Magicians of Gor (55 page)

affrontery he might have offered me, or so I thought.”

(pg. 322) “And what had you said?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I was as tongue-tied as a new slave girl thrown for the

first time before her master.”

“I see,” I said.

“Afterwards I was frantic that I must set him at his ease, that I must let him

know that I was not offended. I must encourage him to return. I must see him

again! I sent him a note, informing him that I would permit him to speak to me.”

“And then?”

“He did not come for two days,” she said, “and when he came he contritely

confessed that he had lacked the courage, he so unworthy, to approach one such

as I, so high born and free. Soon one thing led to another, he even claiming

that he was my slave in right, and in his heart, and not that of Appanius, his

legal master. I was overcome. What free woman has not coveted such adulatory

attention, though in her heart she knows it is she who in nature belongs

worshipfully at the male’s feet? Oh, yes, I was a pretty little vulo, ripe for

the snare. There is a special room in which we agreed to meet.”

“I know the place,” I said.

“Oh?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “It is in the Metellan district.”

“Yes,” she said. “Well, it was there that the net fell. Now I am in a collar.”

“Yes,” I said.

I looked down at her, she kneeling so far below us, in the hot, whitish dust.

“Where I belong,” she said.

“True,” I said.

“May I be of further service to Masters?” she asked.

“I have obtained from you the information I wished,” I said.

“Then a girl is pleased,” she said.

I then slipped down from the saddle of the tharlarion.

“Master?” she asked. She had moved suddenly, almost involuntarily, as though she

might have thought of leaping to her feet and fleeing, as I had dismounted, but

she had had the good sense to think the better of it. Certainly she had not

received permission to break position. She then knelt there, her back very

straight, trembling.

“Lift your head,” I said. “Look up.”

She did so. Her lower lip trembled.

I regarded her short brush of hair, the brief, tattered rag, scarcely more than

a ta-teera, which was her only garment, the simple collar, no more than a strap

of black iron curved about her throat, its small, right-angled, pierced

terminations flush to (pg. 323) one another behind the back of her neck, held

together by the rivet, her blistered, burned skin.

“Field slave,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“You have lied to free men,” I said.

She regarded me in terror.

“You told us that you had been brought in as a consequence of the levies,

whereas it was in consequence of the couching laws.”

“Forgive me, Master,” she whispered.

“But I am not particularly angered,” I said.

“Thank you, Master!” she said.

“You hastened to rectify your account.”

“Yes, Master!” she said.

“And were on the whole exact, voluble and diligent in your subsequent

responses.”

“Yes, Master!” she said.

“Do you think you would have lied to me, if I owned you?” I asked.

She looked up at me. “No, Master!” she said.

“I do not think you would have either,” I said.

She shuddered.

“But, of course, I do not own you.”

“No, Master,” she said.

“But as you know, an errant slave may be disciplined by an free man.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“For example, her master might not be present.”

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

“Her slavery does not exist only in his presence,” I said.

“No, Master.”

“It is uncompromised, categorical and absolute, at any moment, wherever she is,”

I said.

“Yes, Master.”

“And thus it is fitting, is it not, that she be subject to the discipline of any

free man?”

“Of course, Master.”

“And Marcus, my friend, and I are free men.”

“Yes, Master.”

“And you are thus subject to our discipline.”

“Yes, Master.”

“And you lied to us.”

“Forgive me, Master!” she begged.

“If I were your master,” I said, “I do not know what I would have done with you.

It is an interesting question. Surely, at the (pg. 324) least you would have

been stripped and tied, and given a lashing.”

She swallowed, hard.

“And I do not think you would soon forget it,” I said.

“No, Master,” she said.

“Do you think you would then lie to me again?”

“No, Master!” she said.

“You would attempt to improve your behavior, in all ways?”

“Yes, Master.”

I regarded her.

“Master?” she asked.

“I am thinking that since we do not own you that perhaps it might be fitting if

your discipline were decided by your master, the noble Appanius.”

“Please, no, Master!” she said.

“It would be easy enough,” I said, “to strip you and tie your hands behind your

back, and then write upon your body some brief but suitable message.”

She seemed to pale beneath her burns.

“The left breast, as you know,” I said, “it the usual place for such messages.”

This is, one supposes, because most masters are right-handed.

“Please do not inform my master, Appanius!” she wept.

“You seem to fear him,” I said.

“Yes!” she wept.

“It is good for a girl to fear her master,” I said.

“You do not understand!” she said. “I have already it seems muchly displeased

him. Already I have been shorn and put in the fields! If I gave him further

cause for discipline I do not know what he would do with me!”

“You might be whipped?” I said.

“He might have me thrown to the eels in his pool!” she said.

“Have no fear,” I said, “you have been helpful and cooperative, and I have

obtained much of value from our conversation, more doubtless than you

understand. Similarly, as this is the first time we have met, at least formally,

I am inclined, somewhat against my better judgment, to be initially lenient. It

might be pointed out, for example, that you did not know the sort of men we

were. Perhaps some men ignore lies in a slave, pretending not to notice them,

or, mistakenly, graciously accept them as trivial, as merely a girl’s

peccadilloes. But we are not such men. We are not patient with such things. Even

had you lied about something as small as a candy or pastry we would not have

accepted it. We approve of, and expect, truth from a (pg. 325) slave. In short,

had you known the sort of men we are, it is my speculation that you would not

have lied to us.”

“No, Master,” she said.

“But, as I have suggested, I am inclined to be lenient, in this first offense.”

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

“Also, of course,” I said, “we are not your master, and it seems that serious or

grievous discipline should be the prerogative of the master. These prerogatives

we do not desire to usurp.”

“No, Master!” she said.

“Accordingly,” I said, “your discipline is to be light.”

“Thank you Master,” she said.

I then lashed her head back and forth, first with the palm of my right hand, and

then its back. Then, with the last backhand stroke, I struck her from her knees,

to her side, and she was lying on her side, twisted, her palms down in the white

dust. She looked back at me, disbelievingly, startled, tears in her eyes, over

her right shoulder.

“Position,” I said.

She crawled back to where she had knelt, and resumed her former position, her

head bowed.

I walked about her and then crouched before her.

I put my hand under her chin and lifted it. Her face was red from the cuffing.

There were tears on her cheeks. Her lip was swollen. There was some blood at the

side of her face. I removed my hand, and let her once again lower her head.

“Oh!” she said.

“You have a good belly,” I said.

“Ai,” she said, softly.

“And an excellent figure,” I said.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, softly, helplessly.

I removed my left hand from the small of her back, where I had held it, that she

might not draw back more than I would permit. “And you have at least the

glimmerings of slave vitality,” I said.

She moaned.

“You are not going to lie to us again, are you?” I asked.

“No, Master!” she sobbed.

I then rose to my feet and stepped back a little.

She squirmed a little. “May I speak?” she begged.

“Yes,” I said.

“That was a light discipline?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “naught but a mere cuffing.”

Normally, of course, one cuffs with a single blow. She had, (pg. 326) however,

lied. Even so, I had, of course, pulled the strokes. One does not wish to injure

the slave, only punish her. Had I struck her heavily, with the force easily

summonable by a strong man, I might have broken her neck.

“I am sorry, if I have displeased Masters,” she said.

I did not speak.

“But Masters are wrong in one thing,” she said.’

“What is that?” I asked.

“I have in me more than the glimmering of slave vitality,” she said.

“It seems so to you now,” I said, “but in some months, when you are truly

helpless under the lash of your needs, and you understand the prison in which

they have placed you, you will better understand my words.”

“Even so!” she wept.

Her eyes pleaded with me.

“You may break position,” I said.

She flung herself to her belly before me, and pressed her lips to my feet.

“Please,” she said. “Please!”

“You grovel as a slave,” I said.

“I am no longer a free women,” she said. “I no longer have to pretend. I no

longer have to lie.”

I looked down at her, pondering her needs. Her lips were soft on my feet, timid,

petitioning.

“I am now half naked and in a collar!” she sobbed. “I am at your mercy. Take

pity on me!”

“You wish to placate masters?” I asked.

“If I have displeased them, yes!” she said.

“You would like to escape further punishment?” I asked.

“Surely it is understandable that a girl such as myself, one so helpless, one in

bondage, would seek to avert the wrath of men, that she would seek by her

curves, her service and love to soften the hearts of masters.”

Yes, I thought, that is understandable. Slave girls are, when all is said and

done, in spite of their beauty, so vulnerable, so owned, so ultimately helpless.

“Please, Master,” she said.

“You wheedle and beg well,” I said.

She looked up at me.

“Doubtless you learned that in your first days as a slave, in the house of

Appanius, perhaps desiring to be fed.”

“I am begging!” she said.

I looked down at her.

“Surely master understands for what I am begging,” she said.

“Oh?” I said.

(pg. 327) “Command me to strip,” she wept. “There is shade on the other side of

the tank. The dust is cool there. You do not need a blanket or a wrap. Put me in

the dust itself!”

I did not speak.

“If you wish,” she said, “I shall serve you here, in the hot dust, in the glare

of the sun.”

“A begging slave,” I commented to Marcus.

“Yes,” he said.

“Please,” she said.

“Kneel over there,” I said. I indicated a position near the yoke and the

buckets, near the tank. Quickly she rose up and went and knelt where I had

indicated. I then lifted up the yoke, which, as I have mentioned, was thrice

drilled, once in the center, and once near each end. At these points leather

thongs were wound in and around the yoke.

“Master?” she asked.

I put the yoke across her shoulders.

“Master!” she said.

I loosened the thongs at the center of the yoke and then, by means of them,

looped about her neck and tied, fastened the yoke on her. I then used the thongs

on her right to fasten her right hand to the yoke there, and then, to her left,

similarly served her left hand. I then stepped back to regard her, fastened in

the yoke, her hands widely separated.

“As you may recall,” I said, “you incurred discipline twice, once for lying, for

which you were cuffed, a preposterously light discipline considering the

offense, and secondly for daring to suggest that a master might not be

interested in the answer to a question which he had asked.”

“Forgive me,” she said.

“It is your business to answer questions, with exactness, and with the fullness

desired,” I said, “not to comment on such matters as their propriety or

appropriateness.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Your needs are apparently on you,” I said.

“Yes, Master!” she said, delightedly. “But I am helpless!” She moved her head

about a little, turning it a little from side to side, her neck within the loops

of the thongs; too, she moved her hands a little, futilely, they held back

against the wood, by the thonged wrists.

“Surely you are aware that a woman may be used in a yoke,” I said.

“Yes, Master!” she said.

Indeed, it is quite pleasant to use a woman in a yoke. Too, a girl is sometimes

given to field slaves that way, cords attached (pg. 328) sometimes to the ends

of the yoke, that she may be pulled about, turned this way and that, and, in

general, moved about and controlled as the slaves wish, until they weary of the

sport and choose to have their way with her. I gathered, however, that this had