Rebels of Gor (61 page)

Pertinax had made it clear to Saru that Jane was “first girl,” and so, naturally, Saru addressed her as “Mistress.” “I am second, Master,” Saru had said to Pertinax. “So, as I am the lesser slave, the inferior slave, I must try harder, so much harder, to please my master!” “And your mistress,” said Pertinax. “Yes, Master,” said Saru. “And keep your head down,” said Pertinax. “Yes, Master,” she said. “Forgive me, Master.”

Pertinax put his hand to the side of her face, and she twisted her head, pressing her lips, quickly, almost furtively, on his wrist. “I am yours,” she whispered. “I love you, my Master!”

“Avert your eyes,” said Pertinax.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Beware, slave,” said Jane, “for I have whip rights over you.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Saru. “Forgive me, Mistress.”

I reviewed the slaves.

Each was collared. A woman in a collar is beautiful. Not only is the collar an aesthetic enhancement of a woman’s beauty, but, in the psychological dimension, it makes her a thousand times more exciting and attractive. She is a slave. She can be owned. She can be bought and sold.

Each, too, was marked, high on the left thigh, under the hip. Jane, Cecily, and Saru wore the common kef, familiar on the distant continent. Nezumi wore a Pani brand, selected for her by her master, Tajima.

These marks were now, if one cared to look, in plain sight, as the slaves were naked.

Near the wagon yard we had removed the slaves from the coffle and relieved them of the bracelets which had secured their hands behind their backs. Before their harnessing we had also removed their tunics. Women used in draftage, for wagons, carts, plows, and such, are usually stripped, for the work is likely to be both dirty and sweaty. This arrangement is likely to be the most comfortable for the beasts and, too, it protects the tunics from undue soiling. It also guarantees, of course, that there will be nothing between the body of the slave and, if it is desired, the stroke of a switch or whip.

“I think we are ready to essay the exit,” I said.

“I am uneasy,” said Pertinax.

“We are all uneasy,” I said. “Why are you uneasy?”

“I think your plan is wise,” he said, “bold, even brilliant.”

“It would be nice if it would also work,” I said.

“However,” said Pertinax, “it is exactly what Nodachi would expect. ‘Look for the enemy where he cannot be’.”

“Nodachi?” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“If Nodachi were about,” I said, “I might do what is expected, as that would not be expected.”

“But,” said Pertinax, “in your case he might expect that.”

“What then would you suggest?” I said.

“‘Let the decision be made by the bird springing unexpectedly from the brush’,” he said.

“Nodachi?” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“He is a wise man,” I said. “The darting upward of such a bird cannot be predicted. It is irrelevant to the calculations of hunters and hunted. One cannot penetrate thought where thought is not involved.”

“I take it to be a random-selection device,” said Pertinax.

“It is,” I said, “one of the shrewdest devices in the quiver of games, including the game of war.”

“Forward,” said Haruki, slapping his switch on the side the wagon.

The four slaves, slipping in the dirt, put their slight weight, straining, against the traces. The harnessing was taut. The wagon did not move. Again Haruki struck the side of the wagon, smartly, with the switch.

Nature had not selected women such as these, so lovely, so beautiful, so vulnerable, so deliciously and helplessly female and feminine, for the lifting of stones and the hauling of wagons. They had been selected to be at the feet of men, to serve men, and to give pleasure to men, their masters.

One of the girls, I think Saru, began to cry.

“Again, forward!” said Haruki.

I went behind the wagon and, bracing myself, thrust it forward. The wheels began to turn.

“Forward!” said Haruki. Again the switch slapped the side of the wagon.

Once the vehicle is in motion it is easier, naturally, to keep it in motion. Still, from time to time, particularly on upgrades, I, Pertinax, Ichiro, and, I think, even Tajima, would assist the struggling slaves.

“Saru is well harnessed,” I said.

“I saw to it,” said Pertinax.

“Perhaps more tightly than was necessary,” I said.

“She is a slave,” said Pertinax.

“The harnessing,” I said, “well accentuates her figure.”

“All their figures,” said Pertinax.

“On Earth,” I said, “in her chic, well-chosen, fashionable ensembles, in the offices, in meetings, in boardrooms, in restaurants and cocktail lounges, in her meretricious flatterings of, and hypocritical solicitations of, clients, in her application of shallow, lubricious charms to cloud and sway judgment, in her sly hintings at gratifications which would never be bestowed, I would suppose she never expected to find herself a naked slave, hitched to a wagon on Gor.”

Such experiences are useful, of course, as many other such experiences, for example, scrubbing a floor naked, in chains, in helping a woman to learn her collar.

“I imagined her in a thousand such ways,” he said, “even chained naked beneath my desk at the office, everyone else clothed and going about their business, scarcely noticing her, to be cast scraps when it pleased me.”

“Good,” I said.

“Many a night,” he said, “I imagined her lying on the floor at the foot of my bed, naked, bound hand and foot, there if I should choose to make use of her.”

“Splendid,” I said.

“And how often, in my mind, I marched her naked on her leash, before me, on familiar, busy streets, pausing from time to time to exchange pleasantries with others, who were also walking their slaves, the slaves then kneeling, head down, beside us, while we conversed, until, with a snap of the leash, we put them to their feet again and continued on our way.”

“Excellent,” I said.

“And now,” he said, “she is a Gorean slave.”

“Excellent,” I said.

“I think now,” he said, “she was always a slave.”

“But now in her collar,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “now in her collar.”

“Where she belongs,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“What if she should be displeasing,” I asked, “in the least?”

“Then she will be disciplined,” he said, “promptly, and effectively.”

“Good,” I said.

The camp was large, and the wagon yard lay near its center, by the market.

“That way,” said Pertinax.

Pertinax and Ichiro, perhaps as much as three or four days ago, had apprised themselves of the location of the Merchant Portal.

It was better than a pasang away.

The wagon creaked. The wheels came to my shoulders. The slaves strained against the harness. Occasionally Haruki’s switch cracked against the side of the wagon. Now and again, we thrust against the wagon, until it would again roll freely, if slowly.

“There are the white stones,” said Pertinax, at last.

“We are nearing the exit?” I said.

“Yes,” said Pertinax. “Keep within the two lines of white stones. Once we have reached the stones, we are not to depart from them.”

“The stones are widely spaced,” I said.

“Yes,” said Pertinax, “to allow wagons, coming and going, to pass one another, and keep within the stones.”

More Ashigaru were about now, and I made it a point to avoid their eyes.

“Ashigaru,” I said.

“Do not concern yourself with these,” said Pertinax. “Their only concern here, near the perimeter, is to make sure that those entering or leaving the camp do so at the same point.”

“The Merchant Portal,” I said.

“Yes,” said Pertinax, “but it is not an actual portal, a gate, or such, only a point on the perimeter which is to be monitored for traffic.”

“There it is,” I said. Before us we could see some fellows on foot, some arriving, and some departing. Two wagons were approaching. A man passed us carrying a cage of vulos. Toward the perimeter a man and a boy were herding a small flock of verr into the camp.

“There seems little difficulty in entering the camp,” I said.

“I expect,” said Pertinax, “it may not be as easy to leave it.”

“True,” said Haruki. “It is easier to step into a trap than remove its teeth from your ankle.”

“I see the inspection point,” I said. “There seem four there, three Ashigaru and an officer.”

“But many Ashigaru are about,” said Ichiro, “who might be easily summoned.”

“We must turn back!” I said.

“We cannot,” said Pertinax. “The stones! And there are fellows, and a wagon, behind us. We must proceed.”

“Look,” I said. “Ahead! My plan has failed!”

“How so?” said Pertinax.

“The officer!” I said.

“What is wrong, Commander
san
?” said Ichiro.

“We are discovered,” I said.

“Move forward,” called a voice from behind us.

“You know the officer?” asked Ichiro.

“Yes,” I said, “unfortunately we have met.”

“I do not know him,” said Pertinax.

“Nor I,” said Ichiro.

“Tajima, Haruki, and I know him,” I said.

“We must proceed,” said Pertinax. “Perhaps he will not recognize us.”

“He will recognize us,” I said.

“How do you know?” said Pertinax.

“He has been waiting for us,” I said, “waiting here, at the least likely place for us to be found.”

“I do not understand,” said Pertinax.

“I know him from elsewhere, first from an inn,” I said. “He is Yasushi, a constable of the march.”

“He is waiting for us?” said Pertinax.

“Yes,” I said.

“I do not understand,” said Pertinax.

“He is a student of Nodachi,” I said.

“Move forward,” again called a voice from behind us. “Move forward!”

“We cannot turn back,” said Pertinax, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“We are lost,” I said.

Chapter Forty-Four

Yamada Advances

We stood on the outer parapet of the holding of Temmu, high above the valley below. I think it must have been about the eighth Ahn.

“We have the assurance of the tarn cavalry, that it will fly on behalf of our house?” said Lord Temmu, gazing over the parapet.

“Yes,” I said, “and Lord Yamada has been so informed.”

“Yet he advances,” said Lord Temmu. “He must be a fool.”

“Lord Yamada is no fool,” I said.

“I would that we could understand this,” said Lord Nishida.

“It is difficult,” said Lord Okimoto.

“Would that I had a skilled and honest reader of bones and shells,” said Lord Temmu.

“If men with minds and memories are confused and baffled,” said Lord Nishida, “how can bones and shells do better, which have neither?”

“Do not doubt the bones and shells,” said Lord Temmu.

“But sometimes,” said Lord Okimoto, “they are hard to read.”

“True,” said Lord Temmu.

The reader, Daichi, had disappeared from the holding of Temmu, I had learned, shortly after the discovery of Sumomo’s espionage. This seemed judicious considering the likely linkage between them. Fortunately for Sumomo she had been removed from the holding by Tyrtaios before she was to have been cast from the outer parapet to the ground below, at the very time it was supposed that her next secret message would be anticipated below. The former Sumomo, now Tajima’s slave, Nezumi, and the slaves Saru, Jane, and Cecily were all at the encampment of tarns. We thought them safer there, from war, and, in the case of Nezumi, from the dark justice of Lord Temmu. If she were housed in the holding of Temmu, it seemed likely that she, even with cropped hair and in the garment of a field slave, would be recognized as the former Sumomo, and dealt with accordingly.

“Daichi,” said Lord Temmu, “was a fine reader. Else I should not have employed him. Many thought so. Only he was suborned, and lied. He did not report truly what the bones and shells proclaimed.”

“He labored in the service of Lord Yamada,” I said.

“He betrayed the bones and shells,” said Lord Temmu.

“I am pleased,” said Lord Nishida, “that you have been reinstated as commander of the tarn cavalry.”

I bowed, politely.

“The cavalry,” said Pertinax, “never owned another.”

It is interesting, I thought, the relationships between politics and reality, between words and deeds, between laws and enforcements, between formalities and facts. Lord Temmu had relieved me of my command, as he thought, but the cavalry, as I understood it, had remained mine, and now, with no change in things, Lord Temmu had supposedly returned my command. But the reality was that the cavalry had repudiated in fact, if not in name, its allegiance to Lord Temmu, following his betrayal of me into the power of Lord Yamada. The cavalry was now, in fact, if not in name, an independent unit. I was not now to be commanded as a subordinate but courted as an ally.