Swordsmen of Gor (69 page)

“Initiates,” I said.

I supposed some might have been placed amongst the Pani by Priest-Kings. Apparently the Priest-Kings wanted there to be at least one commonly spoken language on Gor, by means of which they could communicate with at least a majority of Gorean human beings. Perhaps they thought that that would lead to harmony, peace, and understanding. It had not. Amongst themselves the Priest-Kings communicated by scent. On the rare occasions when they dealt with human beings directly, translators were utilized.

“We must learn their language or be destroyed,” said Lord Nishida. “Some recalcitrants and zealots were consumed by fire, streaming from the sky.”

That would be the Flame Death. It was commonly used for enforcing the technology laws, and, doubtless, could serve other purposes, as well.

“So Gorean was learned?” I said.

“Who disputes the will of the gods?” asked Lord Nishida.

“Who, indeed?” I said.

“Other things were brought, as well,” said Lord Nishida, “recipes, seeds, serums, and such.”

Normally such gifts would be received through cultural diffusion, through trade, and such. I gathered that this was impractical in the case of the Pani.

“But these strange men,” said Lord Nishida, “attempted to rule us.”

“I see,” I said.

“They were crucified,” said Lord Nishida.

“There were no retaliations from the sky?” I said.

“No,” said Lord Nishida.

Their purposes served, it seems the Priest-Kings had no further need of their missionaries, so to speak.

“What of Tersites, and your fate?” I pressed.

“It was the night before the final battle,” said Lord Nishida, “when we were to be swept into the sea.”

“Yes?” I said.

“A great darkness came suddenly over the moons, watch fires mysteriously ceased to burn, guards struggled to remain awake at their posts, we fought, crying out, and beating on drums, and blowing trumpets, to rouse ourselves, to stay awake, but we were overcome, and in Ehn we lay down to die.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“We awakened in many places, on the shores of what you have spoken of as ‘known Gor’, though, I assure you, it was not known to us. I myself awakened in the vicinity of what I learned was Brundisium.”

“I know it,” I said. It was a major port. Indeed, it had been used as the port of entry for the invasion forces of Cos and Tyros, bound for Ar.

“We encountered, and were dealt with,” said Lord Nishida, “by many Goreans, prepared to welcome and direct us. Too, these barbarians had at their disposal considerable wealth, abetting that which had been sent with us from our home, not only from our camp, but apparently from elsewhere, as well, perhaps even from the stores of our enemies. In any event, when our foes attacked in the morning they would find an empty camp, picked clean as though by centuries of looters. Doubtless they were much displeased, at the loss of gain, and perhaps the mysterious loss of much of their own wealth, as well. Their anger would not be lightly dissipated.”

Lord Nishida shuddered, and I did not inquire the cause of his concern. It had to do, doubtless, with those left behind, not in the camp, not at the edge of the sea, but others, for whom they had fought, perhaps hundreds of vulnerable thousands of others, townsmen, retainers, peasants and such, in undefended districts, then perhaps at the undisputed mercy of some disappointed, vindictive foe.

“I understand little of this,” I said.

“I fear,” said Lord Nishida, “it is a game, which we are to resolve on another’s board.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“The gods wager,” he said. “Doubtless they have their sport, their interest in which drop of water will be first to reach a sill, which insect will be the first to cross a line.”

My blood seemed for a moment to turn cold.

I then began to suspect that it was not in the toils of Priest-Kings that we labored, or in those of Kurii, to achieve their ends. It was our own game, in its way, but one on which more powerful beings, Priest-Kings or Kurii, in a moment of recreation, or perhaps truce, had seen fit to wager.

“This is madness,” I said. “It cannot be.”

“Much has been prepared,” said Lord Nishida, quietly.

“The attack,” I said.

“Must not each god have a side,” he asked, “a favored outcome?”

Surely, I thought, the foes of Lord Nishida and Lord Okimoto will have their resources and allies, as well.

A wager?

Perhaps.

Yet, too, surely each party would have darker, more remote thoughts in mind.

“I see now,” I said, “why your plans were to be advanced.”

“Of course,” said Lord Nishida.

“But the other side has already won,” I said.

“How so?” asked Lord Nishida, interested.

“You intended to winter here, until spring, did you not?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“You are trapped,” I said.

“How so?” he inquired.

“Your project is no longer secret,” I said. “One attack was beaten away, but there will be, I gather, others, in greater force, most likely, I would suppose, on foot through the forests, muchly inaccessible to tarn attack, and you will be unable to escape.”

“I have not been quite candid with you, Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” said Lord Nishida.

“This revelation does not take me by surprise,” I said.

“Such a force,” said Lord Nishida, “is already on the march.”

“You are undone,” I said.

“How so?” he asked.

“You will be trapped in your winter camp, the river will freeze.”

“When the enemy arrives,” said Lord Nishida, “he will find only ashes.”

“Abandon the camp and ships,” I said, “and flee, saving what you can, in a thousand directions.”

“No,” he said.

“You cannot stay here,” I said.

“That is true,” he said.

“Flee,” I said.

“No,” he said.

“What will you do?” I asked.

“Soon,” said Lord Nishida, “the ship will sail.”

“The time of year is wrong,” I said.

“Soon,” said Lord Nishida.

“You cannot be intending to descend the Alexandra,” I said.

“To Thassa,” said he.

“Winter is coming,” I said.

“That is why we must not loiter,” said Lord Nishida. “Any day ice may form in the river. Already, upstream, in tributaries, some hundred pasangs north, plate ice has been detected.”

This discovery would have been made by tarn scouts.

“You cannot be serious about taking the ship to sea,” I said.

“We have no choice,” said Lord Nishida.

“The ship cannot sail,” I said.

“Tersites believes it can withstand the winter sea,” he said.

“Tersites is not a captain, not a mariner, he is a shipwright, and he is mad,” I said.

“I do not doubt his madness,” said Lord Nishida, “but, too, I do not doubt his genius. It is his ship, and his design.”

“Beware of Thassa,” I said. “She is not your ally, not your friend.”

“We cannot remain here,” said Lord Nishida.

“Winter looms,” I warned.

“Ice has already been seen in the north,” he said.

“Thassa,” I said, “will tear the sails from your ship, snap her masts, break her keel, crush her sides, lift her a hundred feet, two hundred feet, into the air, and then drop her like a broken toy, plunging to the waves below. One does not go upon Thassa in the winter. It is madness.”

“Soon,” he said, “she will sail.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

IN THE SHED, WHICH IS OUR QUARTERS

“She is a slave,” I told Pertinax. “Put her to your pleasure.”

“No,” said Pertinax.

Saru knelt before us, in the half light of the shed we had been assigned for our quarters.

“Spread your knees more widely, girl,” I told her.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“More,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Use her,” I told Pertinax.

“No,” he said.

“It is all right with Lord Nishida,” I assured him.

“No,” he said.

“Speak,” I said to the slave.

“The slave,” she whispered, “is eager to serve master.”

How different she was from when on Earth, in her tailored garments, heels, silk stockings and such.

“No,” said Pertinax.

“Consider the collar on her neck,” I said to Pertinax. “It is lovely, is it not?”

“Yes,” he said.

“And it is locked,” I said.

“Of course,” he said.

“Consider her in the rep-cloth tunic,” I said. “It is a slave garment. It conceals little. Surely you find her attractive.”

“Of course,” he said, angrily.

“The hair is still too short,” I said. “But some women are sold with less.”

“If you say so,” he said.

“Surely that does not give you pause,” I said.

“No,” he said.

“Use her,” I urged.

Angrily Pertinax turned about and left the shed, the door closing more fiercely behind him than I thought necessary.

I smiled.

“He does not want me, Master,” she whispered.

“On the contrary,” I said, “he wants you mightily, with the ferocity of Gorean desire, wants you crushed, subdued, helpless, begging, at his feet.”

“That cannot be, Master,” she said.

“He wants you in a way that he dares not admit to himself,” I said, “wants you in a way that he feels he must not permit himself to want you, wants you that much, wants you wholly, without a particle of reservation or hesitation.”

“But there is only one way in which a man can so want a woman,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“He cannot so want me,” she whispered.

“His passion, his desire, his ardor, are such,” I said.

“Surely not,” she whispered.

“He sees you at his feet,” I said, “scarlet and braceleted, illuminated in the flame of his lust.”

“It cannot be,” she said.

“He wants to own you,” I said, “like a dog, own you as a dog is owned.”

“I am less than a dog,” she said. “I am a slave.”

“Precisely,” I said.

“He wants me so much?”

“Yes,” I said.

The slave is the master’s possession, wholly and perfectly, vulnerable and defenseless, his to do with as he wishes.

“It is thus,” she said, “that I have dreamed of being wanted, it is thus that I want to be wanted.”

I was silent.

There were tears in her eyes.

“What woman would be satisfied,” she asked, “to be less desired? What woman would be satisfied, truly, to be more weakly, more feebly desired?”

“I suppose it depends on the woman,” I said.

Surely many were content with tepidities.

Perhaps they knew of nothing more.

“Some of us want more,” she said, “want to be so wanted that we will find ourselves collared, want to be so desired, so lusted for, that he will be satisfied with nothing less than having his collar on us, with putting it on our necks and locking it there.”

“You wish to be so lusted for?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “— to the collar.”

“Then you would be owned,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“You would belong,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, “— to our masters.”

I noted that she, in her intentness, her earnestness, and tears, had permitted her knees to close, but I did not effect anything critical.

“I did not bring you here,” I said, “to torment Pertinax.”

“Master?” she asked.

“Long ago,” I said, “when you naively thought you were a free female, and that the name Margaret Wentworth was still yours, you spoke to me of various things, amongst them that you understood someone or something had, or would have, a hold over me in some way, by means of a woman.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“That was not clear at the time, I gather,” I said, “but it seems reasonably clear now that the agency involved must be the Pani, say, Lord Nishida, or Lord Okimoto, or those in whose behalf they labor.”

“I would think so, Master,” she said.

“You did not know the woman in question at that time,” I said.

“Nor do I now, Master,” she said.

“You have heard nothing more, or such?” I asked.

“No, Master,” she said.

“The woman, I believe,” I said, “is Talena, once daughter of Marlenus of Ar, Talena, recently deposed as Ubara in Ar.”

“I know little of these things, Master,” she said, “but surely that seems unlikely.”

“Why?” I asked.

“The importance of the Ubara,” she said, “the height and grandeur of her place, your modest status, if I may remark it, Master, that we have heard nothing of the Ubara, that we are here, in a remote location, far from the cylinder cities, the ports, the caravan routes, the trading places, somewhere in the northern forests.”

I nodded.

I had not thought the outcome of this gentle interrogation would prove other than it had.

She knew nothing, of course, of my conversation with Seremides, formerly of the palace guard, the Taurentians.

“What are you about this morning?” I asked.

“I must scrub the floor of the quarters of the contract women,” she said.

“You may leave,” I said.

“Thank you, Master,” she said, rose lightly to her feet, backed away a step or two, and then turned, and left the room.

She was beginning to move well, I noted. Lord Nishida had made arrangements for her training. There were several trained pleasure slaves in the camp. The former free women of Ar in the camp sought a similar tutelage though they must pay for it, by parting with portions of their rations, relieving the pleasure slaves of various chores, and such. Slaves are to be pleasing. Free women need not be pleasing, and, commonly, are not so, as it is beneath their dignity to be pleasing, and to be pleasing is to be too much like a slave. The slave, of course, if not pleasing, is likely to be well whipped. On the other hand, something in every woman, presumably the slave, desires to please, and to be found pleasing by, men. This desire to be found pleasing by men, of course, is not only liberated in the slave, but required of them. This naturalness in a woman, and her desire to please the opposite sex, thus, is not only permitted and encouraged in the slave, but incumbent upon her. Some women require a lashing before they feel genuinely entitled to accede to what they really want to do, using the strokes, one supposes, as an excuse to gratify their vanity, that they have no choice now, poor things, but to do what they would wish to do anyway. But there is something to that, of course, because they really do not have a choice, which, interestingly, is the way they want it. Soon, of course, freed in the collar, at the feet of a master, they are eagerly disposed to be found, and are striving to be found, as pleasing as possible. Thus, they soon realize they are concerned to give the master exquisite pleasure, and, with the joy of the slave, are doing so. And, it sometimes comes as a surprise to them that, in the grasp of the master, whether they wish it or not, they will endure, and submit to, ecstasies they never realized possible as a free woman, ecstasies often prolonged for Ahn. But then masters like to see their slaves so, so helpless, so pleading, so gasping, so moaning and writhing, so beyond themselves, so much at their mercy.