Swordsmen of Gor (24 page)

“Present me to Lord Nishida, as soon as possible,” said Miss Wentworth. “I will be very pleased to see him!”

“I think he will be pleased to see you, as well,” said Tajima.

“I hope so,” she said, acidly.

“Yes,” said Tajima, “I think you should hope that.”

“I do not understand,” she said, uncertainly.

“It will not go well with you, if he is disappointed,” said Tajima.

“I do not understand,” she said.

Tajima then turned to Pertinax. “You are no longer needed,” he said. “You are free to go.”

“Go,” said Pertinax. “Where?”

“Anywhere you wish,” said Tajima.

“I am unarmed,” said Pertinax. “You cannot just leave me here.”

He was clearly, and justifiably, alarmed. He was not skilled with weapons, nor in woodcraft, as far as I knew. Gor was a beautiful, but a dangerous, perilous world. Surely it was muchly different from the world he knew, and, in a variety of ways, it could be unforgiving, and merciless. It had to be met on its own terms, with courage, and steel. Too, he was not Gorean. He knew not the ways of Gor. He had no clan, no caste, no Home Stone.

“Accompany us,” I said to him.

“Yes, yes!” said Pertinax. “Then we can explain matters to his superior.”

“As you wish,” said Tajima to Pertinax.

“This prerogative of departure is extended to me, as well, surely,” said Miss Wentworth.

“No,” said Tajima.

“‘No’?” she said.

“No,” he said.

Then Tajima turned to me. “Perhaps you would present the girl to Lord Nishida? I am sure he would look kindly on one who presents her.”

“You have traveled far,” I said. “You are, I take it, a loyal and trusted retainer of Lord Nishida. Therefore it seems to me that it would be more appropriate if it was you who presented her to your lord.”

“I serve,” said Tajima. “Are you the friend of the one who may go?”

“I wish him no harm,” I said.

“Then,” said Tajima, “I think it would be well for him to present her to Lord Nishida. Lord Nishida may then look upon him with kindness, perhaps even favor.”

“And might be inclined to spare his life?” I said.

“Precisely,” said Tajima.

I turned to Pertinax. “Do you agree to present Miss Wentworth to Lord Nishida?”

“— Yes,” he said.

“What is going on here?” said Miss Wentworth. “Untie me! Free me!”

I regarded her. She was pretty, in her way, so angry. I wondered if she knew how she looked, so helpless, so futile, so lovely.

“What are you looking at!” she snapped.

It was true. I fear I had not been looking at her in a way appropriate to look at a free woman.

“I agree with our friend,” I said. “Your dress is quite short.”

“I am a free woman!” she cried. “Untie my hands! Take this degrading rope from my neck!”

“If would be better if they were hooded,” said Tajima.

“Yes,” I said.

In moments the hoods were in place.

“Turn them about,” said Tajima.

This was done, both to the left and right, a number of times, as though randomly.

Soon, almost immediately, long before we were finished, both women were thoroughly disoriented. Neither would have the least idea of where she was being taken. When our destination was reached, wherever it was, neither would know how they had come there, nor where they were.

I picked up Cecily’s leash.

“Take Miss Wentworth’s leash,” I said to Pertinax. “It is, after all, you who are to present her to Lord Nishida.”

He picked up the leash.

“You do not mind having her on your leash, do you?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

He pulled twice on the leash, and she pulled back, angrily, in indignation.

“Things have muchly changed, have they not?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

He then drew twice more on the leash, quickly, firmly, and his hooded charge stumbled toward him. They were then standing quite close to one another. She must have sensed his nearness, for she trembled. She was, after all, a woman, quite close to a male. This doubtless made her uneasy. Too, he was a large male, and, indeed, one considerably larger than she. Then she steeled herself, with the stiffness of the free woman. He coiled the leash, and then held it, some four inches from her throat, and jerked her chin up, so that her head was lifted to him. Had she not been hooded and had dared to open her eyes, she would have found herself, close on the leash, looking into his eyes.

“Wait!” she said to him. “Wait! I shall see to it that you are punished, as well.”

Pertinax then loosened the leash, and stepped back from her, some seven or eight feet away.

“Yes,” she said, sensing his withdrawal, “keep your distance!”

The leash looped up from his hand to her neck.

She stood there, confident, now that he had retreated.

“They are right,” said Pertinax to her.

“What?” she said.

“Your dress is quite short,” he said.

She cried out with rage.

“She has pretty legs, does she not?” asked Pertinax.

“Yes,” I said. “They are very nice.” Indeed, that was one of the reasons I had shortened her tunic on the beach. Certainly that would improve her disguise, would it not? Too, slave girls often have lovely legs. That is doubtless one of the things slavers have in mind when they select them.

“We should be on our way,” said Tajima.

I joined him, keeping a soft hand on Cecily’s leash. I also allowed her a comfortable margin of slack. In this fashion, the slave is nicely guided, and she is, of course, never out of the control of the master. A hard hand on the leash is normally used only with a captured free woman or a new slave. The leash is considerably shortened, of course, if there is danger in the vicinity, say, animals, or uneven ground, or water about, or one is in a crowd, or such. In cities, sometimes display leashes are used, of colored leather, of beaded, even jeweled, leather, or of light, closely meshed lengths of chain, sometimes of silver or gold. Most leashes, on the other hand, are little more than functional, and usually of brown or black leather. Metal leashes are common if one wishes to chain the girl to a slave ring, a convenience with which Gorean buildings and streets are usually well furnished. The typical leash is long enough to permit the binding of the slave, if one should desire to do that. In walking a slave, particularly on the promenades, it is common to make certain that the leash describes a graceful curve, from the master’s hand up to the slave’s collar.

“You are from Earth,” said Tajima.

“Yes,” I said. “It is far away.”

“It is another planet,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

And it was only a moment later that I realized he had spoken in English.

Chapter Nine

THE THATCHED HUT;

THREE TUBS

“When are we to be allowed to see someone important?” asked Miss Wentworth.

“I regret my unimportance,” said Tajima.

“Go away!” said Miss Wentworth.

With a courteous bow, Tajima withdrew.

The camp was quite large.

I had expected it to lie on the northern bank of the Alexandra, but it did not. It was toward the Alexandra, but well inland.

“Someone will pay for this!” said Miss Wentworth. “I will not be kept waiting!”

“There is no ship,” said Pertinax.

“I will see that there is one!” said Miss Wentworth. “Our agreements were clear. The arrangements were clear. We completed our part of the work, and now we must be paid, and returned to Earth, with wealth, wealth!”

“There is no ship,” said Pertinax.

“We will not be betrayed!” said Miss Wentworth.

“Are we ourselves so innocent?” asked Pertinax. “Are we not, ourselves, in our way, guilty of betrayal? Did we not engage, enthusiastically and uncritically, in betrayal, pretending to be what we were not, engaging to deliver a stranger, whom we knew not, to an uncertain fate, one we did not understand, and which might, for all we knew, have proven fatal?”

In a sense, I thought, their betrayal was deeper than they understood, for they had labored, however ignorantly, in the cause of beasts, Kurii, who would covet not only Gor, but Earth, as well. In a sense they had betrayed a world, and a species.

“I think,” said Pertinax, “we have been betrayed not so much by others as by ourselves, by greed.”

“Absurd!” snapped Miss Wentworth.

“You would do anything for money,” said Pertinax.

“So, too, would anyone!” she said.

“I used to think so,” said Pertinax. “I am no longer sure of it.”

“You are a fool,” she said.

“There is no ship,” said Pertinax.

“There will be,” she said. “I will demand it!”

“Perhaps you will be successful,” he mused. “One of your smiles can twist a knife in a man’s guts. I know.”

“Yes!” she said. She laughed.

I gathered she had had little difficulty in having her way with men.

“Brew me tea,” said Miss Wentworth to Cecily.

Cecily looked to me, and I nodded.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cecily. Cecily knew enough to address all free women as “Mistress,” and all free men as “Master.” On the other hand, having been embonded on a Steel World, that of Agamemnon, later that of Arcesilaus, an unlikely place to encounter free women, she knew little of free women, at least of a Gorean sort. The only free woman with whom she had had contact with on the Steel World had been the Lady Bina, a former Kur pet, who was less a Gorean free woman than a remarkably beautiful, ambitious, vain little animal. I had warned Cecily of free women, but I fear she took my cautions too lightly. She thought my concerns exaggerated, and disproportionate to the likely reality. In my view, however, my concerns and cautions were not excessive, but practical and judicious. She seemed to believe that since the slave and the free woman were both women that there would be a sympathy, an understanding, a rapport, between them. She knew so little. The free woman was a person; the slave was a property, an animal, and an animal which, aside from matters of social advancement, position, wealth, and status, was commonly preferred a thousand times by men to a free woman. But Cecily was highly intelligent, and she would learn quickly, if only under a free woman’s switch. Her safety, of course, would lie with men, and masters, who would to the extent practical, given a free woman’s status and prerogatives, protect her.

We were housed in a small, thatched hut.

The door of the hut was open, but it might be fastened, when one wished, with thongs.

Once in the camp, with the license of Tajima, whom we took as our mentor and guide in these matters, we had freed the girls of their impediments, removing the hoods and leashes, and then unbinding their small wrists. The wrists of women look lovely, thonged, or braceleted, or such.

“I am a free woman,” had said Miss Wentworth to Tajima, rubbing her wrists. “Bring me some decent clothing, now, and arrange an audience, immediately, with your superior. I do not wish to appear before him, as I am, so shamefully garbed.”

“I am sure you will not appear before him so garbed,” said Tajima, politely, and left, quietly, as was his wont.

That, however, had been two days ago.

“Go out,” said Miss Wentworth, to Pertinax, “and demand an audience with someone, anyone!”

“I think we should wait,” I said.

“That would be best, I think,” said Pertinax.

“Then I shall go out!” she cried.

“I would not,” I said. “There are strong men about, Goreans.”

She stamped her small foot, petulantly, and jerked at her collar. It may be remembered that its key had been cast into Thassa, long ago. She could not remove it. To be sure, it might easily be removed with suitable tools.

In the meantime it would remain on her neck.

I had gathered, from earlier conversations between Pertinax and Miss Wentworth, that she had been the employee of a large investment firm and had been primarily utilized to solicit investments from male clients, in which endeavor she had apparently been unusually successful. Her ambitions, however, extended well beyond enticing wealth to her employer’s firm, and obtaining thereby the routine emoluments of a salary and commissions. Why should she herself not have the wealth which she so ably diverted into the channels of others, an illusive wealth to whose passage she stood so near but from which she was yet so far? She seemed to me little more than an unimaginative creation of her time, a creature of ambition and egotism set mindlessly upon the pursuit of the dazzling, gleaming bubbles of a meretricious culture. To be sure, she was quite lovely, and that was doubtless what first drew her to the attention of Gorean slavers. Here was a female, however, who would not only look well in shackles, but, first, might be turned to the advantage of purposes extending far beyond the coins she might bring when taken from the block. And so she had been approached. Pertinax had been a minor clerk in the same firm.

The movements of free women on Gor tend to be restricted, and monitored. One is always aware when they are about. They are precious. One pays attention to them. Slaves, on the other hand, are generally free to come and go, as they please, not much noticed. They may have to request their master’s permission to leave their domicile, and they may have to return at a stipulated time, subject to discipline, and, indeed, has one not seen them hurrying frantically through the streets hoping to cross their master’s threshold before the ringing of the fifteenth bar, but one is used to them, and pays them little attention when they are about in the streets, the alleys, the markets, the plazas, and parks, save, of course, to speculate on their lineaments and wonder how they might look at one’s slave ring. Accordingly, it is not unprecedented that a female Kur agent on Gor, to increase her mobility and anonymity, may be dressed as though she were, despite her freedom and importance, no more than a slave. And if that is the case, will she not require a male to complete her disguise, one who will pose as her master?

And, as noted, earlier, free women are rare in certain locales, such as the northern forests. Thus, if a project is afoot in such an area, and one may wish to have a female agent on hand, one who may be useful with respect to its success, it is almost certain that she will be disguised as a female slave, and, if her disguise is to be plausible, she must have one about who will appear to be her master.