Rebels of Gor (47 page)

At last she is a woman owned, wholly owned, without compromise or condition, as she wishes to be.

“I think she suspects,” said Tajima. “She may have to be beaten a bit.”

“I suspect,” I said, “that you should soon subject her to the attentions of the master. It is easy to caress even a free woman into the throes of begging submission.”

“Prior, perhaps,” said Tajima, “to their collaring.”

“She is a virgin,” I said. “She has no sense, as of now, of the raging of slave fires.”

“She might prove interesting,” said Tajima, “when they begin to burn in her belly.”

We glanced to lovely Nezumi, who was asleep.

“I do not think she can trek the night,” I said.

“We will take turns carrying her,” said Tajima.

* * *

After leaving the village in which we feared we had provoked suspicion, and having ample rice, we avoided villages for a time. We did not know if we were pursued or not. We had certainly detected no evidence which suggested that we might be the object of a pursuit. Haruki may have been overly suspicious. One might hope so. It did seem best to proceed cautiously. We were little aware of what might be going on, in the great events of the islands. This lack of intelligence was keenly frustrating. “We must seek a road,” said Tajima. “If we encounter an inn we are unlikely to be suspected, as men come and go, and where all are strangers none is a stranger. We are more likely to be welcomed by an innkeeper than feared, or shunned. What innkeeper does not want patrons, what merchant does not want customers?”

It was late afternoon.

After the fall of darkness we would trek again.

I glanced to Nezumi, who was asleep. She was beautiful. A sleeping slave is often very beautiful. The light chain, some two or three feet in length, ran from her neck to the trunk of the small tree about which it was fastened. She was clean now, and her tunic had been washed. In her sleep she was unaware it had come high upon her thighs.

Tajima was proceeding carefully, sensitively, with his slave. There are of course a thousand thousand variations in the mastery. Sometimes more is accomplished by what is not done than by what is done. Women are different and slaves are different. Much, for example, may be done with postponement, neglect, and anticipation. Sometimes a slave becomes so distraught, even beside herself, with anticipating the inevitable that she can stand it no longer, and throws herself to her belly before her master, sobbing, and begs her usage. “I am your slave! Please have me, Master! Ravish your slave! She is yours. Have mercy, Master! Ravish me, ravish your slave!” Too, when a woman is not frequently and well used, such being the common practice of masters, she begins to fear that she may no longer be desired, that he is considering another slave, that she may be taken to the market. All the fears and harrows which may afflict a free woman in an ambiguous relationship are multiplied in the case of the slave, who is without recourse, other than her collar and beauty. The free woman, for example, cannot be simply stripped and sold. Sometimes a slave will even beg the whip, that she be reassured that her master still cares for her, if only enough to beat her. Slave beatings, incidentally, are quite rare, and almost always of a punitive nature. The slave is pleased to be subject to the whip, which situation is quite meaningful and excites her, but she seldom cares to feel it. So she is likely to behave in such a way that there will be little cause, or temptation, to use it on her. Why should she be beaten? She is doing her best to be a good slave, to be wholly pleasing to her master. To be sure, sometimes the slave may be beaten to remind her that she is a slave. Few things so impress her bondage on her as the lash. Under the lash she is in no doubt that she is a slave. Interestingly, the slave, in her tears, often welcomes, and is grateful for, this confirmation of her helplessness, vulnerability, and servitude. It reassures her of that of which she wishes to be reassured, that she is a slave, the property of her master.

Two days ago, at our camp, Tajima had had her disrobe before us, and turn slowly, and then stand still, before us.

“A slave may be looked upon,” he informed her.

“Yes, Master,” she had said, tears in her eyes.

He had then put her to her chores in the camp. After our small repast, which she cooked and served, naked, utilizing some simple vessels and bowls extracted from the packs of Haruki and Tajima, she was allowed to feed, and don again the rag of the field slave.

Yesterday, at our camp, he had had Nezumi precede him to a small pool he had discovered, amongst the trees. There he had permitted her, kneeling at the pool’s edge, to wash her garment.

She rose to her feet.

She eyed the water longingly.

She turned to face him, clutching the small, damp garment in both hands. “Please, Master,” she said.

“Do you intend to make a request?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Kneel,” he said, sharply.

Swiftly she knelt. She still had much to learn. The slave is not a free woman. The slave commonly addresses requests, petitions, supplications, and such, to the free person from a kneeling position, which is appropriate to her condition. Indeed, this position, suitable to the negligibility, shamefulness, and degradation of her status, is often assumed in the presence of the free.

She put the small, washed garment down beside her.

“You may speak,” he said.

“May I bathe, Master?” she asked.

I could understand her desire to bathe, for her body bore not only some residue of Tajima’s early ministrations in the camp where we had first made contact, his application of dirt, ashes, soot, and such, designed to confirm her status as a field slave, but now, as well, the stains and flakage of dried mud from the wading field, and the dust, mixed with sweat, of our journey north.

“You merely wish to escape,” he said, “to splash across the pool and hurry into the brush.”

“No, Master!” she said.

He viewed her, his arms folded.

“We are in the wilderness,” she said. “There is nowhere to go!”

“Slaves are sometimes hysterical and desperate,” he said. “Slaves are not always wise. It would be inconvenient, if you attempted to escape.”

“I am naked,” she said. “I am collared. I am branded!”

“Still,” he said, thoughtfully.

“There is nowhere to escape to,” she said.

“True,” he said.

“At most,” she said, “even with a start of days, if successful in eluding one master, I could only hope for a different collar, to be subject to a different whip.”

“I see,” he said.

“I am not stupid, Master,” she said. “I know there is no escape for slaves. I need not be taught it by the lash, or the cutting of the tendons in my legs. I do not want an ‘I have been displeasing’ brand burned into my forehead, for other girls to see, to greet with laughter and mock.”

“Remain as you are,” he said, “and grasp your ankles and close your eyes.”

Shortly thereafter he returned to her side. She heard a snap, and sensed something on her neck, about the collar.

“May I release my ankles and open my eyes, Master?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“I am leashed,” she said.

“You may now bathe,” he said.

She thrust her head down, quickly, to his feet, kissed them gratefully, and, turning about, waded into the water.

“She is a lovely slave,” I said.

The leash was a tether leash, of some feet in length. Such leashes are often used with a back-braceleted slave, allowing her several feet of movement, access to food and water, and such. The common leading leash is much shorter, but, it, too, is longer than is necessary for mere leading. Its looped coils, held in the leash-master’s hand, are convenient not only for disciplinary purposes, for example, if the girl does not walk well, but are long enough to bind her, hand and foot, if such should be desired. Similarly it might be noted that the snug double belting of the common camisk, usually of cordage, thongs, or binding fiber, is not designed merely to emphasize the woman’s figure, and in such a way as to make it clear it is the figure of a slave, but to serve a similar purpose.

“Wash well, dirty little slave!” he called.

“Yes, Master!” she called.

“There is something attractive in a leashed slave,” I said. “In the high cities, on the continent, particularly on holidays, masters often promenade their slaves, on the boulevards, in the plazas, on the high bridges. If the master pauses to converse, the slave instantly kneels.”

“I would hope so,” said Tajima.

“She struggles with her hair,” I said.

“There is not much to struggle with,” he said.

“You saw to that,” I said.

We saw the head of Nezumi, with the leash collar, and part of the leash, plunge several times under the water, while her small fingers tore at the scraggly stubble left to her.

“It will be clean, at least,” he said.

“What there is of it,” I said.

“Lord Nishida had the hair of the blue-eyed, blond-haired slave, Saru, cropped when she was assigned to the tharlarion stables.”

“That is common with stable girls and mill girls,” I said. “Sometimes the head is shaved.”

“She is wading more deeply into the water,” said Tajima.

“Give her more slack,” I said.

“I can see only her head now,” said Tajima.

“She is modest,” I said.

“Slaves are not permitted modesty,” he said.

“Nonetheless,” I said, “most are modest. That makes it easier to control them, in virtue of their clothing or such.”

“I would suppose so,” said Tajima.

“In the privacy of a domicile, however,” I said, “many, alone with their masters, are shamelessly naked. Too, some masters, indoors, will permit their slaves only their collars.”

“It is pleasant to be served by a naked slave,” said Tajima.

“It is,” I said. “Such things are not only for the stripped high women of a conquered city serving the victory banquets of conquerors.”

“Before they are branded, and collared,” said Tajima.

“Usually before,” I said, “that they be made more keenly aware of their humiliation. Later they will think nothing of serving masters naked, and will be grateful for being permitted to do so, as it is a great privilege for a slave to be allowed to serve free men.”

Tajima began to draw on the leash, and the head and shoulders of Nezumi could be seen. Her small hands were on the leash strap, almost protestingly, as though she might be tempted to hold back.

Tajima began to reel in the leash, and she, hands holding to it, could not help but move toward us, step by unwilling step.

Tajima did not cease to draw in the leash until she stood before us, a few feet away, the water to her knees. Her hands were still on the leash.

“Have you finished bathing?” inquired Tajima.

“Yes!” she said, curtly.

“Take your hands away from your body,” snapped Tajima. “Do not attempt to conceal yourself.”

“Forgive me, Master,” she said, frightened.

“You will soon know what it is to be exposed, and as a slave,” he said.

“She has already served naked,” I said, “about the camp, gathering boughs, making couches, fetching water, cooking, serving.”

“But she has not been bound, for slave exhibition and torment.”

“What have you mind?” I asked. “I trust you do not subscribe to the practices of the savages of the Barrens, the staking out, the insects, the smearing with honey, such things.”

“Certainly not,” he said.

“The denial of food, close chains, the switch, the whip?” I asked.

“You will see,” he said.

He then bent down, picked up the washed slave tunic, and, shortening the leash, drew Nezumi, apprehensive, frightened, stumbling behind him, to the center of the camp.

He threw her tunic to the grass.

She reached for it.

“No!” he said, and she drew back her hand, frightened.

“Sit there,” he said.

He then removed the leash from her neck, and, with its length, wrapped it closely about her legs, binding them together. She then sat there, frightened, her legs bound closely together. As her hands were free, she could have undone the straps, but she was wise enough to stay as she was, sitting quietly on the grass, watching, waiting, unable to rise.

When Tajima had spoken of slave exhibition and torment I was not clear on what he might mean. In a sense all slaves are exhibited as slaves. Does the tunic, the ta-teera, the camisk, the collar, the bracelets, the shackles, the chain, and such, not manifest the slave? Everything exhibits the slave, for she is a slave. Some modalities may be as simple as the exposition cage in which girls may be displayed prior to being brought to the block, or as subtle as the skills of the auctioneer presenting merchandise for the interest of possible buyers. What of slave shelves, public cages, sales racks, sales wagons, exhibition poles, and such? Is not any slave in a coffle or on a rope exhibited? What of leashed slaves on promenade? What of those chained to the throne of a Ubar? Is not any girl fastened to a public slave ring exhibited? What of the girl ordered to assume “examination position,” standing, legs widely spread, hands held behind the back of her head or neck? What of a girl being put through slave paces, or being danced in a tavern, or war camp? What of the slaves kneeling about the steps of a public building, or below a public platform, on which an ambassador is being ceremonially welcomed, some of whom may have been taken from his own city? What of the slaves ordered into the streets in their briefest and most colorful tunics when visitors of note are in the city? Is this not a display of a city’s taste and wealth, and a suggestion of the prowess of her men at arms?