Blood Brothers of Gor

Chapter 54 I RETURN TO MY LODGE

" 'Where is this one called Cuwignaka? " translated the young, light-skinned, muscular fellow.

The warrior who had spoken was Fleer. This could be told at a glance from the hair, which was worn in a high, combed-back pompadour. He carried a feather lance, with a long iron point, a trade point, socketed, fastened to the lance shaft with two rivets. His kaiila had a notched right ear. It bore various coup marks and exploited markings. Among these, on the flanks, on each flank, therewas a society marking, a flat black line, a semicircular, curved blue line above it, the line of the earth, the overarching blue dome of the sky above it. He was a member of the Blue-Sky Riders. Grunt and I had seen him once before, long ago, in the vicinity of the field of a massacre, where a wagon train had been destroyed. Only recently had we learned that he was a war chief of the Fleer.

"I am Cuwignaka," said Cuwignaka, stepping forward. He now wore a breechclout. Yet still, the shreds of the white dress clung about his upper body. Cuwignaka's words were translated by the light-skinned lad.

"I had thought," Gurnt had told me yesterday, "that I was dead, but I discovered that I was not dead. I had a son, among the Dust Legs."

Grunt had found the lad in visiting the Dust Legs after the massacure of the summer camp. It had been largely through Grunt's influence that Dust Legs had made the long journey to Council Rock, to aid the Kaiila. The lad's mother, long ago, had loved Grunt. It was said she still lived. The lad had something of Grunt's facility with languages and his father's shrewdness and good sense in trading. He had been one of the few Dust Legs who was permitted in Fleer encampments and had lived with them. He, originally conversing in sign had subsequently learned their language.

Dust Legs and Kaiila, as I have earlier indicated, are closely related languages. Kaiila is commonly, interestingly, regarded as a dialectical version of Dust Leg. Dust Leg and Fleer are also related, but much more distantly. Commonly Dust Legs and Fleer, when they meet in peace, communicate in the lingua franca of the plains, sign. The lad, it was said, had children of his own.

The lad and Grunt had decided to go into partnership, this being thought to be to the advantage of both. Grunt could speak Gorean and the lad was fluent not only in Dust Leg and Kaiila, but Fleer as well. I had little doubt they would become famous on the plains. This winder, instead of returning west of the Ihanke, Grunt had told me that he planned to winter with Dust Legs. There was a woman there, for whom he had once cared. He was eager to see her again. It seemed she had not forgotten him.

The Fleer warrior regarded Cuwignaka. His kaiila moved under him, resteless with its energy.

" 'I have heard of you, " translated the light-skinned lad. " 'It is well knwn on the plains that there is one among the Kaiila whose name is Cuwignaka, Woman's Dress, who has no quarrel with the Fleer. »

Cuwignaka, standing, his arms folded, regarded the Fleer warrior. He said nothing.

"It is because of you," said the Fleer warrior, "why we came to Council Rock."

Cuwignaka looked puzzled.

"Do you know," asked the Fleer warrior, "why we came to Council Rock, and, because of us, the Sleen came?"

"No," said Cuwignaka. The Fleer and Sleen are allies.

"Because," laughed the warrior, "we have no quarrel with Cuwignaka!"

He then turned his kaiila about, by its jaw rope, and rode away.

"There will be peace, I think," I said, "between the Kaiila, and the Fleer and Sleen."

"No," said Canka, standing nearby, "I do not think so. It is only, rather, that it was a noble warrior's gesture."

"I did not think they were capable of such," said a man.

"Of course they are," said Hci, with us. "They are fine enemies."

"Canka does not think there will be peace," I said.

"Let us hope not," said Hci.

"I do not understand," I said.

"Ah, Tatankasa, Mitakola," said Hci, "I fear you will never understand us, or folk such as the Fleer or Sleen."

"Perhaps not," I said.

"War is part of our life," he said. "It is what makes us what we are. I do not think Kaiila would be the Kaiila without the Fleer, or the Fleer the Fleer, without the Kaiila."

"Good friends are priceless," said a man. "So, too, are fine enemies."

"Great enemies," said a man, "make great peoples."

"Do not be concerned, Mitakola," said Cuwignaka. "I do not think I understand them either. Tehy are my people, and I love them, but I, too, may never understand them."

I watched the Fleer riding away. "That is reassuring," I said.

"You are now a warrior, my friend," said Hci to Cuwignaka. "What name will you take? Hve you chosen one?"

"Will you take again your old name?" asked Canka. "Petuspe?" 'Petuspe', in Kaiila, means "Fire Brand."

"No," said Cuwignaka. "And I have chosen my name."

"What will it be?" asked Hci.

"Cuwignaka," smiled Cuwignaka.

Hci smiled. "You have made it a warrior's name," he said. "Others, too, might now take it as such."

"What of you, Hci, my friend?" asked Cuwignaka. "Long ago you were known as Ihdazicaka. Will you take again that name?" 'Idazicaka', in Kaiila, means "One-Who-Counts-Himself-Rich."

"No," smiled Hci. "Now, although I feel I am one who may truly account hiself rich, I shall keep the name Hci. It is a name of which I have taken my highest coups. More importantly, in the time that I have worn that name, I have, for the first time in my life, found friends.

Canka, Cuwignaka and Hci clasped hands.

A few hundred feet away, I saw some Dust Legs, a party of them, returning to their own country.

Among them, stripped naked, his hands tied behind him, riding backwards on a kaiila, his ankles bound tether on a long strap, it running between them under the belly of the kaiila, rode the officer who had won the draw. He was a blond, slim young man. He had been the youngest of the officers. At the edge of the Ihanke, when it was reached, some weeks from now, he would be tied and beaten with switches, as though he might be a slave girl. Then, sill stripped, and his hands tied then behind him, he would be released, to make his way as he could to Kailiauk, that white settlement closest to the Ihanke.

I saw a white girl staggering past, bent over. She was stripped. She carried a great bundle of sticks, tied together, on her back. She was pretty. The sticks would doubtless serve as fuel. She was doubtless on her way to the lodge of her master.

The Yellow Knives had been defeated ten days ago.

We were now in a great victory camp, near water, within sight of Council Rock, some seven or eight pasangs in the distance. In this camp there were Fleer, Sleen, Dust Legs and Kaiila. There had been dances and feasts. There had been much loot to divide, taken from Yellow-Knife encampments, and there had been much exhanging of gifts, even between hereditary, inveterate enemies such as the Fleer and Kaiila. Women, too, even free women, of these peoples, of those bands within trekking disatnce, had jouneyed to the encampment. Such times of celebration, of festivals and peace, particularly among diverse tribes, are rare and precious. This was now Wayukaspiwi, in the calendar of the Dust Legs, the Corn-Harvest Moon, or, as it is spoken of in the reckoning of the Kaiila, Canwapekasanwi, the moon when the wind shakes off the leaves.

Only too clearly did the browning grass and the cool winds preage the turning of the seasons, and the advent of the gray skies and the long nights of the bitter moon, Waniyetuwi, called the Winter Moon; Wanicokanwi, called the Mid-Winter Moon; Witehi, the Hard Moon; and Wicatawi, the Urt Moon. The vernal equinox occurs in the Istawicayzanwi, the Sore-Eye Moon. Grunt and I had originally come to the Barrens, it now seemed long ago, in Magaksicaagliwi, the Moon of the Returning Giants. Already various groups, in small numbers, had begun to withdraw from the victory camp.

I, too, I thought, must soon be on my way. I must soon take my leave of the Barrens. I must begin the long journey back to the Ihanke, and thence to the Thentis Mountains, and the Vosk, and the Tamber Gulf and Port Kar.

I turned my steps toward my lodge, that which I shared with Cuwignaka, and his slave, Cespu, and with she who was now my own slave, she to whom I now held full legal title, lovely, obedient blond Mira. Cuwignaka had wished to give her to me but I had insisted on paying five hides for her. Grinning, he had accepted. She was a slave. Why should she not be bought and sold? She was now mine, totally.

I stopped before a quartet of stripped, kneeling white slaves, neck tethered, with their hands bound behind their back. They were the four girls who had been taken from Grunt long ago by Yellow Knives, near the scene of the massacre of the wagon train, and the battle between the soldiers and the coalition of red savages, Lois, Inez, Corinne and Priscilla. They had been returned to Grunt after the defeat of the Yellow Knives, as a part of his portion of the booty. I examined them. They were lovely flesh loot. Priscilla bore a mare in black paint on her left breast. She had been sold for four hides to Akihoka, a friend of Canka, and also a member of the All Comrades. Corinne, the French girl, also bore a mark in black paint on her left breast, a different mark. Grunt had sold her to Keglezela, another of Canka's friends, also for four hides. Keglezela was also a member of the All Comrades. Neither Akihoka nor Keglezela had yet taken delivery on the women.

Lois and Inez had not been sold. They would serve as burden bearers for Grunt, on his way back to the Dust-Leg country. Then, if he had not sold them in the meantime, presumably they would accompany him back to Kailiauk in the spring, whence, after selling his goods and making his profits, and restocking his stores, he would presumably return once more, trading, to the Barrens, this time presumably in the company of the light-skinned young man he had met amongst the Dust Legs but weeks ago, his son.

I pulled Lois' head up by the hair. "You gave the alarm," I said, "when I, and two friends, stole tarns from Kinyanpi at a Yellow-Knife, camp."

She shuddered with terror, held.

"Did you kkow that it was I with them?" I asked. "Did you recognize me?"

She trembled. "Yes, Master," she whispered, terrified.

"You did well," I said.

She looked at me, startled.

"What are you?" I asked.

"A slave girl," she whispered.

"See that you serve your new masters even better," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I then released her, and turned about.Inez's neck, too, I had noted, looked well in its leather bond.

Others, too, there were, whose fate I had learned, Max and Kyle Hobart, and the two former Earth girls, Ginger and evelyn, who had been slaves in Kailiauk. The Hobarts, with men, had pursued Grunt into the Barrens. Dust Legs, friends of Grunt, had attacked them. Grunt, retracing his steps, had located the scene of the attack. There he had found them, the only survivors, stripped and put in leg stretchers, as though they might be slave girls, lying in the grass, awaiting his attentions. He had not killed them. He had chained them in his coffle. They, though strong men, had been forbidden to so much as touch any of the scantily clad beauties who, neck-chained, as they, preceded them in the coffle.

Near the field of the massacre and near the place where the soldiers and red savages had fought they, with two girls, Ginger and Evelyn, whom they had muchly desiered, as long ago as Kiliauk, were taken from Grunt by Sleen warriors. This was done at the same time as Yellow Knives had been approapriating Lois and three others of her sisters in bondage, Priscilla, Corinne and Inex. The Sleen had taken the Hobarts to serve as boys, perfoming lowly tasks and doing such things as watching kaiila. These girls they had taken for the common purposes for which luscious white females are employed by red masters.

During their time with the Sleen apparently Max and Kyle Hobart, unable to help themselves any longer, and finding the girls staked out, naked, in a desolate place, presumably for punishment, had raped them. Sortly after this the slaves had begun to meet. These meetings were typical of the clandestine trysts of slaves. They took place in the shadows, behind lodges and at places marked inthe high grass, where they might lie in one anothers arms, if only fearfully and briefly, fearing the step of a master, the shadow of a whip.

It was in these days, and in these meetings, so different from the alcoves of Kailiauk, that the girls learned that they were the slaves of the Hobarts and the Hobarts learned to their joy that htey, though themselves collared, owned slaves. The relationship of the Hobarts and the girls, I am sure, had not escaped the attention of the Sleen. I think it quite likely that the Sleen, in their kindness, and recognizing the need of strong men, such as the Hobarts, for women, had taken this fashion of rewarding them for good service. I am sure that it was no accident that the Hobarts had been sent on an errand near the place where the two beauties had been staked out. Similarly, there is little, I suspect, which transpires between slaves which is not known to masters. It is usually only a question as to whether the masters wish to take action or not. This hypothesis is further confirmed by the fact that the Sleen, in trading with Grunt, Grunt making use of booties acquired from the Yellow Knives, offered him, in effect, the package containing both the Hobarts and thier lovers.

The Hobarts, with whome I later discussed these things, now share my suspicions in this matter. Grunt, incidentally, has freed the Hobarts, and put them temperarily in his emply. They will accompany him to the country of the Dust Legs, helping him in the transportation of goods to that point, and will then, before winter, continue on to Kailiauk, there to arrange buyers for Grunt's hides, to be deliverd in the spring. They will then, presumably, return to their rance, ouside of Kailiauk. In payment for these services each will recive a female slave.

I saw two lovers riding by, the woman behind the man, on his kaiila. Their names wereh Witantanka and Akamda.

"Master!" cried the slave girl, desisting for the moment from following her master, and kneeling swiftly before me, and kissing my feet.

"Greetings, Oiputake," I said.

She looked up at me. "I thank you," she said, "for the most precioius gift a man can give a woman."

"What is that?" I asked.

"Herself," she said.

"It is nothing," I said.

"Howo, Oiputake," called her red master, turning about. He was Wapike, "One-Who-Is-Fortunate," of he Isanna.

"Ho, Intancanka!" she cried, sprining to her feet, joyfully, and running to follow him.

Two hunters I saw returning, friends; one was Cotanka, "Love Flute," of the Wismahi, and the other was Wayuhahaka, "One-Who-Possessess-Much," who had elected to remain with the Isbu. Once he had been Squash, a lad of the Waniyanpi. Across the back of he kaiila, before the lad, lay a tabuk. I was reminded that the Kaiila, in spite of the stores acquired from the Yellow Knives, much of which had been their own, from the summer camp, must still do hunting for the winter.

Hurrying at the flank of Cotanka's kaiila, welcoming him back to camp, was a blonde, barefoot, collared and wearing a brief shirtdress. It was she who had functioned, in effect, as a "lue girl" in one of he actions at the summer camp. She now belonged to him. A thousandfold and more, doubtless, had Cotanka seen that she had repaid him for her part inthe duplicity which had endangered him before permitting her to lapse into the stringencies of a more common slavery, that of the absolute and uncompromising bondage in which female slaves are typically, and without a second thought, held on Gor.

The hunters and the slave were met at the entrance to Wayuhahaka's lodge by another slave, a blond, barefoot girl in a brief, tightly-belted tunic of Waniyanpi cloth. She greeted her master radiantly. She lowered her head and knelt, crossing her arms over her breast. This, in effect, was a mixture of sign and Gorean convention. Crossing the arms over the breast indicates love in sign. That she had done this kneeling and lowering her head, then, signified submission, love and that she was a slave. She sprang to her feet at a command from wayuhahaka. The name 'Strawberry' was still being kept upon her. This seemed a suitable name for a slave. The tabuk was then slid from the back of the kaiila into the girls' arms. They staggered under its weight as it was, for such a beast, a large one. While the women worked the men would sit before the entrance o the lodge and talk.

"Wasnapohdi!" I called, seeing her passing by, a roll of kailiauk hide on her shoulder.

She, delighted, ran to me and knelt before me.

"Are you pleased with your new maser?" I asked.

"Oh," she cried, breathlessly, rapturously, "he is my master! He is my master! For years, in my heart, I have known I belonged to him! Now, at last, I am his legal slave! He is so strong with me, and perfect! I am so happy!"

Her new master was a lad of the Napoktan, some two years her senior, Waiyeyeca, "One-Who-Finds-Much," who, long ago, had once owned her when they were both children. He was now a fine young warrior and she a needful, curvaceous slave. One who found Wasnapohdi in his arms, I thought to myself, would indeed be one who had found much.

"I was so fearful that he would not buy me," she said. "I was fearfully overpriced by Grunt, my former master!"

"What did you bring?" I asked. I already knew, of course.

"Four hides of the yellow kailiauk!" she said.

I whistled, softly, as though astonished.

"Can you believe it?" she asked.

"I think so," I said. "You are, after all, a property not without certain charms."

"And Grunt, my master, would not even bargin," she said. "The price was put on me as a fixed price."

"I see," I said. This was unusual in the Barrens, and unusual, too, even in the cities.

"And I," she said, "only a white female and a slave!"

"Grunt is a shrewd trader," I said. "Doubtless he was sure of his buyer."

"My master was not pleased to pay so much," she said. "When he took me to his lodge he was angry, and beat me. Then he made lengthy love to me, and I was his."

"I see," I said. Grunt had doubtless priced Wasnapohdi as high as he did in order that the young man might never again be tempted to lightly dispose of such a property. Yet I think this precaution was not truly necessary on Grunt's part. I di dnot think that Waiyeyeca, now having come again into the ownership of his former childhood slave, would ever be likely to let her go again.

"I shall miss my former master, though," said the girl. "Though he was strict with me, as is fitting, for I am a slave, he, too, was very kind to me."

"He saved your life at the summer camp," I said, "utting you on a tether and enforcing slave sanctions upon you, to lead you to safety."

"I know," she said.

"Doubtless, Slave," I said, "you are on an errand. That you not be whipped for dallying I permit you to be on your way."

She put down her head and, tenderly, kissed my feet. Then, with a smile, shouldered again the roll of kailauk hide she was carrying, she leapt up, and sped on her way. She was going toward the lodge of waiyeyeca. Something, I supposed, had been exchanged for the hide. Perhaps it would be used to repair one of the skins in Waiyeyeca's lodge. He had a woman now to attend to such matters. He had recently purchased her.

I continued on, then, toward my own lodge.

"Hurry, hurry, lazy slave!" I heard. I heard then the hiss of a switch and a girl, carrying two skins of water, cry out in pain. She was a white female slave. She was naked, collared, red-haired and large-bosomed. She belonged to Mahpiyasapa. One of Mahpiyasapa's wives, with a switch in her gnarled, mutilated hand, the woman with whom I had once spoken outside of his lodge before the attack on the summer camp, was supervising her in her duties.

The large-bosomed, red-haired girl looked at me. My face was expressionless. Then, crying out, she hurried on, struck twice more by the switch. She was now called Natusa. 'Natu' designates corn silk, or the tassel on the maize plant; it can also stand for the hair on the side of the head. These things, of course, are all silky and smooth to the touch. 'Sa' stands for red. The name, accordingly, has no precise translation into either Gorean or english. "Red Silk" will not do as a translation because corn silk, or the hair at the side of the head, is quite different from silk, the cloth. Similarly, the expression 'red silk' in Gorean, tends to be used as a category in slaving, and also, outside the slaving context, as an expression in vulgar discourse, indicating that the woman is no longer a virgin, or, as the Goreans say, at least vulgarly of slaves, that her body has been opened by men. Its contrasting term is "white silk," usually used of slaves who are still virgins, or, equivalently, slaves whose boies have not yet been opened by men. Needless to say, slaves seldom spend a great deal of time in the "white silk" category. It is common not to dally in initiating a slave into the realities of her condition. The translation "Red Corn Silk," too, does not seem felicitous. The best translation is perhaps "Red Tassel," the tassel being understood as that of the maize plant, prized by the red savages. The connotation in all these cases, with which the red savage, in the fluency and depth with which he understands his own language, is fully cognizant, and to which he responds, is tha tof something red which is pleasant to feel, something that is soft and smooth to the touch.

It was no mistake or coincidence that the red-haired, large-bosomed Natusa had come into the ownership of Mahpiyasapa. Canka, as a protion of his loot from teh Yellow Knives, had taken five hides of the yellow kailiauk. These he had given to Mahpiyasapa, as a gift, in a sense, but also, in a way, as a payment for his earlier acqusition of Winyela, whom Grunt had brought originally into the Barrens as a property for Mahpiyasapa. In taking these five hides Mahpiyasapa, in effect, forgave Canka for his exercise of the warrior rights which had brought Winyela's pretty neck into his beaded collar.

I had then, luckily, among Yellow-Knife slaves, discovered she who was now called Natus. Upon my expression of interest she had been given to me as a part of my portion of the loot. I had kept her for a bit, subjecting her to discipline and use, and then I had given her to Grunt. Grunt, happily, of course, sold her to Mahpiyasapa for the five hides of the yellow kailiauk which Mahpiyasapa had received from Canka. Canka, thus, cleared his accounts, so to speak, with his chief and acquired, thereby, a clear moral as well as legal title to Winyela. Grunt, of course, received his five hides and Mahpiyasapa recieved the rare, red-haired woman he had, in effect, ordered from Grunt last year. Mahpiyasapa, incidentally, was more then pleased with these developments. It had been so secret in the camp that he had regarded Winyela's breasts, at least for his tastes, as too small. Red savages often, like many men of the Tahari, tend to find a special attractiveness in large-breasted women.

On the way back to my lodge I passed a bargaining place, an open area serving for trading and exchanges, not unusual in an intertribal camp. There I saw Seibar, who had once been Pumpkin, of the Waniyanpi, trading, in sign, with a Dust-Leg warrior. Seibar was offering a netted sack of maize. The Dust Leg was bidding sheaves of dried kailiauk meat. No longer must those who had been Waniyanpi content themselves with the consumption of their own produce and deliver supluses witout recompense into the hands of masters.

The community was now, in effect, a small freehold in the Barrens, and yet, strictly, in theletter or the law, stood to the Kaiila as a leased tenancy. Not a square hort would the Kaiila surrender, truly, of their tribal lands. Yet the rend for the tenancy had been set at one ear of maize per year, to be deliverd to the reigning chieftain of the Isbu Kaiila. Yesterday this ear of maize had been deliverd, with suitable ceremonies, to Mahpiyasapa. The tenancy was subject to certain conditions, recorded suitably on two hides, each bearing the marks of the appropriate signatories. One of these hides remained with the Isbu; the other went to the leased tenancy. The two major conditions specified onthe hieds were that the tenancy was subject to review, to be followed by revocation or renewal, every tenth winter, and that the numbers of individuals in the tenancy were to be strictly limited, and excess in population to be removed by emigration to the lands west of the Ihanke. The red savages did not wish to countenance increasing white populations within their territories.

Thus, first, those who had been Waniyanpi were no longer slaves of the Kaiila and, second, they now maintained what amounted, for most practical purposes, to a small free state within the Barrens. These things were given to them as gifts by the Kaiila, in appreciation for the services rendered during the time of the war with the Yellow Knives and soldiers, for providing us with a tarn base within striking distance of Council Rock, and sheltering and supporting our men during the period of their training.

The community of those who had been Waniyanpi, of course, was not identified with a particular area of land, and certainly not with a territory occupied under the conditions of a leased tenancy. It now, in the Gorean fashion, for the first time, tended to be identified with a Home Stone. The community could now, if it wished, the Home Stone moving, even migrate to new lands. In Gorean law allegiances to a Home Stone, and not physical structures and locations, tend to define communities.

Seibar had wished to call the small community New Ar, but had abandoned this proposal in the face of an unfavorable reception by his fellows. Ar was not as popular with some of his fellows as it was with him, and that redoubtable municipality, the largest city in the Gorean north was unfamiliar to many of them, even in hearsay. After much discussion it was decided to call the tiny community Seibar's Holding, this being a manifestation of the respect and affection they bore their leader. The only reservations pertaining to this name seemed to be held by Seibar himself who, to the end, remained the stubborn champion of "New Ar."

The red savages, themselves, incidentally, have their own names for the new, small community. In Kaiila it is called «Anpao» or, sometimes, "Anptaniya." The expresion 'Anpao' means «Dawn» or "Daylight." The expression 'Anptaniya' has a more complex meaning in translation. It means, rather literally, "the breath of day." It is used to refer, for example, to the first, lovely glimmerings of morning. The expression is related, of course, to the vapors raised by the sun in the early morning, these perhaps, poetically and beautifully, as is often the case in the languages of the red svages, suggesting "the breat of day." In both expressions, of course, the connotations are rather clear, that darkness is over, that a new day is at hand.

I di dnot call myself to the attention of Seibar. Last night we had feasted. I did not wish to renew the bitterness of farewells.

I had soon, then, returned to the vicinity of my lodge. I was met there by Mira. She knelt before me and put her head to my feet. Then she lifted her head. "Word has come from the lodge of the dark guests," she said, "brought by Akihoka. The dark guest has pointed to the translator."

"I understand," I said. The translator was programmed in Kur and Gorean.

"I think the dark guest would speak with you," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"But, why, Master?" she asked. "What have you to do with the dark guest? And how is it that among your things there is a translator?"

I smiled.

"Who is it, to whom I belong?" she asked.

"Curiosity," I said, "is not becoming in a Kajira."

"Forgive me, Master," she said, putting her head down. I decided I would not, this time, whip her.

"I am going to the lodge of the dark guest," I said. "We will speak together."

"But what, Master, am I to do?" she asked.

"Surely you have woman's work to attend to," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Attened to it," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.