Swordsmen of Gor (20 page)

“Tal,” he said.

Torgus returned this greeting.

There might have been twenty fellows with the newcomer. Behind them, back in the trees, I saw seven or eight briefly tunicked slaves. Some carried poles, with coiled ropes. Such poles could be used for portering, the baggage fastened to them by the ropes. Sometimes captured panther girls, small bands of which occasionally roamed hundreds of pasangs to the south, were slung from such poles. They were bound, hand and feet, by their captors, to the poles, as might have been slain or captured panthers, the beasts from which they derive their name. They are fastened to the poles in such a way that they dangle, swinging, from them, their bellies to the pole, their backs to the ground. The poles are carried by female slaves, a great insult to the panther girl for they despise female slaves. And she does not know, of course, to what fate she is being carried. When they are returned to civilization, the captured panther girls, most of whom suffer from repressed sexuality, are stripped, branded, and collared, and taught their womanhood. They sell well, and some men seek them out, in the taverns. Wonders, it is said, may be wrought in such women by a switch, and a master’s hand. Supposedly they make superb slaves. And once the slave fires have been ignited in their bellies, they are, of course, as helpless, and needful, as any other slave.

”
Beyond Tyros
!” said the newcomer.

”
Beyond Cos
!” said Torgus.

Several of the fellows on the beach looked uneasily at one another. There was little, as far as we knew, beyond Tyros and Cos, some small islands, of course, usually spoken of as the Farther Islands, but nothing else, lest it be the World’s End, the edge of the sea, supposedly the plunge into the abyss, nothing.

Few ships, as far as I knew, had ventured west of the Farther Islands, and of those, as far as I knew, none had returned.

Thassa, it seemed, might be jealous of her secrets.

I moved forward. “Tal,” I said to the newcomer.

“Tal,” he said.

I had addressed him familiarly. This seemed to convince even Torgus that I knew him, and the newcomer supposed, as I had supposed he would, that I was one of the others, though perhaps one a bit more indiscreet or forward than might have been desirable.

The newcomers were nicely organized, and, in moments, much of the baggage had been lashed to the poles, and the briefly tunicked slaves shouldered the poles with the suspended cargo, and stood ready to depart. They were a good looking set of slaves, and the brevity of their tunics, which is a feature of such garments, left few of their charms to speculation. They stood very straight, but with the grace that is expected of a slave. Clumsiness, awkwardness, stiffness, and such, are not permitted to slaves; they are not free women. I noted that the slaves stole glances at several of the fellows on the beach. They knew they might be given to them. I went behind one of the women, at the aft end of a pole, and carefully turned her collar. She remained absolutely still. The collar was plain. I adjusted it then so that the lock was again at the back of the neck, where it belongs. I had learned nothing.

I then, in order to make myself useful, put the fifteen neck-chained girls, who had arrived on the ship, to their feet, and arranged them in a line, one behind the other. I gathered they had been marched in something like this order before, because of the gradations of height. I put the tallest girl in front, as that is the usual way the slavers arrange their “beads.” I then distributed several of the smaller packages, which had been left free, doubtless deliberately, amongst them, the heaviest to the taller, larger girls. Indeed, precisely fifteen such packages had been left, not attached to the poles borne by the fair porters come from the forest. Surely this was not a matter of coincidence. The new girls, too, then, were to carry burdens, perhaps their first.

“Place the boxes on your head,” I told them, “steadying them with both hands.”

This is a common way in which Gorean slave girls, and, indeed, free women of lower castes, carry boxes, baskets, bundles, and such. This form of lading is particularly lovely in the case of female slaves because the hands are thus fixed in position over their heads, almost as though chained, and the breasts are nicely lifted. Too, they then know themselves, as much as pack kaiila, bearing the burdens of men.

In moments the leader of the fellows from the forest had set out amongst the trees. A march then followed him, first his own men, then the portering slaves, with their poles and baggage, and then Torgus, and the fellows from the ship, and then, bringing up the rear, a lovely coffle, fifteen shapely pack beasts, the girls from the ship.

I thought they looked well on their chain, bearing their burdens.

Then the chain, at the edge of the forest, stopped.

I suspected it was terrified to enter that gloom.

And it was not being supervised. There was no master or switch slave behind them.

That was interesting, I thought.

But then what would they do, where would they go? How would they survive in the forest, naked and chained?

Their very survival depended on masters, and, as they were slaves, on pleasing masters.

The chain was clearly frightened.

All that they knew, and were familiar with, lay behind them.

One girl, the last on the chain, turned to look back at me, almost wildly, her hands steadying her burden.

It was she who had seemed, finding herself in “position,” perhaps for the first time in her life, to have come suddenly to a new sense of herself, to a new astonishing awareness of herself. The very assumption of “position” by a woman can have that effect. It is hard to be in “position” and not know oneself a female, and a particular sort of female. It is not only a symbolic posture for a woman, which she well understands, her kneeling, and vulnerability, and such, but it is an arousing posture, as well. I had seen her expression, her surprise, her apprehension, her fear, her curiosity, her incipient readiness. I had little doubt she would heat quickly, and might be the first of the lot to weep in need at the smallest touch of a master.

Then the chain moved, presumably frightened to remain where it was, presumably fearful of falling behind, and, the chain jerking against the side of her neck, she stumbled forward. Then she, with the others, had disappeared into the forest.

The women, I supposed, had not been named yet.

I recalled they had been recently sold, though to whom, or what, I knew not.

In any event, names, if they were to receive them, would be given to them by masters. The slave in her own right has no name, no more than any other animal. As a slave changes hands, she is commonly renamed.

I looked after the departing march.

It was no longer visible.

Then, to my surprise, I heard, from deep within the forest, what was, unmistakably, the roar of a larl.

I found this anomalous.

The larl is not indigenous to the northern forests.

I had let the march proceed without me, and none seemed to be concerned with that.

I was hungry.

I would now return to the hut of Pertinax.

Chapter Six

WE TREK THE FOREST

It was the afternoon of the day following the encounters on the beach, first with Sullius Maximus, and later with Torgus, the fee fighter, or mercenary, and his cohorts.

I was now accompanying Pertinax, deeply into the forest, being led, I supposed, to the alleged rendezvous with one whom I had been led to believe would be an agent of Priest-Kings. I supposed, of course, for reasons earlier suggested, that this individual would not be an agent of Priest-Kings but, most probably, of Kurii.

As it would turn out these matters were darker and deeper than I had suspected, and, in a sense, perhaps unknown to either, both Priest-Kings and Kurii, in a way, were being used.

Agents of both Priest-Kings and Kurii were being applied, unbeknownst to themselves, it seems, to the ends of a third party, or, perhaps it might be better said that three stratagems were afoot, which were occasionally intertwined. Do not dark rivers sometimes flow in the same channel?

The light was mottled, filtering through the foliage of the canopy.

“We are not in the reserves of Port Kar,” I said to Pertinax. This was obvious, for the reserves are gardened, or nearly so, shrubbery cleared, trees spaced, and such, that they may grow exuberantly upward, muchly straight, and tall. One nurses, so to speak, the loftiest and best wood, before its harvesting. Too, we had crossed none of the ditches that act as boundaries to a reserve, whether one of Port Kar or of another polity. Here, in this part of the forest, there was a great deal of shrubbery, brush, broken branches, fallen timber, debris of various sorts. Occasionally one waded through leaves, as through thigh-high surf. Here the trees were muchly together, each challenged by the others, leaves competing for sunlight, roots engaged in their subterranean contests to absorb water and minerals.

“No,” he said.

“You have not been this way before,” I said.

“No,” he said.

“The trail, however, is clear,” I said.

“You see it?” he said, surprised.

“Yes,” I said.

It was not really difficult. I did not know the sign but it appeared here and there, each sign usually visible, some fifty yards or so, from the vantage point of the previous sign. It resembled a yellow stain, such as might have resulted from talendars being rubbed on bark, but, examined closely, given its articulation, it was clearly the product of intelligence, of some intelligence.

“I suspect that we had to come today,” I said. I recalled he had been quite clear about the time we would enter the forest.

“Yes,” he said.

This confirmed my suspicion that the stain, whatever might be its composition, would be temporary, evaporating, or lapsing from visibility, within twenty or so Ahn. I took this as confirming my view that we were dealing with Kurii, for their science could easily manage such a thing. To be sure, so, too, could that of Priest-Kings. I also suspected that there would be a scent, or a flavor, to such a thing, that it would attract insects who would eliminate any possible residue.

“Oh!” cried Constantina.

I had jerked on the leash.

She could not see, of course, as she was hooded. Too, her wrists had been bound behind her.

Cecily had been similarly served. She, too, was hooded, and her small, lovely wrists fastened behind her.

This morning, to her consternation, I had fashioned a hood for Constantina, from opaque cloth, which artifact, once it was well on her, and completely enclosing her head, I fastened in place with some string about her throat.

I had then tied her hands behind her back, and put her to her knees.

“What are you doing?” had asked Pertinax, uneasily, not that I think he much minded seeing Constantina as she then was.

Certainly I had seen his eyes on her frequently the preceding evening. Her appeal to him had been much enhanced, I gathered, by my judicious amendments to her garmenture.

Doubtless he, too, suspected that she was no longer capable of removing her collar.

That, in itself, can make quite a difference in a man’s view of a woman.

All in all, I think he was toying with the thought of her as a slave. What would it be, if she were truly a slave?

Would that not be pleasant for a fellow?

She did not object, of course, to the hooding and binding, as she was desperate to keep up her pretense of bondage before Pertinax. I was not supposed to know that she was a free woman.

“Is it not obvious?” I had asked.

“But, why?” he asked.

“She is a slave,” I said. “Why should she know where she is going?”

“I see,” he said.

Such practices help to keep the slave helpless, and dependent on the master.

“Hood me, too, Master,” begged Cecily.

“I intend to,” I told her.

She purred with delight. The slave responds well to restraints, and the uncompromising dominance which she yearns for with all her heart. Obviously she does not wish to be hurt, nor, generally, should she be hurt, unless she has been in some respect displeasing, and punishment is in order, but she does want to know herself slave, owned, and mastered. Accordingly she loves to be in the master’s power, whether merely heeding his word, obeying, or realizing, in frustration, that no matter how much she might wish to do so, she is not permitted to speak, or writhing in his bonds, helplessly exposed to his mercy, and caresses, should he choose to bestow them upon her, such things. She responds well to blindfolds, hoods, gags, ropes, straps, collars, slave bracelets, chains, and such. When I tied her hands behind her she put back her head in the hood, lovingly, and pressed against me.

Cecily, I thought, was coming along well.

From rope I had improvised a single leash, a common leash, by means of which, grasped at its center, I might control both girls.

I put them in this.

It was thus that they were being conducted through the forest.

Later unhooded, they would have no idea where they were, or how they had gotten there, nor where Pertinax’s hut might be found. The best they might do, given the time of day and the location of Tor-tu-Gor, Light-Upon-the-Home-Stone, the common star of Gor and Earth, would be to reach the coast, but, even so, would the hut of Pertinax lie to the north or south? And, of course, an isolated woman, or women, on Gor, undefended by men, whether collared or not, would be fair game for almost any Gorean male. It would be like picking up shells on the beach.

Constantina had stumbled.

“I beg to be unhooded!” she wept.

I then stopped, and Constantina, sobbing, stood still, waiting to be unhooded. She reached her bound wrists out a few inches from the small of her back. “Please, too,” she said, “untie me.”

Pertinax seemed pleased that the proud Constantina had begged, and had said “Please.”

This was not the Constantina with which he was familiar.

She stood still, waiting to be unhooded, and unbound.