Rogue of Gor (41 page)

“This fellow claims to have impersonated the courier of Ragnar Voskjard, and to have deceived us all," said Policrates to the girl.

The girl regarded me in astonishment, in disbelief. “That is absurd, Master," she said.

"You were given to the courier of Ragnar Voskjard for the night, were you not?" asked Policrates.

"Yes, Master," said the girl. "That was your command. You had me sent to his chambers."

"Did he make you yield?" inquired Policrates.

"Yes, Master," she said, head down. "He made me yield, and many times, and he made me yield totally, and abjectly, and as his full slave."

"Did you find the evening instructive?" inquired Policrates.

"Yes, Master," she said. "I learned that I was a woman, and a slave."

"And?" inquired Policrates.

"And, Master," she said, keeping her head down, "that I loved being a woman, and a slave."

"Was this the man who used you," asked Policrates, "this man chained here before you?"

"Of course not, Master!" she said, lifting her head, scandalized.

"Are you certain?" asked Policrates.

"Yes, Master," she said. "He is a man of Earth. No man of Earth could make me yield like that."

"Are you sure?" asked Policrates.

"Yes, Master," she said. "The arms that held me, Master,” she said, proudly, "were Gorean."

"I thought so," smiled Policrates.

I now began to writhe, unable to help myself, beneath the caresses of the slaves.

"May I now withdraw, Master," she asked. "The sight of this weakling offends me.”

"Remove your silk, Slave," said Policrates.

Instantly she did so, frightened, commanded.

"To him, Slave," said Policrates.

"But he is only a man of Earth, Master!" she cried, protesting.

Policrates regarded her.

"Forgive me, Master!" she cried, and fled to kneel beside me, with the other girls. Then I felt the lips, too, of she who had once been Beverly Henderson upon my body.

I clenched my fists. I gritted my teeth, but how could I resist them?

"Describe to me, if you were truly one who posed as the courier of Ragnar Voskjard, the nature and furnishings of the chambers in which he reposed the night in which we guested him within the holding," said Policrates.

"I cannot. I cannot!" I said. This was in accord with my plan.

Policrates and Kliomenes laughed. Surely now none would believe that it had been I who had brought the topaz to them. Let them, at least for the time, believe that they had received it from the true courier of Ragnar Voskjard.

I shook and shuddered beneath the attentions of the slave girls. I pulled against the chains. I could not free myself. I writhed and twisted in the chains, helpless before my enemy, being aroused for his amusement.

"Please him, Beverly," he said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I looked at her. I remembered her from the restaurant, long ago, the svelte, off-the-shoulder, white, satin-sheath gown, the candlelight, the beaded purse. I saw her lower her head, the dark hair falling upon my body. I saw the close-fitting steel collar on her throat. Then I felt her lips upon me.

"Oh," I said. "Aiii!” And I cried out with humiliation, and shame, and with rage, and pleasure and joy.

I looked at Beverly. I knew her from Earth. She was to me the most exquisitely beautiful and sexually exciting girl I had ever seen. On Earth I had never kissed her. On Earth I had scarcely dared to touch her hand. Here, on Gor, she was a slave. Here, on Gor, unquestioningly, commanded by her master, she had pleasured me, and well. I had learned on Gor, in the secrecy of a chamber in the holding of Policrates, when posing as the courier of Ragnar Voskjard, that she was a true slave. I wished that I had known that on Earth. It might have made quite a difference in our relationship. She drew back her head, angrily. I regretted only that it was not I who owned her. "I hate you," she whispered. Yes, she was a true slave. I determined that she would one day wear my collar, that one day it would not be Policrates, but I, who would own her. I remembered the wench from the restaurant. Yes, it would be pleasant to have her at my feet, on this barbaric world, collared and branded, as a helpless Gorean slave girl.

"Take him, and chain him to the windlass," said Policrates. "And let us hope, for his sake, that the courier of Ragnar Voskjard is not harmed."

The girls drew back from me, and stood to one side. Two men began to unfasten the manacles at my wrists. "You pleasured him well," said the red-haired girl to Beverly. "Yes," said Bikkie. Actually she had done so too swiftly. I would instruct her in the proper pleasurings of a master, when I owned her. "It is humiliating to be forced to give pleasures to a man of Earth," said Beverly. "He seems strong and handsome," said the red-haired girl. "I do not think I would mind being his slave," said Bikkie. "You do not know him as I do," said Beverly. "I despise him. He is a weakling, and a man of Earth. We are the rightful properties only of men such as those of Gor."

My hands were manacled behind my back. The shackles on my ankles were then removed, and I was dragged to my feet.

Policrates was talking with Kliomenes.

"You received pleasure from what you did, did you not?" asked the red-haired girl.

"The only pleasure I received," said Beverly, "was in being obedient to my master's command."

"You received pleasure beyond that," said Bikkie. "I saw."

"No!" said Beverly.

"You swallowed, did you not?" asked the red-haired girl.

"I had to," said Beverly. "I am a slave girl."

"You are so low," laughed the red-haired girl, "that you could receive pleasure from even a man of Earth!”

"No!" said Beverly.

"We saw!” laughed Bikkie.

"No!" said Beverly.

"Even if he is from Earth," said the red-haired girl, "he is handsome and strong."

"I think," said Bikkie, "too, that there might be a master in him.”

"Not in him," sneered Beverly. "If he owned you, the first thing he would do would be to free you."

"Free us?" laughed the red-haired girl.

"Free us?" asked another of the girls, amused, touching her collar.

"What man does not want a beautiful slave?" asked Tais.

"He must indeed be stupid, or a total fool," said another girl.

"Men are the masters, and we are the slaves," said another girl, "does he not know that?"

"He knows nothing," said Beverly, tossing her head.

"I do not believe you," said Bikkie.

"He once freed me," said Beverly.

"If he owned me," said Bikkie, "he would not free me. He might give me away, or sell me, but he would not free me,"

"Why?" asked Beverly, angrily.

"I am too desirable to free," said Bikkie.

Beverly, with a cry of anger, drew back her hand to slap at Bikkie, but another girl seized her hand, that she could not do so. "Do not fight, Slave Girls," said one of the men about. "Yes, Master," said several of the girls.

"Master," said Bikkie, approaching me. "If you owned me, would you free me?"

"No," I said.

"May I ask why not, Master," she inquired.

"Surely," I said.

"Why not, Master?" she asked.

I looked at Beverly, but spoke to Bikkie. "Because you are too desirable to free," I told her.

Beverly looked at me in fury, and Bikkie turned to her in triumph. "See?" asked Bikkie. There are slaves, and slaves, it seems!"

"So it seems," said Beverly. I smiled inwardly. Should she come again into my power let her try to break the chains in which I would put her.

"Have you ever been mastered, Beverly?" asked the redhaired girl.

"Of course. Many men have mastered me," said Beverly. "I am a slave girl."

"To me," said Bikkie, "you seemed a true slave girl, fully, only when you had emerged from the chambers of the courier of Ragnar voskjard."

Beverly smiled. "It was he who first fully mastered me," she said. "He was fully dominant over me. He was over whelming, and I nothing, only an amorous, compliant, frightened slave in his arms. I had not known such a man could exist. He made me weep myself his, it seemed a hundred times, in his arms. That night I was devastated, and taught my collar. It was in that night that I first truly learned my womanhood, and my slavery."

"I see that you have never forgotten him," said one of the girls.

"No," she said.

"Do you love him?" asked the red-haired girl.

"Yes," she said. I was pleased that she had said this. To be sure, I had made her yield, as the slave she was.

"Perhaps sometime you will be his," said one of the girls, softly.

"He did not try to buy me, nor did he ask Policrates to give me to him," said Beverly. “To him I am only another female slave, a meaningless slut, doubtless already forgotten, with whom he pleasured himself one night in a strange holding.”

"It is sometimes hard to be a slave," said one of the girls.

"We are all slaves," said another girl.

“The masters are all, and we are nothing," said another.

"Yes," said another.

"I will take our fleet east on the river," said Policrates to Kliomenes. "That will discourage interference from towns east on the river."

"Yes, Captain," said Kliomenes.

Policrates then turned about and regarded me. "Do not look for pretty slaves in the chamber of the windlass," he said.

I was silent.

"Oh, Beverly," said Policrates.

"Yes, Master," said the girl, hurrying forward and falling to her knees before him.

"Earlier," said he, "you hesitated, if only briefly, in carrying out a command."

"Forgive me, Master," she begged, turning white.

"Leading position," he said.

Sobbing, she rose to her feet, and put her head down, at what would be the height of a man's waist, her legs flexed. A guard walked over and fastened his hand in her hair. "Have her whipped," said Policrates. "Yes, Captain," said the man. He then left the chamber, pulling the girl, sobbing, at his side. I was pleased to see that Policrates was a strict master. The girl was, of course, guilty. She had clearly hesitated in carrying out a command. How can a girl expect such laxities to go unnoticed, or unpunished?

Policrates then nodded to the men who held me. “Take him away," he said.

I was then dragged from the room.

31

THE CHAMBER OF THE WINDLASS;

I BEGIN TO PUT MY PLAN INTO EFFECT

"Cease your lying!" cried the pirate. "Put your back into it!"

"Yes, Captain," I said to him, though surely he was not a captain.

The whip cracked across my back.

I, sweating, chained, pressed my bare feet against the flat, wooden slats nailed on the large, raised wooden disk, the treading platform, some five feet above the floor, encircling the windlass. I could hear the chain turning on its winding axle below the level of the platform. The gate is raised by muscle power, abetted by two heavy, drumlike weights which partially balance its weight, transmitted to the windlass by means of metal windlass poles, or bars, these being used to rotate the windlass. The gate, which is heavier than the drumlike weights, has a gravity descent. In lowering the gate the windlass, under the control of its workers, serves primarily as a brake, sufficing to regulate the speed of its descent. The principles and gearing of the windlass, which is an upright windlass, are analogous, of course, to those of the capstan.

I pressed against the heavy metal pole, or bar, almost five inches in diameter, fixed now, like a spoke, in the shaft of the windlass. My neck, in its collar, by a chain, was fastened to this pole. It was thus that I was kept in my place. My wrists and ankles were also chained. I had some eighteen inches of play for my feet. I had some twenty-four inches of play for my hands. These arrangements represent what is theoretically an optimum compromise between prisoner security and the degree of freedom essential to efficiently operate the windlass.

"Push!" cried the pirate.

Again the whip struck across my back. I thrust again against the bar. The whip, then, struck elsewhere, too, and there were cries of pain, and the sounds of men moving in chains. There were five large poles, or bars, set in the windlass. At each, five men, chained as I was, labored. These poles may be inserted into the windlass and, if one wishes, removed from it. When inserted into the windlass they are normally locked within it, as they were now, by a pin-and-lock device. The collars and neck chains keep men fastened to the pole, whether it is inserted within the windlass or not. When moving about, the pin-and-lock device opened, the men will carry the pole with them. When the pole is on the ground, and not lifted, one can rise no higher, of course, than on one's knees, with one's head deferentially lowered.