Rebels of Gor (71 page)

“Yes, Master,” she said, paling, presumably remembering the incident of her disciplining.

“I might have given you ten,” I said.

“I am a slave,” she said, closing her eyes. “I am at the mercy of my masters.”

“You are pretty,” I said.

“A slave is grateful, if she is found pleasing,” she said.

“Open your eyes,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

I then, ripping some of the torn cloth, formed a wadding which I thrust into her mouth. A moment later it was tied in place, with two broad loops, knotted behind the back of her neck.

I then went to the door, opened it a bit, and, carefully, looked out.

The corridor was empty, and muchly dark.

I was on the third level of the palace.

I did not know where Nodachi might be encelled, or where Haruki might be housed, but I knew, from the afternoon, when we were to be fetched together to the tea of Lord Yamada, the incarceration chambers of both Tajima and Pertinax. They were on the same level as this, the third level.

I returned to the interior of the room, to assume the outer garb and knife of the unconscious Ashigaru.

I looked down on the seated, bound slave.

“You look well,” I said, “naked, bound, in a collar.”

She made not the tiniest sound, not even the tiny, almost inaudible whimpers permitted to her in the gag.

“On your back,” I said.

She immediately lay back.

The slave is not a free woman. The slave is to obey instantly, unquestioningly.

Failure petitions discipline. The slightest hesitation is likely to be rewarded with punishment.

They are to be in no doubt that they are slaves.

“In Pani custody,” I said, “you are doubtless familiar with the lashings of the mat.”

She whimpered once, briefly, pathetically.

In gag signals, one sound betokens “Yes,” and two sounds, “No.” She would know that from the continent.

I reached down to pick up the garb I had removed from the unconscious Ashigaru.

She turned to face me, on her side, tears in her eyes. She began to whimper, piteously.

“Stay on your back,” I said.

She went to her back.

She continued to whimper, and began to squirm on the mat. I looked down upon her, and she lifted her belly to me, pathetically.

“You are pretty,” I said.

Again she whimpered.

Her belly was again lifted from the mat.

“Do you petition the lash of the mat?” I inquired.

I wondered how long it had been since she had been caressed. As she was a Gorean
kajira
, I had no doubt she was the victim of the slave fires which free men, perhaps cruelly, had seen fit to light in her belly.

How much that makes them ours!

Are not her needs the mightiest of her chains?

Once the slave fires burn in a woman’s belly, she is undone; she can no longer be free; freedom is no longer an option; it is forever behind her. She is then the property of masters.

Again she lifted her belly, and whimpered, piteously, once, and then again more desperately, more pathetically, once, again.

Her eyes were bright with tears.

I recalled that she had been sent to me for my pleasure.

The slave is nothing, of course, a beast, a plaything, a domestic animal, an object, a property, a vendible possession. She may be neglected, overlooked, scorned, and spurned. No notice need be taken of her. Her emotions, feelings, and needs are unimportant. They may be ignored. They are of no consequence. One must guard against caring for her. She is a slave.

I looked down on the pathetic, needful, bound thing, at my mercy, on the mat.

She was to be ignored.

There is, of course, in the slave, a humanity, a vulnerability, a helplessness, a need, a radical femaleness which is foreign to the free woman. Perhaps the free woman can dimly sense this if she could dare to imagine herself stripped and rightless, owned, and collared.

How then could she be more basically, more fundamentally, more radically, a female?

She whimpered, again.

It is no wonder that men make them slaves.

I looked to the closed door.

I thought it quite possible that I might be dead within the Ahn, perhaps less.

I bent down, to unbind the ankles of the slave.

* * *

I unbolted the portal of the incarceration chamber and moved back the two bars.

That should alert Pertinax.

I then knocked on the door lightly. “Pertinax,” I whispered. “Pertinax.”

“Tarl?” I heard.

“Yes,” I said.

As soon as he opened the door, Tajima, whom I had already released from his chamber, and I, slipped inside.

Naturally I had resecured my chamber, with the bolt and bars, as soon as I had left, and we had done the same for that of Tajima. One passing these chambers would suppose their occupants to be safely confined within. Surely, eventually, an inquiry would take place when the Ashigaru who had conducted the slave to my chamber failed to report back to his station, but I did not expect this to take place immediately. Perhaps the Ashigaru had been requested to wait. Presumably not every delivered slave is retained until morning. One might be dismissed, after a longer or shorter time. Perhaps one would be tried out, and another requested. To be sure, usually the delivered slave is the property of her temporary master until morning. If the room were looked into, I hoped the bound slave, on the mat, clearly ready for slave use, would dispel suspicion. As the door had been secured from the outside, I hoped it would be supposed that the prisoner was still within, and, presumably, behind the screen. One might then exit, relock the door, and, if interested, attend to the matter of relocating the missing Ashigaru. Perhaps he had reported in, in the meantime. In any event, I was sure we would have at least a few Ehn at our disposal.

“I thought,” said Pertinax, “your acceptance of a pleasure slave, one to grace your sleeping mat for the night, betokened a possible interest in colluding with the shogun.”

“Not as yet, at any rate,” I said.

“So, too, did I,” said Tajima. “Forgive me, Tarl Cabot, tarnsman.”

“Leave such speculations to Lord Okimoto,” I said.

“How did you obtain the garments of an Ashigaru?” inquired Pertinax.

“I have them on loan,” I said.

“No one is going to think you Pani,” said Pertinax.

“Something might,” I said.

“What is your plan?” asked Pertinax.

“It has two parts, and then stops short,” I said.

“‘It then stops short’?” said Tajima.

“One can plan only so far ahead,” I said. “First, Tajima will don these garments. An Ashigaru might well think him an Ashigaru, which would be unlikely with us. We will be as his prisoners. Second, we shall attempt to obtain a similar garmenture for ourselves.”

“But no one would take us for Pani,” said Pertinax.

“Something might,” I said.

“I do not understand,” said Pertinax.

“Perhaps, if we are fortunate,” I said, “you may see.”

It took only a moment to remove the garments of the Ashigaru, and another moment for Tajima to assume them.

“Here, Pertinax,” I said, “put your wrists behind you, crossed, and I will wrap this bit of cloth about them, from my room. Your hands will be easily freed, and quickly, but they will seem as though bound. I do not expect anyone to check into the matter. Tajima will serve me similarly. We must appear his bound prisoners. That should allow us to approach another Ashigaru, or so, easily.”

“Very well,” said Pertinax.

In a moment I had looped the cloth two or three times about his wrists and tucked it in. He could free himself almost instantly, when he wished. From a distance, however, and if not closely examined, he would appear bound. With some additional strips of cloth, Tajima then supplied me with a similar pretense of helplessness.

We then left Pertinax’s chamber and Tajima, the
tanto
in his sash, closed the door, putting the bolt and the bars in place.

“Our objective,” I said, “is the fifth level.”

Pertinax and I, then, our hands seemingly bound behind us, preceded Tajima down the corridor.

“We turn here,” I said. “Then the stairs, then the fifth level.”

“What then?” asked Tajima.

“At a certain point on the fifth level, a point known to me,” I said, “we will encounter one or more Ashigaru, one during the day, but now, at night, perhaps two. I hope two. I do not think more.”

“And what then?” asked Tajima.

“We acquire, I hope, two more uniforms,” I said.

“And what then?” asked Tajima.

“Then,” I said, “we will see.”

Chapter Fifty

Certification

Tajima, Pertinax, and I were now in the narrow side corridor on the fifth level of the palace, the same access to which had been denied to me several weeks ago, by its guard.

Each of us was now clad in the garments of an Ashigaru. Two of us were armed with a glaive, Tajima and Pertinax, and each of us had in his sash, that of a common Ashigaru, a
tanto
.

“I fear this disguise,” said Pertinax to me, “is unlikely to be convincing.”

“Much depends on what one wishes to convince,” I said.

We had then come to the end of the darkened side corridor. The main corridors were lit with lamps. So, too, were most of the side corridors. This one was not.

We could do little other than feel our way.

Some creatures, of course, have excellent night vision. I mentioned nothing of this to my friends, Pertinax and Tajima. I did tell them that if they should be confronted by a darkness within a darkness, and sense that deeper darkness surging forward, like a hurricane of night, to meet it with the poised, braced glaive.

“I feel the portal,” said Tajima, “it is heavy, and of iron. My fingers trace riveted bands of reinforcing iron.”

“Good,” I said. Such a portal could withstand for a time anything likely to be brought against it, axes, rock hammers, beams of wood.

“There is light within,” whispered Pertinax.

“Good,” I said. There was a slight streak of yellow, like a bright line, beneath the door.

“Do we call out?” asked Tajima.

“It is likely we have already been heard,” I said.

“Consider the door, its weight and presumed thickness, that we have spoken softly,” said Tajima.

“Nonetheless,” I said.

“What lies behind this door?” said Pertinax.

“Be ready,” I said.

* * *

“What are you guarding?” had asked Tajima.

“You do not have an officer’s sash,” had said the Ashigaru.

“I am still curious,” said Tajima.

Tajima had paused before the entrance to a side corridor, to the left, one off the second of the two main corridors on the fifth level of the palace.

“It is none of your concern,” said the Ashigaru.

“I would see,” said Tajima.

“Be on your way, with your prisoners,” said the Ashigaru.

“Still,” protested Tajima, looking toward the entrance to the side corridor.

“You cannot enter,” said the Ashigaru, lowering his glaive to block the corridor. At the same time, another Ashigaru, who had been leaning on his glaive in the background, half asleep, lifted his head, shook it, and advanced toward us.

“Begone,” said the second Ashigaru, unpleasantly.

“Barbarian tarsks,” said Tajima, addressing us, Pertinax and I, “back against the wall, there, and lower your heads, submissively.”

Pertinax and I then went to the wall of the main corridor, that on the west side of the palace, beside the entrance to the side corridor. This would place us behind the two Ashigaru, should they advance into the main corridor.

“You do not need to admit me,” said Tajima. “Just tell me. I have a bowl of rice on this. It is a treasure room, is it not?”

“There is no place for prisoners on the fifth level,” said the second Ashigaru.

“I know,” said Tajima. “I brought them, that I might have a pretext for moving about in the palace, discharging a seeming errand.”

“There is no place for prisoners on the fifth level,” said the second Ashigaru, again, angrily.

“I needed them to reach this level,” said Tajima.

Common Ashigaru, of course, were not permitted to move about the palace, at will. They would need some office, or errand, to justify their presence.

“There is much discussion in the meal hall about the fifth level,” said Tajima.