Prize of Gor (59 page)

Ellen was then aware that the officer had opened his pouch, and, in another moment, that he had wired a small, thin, rectangular metal tag to her collar. She did not doubt but what there were other tags such as that in the pouch.

“I will send a man here tonight, a slaver, or slaver’s man, to pick her up,” said the officer to Portus Canio.

“Cos treats her allies well,” said Portus Canio.

“The laws of Cos march with the spears of Cos,” said the officer.

He then turned to leave, and his men prepared to follow him.

“Sir,” said Portus Canio.

The officer turned about.

“There seems to be some disturbance in the city, some commotion in the streets,” said Portus Canio. “What is going on?”

“Nothing,” said the officer. He then left the loft area, followed by his men.

“They may return later, with tarn goads,” said Fel Doron.

Portus went to Ellen, who was still standing. He turned the tag which dangled from her collar. “‘Confiscated in the name of Cos,’” he read.

“You must give her up, Portus,” said Tersius.

“No!” cried Selius Arconious.

Ellen looked at him, startled.

He could do nothing to prevent her confiscation, for she was a mere property.

Why did he cry out so, she wondered.

Certainly he could not care for her. He was incapable of such feelings. He was no more than a vain, insensitive, arrogant brute. Too, men did not care for such as she; for she was not free; she was only a slave.

But she recalled the effect she had had upon him and must obviously still have. Certainly he had cried out.

She recalled how she despised and hated him.

Too, she would be frightened to belong to him. She knew he lusted for her, like the lion for hot meat. She, a former woman of Earth, feared naturally, understandably enough, to belong to a Gorean male. The men of her world had not prepared her for such a fate. She was terrified to think of herself as a helpless slave at the mercy of such men, Gorean males, at the mercy of such virile, severe, demanding, untamed, bestial predators, and she realized that, in that desperate predicament, she would be choiceless, absolutely so, that she would be the vulnerable, helpless object of powerful, uncompromising, unbridled lust, and that she must assuage and serve it with all her embonded loveliness, instantly, perfectly, unquestioningly.

How I hate him, she thought.

Soon I will be rid of him! Excellent! And I will have a new slavery and new masters. Splendid!

And she recalled how she had been muchly pleased to keep him at a distance, how amused she had been that he might burn with need, writhe with desire.

Tears sprang to her eyes.

Then she saw his eyes were upon her, and she smiled, smugly, and tossed her head, insolently. Burn, she thought, Selius Arconious, burn! You will never have me! Suffer! Suffer! Burn! Burn!

She saw he looked upon her with fury. I am not yours, she thought. Then, when she was sure he was looking, she turned her head away, smiling. To be sure, her gesture might have been a bit more effective if she had had her tunic.

“I fear Fel Doron is right,” said Tersius Major. “They may return later, with tarn goads.”

“We will not be here,” said Portus.

“What?” said Fel Doron.

“Give the signal,” said Portus.

“It is premature! It is not yet time!” said Tersius Major.

“We must act,” said Portus. “Give the signal.”

Fel Doron nodded. He lit a lamp.

For a moment he lifted the lamp, and regarded Ellen. Thus under the scrutiny of a free man, Ellen, appropriately, knelt.

“Doubtless it causes less ill will to confiscate slaves at night,” muttered Fel Doron.

“We are taking her with us,” said Portus. “She figures in our plans.”

This intelligence startled Ellen. Surely they could not take her with them. Had she not been confiscated? Did she not have a Cosian tag wired to her collar?

Fel Doron took the lamp outside. He returned a moment later. “It is done,” he said.

“Gather your goods, anything you want,” said Portus to Fel Doron and Tersius Major. “We fly tonight.”

“What is going on?” asked Selius Arconious.

“Selius,” said Portus, “attend to the slave. See that she is fed and watered, and that she relieves herself.”

“Very well,” said Selius, puzzled.

“Then go below, and see if you can learn what transpires in the streets.”

“I will do so,” said Selius Arconious.

When Ellen looked up, from her knees, she saw, in the half darkness, Selius Arconious looming over her.

She did not find it a particularly welcome sight.

“Oh!” she cried in pain, for he had reached to her hair and yanked her to her feet, and was now leading her, she painfully bent over, her head at his right hip, his hand tightly in her hair. She stumbled beside him, hurrying, trying to put her hands on his thick wrist. “Please, Master!” she cried. “Stop! You are hurting me!”

“Be silent, slut,” he snarled.

He drew her to the kitchen and threw her to her knees. Then he took a pan, threw it to the floor, and kicked it before her. He shook some biscuits into the pan, and they struck the pan and rattled about within it. She looked up, in misery. From a hook in the pantry he had taken down a slave whip. It was now in his hand. “Eat,” he said.

Quickly she put down her head and, on all fours, addressed herself to the biscuits. They were dry and it was hard for her to eat them. She looked up, in misery. He lifted the whip. She again put down her head, sobbing. Perhaps she was slow. Perhaps he was impatient. He pulled her by the hair to an upright kneeling position and held her by the hair with his left hand, the loop at the butt of the whip about his wrist, where it hung against her right cheek, and, reaching into the pan, took the last two biscuits and thrust them into her mouth. She tried to chew, wildly, terrified. She half choked, she struggled to swallow. She was still gasping when he put a pan of water before her, which she went to seize gratefully but found the whip interposed between her mouth and the pan. She looked up at him piteously, crumbs and flakes of biscuit about her face and mouth. His eyes were stern. “Like the sleek little she-urt you are,” he said. She put her head down and drank. “More quickly, slut!” said he. She wept. The salt of her tears mixed with the water. Her lips and tongue felt sometimes the sides of the pan, sometimes its bottom, so desperate were her efforts. Her hair was wet where it fell into the water. “You are too slow,” said he, and lifted the pan before her. “Open your mouth, slut,” said he, and he then, unceremoniously, impatiently, too rapidly, poured water down her throat, but much of it, too, went about her chin, and throat, and under her collar, and ran down, too, plentifully, between her breasts. When he threw the pan to the side with a clatter she was trembling and sobbing. She was then drawn again to her feet and led, bent over, as a slave, to her own stall. “Squat,” said he, “slave.” “Please!” she begged. He lifted the whip. She relieved herself before him.

“Wipe yourself,” he said, “slovenly creature.”

She wiped herself with a handful of straw from the stall, depositing the straw in the wastes container.

She then was kneeling before him, looking up at him, in the half darkness, sobbing, shaking with humiliation.

“You may speak,” he said, amused.

“I hate you! I hate you!” she cried.

“You might be easily used,” said he, “on the straw of your stall.”

She shrank back.

“Are you a creature of ice?” he asked.

“Yes,” she wept. “Where you are concerned!”

“So you will still pretend to be the little figurine of ice, carved in the semblance of a slave girl?”

“I am ice,” she cried. “I am ice!”

“I see,” said he. “You are a cold slave?”

“Yes,” she said. “I am cold! I am a cold slave!”

“I see,” he said.

“What are you doing?” she cried.

He had put her to her belly on the straw.

“Have no fear, little icicle,” he said.

He then, with two thongs, bound her, hand and foot. As she struggled, helpless, he lifted her in his arms.

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked. “Where are you taking me?”

“Portus wants me to go below, and see what is occurring in the streets,” he said.

“Put me down!” she cried.

“In a moment,” he assured her.

“No!” she cried. “Don’t!”

He opened the heavy door of the ice room, and, in a moment, as she protested weakly, and struggled, and moaned in dismay, and begged mercy, he placed her in the room, bound as she was, on blocks of ice, half hidden by the sawdust.

“This is a good place for little icicles,” he said.

“Don’t leave me here!” she begged. But, in a moment he had left, swinging shut, and latching, the heavy, timbered, reinforced door, and she found herself, to her consternation and misery, plunged into darkness.

She cried out, but it seemed that Portus and the others were unconcerned, or did not hear her.

Serious matters of some sort were afoot. Surely haste was being made. It was not surprising then that the comfort of a she-thrall, the comfort of a curvaceous little bondmaid, particularly one being disciplined, was less than uppermost on their minds.

“Please Masters, free me!” she wept. “I will be a good slave! I will be a good slave!”

She twisted, and squirmed, on the ice. Cold sawdust was on her face and in her hair. Her back ached with cold. She tried to change her position but the ice was even more merciless to her bosom, to her belly, the front of her thighs. She put her feet up, trying to keep them from the ice. Then she was again weeping on her back, and then on her sides, and then on her back again, in the darkness. “I will be a good slave!” she wept. “I will be a good slave!” She feared she would lose her mind from the cold and darkness. She was doubtless not there long, but, in the darkness, and in her misery, she lost all sense of time. It seemed she had never been so cold as now. The metal of the collar absorbed the cold and seemed like a flat ring of ice on her neck. Even the thongs that bound her seemed stiff with cold, and she feared they might cut her like frozen knives.

In what might have been some half of an Ahn, or so, the door to the ice pantry, or ice room, opened and there stood therein, silhouetted in the light behind it, the figure of Selius Arconious.

“Master!” cried out Ellen, beggingly, piteously.

“Are you prepared to be a good slave?” he inquired.

“Yes, Master! Yes, Master!” cried Ellen.

He then entered the ice room, picked her up, threw her over his left shoulder, steadying her there with his left hand, and left the ice room, she carried as a slave, as would be expected, her head to the rear. One advantage of this carry is that the slave cannot see to what device, or accommodation, or destination, she is being borne. He closed and latched the door to the ice room behind him, with his right hand. Too, it is difficult for a slave to be carried thusly, and she not to understand herself clearly as what she is, goods.

What men can do to us! What men can do with us, thought Ellen. They can do whatever they want with us!

How fortunate, she thought, that this fact has been concealed from the men of Earth, that they, perhaps in their simplicity, perhaps in their lack of imagination, perhaps in their naively uncritical acceptance of imposed conditioning programs, are unaware of it! Woe to us, should they decide to exercise their prerogatives, their rights in the order of nature! For would they not then again make us their slaves?

He carried her to the kitchen and there put her on her knees before him, she still bound hand and foot.

She knelt there, before him, shuddering, trembling with cold.

“So,” he asked, “are you a cold slave?”

“I am freezing!” she wept.

“Are you a cold slave?” he asked, amused.

“No,” she cried out, suddenly, comprehendingly. “I am a hot slave! I am a hot slave!”

“Perhaps then,” he said, “you are prepared to beg to serve me — as a hot slave?”

“Yes, Master!” she wept.

He smiled.

“I beg to serve you as a hot slave!” she wept. “I beg to serve you as a hot slave!”

“Remember,” said he, “in future slaveries, that you so begged. Remember that you begged to serve Selius Arconious, of Ar, begged piteously, and helplessly, to serve him,
as a hot slave
.”

“Master?” she asked.

“And that he refused to permit you to do so,” said he. “That he scorned you. That he regarded you as inadequate, and dismissed you as poor slave meat.”

She looked at him, wildly, disbelievingly.

He then took her tunic from the table, to which he had apparently brought it somewhat earlier, before fetching her from the ice room, and carefully folded it, several times, into a small, thick rectangle of cloth. He then thrust the tunic, so folded, now this small, soft thick rectangle of cloth, between her teeth. “I would not drop this if I were you,” he said.

He then carried her out to the general loft area, and put her, bound as she was, on her back, on the boards.

“The slave has been fed and watered, as you wished, Portus,” said Selius Arconious. “And I watched her relieve herself.”

“Good,” said Portus. “Harness tarns.”

Fel Doron, carrying a crate, passed Ellen. He put the crate in a tarn basket.

“Where is Tersius?” asked Portus.

“I am here,” said Tersius. He was entering the loft area from the exterior platform. He carried a lamp.

“What have you been doing?” asked Portus.

“Watching,” said Tersius.

“We will soon take wing,” said Portus.

“I am ready,” said Tersius.

“Assist Selius,” said Portus, looking about, as though he feared to hear at any moment the cries of men and the rushing of footsteps on the stairs, the rude, insistent smiting of spears against the inner door.

Tersius set the lamp, a small, shallow, panlike tharlarion-oil lamp, on a shelf bracket and hurried to gather up an armful of harnesses from pegs on the loft wall.

Portus, taking his concealed tarn goad from its hiding place to one side, behind the loose board, entered the tarn cage in which he had placed the oblong, mysterious package before the arrival of the Cosian soldiers, and retrieved it from under the straw. He brought it to the loft area, and put it on the floor, not far from Ellen, and unrolled it. Within, clattering out, there were several swords, two war axes, some crossbows, and some wired bundles of short, metal-finned quarrels.