Conspirators of Gor

Chapter Eleven

“We think it is in the sewers,” said Antiope, rinsing a master’s tunic, at the public troughs, late in the afternoon.

“What?” I said.

I knew little of what might be about. Perhaps my mistress, the Lady Bina, and her escort, or associate, or colleague, or guard, whatever he might be, the beast, Grendel, might know, but they had not spoken to me of such things, nor before me of such things. I think the Lady Bina may have been as uninformed as I. I was less sure of the beast.

“It,” she said, “the thing, or things.”

Shadows were long, near the troughs, at this time of day.

Patrols of guardsmen were more frequently about, of late.

“You know something, or think something,” I said, “I am sure of it. Tell me.”

I had been trying to cultivate her, and some others, for several afternoons now.

“You are a barbarian,” she said.

“Forgive me,” I said.

“Soak, and rinse, these coverlets for me,” she said.

“Yes,” I said, adding, “Mistress.”

This pleased her.

A few Ehn later I mentioned, “I have a candy.”

“Oh?” she said.

“It is as large as a tiny tospit,” I said, “hard, and yellow-and-red striped, and has a soft center.”

“Curiosity,” she said, “is not becoming in a kajira.”

I had wheedled this prize from Grendel, who sometimes purchased such things for the Lady Bina. After my beating, following my brief essay at assertiveness, and discovering that even the least impertinence or forwardness was not acceptable in a woman who wore the collar of Gor, I had gotten on quite well with the beast. The beast was male, and, as with other males, males of the Gorean type, it is easy to get on with them, provided one is, so to speak, at their feet, intent to please and zealous to obey. On its peg hangs the whip. One hopes to keep it there.

“But not unknown,” I said.

Neither the Lady Bina nor the beast were particularly cruel or demanding. I rejoiced that the Lady Bina had not been acculturated as a Gorean free woman, with their usual contempt for, and hostility toward, female slaves. Accordingly, she saw no point in the exercise of arbitrary, gratifying authority, nor in the infliction of humiliation or pointless pain. Part of this may well have been because it never occurred to her, in her unquestioning confidence in her own beauty and intelligence, to think of me, as other free women might, as some sort of rival. “The beauty of a free woman,” she once said to me, perhaps having acquired such views from Lady Delia, downstairs, the companion of Epicrates, “is a thousand times beyond that of a mere slave. It is as the moons, and the stars, and other things, which I forget. A slave’s beauty, on the other hand, is that of a mere accessible, squirming beast, chained at a man’s ring.” “Oh?” I said. “What do you think?” she asked. “Perhaps it depends on the woman,” I said. “Quite possibly,” she said. “I shall soon deliver the laundry,” I said. “Good,” she said. I did not doubt but what the Lady Bina, herself, properly stripped and collared, would make an exquisite little bundle at a man’s feet. Perhaps she might then better assess the views of the Lady Delia, whom, I suspected, might not do all that well at a man’s slave ring. It was fortunate, I thought, that she, the Lady Bina, had not ventured herself to the Central Cylinder several days ago, when I had been belabored with boots and spear butts in proxy for her naive importunity. She would doubtless have been recognized as barbarian, suspected to lack a Home Stone, and one thing might have led to another. To be sure, I would not, in such situation, have cared to deal with a pursuing, vengeful beast. And with the beast, as I have suggested, I had little, if anything, of which to complain. Despite his hirsute, ferocious, dangerous appearance, he was invariably kind to me, and was extraordinarily understanding, patient, and gentle with the Lady Bina, who seemed, if anything, to despise him for this indulgence. I often wondered about the nature of the beast, and his unusual devotion to her, a devotion so profound, it seemed, that he would abandon a world for her. It sometimes seemed to me that he was almost human, and then I recalled his fangs, and how I might once, in a moment of rage, have had my head torn from my shoulders. He was clearly Kur. All in all, as you may have surmised, my bondage in their loft, if one may so characterize it, was a fairly light one, save, of course, for labors involved in the business of the laundering, which business did accrue, from month to month, a small store of copper tarsks, some delivered, some collected, for her commission, by the Lady Delia.

As the weeks had sped forth, however, particularly at night, when I was chained across the threshold of the apartment, at the head of the stairs, I had grown increasingly uneasy. It was sometimes difficult to sleep. I would sometimes twist, and sweat on my mat. Sometimes I would pull a little at the chain on my left ankle, fastened on one side of the threshold, and that on my right wrist, fastened to the other side. I knew myself chained, and as a slave. Chains are arousing to a female who knows she is a slave, and what she is for, and yet these were not the chains of a man, a master whose helpless possession and plaything one might know oneself to be, but those of a mistress and a beast, to neither of which, I gathered, was I of more interest than a small, silken, pet sleen.

I would with my left hand sometimes touch the collar on my throat. Sometimes I would try to pull it off, but it was locked on me. What is the point, I wondered, of being in a collar, if it were not the collar of a master?

I was uneasy.

My belly, my thighs, were restless.

I remembered the kitchen of the eating house. There, at least, from time to time, men would put me in their hands, and do astonishing things to me, which left me in no doubt as to my bondage. Too, in the gambling house, though seldom, for we were not to distract the men from the tables, I was put to a customer’s pleasure, usually when it was feared he might be on the point of leaving. At such times a copper tarsk was often put in my mouth, to be retrieved by the customer when done with me, a tarsk which might be redeemed for tarsk-bits, to be spent on the tables, tarsk-bits which might, soon, result in the loss of tarsks, even of silver.

I do not think I was truly suffering from the fiercer conflagrations of slave fires, not as they so acutely tormented some slaves, thrashing about, and crying out with need, but I had little doubt that the former Allison Ashton-Baker, so refined, cool, and lovely, was now muchly different than she had been on her native world. She was now a half-clad, collared Gorean slave girl, and her belly needs, as those of others, were beginning to assert themselves, muchly troubling her.

It is no wonder free women thought themselves so superior to us.

Or were they so superior? Perhaps they just had not yet been awakened. And what, I wondered, if anything, did they whisper to their pillows and coverlets in the night?

“You have a candy?” said Antiope.

“Yes,” I said.

“Let me hold it in my mouth for a time,” she said. “I will not steal it.”

“What is going on in the city?” I asked.

“Curiosity,” she said, “is not becoming in a kajira.”

“You are kajira,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, “but I know.”

“Tell me,” I said.

“Perhaps you will let me have the candy, just for a little while,” she said. “I will not run away.”

“I have finished this laundry for you,” I said, rinsing the coverlets.

“Thank you,” she said.

I envied Antiope. She had a master. I had seen him once, when he, from some yards off, had summoned her. How delightedly, how swiftly, she had run to him. He was a handsome fellow. I envied Antiope. I suspected she was excellently and wholly mastered. She had that look about her.

“There are the extra guardsmen,” I said, “the additional patrols, the uneasiness, the early closure of some stalls, some markets, the curfew.”

“It is understandable,” she said.

“I think,” I said, “you do not really know what is going on.”

“Oh?” she said, archly.

“No,” I said.

“Give me the candy,” she said. “Just for a little bit. I will not keep it. If it is hard, as you say, it will last a long time. I will give it back to you.”

“It has a soft center,” I said.

“No matter,” she said.

“Very well,” I said, and I freed the small candy from its wrapper, the candy and wrapper extracted from a tiny sleeve inside the hem of my tunic.

Antiope looked about.

We were the only slaves at the troughs now, and it was late afternoon. In an Ahn or so the curfew bar might sound.

Our laundry was piled to the side.

I shivered a little, as it seemed to be cooler now.

“You know about the killings?” asked Antiope.

“Very little,” I said.

“Some beast, or beasts, is in the city,” she said. “Eight or ten men, some women, have been torn to pieces, in different places, in different districts.”

“Could a larl be in the city,” I asked, “or a wild sleen?”

“Unlikely,” she said. “The work does not suggest the attack of such beasts.”

“Something different?” I said.

“What is wrong?” she asked.

I must have turned white, for I thought of the beast, Grendel. Such a thing would be fully capable of such work. How did I know the beast remained on the roof of the dwelling of Epicrates? It would be easy for something of its size, agility, and power to descend to the street. I knew it tended to leave the domicile only at night.

Antiope, holding the candy delicately, touched her tongue to the candy, her eyes closed.

“The bodies were not robbed,” she said. “They were partly eaten.”

“A larl then,” I said, “or a sleen?”

“No,” she said, “the larl, the sleen, kill in their own ways. Some of the bodies were crushed, others had the neck broken.”

“You thought it came from the sewers?” I said.

“It is thought so,” she said.

The candy disappeared into Antiope’s mouth. “Good,” she said.

“Make it last,” I said. I wanted some of it back.

“I will,” she said. She then removed it from her mouth, and again savored it, tongue-wise. In this way it would last a very long time, as it would not too soon melt away. It is a trick of slaves.

“Then tharlarion,” I said.

Some tharlarion, usually found in rivers, or along shores, are squat, heavy, sinuous, patient, and capable, under certain conditions, of brief bursts of speed.

“It does not seem so,” she said.

“Why do they think the sewers?” I asked.

“Where else?” she said. “Too, some thieves, some well known, in broad daylight, even within view of the praetor’s platform, pushing aside a grating, rushed from a sewer, to be shortly apprehended by rings of spear-bearing guardsmen. Shortly were the thieves manacled and neck-chained.”

“Why did they so emerge?” I asked.

“Something in the sewers they feared, and never saw,” she said.

“It was the beast, or beasts?” I said.

“Perhaps,” she said.

“Guardsmen, with lanterns, have surely traversed the sewers,” I said.

“It seems they found nothing,” she said. “Two never returned.”

I conjectured then that two had apparently found something, or had been found by something.

“There is one thought, but much rejected,” she said, licking at the candy.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Some months ago,” she said, “hunters in the Voltai, seeking larl, found an unusual beast in their net, almost man-like, but larger, covered with hair, large-jawed, fanged and clawed, fierce, twisting, and howling. Such a beast had never been seen. It was returned, caged, to Ar, and purchased for a carnival.”

I immediately recalled the faded, half-torn poster, the remains of which were affixed to the wall opposite one of the rear entrances to Six Bridges.

“It was a large, dangerous, stupid, simple thing,” she said, “and, as it proved, at least at the time, untrainable, it was kept for exhibition.”

“It was irrational?” I said.

“Clearly,” she said.

I was not sure of that.

“It then seemed docile, and bided its time,” she said. “Then, one day, when it was to be fed, it reached through the bars and seized a keeper’s arm, and broke him against the bars, and tore at his belt, where dangled his keys, but others intervened with spear butts, striking at the beast, and it, roaring, tore away the keeper’s arm, and fed on it, and the keeper died moments later, of shock and loss of blood.”

“It was reaching for the keys,” I said.

“No,” she said, “it only seemed so, as it was naught but a mindless, violent beast.”

“It later escaped?” I said.

“Its danger was recognized, and the owner of the carnival, who was also its chief trainer, to neutralize and pacify it, had it blinded, with hot irons.”

“What then?” I said.

“Weeks went by,” she said. “Then it was noticed one evening that the blinded beast was turning about, and moving, in time to the carnival music, when the kaiila were performing, and later, the striped urts. This was brought to the attention of the owner, the chief trainer, who brought a flautist to the vicinity of the cage, and, behold, the beast danced to the music of the flute. Thereafter this was one of the attractions in the carnival. Further, this suggested to the chief trainer that the beast might now prove susceptible to training. Apparently this proved to be the case, and, eventually, the beast, led on a leash, was brought regularly, in its turn, to the area of performance, surrounded by the crowd. There it performed simple tricks, to the snapping of a whip, jumping up and down, rolling over, turning about, climbing on boxes, and such. Then one evening, it turned on the chief trainer and tore out his eyes, and then, blindly, awkwardly, rushed through the crowd. Guardsmen, and others, were about, and the beast was wounded, cut, and slashed time and time again. Then it disappeared, bleeding, and limping, into the darkness.”

“Then it escaped,” I said, uneasily.

“In its flight,” she said, “it killed four, and injured several others.”

“It escaped,” I said.

“It is thought not,” she said. “It was struck many times. It is thought nothing could long live so grievously wounded, so copiously bleeding.”

“The body was not recovered,” I said.

“Blood led to the sewers,” she said. “It doubtless died in the sewers.”

“But that is not known,” I said.

“No,” she said, “that is not known.”

“One is then left with the mystery of the killings,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“What sort of beast was it?” I asked.

“Of an unusual sort,” she said.

“What was it doing in the Voltai?” I asked.

“I do not know,” she said.

“It is growing cold,” said Antiope.

“It is getting late,” I said.

I shivered, again.

We saw two guardsmen some yards away.

“Ho, kajirae,” called one of the guardsmen.

“Master?” said Antiope.

“Is your work done?” he inquired.

“Yes, Master,” said Antiope.

“Dawdle not then,” he said, “lest your collars be read.”

“Yes, Master,” we said, and hurried to gather up the laundry.

In leaving, it seemed we must pass them. Sometimes it is difficult to pass a free male, under certain conditions, without a kiss or a slap.

“Give me back the candy,” I whispered to Antiope.

“We must not dawdle,” she said.

“I am not dawdling,” I said, standing up.

“There is not much left,” she said.

“Give it to me,” I said.

“The masters may be displeased,” she said, uneasily.

“Approach,” called one of the guardsmen.

“They are displeased,” said Antiope, apprehensively.

We were then standing before the guardsmen. One of them had lifted his right hand, slightly, the palm up, so we did not kneel. I, and perhaps Antiope, as well, was uneasy at this, as one commonly kneels before a free person, often with the head down.

It was obvious to us that we were being looked upon, as the slaves we were.

Antiope was quite attractive, and I, surely, had often enough seen the eyes of men upon me.

“What is in your mouth?” asked one of the guardsmen of Antiope.

“A candy, Master,” she said.

“It is mine, Master,” I said.

“Please do not take it away from us,” said Antiope.

“Who would wish a candy which has been soiled by the mouth of a slave,” said a guardsman.

“You are dawdling slaves,” said the other. “You should be switched.”

“No, Master,” we assured them.

“The streets are dangerous,” said the first guardsman. “The curfew bar will sound in a bit.”

“Hasten to your cages,” said the other. “You will be safe there.”

“My master does not cage me,” said Antiope.

“Surely a manacle awaits,” said the first guardsman, “hoping to be warmed by your slender, lovely ankle.”

“Thank, you, Master,” said Antiope. “A slave is pleased, if she finds favor with a master.”

“Go,” said the first guardsman.

“Oh!” said Antiope.

“Oh!” I said.

Then we hurried on.

“He does not own me!” said Antiope, smarting.

“Nor the other, me,” I said.

Still, we knew such things were done only when a slave was found attractive. One supposed one should find some gratification, or reassurance, in that.

We were then about a corner, and out of the sight of the guardsmen.

“Give me the candy,” I said.

“I fear,” said Antiope, “it is gone.”

“I see,” I said. To be sure, we had been delayed by the guardsmen.

“But I will tell you a last thing,” said Antiope.

“What is that?” I said.

“Of all the killings, in the streets, men and women,” she said, “all were free.”

“No slave was set upon?” I said.

“No,” she said.

“Why is that?” I asked.

“I do not know,” she said.

“It is a coincidence,” I said.

“The attacks are commonly at night,” she said. “I think, then, slaves would be on their chains, in their kennels, in their cages, such housings.”

“That is doubtless it,” I said.

“But sometimes,” she said, “attacks are in the day, particularly in less frequented districts, and sometimes slaves are abroad at night.”

I supposed that were so.

Usually, of course, they would be in the company of their masters, or, say, keepers, if they might be returning late from feasts, serving slaves, flute slaves, kalika slaves, brothel girls, dancers, or such.

Too, it was not unknown for a neglected slave, if unconstrained, to prowl the streets, hoping for a secret tryst, to relieve her needs.

Sometimes, too, they might be dispatched under the cover of darkness to carry messages for their mistresses, pertaining to projected rendezvous.

To be sure, it was unusual for an unaccompanied slave to be abroad at night. But then, indeed, few, slave or free, if solitary, essayed the streets after dark, particularly in certain districts. One, if sufficiently affluent, and lacking his own men, might hire guards, and a lantern bearer. There were establishments to provide such a service. Too, such conveniences were sometimes available, gratis, to the clientele of certain residences. One such residence was Six Bridges.

“No slaves have been attacked?” I said.

“Not to my knowledge,” said Antiope.

I found that of interest.

“It will soon be curfew,” said Antiope.

We then wished one another well, and, bearing our laundries, took leave of one another.