Blood Brothers of Gor (4 page)

"Yes," he said. "It is early."

"Why?" I asked.

"I do not know," he said.

We then brought our kaiila about and, descending the rise followed Cuwignaka toward the camp.

Chapter 2

THE PROCESSION OF THE ISANNA

Wasnapohdi, or Pimples, naked, her dark hair loose and wild behind her, strings of glass beads about her throat, put there by Grunt, marking her as his, in the tattered lodge I shared with Cuwignaka, clutched me, gasping, half rearing under me.

"Do not bite," I warned her, "or you will be beaten."

She moaned, I felt her fingernails in my arms.

She sobbed, helplessly, begging wordlessly in my arms for a new thrust.

She had the helpless passion of a woman broken to slavery. I was pleased that Grunt, her master, let me use her. Canka, too, had encouraged me, Grunt being willing, to please myself with her. The desperate tensions of the strong male must be relieved, and well, else health must be replaced with illness, eccentricity or neuriosis. Perhaps the cruelest deprivation which a master or mistress can inflict on a male slave is to deny him access to soft, warm, yielding female flesh. Every strong man needs one or more slaves.

"Finish with her, quickly," said Cuwignaka, entering the lodge. "There is much to see. The Isanna, already, have come to the camp. They are in long lines. You must see them! Too, in moments, the medicine party will go forth to cut the pole. Many are going to accompany them. Hurry!"

Pimples looked at me, wildly, clutching me.

"Hurry! Finish with her!" said Cuwignaka.

My hands were hard on the upper arms of Pimples. I made as though to thrust her from me. TEars sprang into her eyes. She whimpered.

"Hurry!" said Cuwignaka, happily.

Then, ruthlessly, with power, I did master rites upon the

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helpeless slave, and she lay sobbing, and shuddering, her legs then drawn up, on the robes on the floor of the lodge. I drew on my tunic and slipped into the moccasins. Cuwignaka thrust back the flap at the entrance to the lodge, on its wooden frame. I glanced back into the lodge. The hides, in places, were worn. Here and there tiny pinpricklelike holes admitted spots of light. Light, too, came through the smoke hole at the apex of the lodge. Later in the day we might roll up the sides of the lodge, some four or five feet. The lodge then, open and airy, becomes transformed into little more than a summery canopy. In the winter it can be insulated with a kailiauk-hide liner. I looked back at the girl. Her skin was mottled deeply with red blotches. Her nipples were in lovely erection. The five strands of heavy, cheap glass beads about her throat glinted. They took the light nicely.

"Get dressed, if you wish," I said, "and come with us."

"If master is through with the slave," she said, angrily, "the slave must report back to her master."

"On your hands and knees," I said. I had not cared for her tone of voice.

Frightened, she got on her hands and knees, and looked at me. Would she be lashed? Her breasts depened, beautifully.

I smiled. It is pleasant to see a woman in such a position. It is also a position which is commonly used for neck-chaining them.

She smiled at me.

I returned to the interior of the lodge and lifted her up, to her knees. Our lips met. She kissed me avidly, twice. I pressed her back.

Our eyes met. "A slave is grateful that a maaster deigned to touch her," she whispered.

"You may come with us, if you wish," I assured her.

"Perhaps," she smiled.

"Hurry!" said Cuwignaka, impatiently. "You know she is yours whenever you wish. Grunt has told you as much. Now hurry. There are important things to do!"

I kissed the girl then, and left her behind me. She would get dressed, donning the brief, simple shirtdress of hide she had been given, and report back, head down and kneeling, to Grunt, her master.

"Trhow the hoop, throw the hoop, Tatankasa!" cried out a lad.

I took the hoop and, after two false starts, suddenly flung it to my left. The lad turned swiftly, seeing the movement

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with his peripheral vision, and fired a small arrow expertly through the rolling object.

"Eca! WEll done!" i cried. I was truly amazed at the little devil's expertise.

"Again! Again, Tatankasa!" cried the little fellow. Such games, of course, have their role to play in honing skills and sharpening reflexes that may be of great importance in adulthood.

"I cannot," I told him.

"Please, Tatankasa!" cried the lad.

"I am a slave," I told him. "I must accompany Cuwignaka."

"Yes," said Cuwignaka, firmly.

"I understand," said the lad. "You are a slave, You must obey."

"Yes," I said.

I then hurried after Cuwignaka, who was almost darting between lodges.

A domestic sleen snarled at me. I gave it a wide berth.

"There!" said Cuwignaka. "There you see!"

"They are the Isanna?" I asked.

"Yes!" said Cuwignaka.

The Isanna was the Litte-Knife Band of the Kaiila. They came from the countries around Council Rock, north of the northern fork of the Kaiila River and west of the Snake, a tributary to the Northern Kaiila. The normal distributions, given food supply and such, of the bands of the Kaiila are usually rather as follows. First, understand that there exists the Kaiila River, flowing generally in a southwestward direction. At a given point, high in the territory of the Kaiila tribe, it branches into two rivers, which are normally spoken of as the Northern Kaiila and the Southern Kaiila. the Snake, flowing in an almost southern direction, is a tributary to the Northern Kaiila. The land of the Napoktan, or Bracelets band of the Kaiila, is east of the Snake, and north of the Northern Kailla, and the Kaiila proper. The Wismahi, or Arrowhead band of the Kaiila, holds the more northern lands in and below, to some extent, the fork of the Kaiila. The Isbu's lands are the more southern lands between the Northern and Southern branches of the Kaiila. The lands of the Casmu, or Sand band of the Kaiila, lie to the west of the Isanna, and to the north and west of the Isbu, above the descending northern branch of the Northern Kaiila. It is not clear, historically, whether the river is named for the red savages

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through whose territories it tends to flow, or whether the savages have taken their name from the river system. My own suspicion in this matter, borne out by tribal stories, is that the early savages in this area found large herds of wild kaiila roaming the plains. They took, then, probably for medicine reasons, the name of the Kaiila for themselves. Subsequently, one supposes, watercourses originally understood to be, say, the rivers of the Kaiila people, or the rivers in teh country of the Kaiila people, came to be known more simply as the Kaiila River, or Rivers.

"It is a splendid sight!" said Cuwignaka.

"It is," I granted him.

The Isanna Kaiila number betwen some seven and eight hundred. They were now entering the camp, from the east, in long lines in their full regalia. The Casmu, the Wismahi and the Napoktan had already joined the Isbu in the summer gathering. The Casmu numbered in the neighborhood of one thousand; the Wismahi, one of the smaller bands, numbered about five or six hundred. The Isbu was the largest band, containing between sixteen and seventeen hundred members. The Napoktan, which had arrived at the camp only yesterday, ws the smallest of the bands of the Kaiila, numbering between some three and four hundred members. These bands, within their own territores, are often divided into seperate villages or encampments. In a given encampment, usually under a minor chief, there is selcom more than two or three hundred individuals. Indeed, sometimes an encampment contains ony seven or eight families.

"Splendid! Splendid!" said Cuwignaka.

Three or four abreast, in long lines, led by their civil chief, Watonka, One-Who-Is-Rich, and subchiefs and high warriors, the Isanna entered the camp of the Isbu. They carried feathered lances, and war shields and medicine shields, in decorated cases. They carried bow cases and quivers. They were resplendent in finery and paint. Feathers, each one significant and meaningful, in te codes of the Kaiila, recounting their deeds and honors, adorned their hair. Necklaces and rude bracelets glinted in the sun. High-pommeled saddles were polished. Coins and beads hung from the reins. Exploit markings and lucksigns were painted on the flanks and forequarters of their animals, and ribbons and feathers were fixed in the braided, silken manes. Women, too, in thier shirtdresses and knee-length leggings, and beads, bracelets and

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armbands, and colorful blankets and capes, astride their kaiila, riding as red savages ride, participated in this barbaric parade.

Some of these rode kaiila to which travois were attached. Some had cradles slung about the pommels of their saddles. These cradles, most of them, are essentially wooden frames on which are fixed leather, open-fronted enclosures, opened and closed by lacings, for the infant. The wooden frame projects both above and below the enclosure for the nfant. In particular it contains two sharpened projections at the top, like picket spikes, extending several inches above the point where the baby's head will be located. This is to protect the infant's head in the event the cradle falling, say, from the back of a running kaiila. Such a cradle will often, in such a case, literally stick upside down in the earth. The child, then, laced in the enclosure, protected and supported by it, is seldom injured.

Such cradles, too, vertically, are often hung from a lodge pole or in the brances of a tree. In the tree, of course, the wind, in is rocking motion, can lull the infant to sleep. Older children often ride on the skins stretched betwen travios poles. Sometimes their fathers or mothers carry them before them, on the kaiila. When a child is about six, if his family is well-fixed, he will commonly have his own kaiila. The red savage, particularly the males, will usually be a skilled rider by the age of seven. Bareback riding, incidentally, is common in war and the hunt. In trading and visiting, interestingly, saddles are commonly used. This is perhaps because they can decorate lavishly, adding to one's apperance, and may serve, in virtue of the pommel, primarily, as a suppot for provisions, gifts and trade articles.

"It is a simply splendid," said Cuwignaka, happily.

"Yes," I said.

Children, too, I noted, those not in cradles, greased, their hair braided, their bodies and clothing ornamented, in splendid finery, likeminiature versions of the adults, some riding, some sitting on the skins stretched between travois poles, participated happily and proudly, or bewilderedly, in this handsome procession.

"They are bringing their goods with them," I said. The travois with them were heavily laden, with bundles, and lodge skins and poles. Indeed, the travois poles themselves, when untied and freed from teh kaiila, would be used as lodge poles.

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"It is the way our peoples move," said Cuwignaka. Goods would not be left behind, save occasionally in hidden caches.

At the flanks of some of the warriors' kaiila marched stripped white women, in beaded collars. Their wrists were tied behind them. About their throats, on thong loops, below the collars, dangling between their breasts, hung leather, braided kaiila quirts. There was little doubt as to what such women were. I met the eyes of one, and she looked away, tossing her head, disdainfully, in her bonds and collar, the quirt about her neck. She was the property of a red master. I then met the eyes of another. This one, too, looked away, but she did so quickly, fearfully. She was very frightened. I gathered that she was terribly afraid of her master. She did not so much as dare to look at another man. These girls had both been blond. So, too, I noted, were most of the other such women.

"The two-legged, female animals here are mostly blond," I said to Cuwignaka.

"Yes," he said. "They are being displayed."

I nodded. Such a hair color is a rarity in the Barrens. I supposed the woemn understood clearly that they, like the silver pendants tied in the manes, like the coins fastened on the reins, like the saddles inlaid with gold, with golden wire wrapped about the pommels, were being displayed as protions of the wealth of the Isanna.

"The others," said Cuwignaka, "stripped, are kept in small heards, with the kaiila, outside the camp, watched over by boys."

"I understand," I said. The Isanna would probably see little point in marching more familiar types, more common women, before the Isbu.

I saw another blonde moving by. She was half stumbling, half being dragged along, weeping, on a short neck tether, not more than five feet long. She was, I would guess, about seventeen. The tether was in the first of a red master. I did not think he was more than eighteen years of age. He was moving his kaiila quickly, along the side of the lines, probably hurrying to occupy his designated place in the procession. He was not gentle with is lovely property. She was crying. She seemed new to her collar. I suspected she had not been a slave long. She was a survivor, perhaps, of the wagon train which had been attacked several days ago. She was doubtless still in the process of learning her new purposes in life. I saw no woman with the Isanna, incidentally, who had a hair color