Hunters of Gor (10 page)

“Yes!” boomed Thurnock.

“How was Tendite?” asked the proprietor.

“Exquisite,” said Rim. “She taught me a couple of things. I must now, when I

return to the ship, teach them to my own slave, Cara.”

I recalled the slender, beautiful Cara, on the Tesephone, Rim’s slave, clad in

the brief slave tunic of white wool, her hair bound back with the woolen fillet.

“How was Tana,” inquired the proprietor.

“Quite good,” I told him.

“She is one of my most popular girls,” said the proprietor. “A little beauty.”

“Incidentally,” I said, that Sarpedon not be cheated of his dues. “I have seen

this Tana before, in Ar. She is an exquisitely trained pleasure slave and, an a

most stimulating performer of slave dances,”

“The she-sleen!” laughed the proprietor. “I did not know. My thanks to you,

Captain! This very night she will dance in the sand for my customers!”

I turned to leave.

“Will you return to see her?” asked the proprietor.

“No,” I said, “I have many matters of business to attend to.”

5
     
We Enter Upon the River

It was now four days following my arrival, the master of the Tesephone, in the

harbor of Lydius, near the mouth of the broad, winding Laurius River.

We had taken on supplies, and my men, on shore, in the paga taverns, had rested,

and had muchly pleasured themselves with the lovely recreations of the port.

I stood at the rail of my ship.

The urt shields were still fastened to the mooring ropes, circular plates,

preventing small port urts from boarding the ship. The urts which had been

placed in the lower hold, before making landfall in Lydius, those which had

figured in my interrogation of the panther girls, Tana and Ela, had been removed

the following morning. Thurnock and Rim, with snares and nets, and by the light

of the tharlarion oil lamps, had captured them. As we coasted the shores pasangs

above Lydius, we had thrown them overboard. They had splashed beneath the water

and then, in a moment, their snouts and sleek heads had poked upward, shining

and dripping, and then, they, all six of them, noses like compass needles,

smelling the land, had turned in the water and tails whipping, leaving snakelike

curves in the water, had sped toward the distant forests.

We laughed.

They had been useful.

The girls, Tana and Ela, by my order, had not known that the urts had been

thrown from the ship. They had been, by my orders, sanding the deck before the

stern castle. As far as the girls knew there were still urts in the lower hold.

As far as they knew, they might be again bound, and placed there. They worked

well.

I looked down to the shore, and saw Cara, lovely in the brief woolen slave

tunic, her hair bound back with the fillet of white wool. Her feet were muddy.

Near a piling, small and delicate in the mud, she had found a talender. She bent

to pick it up, and fastened it in her hair, for Rim. She had been ashore to buy

some loaves of Sa-Tarna bread. The girl commonly carries the coin, or coins, in

her mouth, for slave tunics, like most Gorean garments, have no pockets. Slaves

are not permitted wallets, or pouches, as free persons. The baker had tied the

sack about her neck, with a baker’s knot, fastened behind the back of her neck.

The girl is not supposed to be able to see to undo the knot. Even if she works

it about to before her throat, she cannot see it. If she should untie it, it is

unlikely she will be able to retie it properly. Naturally the sack may not be

opened unless the knot has been undone. The baker’s knot is supposed to minimize

the amount of pilfering of pastries, and such, which might otherwise be done by

slave girls. Cara straightened up, the talender in her hair. She was quite

lovely. I rejoiced for Rim. The talender, fixed in her hair, is a slave girl’s

wordless confession, which, commonly, she dares not speak, that she cares for

her master. I noted that Rim, after our first day in Lydius, had not much

frequented the paga taverns. He had spent more time on board, with lovely Cara,

his slave.

Rim, now, however, was wandering about Lydius, before we set forth for Laura. He

had wanted to make small purchases, among them a new shaving knife.

“Wash your feet, Slave,” said I to Cara, as she began to mount the gangplank.

“yes, Master,” she said, darting back down the gangplank. She went below the

wharf and, standing on stones, washed her feet in the water. Slave girls on Gor

address all free men as Master, all free women as Mistress.

Yesterday I had sent Tina for bread.

The sensuous little slave was not standing near to me.

“How do you like your collar?” I asked her. It read I BELONG TO BOSK.”

She looked away.

She, like Cara, wore a brief, sleeveless slave tunic of white wool, her hair,

too, bound back with a fillet of white wool. Her tanned body, in the white

garment, was exciting. It was a better garment than she had worn when she had

been free, though, of course, it was much shorter.

She wore a slave strap, a heavy strap, buckling in the back. In the front, at

her belly, was fixed in the strap, a plate and ring. Through the ring passed a

chain, of some five inches in length, each end of which terminated in a

bracelet. Her hands were confined before her body.

Cara now, cleaned, climbed the gangplank and boarded he Tesephone.

We permitted Cara to run free. Tina, on the other hand, had been kept in the

slave strap and bracelets, except when she was working in the kitchen area,

cooking, and peeling suls and such. At such times a simple chain, run to her

ankle, was sufficient to secure her. If we had permitted Tina to run free, as

with Cara, I think she might have attempted escape. She knew the city of Lydius,

and might be difficult to apprehend. I did not think she could have made good

her escape, but I did not wish to lose time pursing her.

Yes, yesterday, I had sent her, in the slave strap and bracelets, for bread.

I wanted to see her, for the first time, walk the wharves of Lydius, as a slave

girl.

She had stolen from me.

I tied a note about her neck, reading, Two loaves of Sa-Tarna.

She had been furious.

“Open your mouth,” I told her.

She had done so.

I had placed the coin in her mouth.

“Go, Slave,” I had said to her, “Hurry.”

She had had a sly expression on her face, as she had left the ship.

It was clear to me she would try to escape.

I was curious to see what would happen.

She was off the wharf to which the Tesephone was moored, I saw her cast a look

over her shoulder, and begin to run between the bales and boxes near the

warehouses.

But scarcely had she made five yards when a dock worker, who knew her, seized

her by the arm. She struggled, futilely. From the Tesephone I watched. Another

dock worker came over to see her. “It is Tina!” I heard laugh. “Tina!” cried

others. Soon, she was surrounded by some nine or ten dock workers, who

remembered her well. She had perhaps stolen from all of them, or taunted them. I

saw one of them, the fellow who had first seized her, read the note tied on its

string about her neck.

Then they parted, to let her pass, but in such a way that she must walk in one

direction. Then, flanking her, and preventing her from going anywhere but where

they wished, they escorted her to the shop of the bakes. Later I saw her

returning. The note, on its string, was no longer about her neck. But now, about

her neck, tied with the baker’s know, fastened behind the back of her neck, was

a sack of two loaves of Sa-Tarna bread. She was escorted by the dock workers to

the very foot of the gangplank of the Tesephone.

“Farewell, Slave!” they called.

Proudly, not looking at them, but with tears in her eyes, she climbed the

gangplank.

“I have brought the bread,” she told me.

“Take it to the kitchen area,” I told her.

“Yes, Master,” she had said.

I had not seen fit again, however, to send her for bread. She now stood beside

me, in the white tunic, in the slave strap, her hands braceleted to her belly.

It did not seem necessary, for her instruction, to have her walk again as a

slave girl in the streets of her own city. Lydius, I felt, had, however, been

owed that sight. She had now had it. The girl was now mine, completely, as any

other slave.

Once beyond Lydius I expected there would not be much danger of her running

away.

Where was there for her to run?

In the forests there were sleen and panthers, and fierce tarsks.

And there were panther girls, too, who would be swift to pounce on an escaped

slave girl.

I recalled how swiftly, how expeditiously, Elizabeth Cardwell had been taken by

them, and humiliatingly exhibited, bound to a pole, at the river’s edge, where

she had been purchased by Sarpedon, in whose tavern she now, for the pleasure of

his customers, served as one of his paga slaves. I smiled. I corrected myself.

There was no Elizabeth Cardwell serving in the paga tavern of Sarpedon of

Lydius. There was, however, I recalled, a slave named Tana.

I glanced at Tina, standing beside me. She looked away. She did not care to meet

my eyes.

She wore my collar. Where could she run?

She wore a brand. Where could she flee?

She could not even run to Lydius, her own city, for it was there, publicly, by

judicial sentence, that the degradation of slavery, by the iron, had been burned

into her body.

Even if a girl should escape one master, it is almost inevitable that she fall

to the chains of another.

If not sooner, then later.

When a girl on Gor is slave, she is slave.

The penalty for attempted flight by a slave girl, for the first offense, is

commonly a severe beating. The girl is, so to speak, permitted that mistake,

once. If she should attempt to escape again, the master’s patience is usually

less willing to be presumed upon. It is not uncommon to hamstring her.

This makes her worthless, but is thought to provide an excellent lesson for

other girls.

Gorean slave girls, those that are familiar with their collars, know that there

is no escape for them.

They know in their hearts that they are truly slave, and will remain so, unless

it might please their master to grant them freedom. It is seldom done. There is

a Gorean saying that only a fool frees a slave girl.

When a girl on Gor is slave, she is truly slave. She is nothing more. She cannot

be more. Most slave girls know this. All, in time, learn it.

Tina, however, was fresh to her collar. And so it was that, in Lydius, while we

remained in port, I kept her in slave strap and bracelets. I did not wish to be

inconvenienced by the amount of time, a day or so, it might take to have her

once more in my chains.

I regarded Tina, I thought I might have use for her. She possessed skills.

Moreover, she might probe valuable if I wished to recruit the help of Arn, the

Outlaw, he whom she had once drugged and robbed.

“Do you remember an Outlaw,” I asked her, “Arn, by name?”

She looked at me, warily, apprehensive.

“Would you like to belong to him?” I asked.

She looked at me, with horror.

I turned away, leaving her at the rail. I was pleased at her reaction. I heard

her pulling at the slave bracelets as I turned away. She might now, I

speculated, be well induced to serve me with exceeding fervor and diligence,

should I assign her tasks in accord with her thieving skills, for fear that she

be given to the massive, handsome Arn. Moreover, I told myself, afterwards, if

it seemed politic, I could always give her to him anyway. She was my slave girl,

a female animal I owned, to do with as I pleased.

I heard Cara, off near the stern quarter, singing. I envied Rim his girl..

But where was Rim?

It was near the ninth hour and soon, almost within an Ahn, I wished to cast off

the mooring ropes. The water, many kegs, and the supplies, ranging from hard

breads to slave nets, were abroad.

The morning tide from Thassa was running in, swelling the river. I wished to

leave at the height of the tide. It would breast at the tenth Ahn. It was late

in the summer and the river was not as high as it is in the spring. In the

Laurius, and particularly near its mouth, there are likely to be shoals,

shifting from day to day, brought and formed by the current. The tide from

Thassa, lifting the river, makes the entrance to the Laurius less troublesome,

less hazardous. The Tesephone, of course, being a light ship, an oared ship, a

shallow-drafted ship, is commonly very little dependent on the tide.

My men idled near the thwarts. Some slept between them. I wished them to rest

now. They would have work soon enough. I looked at them. I grinned. At a cry of

Thurnock such men, in an instant, would become a crew. They were of Port Kar.

Where was Rim?

“Captain!” called Rim, from the wharf.

I was pleased. He had returned.

“Captain!” he called. “Come here!” Then he saw Cara, who had run to the rail,

having heard him. She waved delightedly. “Slave!” he called. He snapped his

fingers at her, pointing to the planks of the wharf at his feet. She sped down