Conspirators of Gor (16 page)

“Up, beasts,” we heard.

We struggled to our feet.

We continued on, for another twenty Ehn, or so.

In what district of the city might we be?

I was sure we had passed through more than one.

My Gorean was acute enough, now, to detect some differences in accents. The local diction, with its lapses, and grammar, and vulgarities, its rapidities, its simplicities, its contractions, its elisions, unusual words, and vulgarities, was quite other than that of my instructresses, intelligent women who uniformly spoke, as nearly as I could determine, an educated, excellent Gorean. Four had supposedly attained to the “Second Knowledge,” whatever that was. All could write. I had some difficulty in even understanding the speech about me. I would learn that some members of some castes even reveled in a deliberately barbarous or vulgar Gorean, as though this were some badge of quality or superiority by means of which they might distinguish themselves from their despised “betters.” It was sometimes said that the power of Marlenus, the Ubar himself, rested ultimately on the lower castes, whom he cultivated and flattered. Is it not, ultimately, in the mass that the power lies? Who else, at a word, might swarm into the streets, armed with paving stones and clubs? Woe to the former free Gorean woman of high caste who, enslaved, might fall into the power of her hitherto despised “inferiors.” Each Gorean caste, interestingly, regards itself as equal to, or superior to, all other castes. Accordingly, each member of each caste is likely to have his caste pride. In some sense this doubtless contributes to social stability, and, surely, it tends to make the average fellow content with his own person, profession, background, antecedents, and such. He respects himself, and these things. Even the Peasants, commonly regarded as the lowest of castes, regards itself proudly, and with justification, as “the ox on which the Home Stone rests.” A casteless society, an open society, in which elevation, wealth, and success is supposed to depend, or does depend, on the outcome of merit and free competition will obviously generate an enormous amount of frustration, jealousy, envy, and hostility. In such a society most will fail to fulfill their ambitions and must almost inevitably fall short of achieving at least the greatest rewards and highest honors which such a society has to bestow. In an open race to which all are invited and in which all are free to run there will be only one winner, and many losers. It is natural then for the loser to blame not himself but the course, the starter, the conditions, the judge, the rules of the race, even that there is a race, at all.

The free woman of a high caste and the free woman of a lower caste commonly have one thing in common which unites them, securely, as free women. That is their contempt of, and hatred for, the female slave.

How strange they find it that men should prefer the helpless female slave, lovely, obedient, needful, desperate to please, to themselves!

How could such a thing be?

But it seems that it might be.

Do the free men not attend the auctions, do they not scout the exposition cages, do they not saunter to the gates, to witness the arriving coffles, to see the former free women of another city being marched naked to local markets, do they not want a shapely collar slut trembling at their slave ring, do they not frequent the paga taverns, and surely not always for conversation or kaissa. How detestable, think the free women, are slaves! How horrifying to want to be owned, to want to belong to a man, wholly, and desire to love and serve him, forever, abjectly, and unquestioningly, to the best of one’s ability! And how terrible men are that they should unaccountably prefer a cringing collar beauty, perhaps shackled, desperate to please them wholly, and as a female, to one of their own kind, forward, noble, splendid, proud, and free. What is so special about their terrified, groveling rival, licking and kissing at her master’s feet, with her marked thigh, and band-encircled throat? What could she, a slave, an animal, possibly have, or offer, that might begin to compete with the accorded favor of a free woman, standing on her dignity, and jealous of her rights? Why then, given such clear options, between the noble and the worthy, and the despicable and the meaningless, will men seek the despicable and the meaningless, the slave? Why then will they seek so zealously to leash and bracelet her, the slave, to rope her, hand and foot, to kneel her, to collar her? Why will they bid so zealously, and recklessly, to purchase her? Why do they fight to possess such things? Why are they willing to kill for them?

I cried out in sudden sharp pain. I knew the stroke. It was across my right shoulder. I had felt it often enough when I had displeased the instructresses, or made some error in diction, serving, position, or such. It was the result of a blow not from some child’s makeshift implement, a plaything, a pretended disciplinary device, but from an actual device of the sort his diversion mimicked, a supple, nicely crafted leather switch, an instrument designed to improve the discipline and service of a female slave. We most fear the whip but it is not pleasant, either, I assure you, to feel the corrective blow of the switch.

We will do much to please our masters!

“Sluts!” I heard, a woman’s angry voice. “Sluts! Sluts!”

I heard the sound of more blows, cries of pain.

“Wriggle to that!” screamed the woman. “Jump to the pleasure of that, you filthy sluts!”

“Please forgive us, Mistress!” cried a member of the coffle. But this plea, I gathered, did no more than earn its source another two or three blows.

I had been informed by the instructresses that free women were to be feared. If accosted by one, particularly if accosted unpleasantly, it is wise not only to kneel, as before a man, to ascertain his interests, intentions, or wishes, perhaps he wishes directions, or such, but to put one’s head to her feet, to, in effect, assume first obeisance position. In no way, either by word, tone of voice, act, expression, or attitude is one to show the least disrespect. The slightest suggestion of such a thing may result in severe and prolonged punishment. The woman is free, while one is a slave.

“She-tarsks!” cried the woman. “She-tarsks! She-tarsks!”

I heard the sound of more blows, cries of pain.

“Oh!” I wept, struck as well.

“Let them alone,” said a man.

“There are better things to do with little vulos than beat them,” said a fellow.

“Yes,” cried the woman. “You would know about that!”

“Mercy, Mistress!” begged one of the slaves. “Oh!” she cried, struck.

I was silent. I sensed the figure pass me.

Some fellow off to my right began to sing a little song about “Tastas.”

“Be silent!” screamed the woman.

“Demetrius will be home soon,” said a fellow, reassuringly.

I and one or two others were then struck again. I bent over, as I could, for the chain, cringing.

“Move the chain,” said someone to the side. “Move the chain.”

There was laughter.

“Give me back the switch!” screamed the woman. “Give me back the switch!”

“Move the chain!” a fellow urged, again.

“Step!” said one of the guards, and, gratefully, we moved forward.

“Give me the switch!” demanded the woman, now behind us.

We hurried forward, as we could.

I remembered a remark from one of the instructresses. I had not been more than two days in the house. “Be beautiful, and desirable,” she had said. “It is the men who will protect you.”

“Please the men,” said another. “It is the men to whom you will belong.”

“They will protect you from the women,” said another.

“If you are pleasing,” added another.

I was frightened from what I had heard of free women. I resolved to be pleasing to the men, as pleasing as I could be, and I understood what that meant, to be as pleasing as one could, and as a slave.

Soon the coffle was stopped, and, apparently, one individual was removed from it. We then continued on our way

I shortly became aware that another was removed from the coffle. We were apparently being delivered to different addresses. Some of the girls might have been purchased within the house. Usually a girl is sold in-house when the price offered seems clearly superior to what might be expected from vending her off an open block. Too, such a sale requires few arrangements, and little time. Sometimes, too, the capture and enslavement of a woman has been arranged by an enemy or admirer, and, in such a case, it is usually that particular woman that is wanted. She may have been paid for in advance, the price having been earlier negotiated and agreed upon. There is little difficulty in delivering such women through the streets, as they are hooded. Rich men, to whom money is of less interest than what it might purchase, sometimes buy in-house, putting out three or four times what a girl might bring in the open market. But most on the coffle, I supposed, and perhaps all, were being delivered to local markets, some possibly owned by the house itself.

As girls were removed from the coffle, their chaining, with the bracelets and coffle collars, was hung about the neck and shoulders of others. In the vicinity of the Tenth Ahn, as I guessed, I was alone, several loops of chaining, and such, slung about me or wrapped about my body. This was not pleasant, but, too, it was not much of a burden, as the chain was light, being girl chain. We were quite helpless in such bonds, but a man, it seemed, or some men, might have been able to pull apart such links. This is a way in which a woman may begin to understand that she is not a man. The sexes are quite different, and on Gor such picayune details have their role in helping to make the distinction clear. One is suitably master; one is suitably slave.

I was stopped by a hand on my shoulder.

I was also aware that the chaining which I was carrying was being unlooped, and unwound, from my body.

I gathered I was at my destination, wherever it might be. I did not inquire, of course. I did not wish to be struck. I had not been given permission to speak.

There had been two guards with the coffle.

One or both must now carry the chaining and such back to the house.

In the beginning, hooded, I did not know the number of beads on the small necklace. Counting their removal, and adding myself, there had been six.

I felt the coffle collar removed.

I stood there.

Now I was only hooded, and back-braceleted.

I felt a man’s hand on my left arm. “There are steps here, kajira,” he said. He then guided me, carefully, and assisted me up some five or six steps, onto a circular platform, cement, it seemed, but covered with a carpet, or heavy cloth, and then to the left. I heard a gate open, I would see later it was one of bars, and was conducted through it. Within he removed his hand from my arm, and I stood still. I stood on cement. The bracelets were removed.

“You have the papers?” a voice asked.

“Here,” said the guard.

I heard a movement of papers.

“Barbarian,” said the first voice.

“Yes,” said the guard.

“Is she any good,” asked the first voice.

“I do not know,” said the guard. “I have not put her to slave use.”

“I see she is red-silk,” said the first voice. That, I thought, must be on the papers. What right had they to know that?

“Recently,” said the guard.

“Good,” said the first voice. “There is no place for virgins here.”

I heard feminine laughter, from a few feet away.

On the whole, they had not been unkind to me in the Room of White-Silk. I had been handled with authority, of course, and was left in no doubt that I was within the grasp of masters, Gorean masters. I was not sure how many, as I had been hooded, had utilized me for slave pleasure, as some may have done so more than once. It was done to me in various ways. I was not freed of the ankle shackle until they were finished with me, and left, and the instructresses summoned, to unhood me and conduct me to my new domicile, a small, iron cage. I had occupied that cage, at night, until this morning, and my hooding and coffling. The cushions and furs in the Room of White-Silk had been deep. Occasionally the wrist and ankle rings were used, perhaps to accustom me to helpless slave service. I could still remember the feel of the heavy bar of the trestle against my belly. Toward the end, when I was half drunk, lost between confusion and disbelief, with the shocking and flooding of my belly, scarcely able to feel, I was thrown to the cushions and, for a time, left alone.

“Masters?” I said.

Were they done with me?

I was aware of blood on my thigh.

Some of it had been thrust to my lips, and into my mouth, that I might taste my virgin blood, which could be shed but once.

“Masters?” I whispered. Were they still in the room?

Strong hands put me on my back, over the cushions, my head back, and down. My ankles were pulled apart, widely. I left them as they had been placed. I supposed I was again to be put to use, routine, meaningless, forcible use.

I waited.

I did not know how many times it had been done to me.

Then I felt a gentle, soft, moist, caressing touch, and I cried out, startled, drew my legs together, as I could, and reached out, and felt my fingers close in a man’s hair.