Swordsmen of Gor (33 page)

“You look well, kneeling, with your knees spread,” I said.

“Thank you, Master,” she whispered.

“A slave is pleased, if she is found pleasing,” I said.

“I am pleased if I am found pleasing,” she said.

“Understand it,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

A tear coursed down her cheek.

She would soon, I was sure, as a slave, aside from fear, take great pleasure in being found pleasing, and be genuinely grateful for having been found so, and, if not, there was always the leather.

How desperate, I thought, are slaves, once they understand their condition, to be found pleasing. Surely the switch, the lash, are unpleasant. Saru was new to her bondage, but, thanks to the grooms, she was already well aware of the consequences of failing, in any particular, to be pleasing to free men.

But most desirably the slave should eventually desire to be found pleasing, should strive to be so, for the joy of being found pleasing by her master, and not from dread of the boot or leather.

“To whom do you belong?” I asked.

“To Lord Nishida,” she said.

I had supposed that that would be the case. On the other hand, if a different slave were being sought, with her coloring, and such, it was quite possible that she might have been given to another.

I examined the collar. “I cannot read the collar,” I said. I supposed it was in Gorean, but it was not in a common Gorean script. I had encountered something similar, long ago, in the Tahari, where Gorean was written in a quite different script, a flowing, beautiful script common in the Tahari.

“It was shown to me,” she said, “but I, too, could not read it.”

“Can you read Gorean?” I asked.

“It was not thought necessary that I learn it,” she said.

“Many Earth-girl slaves are kept illiterate in Gorean,” I said. “Why should a slave be taught to read?”

“I was not a slave!” she said.

“In the view of some, it seems, you were,” I said. “But, in any event, illiteracy would seem a suitable aspect of your disguise.”

“And I understand,” she said, bitterly, “they had a collar in mind for me, even from the beginning.”

“Certainly,” I said.

“Yes, certainly,” she wept.

“I assume your collar was read to you,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“‘I am the property of Nishida of Nara’,” she said.

This was doubtless Lord Nishida.

“What is Nara?” I asked.

“I do not know,” she said.

On the common Gorean collar it might be a city, a district, even a cylinder. On her collar, for all I knew, it might be a place, a port, a caste, a family, a clan, or something else. I did not know what. I would later learn it was a citadel, a lofty fortress castle.

“Were you given slave wine?” I asked. I recalled she had had “the wine of the noble free woman.”

She closed her eyes and, involuntarily, shuddered with misery. Then she looked at me, shaken. “My hands were tied behind my back,” she said, “and then I was knelt and my head yanked back by the hair, and held in place, and the spout forced between my teeth, and my nostrils pinched shut, and it was poured into me, and I must imbibe the beverage or suffocate. It was most bitter, most foul. And then, unable to disgorge the brew, even later, for the tying of my hands, I must endure to have my head shaved.”

“The shaving of the head was doubtless to help you understand better your bondage,” I said, “but, too, it is perhaps not entirely regrettable considering the applications to which you have been put. Your hair was very beautiful, as well you knew, in your vanity, and it would have been a sorry thing for it to have been fouled in the ordure of tharlarion.”

“I protested my work, and as they would have me attend to it,” she said, “and my face was forced down, into the dung of tharlarion. I protested no more.”

Whereas, as suggested earlier, the effects of slave wine and “the wine of the noble free woman” are identical, the common ingredient being sip root, there is a considerable difference in the two drinks. Slave wine makes no attempt to conceal the bitterness of ground, raw sip root, whereas “the wine of the noble free woman” is flavored, spiced, and sweetened in such a way that it offers no offense to the delicate and more refined sensibility of the free woman. A slave, of course, as any domestic animal, is to be bred only if and when, and how, the master wishes. A releaser, interestingly, deliciously palatable, is administered to the slave prior to her mating. In the mating, which is supervised by masters, she will be crossed with a male slave. Both slaves will be hooded, and are forbidden to speak, that neither will later, should they meet, know the other.

“As I recall,” I said, “on the beach, several days ago, you informed me that you were, at that time, a virgin.”

“Yes,” she said, looking down.

“Why?” I asked.

“I hated men,” she said. “I despised them. I could not bear the thought of one of them doing that to me. How vulgar it would be, and how helpless I would be! I would be in their arms no better than a slave.”

“Are you still a virgin?” I asked.

Saru cast a swift, distressed glance at Cecily, who was standing behind me, a bit to my left.

“Must I speak?” she asked,

“Yes,” I said.

“No,” she said, looking down to the straw, “I am no longer a virgin.”

“Lord Nishida opened you,” I said.

She looked up.

“‘Opened’?” she said.

“Yes, to have you more ready, for the pleasure of men,” I said.

“No,” she said. “It was not he who opened me.”

“I am surprised,” I said.

“After the pavilion,” she said, “he had no more interest in harvesting the virginity of one such as I than of harvesting that of a she-tarsk. I was hooded, and given to grooms.”

“Are you different now?” I asked.

“They use me as they wish,” she said.

“Are you different now?” I asked.

“But not so much as before,” she whispered. “Now, often, they make me wait.”

“Doubtless at Lord Nishida’s command,” I suggested.

“Perhaps,” she said. “I do not know.”

“I see you are different now,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, “I am different now.”

“They have put squirmings in your belly,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, lowering her eyes. “They have put squirmings in my belly.”

“I see,” I said.

She looked up, agonized. “Can you not understand me?” she cried. “I can no longer help myself!”

“Nor should you,” I said. “You are becoming vital. You are coming to a state of health scarcely suspected by a free woman. You are being redeemed as a female.”

“I find myself, again and again, in heat, like a she-tarsk!” she cried.

“As a slave,” I suggested.

“Yes,” she said, “as a slave!”

“Excellent,” I said. “To be sure, there are often miseries in such things.”

“For the first time in my life,” she said, “I now want the touch of men! Nay! I must have the touch of men! I now need, desperately, helplessly, piteously need, the touch of men!”

“Of course,” I said, “you are a woman.”

“I was a woman before!” she said.

“Yes,” I said, “but not a slave.”

“No,” she said, “not a slave.”

“You have work to do,” I said. “Tharlarion will soon be returning to the stable.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Where are you housed?” I asked.

“In the corner, over there,” she said, pointing toward the back of the stable, to the right, as we faced the back of the stable. “At night I am chained there, by the neck, to a ring on the floor. I have two pans there, one for water, one for gruel. I must feed as a she-tarsk, head down, my mouth to the food and water, forbidden the use of my hands.”

“That is not all that unusual,” I said, “with a girl who is first being taught that she is at the total mercy of men, one who is beginning to learn her collar.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“There is a bucket, surely, for your wastes,” I said.

“I must use the dung cart,” she said.

“I see,” I said.

“Why has Master Pertinax not come to see me?” she asked.

“I do not know,” I said. “Would you like to see him?”

“As I am now?” she said.

“How else?” I said.

“I am collared!” she wept.

“You were collared before,” I reminded her.

“But now I am truly collared,” she said. “I am a slave.”

“You think of Pertinax?” I said.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Doubtless you are distressed, should he see you as you are now, but, I think, still, you would like to see him.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Perhaps you think he would sympathize with you, would be horrified at the fate which is now yours?” I said.

“I do not know,” she said.

“I suspect,” I said, “he would think it a fate you have earned, and one which you richly deserve.”

“I do not know,” she said.

“Perhaps you recall,” I said, “kneeling before him, and ministering with your lips and tongue to his feet?”

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

In the performance of even so simple an act, a woman, to her uneasiness and astonishment, so before a male, can sense herself in her proper place in nature, and can sense herself becoming irremediably aroused.

“May I speak, Master?” asked Cecily.

“Yes,” I said.

“I could speak to Master Pertinax,” said Cecily, to the slave. “I could ask him to visit you.”

“I am no longer a free woman,” she said. “He could no longer respect me.”

“True,” I said, “nor should he, but he might find you of interest.”

“Of interest!” she exclaimed.

“Yes,” I said, “as a slave.”

“I dream of myself at his feet,” she said. “I dream of myself naked in his arms!”

“In a collar?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “in a collar!”

“I could ask him to see you, when the grooms are out,” said Cecily.

“Tell him to bring a switch,” I said.

I was reasonably sure that Saru, whatever might be the momentums and the future of the journey on which she was embarked, would try to turn Pertinax to her will, perhaps even to the foolishness of attempting an escape.

She had not yet learned that there is no escape for the Gorean slave girl.

To be sure, I suspected that she now thought of Pertinax rather differently than she had in the earlier phases of their relationship, being now much aware, in the manner a slave will find herself aware, and must be aware, that he was a man.

I would be curious to know, if he saw fit to call on her, if she would immediately, in his presence, go to first obeisance position.

If she did not, I trusted he would use the switch on her, liberally.

“I do not know if you would now recognize Pertinax,” I said.

“Master?” she asked.

“He is different now,” I said. “He helps with the logging. He uses the ax, mightily. He is becoming bronzed. His muscles harden. Were he now to take you in his arms you would know yourself helpless, and held.”

“And would I know myself slave?” she asked.

“You would be slave, and would know yourself slave,” I said.

She regarded me, frightened.

“Would you like for me to invite Master Pertinax to visit you?” asked Cecily.

“Yes,” said the slave. “Please! Please!”

“You would like to see him, I gather,” I said.

“Yes!” she said.

“Do you beg?” I asked.

“‘Beg’?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, “I beg it.”

“As a slave?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Who begs?” I asked.

“Saru begs,” she said.

“Humbly?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“As the slave she is?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“With lowered head?”

“Yes,” she said, putting her head down. “Please tell Master Pertinax that Saru, the slave, as the slave she is, with lowered head, begs Master Pertinax to see her, humbly begs it.”

“Cecily,” I said, “you may inform Pertinax of the petition of a stable girl.”

“Yes, Master,” said Cecily, happily.

I heard, outside, the bellowing of a tharlarion.

“We shall withdraw,” I said.

“May I kiss your feet, Master?” said Saru.

“No,” I said. “You are filthy.”

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

I then left the stable, followed by Cecily.

“Do you think, Master,” asked Cecily, “that Master Pertinax will attend on the slave?”

“I suspect so,” I said, “and I trust he brings his switch.”

“Yes, Master,” said Cecily, delighted. “Whence now we?”

“There is a warm pool in the forest, nearby, within the wands,” I said. “Several use it, the “strange men,” and others. It was shown to me by Tajima, for he often visits its vicinity, though for what reason other than the water I know not. You may bathe me there, and freshen yourself, as well, and then we might, in a shallow place, splash a little.”

“Yes, Master!” she laughed.

“We will later,” I said, “return to the hut and you will then cook for me.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“And after your work,” I said, “we will devote the evening to blanket sport.”

“I trust I will be found pleasing on the blanket,” she said.

“If you are not,” I said, “you will be lashed.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“I am thinking of buying a slave for Pertinax,” I said. “There was a brunette on the chain of a fellow named Torgus, whom I met on the beach. She seemed ready for a master.”

She was a former high woman of Ar, who, with several others, all embonded, and their hair shortened, had been taken from Ar, when the rising had occurred in the city. Had they been caught in the city they would have doubtless been impaled, or worse, as profiteers, traitresses, collaborators, and such.

“I think, Master,” she said, “Master Pertinax might prefer another slave.”

“Another slave,” I said, “might be otherwise owned.”

“True,” she said.

“One slave is as good as another,” I said.

“I doubt that,” she said.

“It is true,” I said, “that some sell for more than others.”

“Would you sell me?” she asked.