Swordsmen of Gor (74 page)

The approaching boat was now midriver.

It had eight oarsmen, and a fellow at the tiller, and another at the bow. Its cargo, between the gunwales, was covered by a tarpaulin.

I looked to Cecily and Jane, kneeling on the planks, beside us.

“You know your cabins?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” said each.

Two days ago we had taken them on board, to show them our cabins, and, in general, familiarize them with the ship. In this tour we had tied their hands behind their backs and then tied them together by the neck. From a custodial point of view this was unnecessary, of course, but such things are seldom done for custodial purposes. Where is a slave to run? Indeed, when a slave is chained, if we are interested in custodial matters, it is commonly done not so much to confine her, though she is confined, and perfectly, and knows it, but to prevent her theft, for she is property. It is no great challenge for a male to subdue and carry off an untended slave. The two most common reasons for binding slaves, which is very frequently done, are, first, mnemonic, and, second, stimulatory. Binding, thonging, chaining, and such, makes it exceedingly clear to them that they are such that such things may be done to them, that they are subject to such things, that that is what they are, slaves. When the girl is helpless, and knows herself such, there can be little doubt about what she is, that she is a slave. Thus they are frequently bound, caged, and such. Secondly, bonds, in virtue of reinforcing the slave’s sense of her lesser strength, her vulnerability, and helplessness, are sexually stimulatory. They know themselves then objects vulnerable to, and readied for, sexual predation. This is related to the radical sexual dimorphism of the human species, the obvious complementarity of the sexes, and the dominance/submission ratios pervasive in nature. That the slave is helpless, then, not only accentuates the acuteness and viability of these natural responses, but intensifies them, exponentially. Surely Pertinax and I had had ample proof of this matter when we returned that afternoon to our quarters. The slave is likely to very well understand what is done to her, and why, but this avails her naught. She is still helpless, and a slave. Too, if her slave fires have been kindled, as is likely to be the case, she desires and needs the pleasures of her bondage. It is not unusual for her, left in her bonds, to beg for sexual relief.

Too, it might be noted, as a passing, prosaic observation, that when a woman’s hands are tied together behind her back she is likely to get into little trouble. It would not do, for example, on such a tour, to have them fussing about, rearranging objects, straightening things, folding things, picking up things, handling things, noting textures, and such. Having them on a neck bond, too, of course, keeps them together. Thus they are not likely to wander off, become separated, and find themselves lost in the labyrinthine companionways of the great ship.

“Cecily,” I said.

“Master?” said the English girl, formerly a student at an Oxford College, the name of which, as mine, shall not be noted.

I regarded her, I standing, she kneeling.

She was a lovely slave.

She looked up at me, to attend my words.

We had been selected for one another by Priest-Kings, to be irresistible to one another. Her shallow, empty, pretentious life on Earth had changed overnight, so to speak, she retiring one evening, smug in her beauty, indulged and practiced in the pleasures of despising, attracting, and tormenting men, and awakening, to her astonishment and terror, unclothed, pressing her small hands against the thick, stout, transparent walls of a containment capsule on the Prison Moon, one of the three moons of Gor. This capsule she found occupied by two others, myself, and a beautiful, young, human female from a Steel World, a Kur pet, who was unspeeched. The English girl had been placed in the capsule to bring about my downfall. Who could long resist her? And should she fail in this there was the Kur pet, in her way a primitive human animal, as innocent and sexual as a cat in heat. In one way or another, then, my honor was to have been lost, as, sooner or later, given the imperatives of nature and the provocations to which I was exposed, I must be unable to resist, as I must feast upon one or both of these delicacies, putting one or both of them, again and again, to my pleasure. Neither, you see, was a slave, at least legally. Both were free, at least legally. And therein lay the difficulty. I have little doubt but what, sooner or later, I would have taken the proud, vain, selfish English girl in my arms, and she would learn what it would be to be used by a Gorean warrior, and as might be a mere slave. This denouement did not materialize, however, because, as recounted earlier, Kurii raided the Prison Moon and freed me, a raid which had had me, interestingly, as its very object. During the raid the English girl, hoping to avoid death, had declared herself slave. She intuitively understood that as a free woman she was worthless, save perhaps as food to the beasts, but might, as a slave, have whatever worth a slave might have. Intuitively she sensed she might have that value, some value, however minimal, as a female slave. But the cry, too, had seemed to come from her heart, as an outburst from the depths of her heart, releasing a tension that might have been pent-up for years, a cry of enormous relief, a cry that seemed to suggest she had at last cast aside a dreadful, encumbering falsity, that at last a great weight, an immense burden of fear and denial, had been cast from her. As many women, if not all, she had recognized from puberty onward that there were two sexes, quite different, and devastatingly complementary to one another, and that she had, from whatever source, slave needs. She was well aware of these needs, for years, in many ways, from dreams from which she awakened suddenly, discovering she was not truly in chains, that her lips were not truly pressed to a master’s whip, from persistent fantasies from which she tried to flee, but to which, in fascination and fear, she must constantly return. How often she dreamed of herself, and fantasized herself, helpless in the power of dominant males, as no more than their possession, their prize, and plaything, their slave. Hating the tepidity, the ineffectuality, the weakness of the males she knew she took out on them her spite and disappointment, torturing them as only her beauty made possible. She did not hate men, truly, but only males who refused to be men, who would not see to it that she was put to their feet. But how soon, after her declaration on the Prison moon, she had tried to unsay her confession! But the words once spoken are irrevocable, for the speaker is then a slave. She was later branded and owned by male cohorts of the Kurii. Torn between her lingering pretenses of freedom and her slave needs, she had been found insufficiently pleasing by her masters, and was to be cast to eels in a pool in a Pleasure Cylinder, associated with a Steel World. She had begged my collar. I consented to the piteous pleas of the slave, and would honor her with my collar, which I then locked on her neck. That night, chained in an alcove, at my mercy, she was taught, finally and well, what it is to be a slave. A natural slave, she had become a legal slave; then, a legal slave, she had become a true slave.

“Cecily,” said I.

“Master?” she said.

“Go to the cabin,” I said, “remove your clothing, completely, and lie in the berth, and wait for me.”

“Yes, Master,” she said, and leapt up, hurrying to the ramp.

“Cecily,” I called.

“Yes, Master?” she said.

“And first lay out the whip,” I said.

“Yes, Master!” she said, and was then up the ramp.

I had no intention of using the whip on her, but this small ritual has its effect on the slave, reminding her she is a slave, and readying her and loosening her for use. Sometimes, in the use of a slave, one might ask, “Do you see the whip?” “Yes, Master,” she might say, “it is on its peg.” “Do you wish it to remain there?” she might be asked. “Yes, Master,” she responds, with fervency. “Are you being sufficiently responsive?” he might ask. “It is my hope that I might be found pleasing,” she says. “Excellent,” might say the master. “Yes, Master,” she might exclaim. “Yes, Master! Yes, Master!” Then perhaps her mouth needs be covered, with the flat of one’s hand, that her cries may not be obtrusive. To be sure, it is often pleasant to hear her cry out, weep, gasp, and moan, she in your arms, beside herself in helpless, uncontrollable ecstasy.

“Jane,” said Pertinax, “go to my cabin and lay out the whip, and then wait for me, naked, in the berth.”

“Yes, Master!” said his Jane, happily, and hurried after Cecily.

It is not unusual for a master to have his slave await him, naked, in the furs. The wait, and her nudity, well impresses upon her that she is a slave. Too, when he arrives, she is heated, needful, and ready for him.

And if the whip is at hand, so much the better.

“Would you not enjoy having Saru in your berth, naked, waiting for you?” I asked.

“— Yes,” he said.

“Good,” I said.

“She is a slave,” he said.

“Do not forget it,” I said.

“No,” he said.

“And could you use the whip on her?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Excellent,” I said. “Unfortunately she belongs to Lord Nishida.”

“I am well aware of that,” he said.

“Do you think she would make a nice gift for a
shogun
?” I asked.

“I do not know,” he said. “Perhaps.”

“Perhaps you would like to receive her as a gift,” I said.

“She is from Earth,” he said.

“Some of the loveliest gifts come from Earth,” I said.

The boat which had come from the other side of the river had now drawn up on the beach, below the wharf.

“There is some cargo there,” I said, “covered with a tarpaulin.”

The great frame in which the ship of Tersites had been formed suddenly collapsed in a shambles of burning timber.

“I fear for the wharf,” said Pertinax.

I nodded. Indeed, the far end of the wharf was beginning to burn. Some Pani were there.

“Look,” said Pertinax, pointing to the right, to the end of the wharf farthest from us, away from the flames, that nearest the bow of the great ship.

“Good!” I said. It was the retinue of Lord Nishida. With him were his guard, several officers, and two contract women, who were doubtless Sumomo and Hana.

I was much relieved to see Lord Nishida. I had feared the worst.

“Let us meet him,” I said. “We will now board.”

I pulled my cloak more about me.

I now expected to hear once more the whistles from the stern castle, which would now be the final signal, or warning, that prior to casting off.

Behind the stern of the ship, some fifty yards back, the wharf was now clearly afire. Pertinax’s apprehensions had now some justification. Certainly the ship must soon cast off.

Wind whipped my cloak about me, wind from the east.

I could see its passage on the river, in raising swells. I saw a log from upriver turning in the current.

Followed by Pertinax I made my way to the other side of the ramp.

“Greetings,” said I to Lord Nishida.

“Greetings,” said he, “Tarl Cabot, tarnsman.”

“Did you expect me to be here?” I asked.

“Certainly,” he said, politely. “You are curious, you wish to accompany the cavalry, you find it difficult to resist the unknown, you are unwilling to step aside from the path to adventure, a trait with which we of the Pani are not unfamiliar, and you are interested in a far shore.”

“True,” I said.

“Had I not been sure of this,” he said, “I would have had you killed.”

“I see,” I said.

We then approached the ramp.

Men stood by, with ropes and weights, on pulleys, to draw the ramp within, after which the port would be drawn up, similarly moved, and closed.

“Winter,” I said, “is not yet afoot, and yet there is ice in the river.”

“True,” said Lord Nishida.

“Your contract women,” I said, “are cold.”

Certainly Sumomo and Hana, even though warmly wrapped, seemed miserable, in the background.

“They prefer a milder climate,” said Lord Nishida.

“At least you will not be wintering by the river,” I said.

“I do not much care for this clime, in this season,” he said.

“Nor perhaps will you much care for Thassa in this season,” I said.

“I had thought,” he said, “that you would now be aboard.”

“I was waiting for you,” I said.

“I see,” he said.

I gathered he was not pleased.

“Lord Okimoto is already on board,” I said.

“Excellent,” he said.

“Shall we board?” I asked.

The eastern third of the wharf was now afire.

Above, mariners, at the rails, were marking the blaze.

Lord Nishida indicated to his retinue that they should proceed up the ramp. Certainly Sumomo and Hana hurried aboard. Ito paused, but was waved ahead by Lord Nishida.

Lord Nishida and I, and Pertinax, then stood alone on the right side of the ramp, which was approximately amidships.

I looked back to the beach, and noted that the tarpaulin had been thrown aside. Huddled, kneeling, crouched down, crowded between the gunwales, were a number of pathetic figures. These were the cargo which had been brought to the beach from the opposite side of the river. The fellow who had been in the bow yanked on a chain leash and the first of the figures was yanked its feet, and drawn rudely over the gunwales, and it fell, helpless, and miserable, on the sand. The other figures were lifted over the gunwales, and knelt, brutally, in a line, on the sand. The first figure then, which had fallen into the wet, cold sand, and still lay there, prone, frightened, afraid to move, by its upper arm, the right, was pulled to her knees, and knelt as well. The figures were then aligned, kneeling. They were fastened together, coffled, by the neck, with chain. Their hands were behind their backs, doubtless fastened together there. Interestingly, each was hooded, the entire head covered in the hood, a slave hood. In such a device its prisoner is disoriented, and helpless, dependent for movement and direction on its custodian.

“Shall we board?” said Lord Nishida.