Savages of Gor (43 page)

"Some nubile young women," said Pumpkin, "but we did not look much at them. They were naked. Rawhide ropes were put on theft necks. Theft hands were tied behind them. They must accompany the masters, on their tethers, walking beside the flanks of their kaiila."

"And what, do you conjecture," I asked, "Will be their fate?"

"We do not dare speculate," said Pumpkin, looking down, confused and dismayed, hotly reddening.

"They will be made slaves," I said, "crawling and kneeling to men, and serving them abjectly, and totally, in all ways."

Pumpkin shuddered.

"It is true, is it not?" I asked.

"Perhaps," mumbled Pumpkin. He did not raise his eyes. I saw that he feared manhood, and sex.

"Would you not like one so serving you?" I asked.

"No, no!" he cried, not raising his eyes. "No, no, no!"

The vehemence of his answer interested me. I looked about, at the other Waniyanpi They did not meet my eyes, but looked down.

"Were there other survivors?" I asked Pumpkin.

He looked up at me, gratefully. "Two," he said, "but, it seems, one of them only for a time."

"I do not understand," I said.

"A boy, a Dust Leg, I think," said Pumpkin. "He was a slave of the soldiers. He was left staked out, over there, on that hill. We are to keep him alive until we leave the field, and then leave him here, to die."

"That would be the lad, the young man, who was with the column, the slave, one called Urt," I said to Grunt.

Grunt shrugged. He did not know this. I had, to be sure, spoken more to myself than to him.

"Who is the other?" I asked.

"An adult woman," said Pumpkin, "one whom, I think, was also with the soldiers."

"Excellent!" I said. "Is she blond, and fair of body?"

"She is blond," said Pumpkin, "but we are not permitted to observe whether or not she be fair of body."

"It would be the Lady Mira, of Venna," I said to Grunt. "Excellent! Excellent!"

"Do you know her?" asked Grunt

"We met once, on the road," I said. "But our meeting, now, will be of a different sort." I laughed.

"What is wrong?" asked Grunt.

"Nothing," I said. I was pleased, first, that the Lady Mira lived. It is pleasant that such women live, particularly when they are put in collars and chains. Secondly it amused me that the fair agent's utility to Kurii had been, in this unexpected and charming fashion, so abruptly and conclusively terminated. Thirdly she could doubtless be persuaded, in one way or another, to give me a first-hand account of the battle, at least in so far as it had swept in its courses about her.

"Where is she?" I asked Pumpkin.

"Over there, behind that wagon," said Pumpkin. "We put her there so that we would not have to look at her."

I regarded the Waniyanpi. I wondered why they were as they were.

"Lift your skirts," I told them, "to your waists, quickly."

They obeyed, shamed.

"No," said Grunt. "They are not castrated. It is done through the mind, through the training, through the Teaching."

"Insidious," I said.

"Yes," said Grunt.

"You may lower your dresses," I told the Waniyanpi. Quickly they did so, smoothing them, blushing. I urged my kaiila toward the wagon, which Pumpkin had indicated.

17
   
The Slave

"You!'' she cried, struggling to her feet.

I dismounted swiftly and easily, approaching her, from the kaiila.

"Why is your kaiila quirt drawn?" she asked.

I lashed her once, savagely, with the quirt, between the neck and shoulder, on the left side. I did not see any point in wasting time with her. "Kneel," I said.

Swiftly she knelt, clumsily in the apparatus in which she had been confined. She looked up at me. There were tears, and wonder, in her eyes. It was the first time, perhaps, she had been thusly struck.

"You do not avert your eyes from me," she said.

"It would be difficult to do so," I admitted. I could no longer, then, pursue my business in haste, as I had intended. Her loveliness, simply, did not permit it. She was stunning. I stood before her, savoring her beauty.

"Please," she protested, tears in her eyes.

I walked slowly about her.

She tossed, her head, to throw her hair forward, over her breasts.

I took her hair on, and lifted it, with the quirt, and threw it again behind her shoulders. She shuddered as the leather touched her body.

Again I regarded her.

"How dare you look at me in that fashion?" she asked.

"You are beautiful," I explained.

"You struck me," she chided.

"Indeed," I said, "your beauty might be adequate even for that of a slave."

"Oh?" she said.

"Yes," I said. This was a high compliment, which I had paid to her.

"You struck me," she said.

I slapped the kaiila quirt in my palm. "Yes," I said.

"You struck me as though I might have been a kaiila, or an animal," she said.

"Yes," I sad..

"I am free!" she said.

"You do not appear to be free," I said. She knelt before me, stark, naked. She wore an improvised girl-yoke. This consisted of a stout branch, about two inches thick, and some five feet in length, drilled at the center and near the extremities. It fits behind the back of the girl's neck. A long, single thong of rawhide fastens the girl in place. Her left wrist is thonged and then the thong is passed through the drilled aperture in the left end of the yoke. Her wrist is pulled tight to the yoke. The same thong is then taken behind the yoke and passed through the center hole, whence, after having been knotted, to prevent slippage to the left, and having been looped about the girl's neck, usually some five times, and having been knotted again, to prevent slippage to the right, it is returned through the same hole, whence it is taken behind the yoke to the hole drilled at the right-hand extremity of the apparatus. It is passed through that hole and then, of course, is used to fasten the girl's right wrist in place, tightly against the yoke. When this action is completed then, as you can see, whole package is neatly tied. The knots near the throat in preventing slippage, serve two functions; they hold the girl's wrists against the yoke and, at the same time, prevent vent any undue stress from being placed on the throat bands. The function of the throat bands is to hold the girl's throat in the yoke, securely and perfectly, not to cause her discomfort, nor to strangle her. Gorean men are not fools in tying women. Longer yokes, such as this, incidentally, are commonly used for marches.

Confined as she is, with her arms extended, a girl can exert almost no leverage to free herself. Smaller yokes, some two to two and a half feet in length, similarly constructed, can be used for other purposes, such as enjoying a girl in the furs. Afterwards she can always be kenneled or chained. A soft, braided leather rope, a trade rope, cored with wire, some fifteen or twenty feet in length, was looped some five times about the girl's left ankle, and tied, thence being run to the axle of the nearby wagon to which she was tethered. This is a useful sanitary provision as the girl, then, need not sit or lie too near to her own wastes. The wire coring in the rope, of course, tends to discourage the attempt to chew through the bond. Light chains, sheathed in silk, or satin or velvet, incidentally, have this utility as well, as well as their intrinsic strength, more than adequate for the securing of a female.

Three separate thongs, incidentally, two short and one long, are sometimes used for this type of securing of the female. In this way of doing things each wrist is tied in the center of one of the short thongs. The two free ends of the short thong are then taken back through the hole and, once through the hole, are simply knotted, heavily. This knot cannot, of course, be drawn back through the small-drilled hole by the girl. Her wrists are thus held in place. One end of the longer thong is taken through the center aperture and is that thong is then looped about the girl's throat, usually, again, some five times, and then returned through the center aperture. Once through the aperture it is knotted together, heavily, with the other end of the thong. Again, of course, this knot, a heavy one, prevents the thongs from slipping back through the narrow aperture. The girl's neck is thus held closely to the yoke. This, too, of course, is an effective way of securing a girl. Indeed, there is, in my opinion, normally little to choose from between these two yoke ties. Which is preferred may well depend on matters so trivial as the nature and lengths of the binding material available, for example, ropes, cordage, binding fiber, twisted silk, thongs or, straps. If there is a preference, perhaps it would be for the single-bond tie. It is stout, and, in its unity, aesthetically attractive. Second only to the absolute helplessness of the female in her ties, in the Gorean mind, is the attractiveness of her bonds. They should be used to enhance her beauty as well as to imprison it with absolute perfection.

These yoke ties, incidentally, are not to be confused with a stock tie, or a stock yoke. This is normally a pair of hinged planks, with matched, semicircular openings in the planks. The girl's wrists and neck are placed appropriately between the planks, aligned with the semicircular openings. The planks are then closed and-tied or locked shut. Her neck and wrists, then, of course, helplessly, are fixed in place. They find themselves enclosed in effective and perfect constraints. is yoke is sometimes placed on a girl while she is on her back. If the planks are sufficiently wide the girl cannot see at the man is doing to her. She can only feel it. Similar sensations may be induced in a woman by putting her in a slave hood. She may then either be bound or not, as the master pleases.

"Nonetheless," she said, "I am free!"

"How do you know?" I asked,

"I am not branded," she said uncertainly.

"You do not need to be branded to be a slave," I said. "Surely you know that"

"Rescue me," she said. "Free met I will pay you much!"

I smiled. Did this lovely agent of Kurii really think that I might even consider freeing her?

"Free me!" she said. "I will pay you much!" "Did you enjoy being struck?" I asked.

"No!" she said.

"You will then answer my questions truthfully, directly and early," I told her.

"What do you wish to know?" she asked. "You are beautiful in the yoke," I said.

'Thank you," she said, uncertainly.

"It becomes you," I said.

'Thank you," she whispered.

"You might have been born a slave," I said. She looked at me. "thank you," she said..

"Describe to me, in brief compass, the course of the battle," I said.

I turned about for I had heard a small noise behind me. Several of the Waniyanpi had now come to the vicinity of the wagon.

"I see you have found her'," said'' Pumpkin.

"Yes," 1 said. I noted that neither he, nor the other Waniyanpi, looked obviously and directly on the woman, though she was beautiful and bound. "Was it you," I asked, tripped this beauty?"

"No, no," said Pumpkin, hastily. "That was done by the masters."

"It must have been you, then," I said, "who yoked her, and prettily and well."

"No, not" said Pumpkin, hastily. "That, too, was done by the red masters."

"I see," I said. I had surmised, Of course, that it would not have been the Waniyanpi who had removed the woman's clothing, or who had secured her, so simply, yet so efficiently and brilliantly.

"We did, however," said Pumpkin, "tether her behind the wagon, looking away from her as much as possible, that we would not have to look at her."

"The red masters permitted this?" I asked.

"Yes," said Pumpkin. "In amusement, they acceded to our pleas."

"That was kind of them," I said.

"Yes," said Pumpkin.

"Describe to me the course of the battle, as you understand it," I said to the stripped, blond captive, giving her once again my attention.

"Please," she said, "who are these people? They do not even look at me. Am I so ugly or repulsive?"

"You are neither ugly nor repulsive," I said. "In a common Gorean market you would bring a good price for a medium grade slave girl. Accordingly, you are quite beautiful."

"Who are they?" she whispered. "Are they men?"

"They are called Waniyanpi," I said, "which in Dust Leg and Kaiila means 'tame cattle.'"

"Are they men?" she asked.

"That is an interesting question," I said. "I do not know."

The girl shuddered. Of Gorean birth, she was unfamiliar, in numbers, at least, with such organisms. Had she been of Earth origin, of course, she would have been far less I startled, for then creatures would have been much more familiar to her. In the polluted meadows of Earth graze numerous Waniyanpi.

"Begin," I told her.

"We feared nothing," she said. "Our forces, we believed, were invincible. We did not anticipate trouble. Surely it would be insanity to attack us. Insufficient pickets were put out. Watches were not well kept."