Magicians of Gor (78 page)

“Do not be naïve,” she said. “Even now, a secret alarm, a silent alarm, may be

out. Even now guardsmen may be turning Ar upside down, looking for me.”

“If you have planned your putative dalliance as well as you would have led us to

believe,” he said, “I doubt that you have even been missed. Indeed, perhaps you

will not be missed until morning!”

She moaned.

“Thus, we would have plenty of time to get you out of the city, as merely

another slave. If we have a tarn waiting, you could be a hundred pasangs from

here by nightfall, in any direction, and by morning, with a new tarn, five

hundred pasangs from there, in any direction, and in another day, who knows?”

She lifted her head with difficulty in the net, to look at him. His face was

stern. She put down her head, frightened, lying on her left cheek.

“But perhaps,” said he, “we have no intention of taking you from the city.”

“What?” she said, frightened, lifting her head again, with difficulty regarding

him. Her eyes went to the dagger at his belt. His fingers were upon it. “No!”

she said. “Surely you are not assassins!”

(pg. 459) He merely looked at her, his hands on the hilt of the dagger.

“Surely you do not intend to kill me!” she cried.

He regarded her, not speaking.

“Do not kill me!” she wept. It was not irrational on her part, of course, to

fear an assassination plot. Even if she believed herself generally popular

within the city, perhaps even much loved within it, she would realize that these

sentiments might not be universal. For example, the increasing resistance to

Cosian rule in the city, the growing insurgency, the actions of the Delta

Brigade, would surely have given her cause for apprehension, if not genuine

alarm. “Surely,” she said, “I have not become a slave, simply to be slain?”

He did not speak.

“Do not kill me!” she begged. It must have been painful for her to hold her head

up, as she was, on her belly, in the furs, in the net, to look at Marcus.

He did not speak.

“Please do not kill me,” she wept, “—Master!”

“I am not your master,” he said.

She looked at him, wildly. “Who, then,” she said, “is my master?”

“I am,” I said.

I seized her by the upper arms, from behind, and half lifting her, pulled her

up, and back, to her knees, tangled in the net. She turned wildly in the net, to

see me over her right shoulder, and our eyes met, and she recognized me, and she

gasped, and half cried out, and then I had to hold her on her knees, as she had

fainted. I lowered her to the furs. I then threw the bracelets with the linked

shackles on the furs to her left. I then removed her, carefully, from the net.

Then, in a moment, she was in the bracelets, back-braceleted, with her ankles,

shackled, pulled up, and back, attached by a short chain to the linkage of the

bracelets.

“I shall sign the papers,” I said to Tolnar.

“And I shall stamp, and certify them,” he said.

27
   
We Take Our Leave

“Extend your left wrist,” I said to Milo.

He did so, and I unlocked the silver slave bracelet there, and handed it to him,

with the key.

The new slave, the dark-haired, olive-skinned beauty who (pg. 460) had but

recently been the Ubara of Ar, was still unconscious. I had removed her from the

couch and put her on the floor, on the heavy, flat stones, on her side, some

feet to the left of the couch, as one faced it, from the foot, her wrists behind

her, braceleted, chained to her ankles, her neck fastened by a short chain to a

recessed slave ring. Near her, but not yet fixed upon her, were the makings of a

gag.

“I do not understand,” said Milo.

“It is silver,” I said. “Perhaps you can sell it.”

“I do not understand,” he said.

“And these papers,” I said, “are pertinent to you. They are all in order. I had

Tolnar and Venlisius prepare them, before they left.”

“Papers, Master?” he asked.

“You can read?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” he said.

“Do not call me ‘Master’,” I said.

“Master?” he asked.

“The papers are papers of manumission,” I said. “I am no longer your master. You

no longer have a master.”

“Manumission?” he asked.

“You are free,” I told him.

Lavinia, kneeling nearby, gasped, and looked up, wildly, at Milo.

“I have never been free,” he said.

“No,” I said.

“Does master not want me?” he asked.

“I do not even have a theater,” I said. “What do I need with an actor?”

“You could sell me,” he said.

“You are not a female,” I said.

He looked down, wildly, at Lavinia.

“Now that,” I said, “is a female. That is something fit for slave.”

“But your loss is considerable,” he said.

“One tarsk bit, to be exact,” I said.

He smiled.

“For so little,” I said, “one could purchase little more than the services of a

new slave for an evening in a paga tavern, one still striving desperately to

learn how to be pleasing.”

“Women are marvelous!” he exclaimed.

“They are not without interest,” I granted him.

(pg. 461) Lavinia put down her head, as it had been she upon whom his eyes had

been fixed when he had uttered his recent expression of enthusiasm. To be sure,

when one sees one woman as beautiful, it is easy to see the beauty in thousands

of others.

“I have always been a slave,” he said, “even when I was a boy.”

“I understand,” I said.

“I was a pretty youth,” he said.

“I understand,” I said.

“And I have always been denied women, warned about them, scolded when I

expressed interest in them, sometimes beaten when I looked upon them.”

“I know a world where such things, in a sense, are often done,” I said, “a world

in which, for political purposes, and to further the interests and ambitions of

certain factions, there are wholesale attempts to suppress, thwart, stunt and

deny manhood. This results, of course, also in the cessation or diminishment of

womanhood, but that does not concern the factions as it is only their own

interests which are of importance to them.”

“How could such things come about?”

“Simply,” I said. “On an artificial world, conditioned to approve of

negativistic ideologies, with determination and organization, and techniques of

psychological manipulation, taking advantage of antibiological antecedents, they

may be easily accomplished.”

“Even deviancy, and madness, threatening the future of the world itself?” he

asked.

“Certainly,” I said.

He shuddered.

“Some people are afraid to open their eyes,” I said.

“Why?” he asked.

“They have been told it is wrong to do so.”

“That is insanity,” he said.

“No,” I said. “It is cleverness on the part of those who fear only that others

will see.”

He shuddered again.

“But perhaps one day they will open their eyes,” I said.

He was silent.

“But put such places from your mind,” I said. “Now you are free. No longer now

need you deny your feelings. No longer now need you conceal, or deny, your

manhood.”

“I am truly free?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. I handed him the papers, and he looked at them, and then put them

in his tunic.

“I do not know how to act, how to be,” he said.

“Your instincts will tell you, your blood,” I said. “Their (pg. 462) reality

transcends your indoctrination, presented under the colors of reason, as though

reason, itself, had content.”

“I am a man,” he said.

“It is true,” I said.

“You would touch my hand?” he asked.

“I grasp it,” I said, “in friendship, and, too, in friendship, I place my other

hand on your shoulder. Do so as well with me, if you wish.”

We held one another’s hand, our hands then clasped. My left hand was on his

right shoulder, and his on mine. “You are a man,” I said. “Do not fear to be

one.”

“I am grateful,” he said, “—sir.”

“It is nothing,” I said, “sir.”

“I think it would be well for him to leave soon,” said Marcus. “For all we know

Appanius may have repented of his indiscretion and be returning with men.”

Lavinia looked up, agonized, at Milo.

“I liked your ‘Lurius of Jad’,” I told him.”

“Thank you,” said Milo.

“I didn’t,” said Marcus.

“Marcus is prejudiced,” I said.

“But he is also right,” he said.

“Oh?” I said.

“You see?” said Marcus.

“I liked it,” I said.

“I am not really an actor,” said Milo.

“Oh?” I said.

“No,” he said. “An actor should be able to act. What I do is to play myself,

under different names. That is all.”

“That is acting, of a sort,” I said.

“I suppose you are right,” he said.

“Of course, I am right,” I said.

“You are a wonderful actor, Master!” exclaimed Lavinia to Milo. Then she put

down her head, quickly, fearing that she might be struck.

“You called me ‘Master’,” he said to her.

She lifted her head, timidly.

“It is appropriate,” I said. “She is a slave. You are a free man.” She had, of

course, spoken without permission, but it seemed almost as though she had been

unable to help herself. Considering the circumstances I decided to overlook the

matter. To be sure, it would not do for her to make a habit of such errancies.

(pg. 463) “Forgive me, Master!” she whispered to me.

“You may speak,” I said.

“It is only,” she said, “that I think the great and beautiful Milo is a wondrous

actor. It is not that he acts a thousand roles and we cannot identify him from

one role to the next. It is rather that he is himself, in a thousand roles, and

it is himself, his wondrous self, that we love!”

“There,” I said to Marcus. “See?”

“Love?” said Milo, looking at the kneeling slave.

“Of course, my opinion is only that of a slave,” she said, looking down.

“That is true,” I admitted.

“Love?” asked Milo, again, looking at the slave.

“Yes, Master,” she said, not raising her head.

“Get your head up, slave,” I said to her.

Lavinia raised her head.

“Put your head back, as far as you can,” I said.

She did so. This raised the line of her breasts, and prominently displayed the

collar.

“She is pretty, isn’t she?’ I asked.

“She is a beautiful slave,” said Milo.

Tears of vulnerability, and emotion, filled Lavinia’s eyes.

“Milo had best be on his way,” said Marcus.

“Yes,” I said.

Lavinia sobbed, but she could not, of course, break position.

“But moments ago,” said Milo to me, “you owned us both!”

“True,” I said.

“You should leave,” said Marcus to Milo.

Again Lavinia sobbed, a sob which shook her entire body, but again she could not

break position.

“I think,” said Milo to me, “that I would fain remain your slave.”

“Why?” I asked.

“That I might upon occasion, when permitted,” said Milo, “have the opportunity

to look upon this woman.”

“Do you find her of interest?” I asked.

“Of course!” he said, startled.

“Then she is yours,” I said.

“Mine!” he cried.

“Of course,” I said. “She is only a slave, a property, a trifle, a bauble. I

give her to you. Here is the key to her collar.” I pressed the key into his

hand. “You may break position,” I said to the slave.

She flung herself to her belly before me, covering my feet with kisses. “Thank

you! Thank you, Master!” she wept.

(pg. 464) “Your new master is there,” I said, indicating Milo.

Quickly then she lay before him, kissing his feet. “I love you, Master!” she

wept. “I love you!”

He reached down, awkwardly, to lift her up, but it seemed she fought him,

struggling, and could not be raised higher than to her knees, and then, he

desisting in amazement, she had her head down again, to his feet, in obeisance,

and was kissing them. She was laughing, and crying. “I love you, Master!” she

wept. “I love you! I will be hot, devoted and dutiful! I am yours! I will live

to please you! I will live to love and serve you! I love you, my master!” She

kissed him again, and again, about the feet, the ankles, the sides of the

calves. Then she looked up at him, timidly, love bright in her eyes. “I will try

to be a good slave to you, Master!” she said.

“Surely I must free you!” he cried.

“No!” she suddenly cried, in terror.

“No?” he said.

“No!” she said. “Please, no, my Master!”

“I have waited too long for my slavery! It is what I have desired and craved all

my life! Do not take it from me!”

“I do not understand,” he said, haltingly.

“I am not a man!” she said. “I am a woman! I want to love and serve, wholly,

helplessly, unquestioningly, irreservedly, unstintingly! I want to ask nothing

and to give all! I want to be possessed by you, to be yours literally, to be

owned by you!”

He was speechless.

“My slavery is precious to me,” she said. “Please, Master, do not take it from

me!”

“What should I do?” he asked me, wildly.

Lavinia, too, kneeling before him, her arms not about his legs, looked at me,

wildly, pleadingly, tears in her eyes.

“What do you want to do?” I asked him.

“Truly?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“She is beautiful!” he said.