Slave Girl of Gor (28 page)

I heard a young man running by. I shrank back in the shadows, crouching among the pilings of a hut.

I did not want them to catch me. I was locked within the palisade. There was no place to hide!

I heard a girl scream, far to my right. They had taken one of us. I did not know whom.

I did not want a rope put on my throat. I did not want to be dragged to the circle of the torch, a caught girl.

Two young men came by, with torches. I hid back, among the pilings.

Shortly after they had passed, the sleen in a pen, some fifty yards off, began to squeal and hiss. They ran toward the pen. Something had disturbed the sleen. Perhaps it was a girl.

Two more young men were approaching, one holding aloft a torch. Again I shrank back among the pilings, holding my breath. They passed.

I saw them stop beside a hut several yards away. The one lifted the torch. It illuminated what appeared to be a pile of canvas. They stood there, one on each side of the pile, it almost at their feet. Cruelly they stood there, not moving. Donna would know that their footsteps had approached. They had not departed. She must, surely, fearfully suspect that her position was known. Yet she did not know for certain. How miserable she must have felt, huddling beneath the canvas, how tense and terrified, how apprehensive. Cruelly they stood as they were, not moving, for almost a minute. She could hear the crackle of the torch. Did they know where she was? Were they playing with the beauty, tormenting her? Longer yet did they stand there, and then, exchanging glances, one of them, with a sudden, loud cry, pounced on the pile of canvas. Shrieking with misery Donna was lifted, by one ankle and an arm, high into the air, over the head of the boy who had seized her. He held her over his head. She struggled, held from the ground, high, helpless, her lovely limbs without leverage. "Capture!" cried the boy. "Capture!" cried another lad, coming from the direction of the sleen pen, where the sleen, shortly before, had hissed and squealed, revealing their agitation. He held Lehna before him, his left hand on her left arm, his right hand on her right wrist, forcing her right arm high, painfully, behind her back. He pushed her before him, so held. Her gown had been pulled down about her hips. She grimaced with pain, her head back.

"Please, Master!" she wept. Lehna was a larger woman than I. She was strong among us girls. Slave Beads lived in terror of her. But in the arms of a male, even a lusty boy, she was slight and helpless, small, to them only another pretty slave girl in their power. I bit my lip. Men were our masters. With the boy who had captured Lehna came four others, two with torches. The boy who had captured Donna had now thrown her, belly down, across his left shoulder. Her head hung down behind his back. His left arm, heavy, brawny, locked her in place. "Let us see your catch," said one of the newly arrived boys. "Tie her ankles," said the lad who held Donna over his shoulder. One of the other boys, who carried a ten-foot length of rope, with one end of the rope, crossed and tied together Donna's ankles, while she was still held on the shoulder of her captor. "Who is your master of the night?" inquired Lehna's captor of Lehna. He thrust her right wrist higher behind her back. "You! You, Master!" she cried. "You are my master of the night!" "Ankle leash her," said the lad who held Lehna. Another lad tied a tether on her left ankle. The ankle leash is cruel. It provides effective control of a girl. There is much that can be done with such a leash, particularly in the control of a skillful master. Most obviously, in an instant the girl may be thrown to his feet in a variety of positions, over which he exercises choice. The lad who had captured Donna, now that her ankles were tied, heaved her with a laugh over his shoulder. She landed in the dirt behind him. She broke her fall, as best she could, with her hands. The long end of the rope which bound her ankles trailed her over his shoulder. Her captor took the end of the rope from the lad who had bound her and, holding it about a foot from her fastened ankles, pulled her feet some six inches into the air. She was lying on her stomach. "There is my catch," he said. Then he said to Donna, "Roll over." She rolled onto her back, her tied feet now held about a foot off the ground by the rope. "There, my friends," beamed her captor, "is my catch!" "A beauty!" said one of the boys. "Yes, a beauty!" said her captor. He was proud of Donna. I did not blame him. She was indeed beautiful. Donna was a marvelous catch. "I want her!" said one of the lads. "First capture rights are mine," said the lad who had caught Donna, "but I am generous, and will share my prize with all of you!" There was hearty acclaim among the lads upon the receipt of his welcome intelligence. Donna squirmed, but was helpless on her back, her feet bound, held in the air by the captor's tether. "What of my prize?" demanded another lad, he who had caught Lehna by the sleen pen. He now held her ankle leash, and stepped back, bowing and displaying the half-stripped Lehna with an expansive gesture. She, too, I was forced to admit, was a superb prize. Such boys did not have such girls everyday. She was a warrior's belonging. "How can we tell if she is pretty?" asked one of the boys. "Thusly!" said one, tearing away the bit of gown about Lehna's hips. There was laughter. She was very beautiful. "But she is standing!" protested the first lad. "Belly or back?" asked Lehna's captor. "Both!" cried more than one lad. Expertly, with the ankle leash, the lad displayed Lehna's beauty in the luscious modes of horizontality. Some Goreans say that a woman's beauty can only be fairly judged when she lies at a man's feet. More than one of the lads cried out with pleasure and slapped his thigh. Donna then screamed as the boys turned to her. Her gown, too, was torn off. Her ankles were still tied. "To the circle of the torch!" cried a lad. "On your feet, Wench!" said the lad who had captured Lehna. She scrambled to her feet, covered with dirt. "Three have yet to be caught," said a lad. I knew one girl had been caught early; I had heard a scream some time ago; I did not know who she was; now I knew that Lehna and Donna were in the power of the pursuers; if only three remained to be caught, then one other girl, somewhere, had also been captured. I did not know who she was either. "Let us take these to the circle of the torch," said one of the lads, "and bind them securely, then hunt the others." The captors hesitated. "You can put your marks on these in charcoal," said one of the boys, indicating Donna and Lehna. "All right," said one of the captors. "Agreed!" said the other. Lehna was led away on her ankle leash, fastened on her left ankle, and by her right wrist, too, it held in the hand of one of the boys. Donna's captor, to her misery, dragged her behind him through the dirt on the tether which fastened her ankles together. I saw the group, pursuers and fair captives, helpless in their charge, disappear down the street.

I shuddered in the darkness among the pilings. I did not want to be captured.

A bold plan leaped into my mind. I began to move through the darkness. I kept in the shadows. I moved furtively. Sometimes I crawled. As much as I could I kept under the huts, among the pilings. Twice boys with torches passed quite near to me. I shrank back in the shadows. Then I threw myself to my belly. Not more than ten yards away I saw Chanda, wild, running. She was fleeing down a nearby street. There was a rope on one of her wrists. It was a wrist tether rope, knotted about her right wrist, with a handle loop, about a foot long, by which she might be led. I remained still. Behind her, in a few moments, carrying a torch, came two boys. "I was first to see her in the hut," said one. "I was first to put her to the floor and get my rope on her," said the other. The first lad lifted his torch, peering about. "Let us not dispute the matter further," he said. "Let us continue the hunt." "Very well," said the other. Warriors, I thought, would not have lost a girl in such a fashion. Girls do not escape warriors.

I hoped that Chanda would escape.

I continued my journey. I continued to keep largely under huts. Too, I often crawled now. I had no wish to leave the prints of a slave girl's small feet. Once I almost cried out with misery, for the path to my desired destination lay across a dark street, down which, a hundred yards or so away, I could see the center of the village, where, about the village fire, were seated several men, villagers and my master, and his men. On my belly I inched across this street and then, gratefully, slipped again into the shadows among and beneath the huts.

For the moment I was again safe.

I did not much fear being trailed for, though slave girls would be barefoot, as I, there would also be in the village the numerous prints of village bond girls, not simply mine, and those of my sisters in bondage. It would be next to impossible, in this populous and much trekked village, particularly in the night, by torchlight, to follow a girl's trail without the use of sleen, which might not, happily for the pursued females, be used in the hunt. If the boys could not find us by themselves they simply could not have us that night for their sport. We would have won our freedom from their aggressions. I determined to escape.

At last, stealthily, crawling in the darkness, I reached that position in the village which I had anxiously sought, that portion of the village where my master and his men had made their camp. I crawled among the furs there, in the darkness. Tentings had not been erected.

I heard a girl weeping and stumbling. "Hurry along, female," I heard. "Yes, Master," I heard. I dared not move. I scarcely dared breathe. I lay as small, as tiny, as silent, as still, as I could. Some figures, three of them, were passing me, some yards on my right. Perhaps if they had looked, they might have seen me. When they had passed, I lifted my head, ever so slightly. They had circled our camp area, between it and the edge of the palisade, and were now returning to the center of the village. I looked. Chanda's hands were now bound tightly behind her back, the wrist tether's handle loop having been used for this purpose. She was bent over. She was stumbling. Her gown had been pulled down about her hips. She was weeping. One of the boys' hands was in her hair. She was being hurried along. They were not patient with her. She was being half dragged, not merely perfectly controlled, by the cruel grip. I did not envy her. She had irritated them by her earlier escape. Doubtless they would make her pay well for her temerity. Men do not care to be displeased by slave girls. I hoped that she would not be excessively beaten. I saw them take her to the circle of the torch. There they bound her hand and foot. They also marked on her body with some burnt wood from the fire, probably putting their ownership marks on her, marking her as theirs for the night.

I crept into my master's furs. For the first time I now breathed more easily.

I heard two boys calling to one another. "How many of the she-tarsks are still at large?" asked one. "Two," he was answered. I did not know who the other uncaptured beauty might be.

I snuggled down in my master's furs, covering my head. I did not think they would find me there. Who would think a girl bold enough to hide in her master's furs? Too, I did not think the peasant boys would dare to look into the furs of a warrior. Surely they valued their lives. I felt secure. It was probably the only place in the village where I might be safe. I was well pleased with myself. I loved the smell of my master's body, which was in the furs, surrounding me with its excitement. The aura of his ownership enveloped me. I felt warm, and protected, and stimulated as a slave girl, warm in my master's furs. I wished that he, too, were in the furs, that I might perform delicious,, servile duties for him, fitting for one who was only a lowly bond girl. I loved him. Was I his slave because I loved him or did I love him because I was his slave? I smiled. I was his slave, totally and completely, whether I loved him or not. That was legal, institutional, on this world. I was his to do with as he pleased, completely. I was without rights; his will determined all. He was everything; I was nothing; he was master; I was slave. I decided that I was both his slave and that I loved him. But I did not think I could have loved him so much had he not been so powerful, and had I not been his slave, so helplessly.

I heard a shout outside, and I lay very still. I heard the boys crying out with triumph, and pleasure. In a few moments, when I dared, I looked out from the furs. They had taken another girl. Did they think she would escape? It was Slave Beads. She was being carried to the circle of the torch. She was carried on the shoulder of a brawny peasant lad. She was roped hand and foot, at the ankles, at the thighs above the knees, her wrists behind her back, and about her upper arms and body. In addition, one lad walked in front with a rope which was tied on her neck, and another walked behind with a rope tied about her left ankle. There were several boys in the group. Several, apparently, had flushed her out and, together, run her down like a startled, confused tabuk hind.

I, now, alone of all the girls, had escaped them. I was proud of my ingenuity and cunning.

For more than an Ahn I lay quiet in the furs. Sometimes the young hunters came near, but they did not molest our camp, nor much penetrate its perimeters. One did walk within two or three yards of me, carrying a torch, but I lay very still. He did not throw aside the furs of my master, nor those of the other men.

I lay warm in the furs, happy. I had escaped from them. There was a possibility, I supposed, that my master would not be pleased that I had hidden in his furs, If this were so, I supposed that I would be tied and lashed. Yet I did not think he would object to my boldness and ingenuity. I knew that my master could see through me, his slave girl, as simply as through glass, but I felt that I, too, in the past weeks, strangely, had become much more aware of him, and much more capable of reading his moods and conjecturing his reactions. Perhaps this was only a slave girl's alertness to the master, an alertness natural enough in a girl who is owned by a man, whose well-being and very life may depend on how well she pleases him; I do not know; that is an alertness which any rational girl strives to cultivate; but I wondered if it might not be more, something more in the nature of a deep, intuitive rapport with another person. I felt that I was coming to know my master. Two days ago I had sensed, watching him, that he desired wine rather than paga. I had gone and fetched wine and knelt before him. "May a girl offer you wine, Master?" I had asked him. He had seemed startled, momentarily. Then he had said, "Yes, Slave," and taken the wine. At times I sensed his eyes on me. Once, in the early morning, when I had lain chained with the other girls, I awakened, but gave no sign that I had awakened. Through half closed eyes I had seen that he stood near me. Yesterday night, he had touched my hair, almost tenderly. Then, as though angry with himself, he slapped me, hard, and sent me to Eta, to be put to work. I was not displeased.