Hunters of Gor (36 page)

when, or where on her body, they would fall. She would stand there, her wrists

bound over her head, apart, on the branch, waiting. Then suddenly there would be

the hiss, and, somewhere on her body, the swift, lashing fall of the switch.

The red-haired girl had handled the psychological dimension of the beating

beautifully.

Even when she was not being struck Ilene would sometimes cry out. “No! Don’t hit

me!” Sometimes, waiting, unstruck, she would cry out as though she had been

struck. She jerked, trying to free her wrists. She twisted helplessly, but could

not free herself. Then, shaking her head, weeping, she began to writhe and beg

incoherently for mercy. She, of course, as a slave girl, would receive none.

“Be silent, Slave,” said the red-haired girl.

“Yes, Mistress,” wept Ilene.

“Suppose,” said the red-haired girl to the slave, “it was not a switch, but the

five-strap Gorean slave whip?”

Ilene closed her eyes.

“Suppose,” said the red-haired girl, “it was not I who disciplined you, but,

with such a whip, a male.”

“Yes, Mistress,” wept Ilene, her head down.

“Rejoice,” said the red-haired girl, “that you are only switched, and by a

woman.”

“Yes, Mistress,” whispered Ilene, her face stained with tears. The red-haired

girl had thrown Ilene’s long dark hair forward, that it not provide any

shielding from the switch.

There were now six stripes on her body, from her ankles to the back of her neck.

They were slender and red. Each was well placed. Spreading from each stripe

there was a redness of pain. She clenched her fists in her bonds. Now her entire

back burned scarlet.

The panther girls, in their chains, laughed. They enjoyed seeing the pretty

Earth-girl slave beaten.

I nodded to the red-haired girl. Swiftly, across the back, in rapid succession,

she delivered Ilene’s last four stinging stripes.

I then unfastened her wrists from the branch.

She was bent over with pain. I picked up the bit of yellow silk and threw it to

her. She caught it, and held it before her body.

“It is you,” I told her,” “who will be sold in Port Kar.”

I then turned away from her.

I heard the red-haired girl addressing the panther women. “On your feet,

Slaves,” she said, slapping the switch in her hand.

They stood up.

“Get bowls,” said the red-haired girl to Ilene. “And open a bag of slave meal.

When the slaves pass you, give each half a bowl of meal.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Ilene.

“Then gather fruit and nuts for them,” said the red-haired girl.

“Yes, Mistress, ”said Ilene.

I went to the tree about which had been fastened the length of chain extending

from the first girl’s Harl ring, that tethering the girls to the tree. I

unsnapped it and refastened it about the left wrist of the first girl on the

chain, that she might carry it as she had the day before.

The red-haired girl, to my satisfaction, but not asking me, took some of the

silk we carried and cut it into strips, wrapping it in and around the ankle

rings of her charges, and about the girl’s ankles, that their ankles be

protected in the march. She was a good first girl. “Thank you, Mistress,” said

one of the girls to her. “Be silent, Slave,” responded the red-haired girl.

“Yes, Mistress,” responded the other. She was a good first girl. She, with her

switch, maintained a harsh and perfect discipline among her charges, but she was

not more cruel to them that it was customary to be with Gorean slaves. They were

animals in her charge. She was, accordingly, solicitous for their welfare. From

my point of view, of course, a girl with a scarred ankle is likely to bring a

lower price than a perfect specimen. I thus approved of her action.

“What is your name?” I asked her.

“Whatever master wishes,” she said.

“What have you been called that pleases you? I asked.

“If it pleases Master,” she said, “I should like to be called Vinca.”

“You are Vinca,” I said.

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

I regarded Ilene.

“No!” she said. “Please do not take my name away!”

“You no longer have a name,” I told her.

She looked at me with horror, and fell to her knees piteously before me.

“Please,” she begged. “Please, no!”

She looked up at me. She then realized that she was nameless. Her entire body,

fresh from its switching, shook with the horror of it. Her identity, her very

sense of self, from her earliest understandings had been fused with that name,

inseparable from it. Now it was gone. Who was she? What could she be? She looked

up at me, piteously. A she-verr, a tarsk sow, a tabuk doe had no more nor less

name then she. The collared female animal, nameless, knelt at the feet of its

owner.

“I will give you a name,” I told her. “It will be more convenient.”

There were tears in her eyes.

“I will call you Ilene,” I said.

“Thank you, Master,” she whispered.

“There is a difference, of course,” I told her, “in the name Ilene you once

wore, and in the name Ilene you now wear.”

She nodded, miserably. Her old name, her old identity, had been taken from her

forever. Her new name, though in sound the same, was not her old. Between them

there was a difference of worlds, a gulf wider than that dividing planets. Her

old name had been hers as a free person, publicly registered, legally certified,

historically identified with her throughout her life, until her capture by

slavers. It had been a proud, intimate possession, giving her pleasure and

dignity. It had ennobled her. It had served, with other properties, to

distinguish her as a precious person, a unique individual, among all others on

the planet Earth. When asked who she was, it was with that name that she would

answer. That was who she was. Then the name had been taken from her. She was

then only an animal in bondage. In Gorean courts her testimony would normally be

exacted only under torture. In such courts she could not, legally, be named, but

would rather be described as, say, Ilene, the slave of Hesius of Laura, or

Ilene, the slave of Bosk of Port Kar. Her name might be changed, or altered, as

often as a master wished. Indeed, he need not even give her a name. Changing a

girl’s name, or taking it away, are common modes of Gorean slave discipline.

So I would call her Ilene.

But this was not her old name, though in sound it was the same. This was now a

Gorean slave name. It carried no dignity nor civil significance. It might be

changed; it might be wore that name now, and she knew it, only by the whim of

her master. That was the name to which he had decided she would answer. Thus,

simply, but his will, it was her name. The first name, Ilene, had been a proud

Earth name; the second name, Ilene, was only a Gorean slave name. It was the

second name to which she would answer; it was the second name which she would

now wear; it was the second name which was now, by my will, hers.

“You are Ilene,” I told her.

“Yes, Master,” she said. Then she put down her head and wept.

I turned to Vinca. “Have the slaves prepare to lift their burdens,” I told her.

There was much work to be done today.

“Coffle!” cried Vinca, striking two of the girls. Swiftly they lined up beside

their burdens. “Posture!” cried Vinca. “Stand straight!” she struck another

girl. “Straight!” cried Vinca. “Remember that you are beautiful slaves!”

“We are not slaves!” cried one of the panther girls. “We are panther women!”

I went to one of the boxes, that which contained uninscribed slave collars.

As the girls stood straight in the coffle, looking directly ahead, fearing not

to. I, from behind, one by one, moving their hair aside, snapped a slave collar

on the throat of each.

I nodded to Vinca.

“Lift your burdens,” she called.

In tears the panther girls lifted their burdens. “Excellent”, called Vinca.

“Remember now, you are graceful and beautiful slaves!”

I strode from the clearing.

“March!” called Vinca. I heard the switch fall twice, and then heard,

alternating with silence, the movement of the chain.

16
   
I Find Some Tunics of Tyros

Mira, who was the lieutenant of Hura, rolled to her side. She slept fitfully.

The march of the men of Tyros had become a rout. Even before I had come upon the

column in the morning, I had found abandoned baggage strewn along the trail. I

had found also the chains and leg irons that had been fastened on the left

ankles of the male prisoners. They had been struck off that the column might

move with greater speed. That meant that the male slaves now were fastened in

their coffle only by their neck chains. Too, of course, their hands were

manacles behind their back.

It had been necessary to slow the column down, so I had done so.

Eight men of Tyros I felled near the front of the column.

There had been no flankers, no points set. The panther girls were apparently now

terrified to leave the column. And the men of Tyros were unwilling to do so.

I had heard fierce words being exchanged between them.

In my teeth I held two slender lengths of binding fiber. In my right hand I held

a heavy wadding of fur. Looped loosely about my right wrist, so that it would

fall when my hand was held downwards, was a thick, wide strip of panther skin,

twisted in its center.

The arrows which had struck the men of Tyros had been those of panther girls,

taken from their captures. The men of Tyros and the girls of Hura did not know

the nature nor the number of their stalkers. The first man, felled at the

conquest circle, had been felled with a pile arrow from the great bow. The

others had fallen to the arrows of panther girls, of which I had acquired a

great number.

Mira had first betrayed Verna. She had been betrayed Marlenus of Ar. Her

treacheries were not yet completed.

I approached her with the stealth of a warrior. She lay in her own small

shelter. Other girls lay about. I did not touch them in my passage.

After I had felled the eight men at the beginning of the column I had withdrawn

to the forest, where I slept for an Ahn. Then, refreshed, I had returned to the

column. It had begun to move again. I felled men much as I pleased, in

particular those who would dare to hold the whips to encourage the slaves in

speed. Soon none would hold the whips.

The men of Ar, led by Marlenus, begin to sing in the coffle, a song of glorious

Ar. They now marched, at their own pace, their heads high, with pride.

Angry the men of Tyros demanded that they stop, but they did not do so.

Even the panther girls in charge of the coffle of captive females struck them

less now with the switch.

Vera now, in the coffle, walked well. Even though she wore slave silk, and

lipstick and earrings, she walked well. There might not even have been slave

bells on her ankle. I marveled at her. Her ears had been pierced. That is

regarded, in Gorean eyes, as an almost ultimate degradation of a female. Yet her

head was high, her gaze proud and fearless. The large, delicate golden rings in

her ears were stunning. How beautiful a woman is in earrings! I could tell that

she was no longer ashamed of them, but proud of them. Not only do earrings

enhance a woman’s beauty, but they speak, openly to all, both men and women,

regardless of social pressures and repercussions, of the pride and pleasure she

takes in her womanhood. Verna was no longer a pretend man, or a pretend nothing.

She was now full and perfect in what she was, in her own right, a human female,

a woman. She walked well. She might have been a tatrix. Indeed, she was, though

braceleted and collared, a tatrix of the forests.

The panther girls with the switches looked about themselves fearfully. They

struck the girls in the coffle less frequently now. They only wished to hurry,

to leave the forest, as soon as possible, to escape. As yet, they knew, none of

the arrows had felled one of their number. Yet they did not seem reassured. They

suspected perhaps, in terror, that another fate might be theirs.

Mira, the lieutenant of Hura, stirred again, turning from her left to her right

side. Her head was on her arms. Her blond hair was unbound. She wore her skins.

Her legs, particularly the right one, was drawn up.

There had been few fires in the camp. The men of Tyros and the girls of Hura had

feared the light. There had been only two guards, and they were quite close to

the camp. I had slipped between them. It was important that they suspect

nothing.

In the day, through the morning and long afternoon, from cover, I had struck,

again and again.

Answering quarrels from crossbows, meaningless, sometimes fell among the

branches and leaves. They had no target.

In desperation, to my pleasure, some fifteen men of Tyros entered the forest.

In all, throughout the day, the great bow had spoken forty-one times, and

forty-one men of Tyros now lay scattered along the trail and in the forest, feed

for prowling sleen.

I lay behind Mira in the darkness. Her back was to me. She lay on her right

side, her head on her right arm. She twisted in her sleep. She was restless. I