Jason!" she said, struggling in the straps. "Do not hurt me!"

The night sky was red with the, glare of the burning city.

"It will be a tarsk bit," said the fellow walking down the long line of pleasure racks.

I placed a tarsk bit in the small leather sack nailed to the frame of the rack.

She pulled back in the straps.

"I will take you no closer to Lara than this," had said the fellow who had flown the tarn which had brought me to this place. "Tarnsmen of Ar," had said he, "patrol the corridor between Vonda and Ar, but are insufficient in numbers to guard the sky beyond the corridor. Too, tomorrow, as the cavalries mass for attack, the guard on the corridor itself will be abandoned." I had nodded and paid him, crawling from the heavy basket. On his return trip he would doubtless take refugees, or perhaps bound girls from Vonda, back to Ar.

"What news of the war is there?" I asked the fellow who was guarding the long line of pleasure racks. "I have just come from Ar."

"We have been successful here," he said, "defeating in battle both the forces of Vonda and those of the tarnsmen of Artemidorus of Cos. Vonda is being sacked. The city burns. This is a victory camp, one for loot and pleasure."

"Surely the Salerian Confederation is now committed to war," I said.

He shrugged. "Forces from Lam march north," said he. "Forces from Port Olni are within a hundred pasangs, marching south. They are delaying now only to match their strike with that of the men of Lara."

I nodded. It would be a pincers move, to take the men of Ar, far from their supply lines, on two fronts.

"We must now retreat," I said.

He laughed. "No," said he. "While those of Port Olni dally in camp we are marching upon them. We will take them separately., Defeating them we will return south to meet the forces of Lara, perhaps even here, in the sight of the ashes of Vonda."

"I see," I said.

"We fear only that the forces of Ti will be committed," he said.

Ti was the largest and most populous city of the Salerian Confederation. It had, to date, refused to involve itself in the machinations of Vonda and Cos.

"Surely it will be only a matter of time," I said.

"I suspect so," said the man. "Even now Ebullius Gaius Cassius, of the Warriors, Administrator of Ti, meets with the high council of Ti."

"Their delay seems inexplicable," I said.

"Those of Cos, enemies to Ar, and merchants of Vonda," said the man, "have precipitated the war, hoping to engage the entire confederation."

"A minority party then," I said, "is maneuvering the situation."

"I think so," said the man. "I doubt frankly that either Ti or Ar wishes a full-scale conflict."

"How much is this one?" called a man, a few racks from us. It was a blonde, strapped on her rack.

"Excuse me," said the man, turning away from me. "A tarsk bit," he said to the fellow.

"Surely," I said.

It was evening. Fires, on high poles, illuminated the area. Many men were about, moving here and there. From where I stood I could see many tents, long tents, and holding areas, where there were temporary stockades or circular embankments. Within these enclosures there were, for the most part, goods and prisoners. Two drunken soldiers staggered past.

"How were you taken?" I asked the Lady Tima.

"By soldiers, in the city," she said, "with others." She looked at me. "Be kind to me, Jason," she begged. "I am absolutely helpless.”

"How were you brought here?" I asked.

"On a rope," she said. "I was brought here, stripped, and fastened on the rack."

I looked down the long rows of pleasure racks, aligned under the high torches.

The blonde, a few racks away, in the same line, was crying out for mercy.

"Your market and goods?" I asked.

"The market was burned," she said, "and the goods
and slaves taken."'

"Did many of those of Vonda escape the city?" I asked.

"Many," she said.

"In flying over this area," I said, "I saw several stockades, mostly filled with women."

"We were hunted more relentlessly," she said, bitterly.

"Yet some women must have escaped the city," I said.

"Yes," she said, "particularly those who fled early. Many have gone as refugees to Lara."

The blonde a few racks away began to squirm and sob in her straps. "No, no," she begged. But she was not being shown the mercy for which she pleaded.

"What of the House of Andronicus?” I asked.

"Gone,” she said, "burned, its slaves and personnel fled or taken."

"What of the Lady Gina?" I asked. I remembered her with some fondness.

"Shackled," she said, "in the food tent, where she waits upon men."

"Do you think she enjoys serving them?" I asked.

"They enjoy having her serve them," she said, angrily.

"Doubtless," I said. "Do you recall the slave, Lola, of the House of Andronicus?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "I do not know her fate." Lola and Tela had been the girls who had first taught me Gorean. They had been the first Gorean slave girls I had ever seen. I had never forgotten my first sight of them. That such women could exist and be slaves had been a stunning and welcome revelation to me of certain of the realities of Gor.

"You had an assistant," I said, "a superb actress, who, pretending to be a mere Earth-girl slave, even to the collar and Ta-Teera, well prepared me for my sale in your market."

"The Lady Tendite," she said. "Don't touch me!"

"Yes, she," I said. "She well made a fool of me."

"Please, don't, Jason!"

"I believed her," I said.

"Jason," she begged. "No!"

"I believed her," I said, "completely."

"I am completely helpless, Jason," she said. "Please have mercy on me!"

"The sale must have been amusing," I said.

"Your hands!" she wept.

"Did you plan it together?" I asked. "Your body seems smaller and more helpless than I remembered it," I observed.

"Yes, yes," she sobbed, "but it was her original plan, her ideas. She thought it would be amusing to do it to you."

"I see," I said.

"Please stop touching me," she begged.

Suddenly, a few racks away, the blonde, throwing her head back, and rearing helplessly in her straps, screamed her submission.

The Lady Tima shuddered, and then, suddenly, lifted herself to me. But my hand did not quite touch her.

"Where is she?" I asked.

"She fled early from Vonda," she said. "She went to Lara. Please do not stop touching me."

"Are you prepared to beg to be touched?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "I beg it!"

"How do these things work?" I asked, looking at the rack.

"Jason, please!" she whispered.

"I note that you are not yet branded," I said, "nor, I suppose, are these others."

"Jason!" she pleaded.

"Speak," I said.

"We were put on the racks as free women," she said, "that we, the women of the enemy, be properly humiliated. Too, is it not a rich joke for the men of Ar that more than a thousand of the free women of Vonda adorn their pleasure racks, fastened down like slave girls, their use available for a tarsk bit to the passers-by?"

"Yes," I smiled, "it is a rich joke." The men of Gor are fond of such jokes.

"And only after this, our profound humiliation," she said, "will the men of Ar, if it should please them, see fit to permit us to be divided into lots, and be branded and collared, and sold into slavery throughout the towns and cities of Gor."

"Splendid," I said. "Splendid!"

She looked at me with horror. "Are you a man of Gor?" she asked.

I shrugged. I did not know.

Then again, suddenly, she lifted her body to me. "You have aroused me," she whispered. "You know you have aroused me, and cruelly."

"You lift your body like a female slave, Lady Tima," I said.

She groaned, and lay back. She moaned.

The blonde a few racks down was now sobbing with pleasure. She was alone. "Masters, Masters," she called. "I am only a tarsk bit! Please touch me!"

"What a slut she is," I said.

"Yes, Jason," whispered the Lady Tima.

"These straps seem to hold you quite well," I said.

"I am absolutely helpless," she said. "Touch me, I beg you!"

"The pleasure rack is an interesting device," I said. I examined the wooden wheels, the levers. In virtue of the axes of the device and the various gears and pinions, and the joints, braces, fitted, sliding boards, notches and lock points, it can be adjusted to a variety of positions. To be sure not all the pleasure racks were as sophisticated as that on which was bound my former Mistress, the former female slaver, the Lady Tima of Vonda. This device, like some of the others, had doubtless been brought from the city, perhaps dragged forth by shackled men of Vonda hauling on wagon ropes.

"Jason," begged the Lady Tima.

"I have never seen one this close before," I said.

"Jason!" she cried.

"You look well on your knees before me," I said.

"Jason," she wept.

I then bent her backward, and then, lifting and turning her, examined the left side of her beauty, and then the right. I then put her through a variety of positions, more experimenting with the possibilities of the apparatus than anything else, though the experiments had their aesthetic value, for the Lady Tima was a lovely woman. "Fascinating," I said. "Jason, I', she protested. I then, as I had grown more proficient with the device, used it for one of its two major purposes, that of exhibiting and displaying its helpless prisoner. Its second major purpose, of course, is to hold the woman in any position one pleases. I rotated her to her back. I then turned away. "Jason!" she cried. "Jason!"

I turned back, again, to face her.

"You have humiliated and abused me," she said. "You have turned me about and examined me on the rack as though I might be a slave girl! You have cruelly aroused me! You cannot leave me now!"

"I can," I told her.

"Please comeback," she wept. "Touch me! Touch me!"

"Do you beg it?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"As a slave?" I asked.