Blood Brothers of Gor (67 page)

objective process. It this not the sort of thing which is involved in the ringed candles, in the tiny stream of water in the clepsydra, in the falling sand in the Ahn glass, in the alternation of day and night, and in the calendar of the stars? I stirred up the fire again, so that I might better see what I was doing. By now Cuwignaka and Hci should be in place.

I stood up.

The girls looked at me in fear.

Their fears were not allayed in the least when I, having fetched a stout rawhide rope, crouched down next to them and tied one end of this rope about the handles of Bloketu's sack and the other end about the handles of Iwoso's sack.

Iwoso began to utter desperate noises, moving her head, the gag packed in her mouth.

"You would like to speak, would you not, Lady Iwoso?" I asked.

She moved her head affirmatively, desperately.

"If I remove your gag," I asked, "would you promise to be quiet?"

She nodded, vigorously.

"I could, of course, hold a kife point at your throat," I said. "and at the slightest sing of trickery or refractoriness plunge it into your throat."

She turned pale.

"Under such conditions would you still care to speak?" I asked.

She nodded.

My hands moved toward the gag. then I stopped. "I dare not remove the gag," I said. "You are an extremely intelligent and cleaver woman. You would doubtless trick me somehow."

She shook her head negatively, reassuringly.

"Perhaps I should remove your gag," I mused.

She nodded.

"No," I said. "I must not do so. Indeed, I have been warned, even before we left our camp, against doing so. Masters fear I would be tricked. Thus you must, at least for a time, continue to wear it."

Iwoso looked at me for a moment in fury, and then put her head back in helpless frustration.

"I am sorry," I said.

Iwoso looked at me, puzzled.

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"I can understand your feelings," I told her. "How offensive it is that you, a loftly free woman, are tied naked in a sack, as though you might be a mere slave, as though there might be no difference between you and the Kaiila slave girl who lies beside you."

Iwoso's mind, I had little doubt, that quick, clever mind, was working feverishly.

Then she looked at me with soft, mild reproach. She nodded her head, pathetically.

"I am sorry, Lady Iwoso," I said. then I began to loop the rope carefully, from its center, that the ends of which were attached to the handles of the girls' sacks.

Iwoso, then, began to whimper timidly, piteously, trying to attract my attention.

I looked down at her.

Her eyes were soft, and pleading, and seemingly submissive and humble. She moved her head, lifting her mouth, with its heavy, sodden packing and its tight straps, towards me.

"Do you wish to speak to me?" I asked.

She shook her head negatively.

"That is good," I said.

She whimpered, piteiously, again lifting her head toward me, the gag bound so tightly, so effectively, in her mouth.

"Do you want me to remove the gag?" I asked.

She shook her head again, small, piteous momvements, negatively.

"What, then?" I asked.

She whimpered, lifting her head again to me.

"It is uncomfortable, isn't it?" I asked.

She nodded vigorously.

"Red savages," I said, "sometimes treat women too fiercely, do they not?"

Iwoso nodded her agreement.

"I suppose," I said, "that it would do no harm if I loosened it a little."

Iwoso whimpered, gratefully.

Bloketu then lifted her head, piteously, whimpering pleadingly. "Be silent, slave slut," I said to her. "You are not a free woman. You will continue to wear your gag in its full effectiveness, as a slave."

Bloketu lay back, tears running out of her eyes.

I then unknotted the gag behind the back of Iwoso's neck. I loosened the straps with my finger and then, putting my finger in her mouth, loosened the packing as well. Then, as

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though fearing I had been too lenient, I retightened the straps, closely, but not as tightly as they had been earlier. I then fastened the straps together behind her neck with a simple over-and-under knot. This would hold for a time because of the tightness of it and the strap friction. It would not hold, however, for very long, particularly if tested. I then pretended to secure that knot with a second knkot, to prevent slippage. I did not, of course, actually do so. The stressing and jerking of the straps, which Iwoso could feel through the back of her neck, was the result, merely, of my looping part of one strap about the other and then jerking against it, the secont strap end, of course, falling free as soon as I released it, leaving only the first knot in place, the simple over-and-under, or overhand knot. The security knot, as far as Iwoso could tell, was in place.

Bloketu lay on her back, sobbing.

"Is that better?" I asked Iwoso.

She whimpered, pleadingly.

"I dare not make it any looser," I said.

She whimpered, more pleadingly.

"I can always," I said, "make it tighter."

She shook her head, negatively.

"It is better, isn't it?" I asked.

She nodded her head.

"Perhaps I should make it tight again, as it was," I said.

She shook her head negatively, pleadingly.

"Are you grateful?" I asked.

She nodded her head.

I then looked away from her and returned my attention to the coiling of the rope. Inwardly I smiled. Did she really think that a woman such as she, luscious slave meat, would be truly accorded any consideration whatsoever?

I then, taking the rope with me, exited through the cut in the back of the lodge. I unhobbled the kaiila waiting there. It had a high-pommeled saddle on its back. It was to be ridden to the hunt nor to war. I looped the rope about the pommel of the saddle, dropping a few coils of it to either side, it then, on either side, descending to the ground and trailing back into the lodge. I threw a robe over my head and shoulders. I then mounted. Then, not hurrying, the robe muchly about me, I moved the kaiila away from the lodge, drawing from the lodge, through the cut it its back, my means of the rawhide ropes attached to their handles, the two sacks.

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I heard Iwoso making tiny, desperate noises. I think, then, she was truly frightened. I think then she fully realized, perhaps for the first time, that it might acually be possible for us to take her, with all the consequences which might then accrue to her in virtue of this, from the Yellow-Knife camp.

But I was, as yet, in no hurry to leave.

Without haste, muchly concealed in the robe. I moved the kaiila out inot the browd, empty lane between the Yellow Knife lodges, amost a busy, triumphal way. In such a lane sometimes young swains, on kaiilaback, in their paint and finery, parade before damsels; in such a lane sometimes are kaiila races held; and in such a lane, sometimes, slave girls, for humliation or punishment, or sport, are dragged back and forth in sacks.

I felt the tension in the ropes, on either side of the kaiila, as I entered into the long lane, some two hundred yards in length, the sacks, their weight negligible for the strength of the kaiila, being drawn lightly behind.

As I rode slowly along I looked back. The heads of the girls were off the ground, held off the ground, when we were in motion, by the construction of the sack with its handles, and the draw of the rope. Iwoso was uttering tiny, deserate noises. They were muffled and almost inaudible. They reminded me of the squeakings of an urt in terror. I did not think they could be heard more than a few feet away. Surely ot in the lodges on each side of that broad thoughfare. A domestic sleen did emerge from between the lodges, its ears pricked up, but when it saw what was ensuing, it turned away, paying us no more attention. Such sights and sounds were not unfamiliar to it.

I looked back again. Iwoso was squirming madly in the sack. Did the well-tied little thing really think she could free herself? Did she not know she had been tied by a warrior, Hci, of the Kaiila? But there is a simple way to stop such squirming. One increases the speed of the kaiila. I did so.

When I came to the end of the thoroughfare I turned the kaiila in a broad circle, not to foul the lines to the sacks, and began to retrace its length, even more quickly.

The sacks into which the girls had been inserted, naked and bound, were slave sacks. They were extremely stout, heavy sacks and heavily, and doubly, sewn. The intent of this is to make them sturdy leather prisons, containers from which a girl cannot escape and in which she is absolutely helpless. A consequence of the thickness of the material and the sturdiness

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of the construction, of course, is that the sack, almost inadvertently, affords the girl a great deal of protection. Neither Iwoso nor Bloketu would sustain skin or body damage as a result of what was being done to them. And certainly we would not have wanted them marked. Most men prefer soft smooth slaves. Indeed, in the cities, some slaves are even shaved or depilated.

I turned the kaiila about, again, at the far end of the thoroughfare or promenade, that long, dusty avenue between the Yellow-Knife lodges, and began to make my way back, once more, along its length.

I looked back. Dust, from the paws of the kaiila, was billowing behind me. Let the girls fight for breath. I grinned. I wished that I were within the coup system. Surely some sort of high coup would be involved, dragging a high lady of the Yellow Knives, one of their own proud free women, in a sack, up and down, back and forth in their own promenade lane, like a common slave girl. Surely that would be worth at least a feather or some sort of marking on a feather.

I increased my speed.

I wondered if Iwoso had speculated on why their heads had been left uncovered, or why we had not inclosed one girl completely and left the head of the other free, why we had treated the slave and the free woman identically. Slave girls, when being transported in sacks, for example, on wagons or on the shoulders of men, are usually completely within the sack, it being tied shut over their head. This helps keep the girl in ignorance as to her whereabouts and what is going on about her. This is thought suitable for slaves. She is also, after having been in a sack for a time, likely to be extremely grateful to he who releases her and very fearful that he might, if displeased with her, return her to it. Also, of course, many sorts of commodities on Gor are transported in this fashion. In the cities, of course, when inserting girls within sack bonds, it is common to observe a difference, where it exists, between a slave and a free woman. Commonly a slave would be inclosed completely in the sack and a free woman, if no risk were involved in doing it, would be bound in the sack only from the neck down. This kind of difference in binding, or shackling, in which the free woman wears easier or more comfrotable bonds than the slave, is in deference to the status of the free woman. When she, too, is enslaved, then, of course, she and the slave will be likely to wear identical bonds. To be sure, much depends on context.

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For example, if the two sacks were to be dragged in the dust behind tharlarion then it might be the case that the free woman, for her greater comfort, would be inclosed completely in the leather confinement and the slave would be bound only from the neck down, this once again and again to the determent of the slave, observing the distrinction in not be familiar with binding distinctions in bindings beween the. Iwoso, of course, would presumably not be familiar with binding
 
distinctions in the cities. Had she, thus, been bound more leniently than Bloketu, particularly since she was being bound by Hci, who seemed to bear her great hatred, she might have become suspicious. Thus we left the heads of both of the girls uncovered. This fitted in well, incidentally, with common practices among the red savages in dragging slaves about for, say, punishment or sport.

The heads of the slaves are usually left free. Similarly they are seldom gagged. In these ways they provide greater amusment for the spectators. Their expressions may be the more easily seen and their cries for mercy, or promises of better service, or assurances of reformed behavior, or even of perfect behavior, may be the more clearly heard. Sometimes the young men organize races in which slave girls are dragged behind kaiila. When the young men set themselves to the developement of such plans small slave girls in a camp, particularly white ones, tend to become afraid, for they know that they are not much weight for a kaiila to pull.

I turned the kaiila in a wide circle at the end of the prominade, the bags, like swift, twin plows, taut on their ropes, throwing up two trails of dust.