Conspirators of Gor

Chapter Sixteen

“Are you comfortable?” he asked.

“You!” I cried.

His head was thrust through the curtain, at the front of the wagon. His smile was that of a master, gazing on a slave.

I drew back, with a rattle of chain in the wagon bed, the chain sliding along the central bar. I was the only girl in the wagon. It was drawn by a tharlarion. The canvas was a common white, not the blue-and-yellow covering, sometimes silk, usually decorating, covering, a slave wagon. The central bar runs linearly the length of the wagon bed. It is hinged at the forward end and fits into a coupling, within which it is commonly locked, at the back end of the wagon bed. My ankles were shackled, and a foot of chain joined them, the chain looped about the central bar. If one wishes to remove a girl from such a wagon, one either unshackles her, or, more commonly, that she remain ankle-shackled, for example, in a camp, one lowers the back of the wagon and unlocks the bar from the coupling at the rear of the wagon, which, lifted, allows the girl to leave the central bar and wagon.

I moved toward the rear of the wagon and covered myself, as I could.

“Do not bother,” he said. “I like you naked.”

“Brute, beast, monster!” I said.

“Do not tell me the little barbarian is modest,” he said.

“I am untunicked,” I said. “Do not look at me!”

“Do you really think a tunic, a slave tunic, makes all that much difference?” he asked.

“Go away,” I begged.

“To be sure, it is nice to see you slave naked,” he said.

“Please leave,” I said.

In slave wagons, girls are nearly always transported naked.

He did not ask me to uncover myself. I was somewhat annoyed, as I think he gathered, at this. Did he not really want to see me bared before him, as the slave I was?

“I saw you at the road camp,” he said. “Your new tunic is quite nice, much better than the one you wore in Ar.”

“Go away,” I said. “Please.”

Five days ago, for whatever reason, the tunic to which I had become accustomed in Ar, one suitable for a woman’s serving slave, was taken from me.

“Put this on, Allison,” had said the Lady Bina, and handed me what seemed little more than a tiny scrap of rep cloth.

“Surely not, Mistress,” I had said.

“Yes, yes,” she said. “It is time you were put in a more revealing garment, one more suitable for a pretty slave.”

“But, Mistress,” I said, “this is the sort of garment in which a strong man might choose to display a slave, to boast of the beauty and pleasures he has at his disposal.”

“We have business,” said the Lady Bina, “and we must recruit some fellows to help us with it. If you are about, one of our beasts, especially so clothed, we anticipate things will proceed apace.”

“Mistress?” I had said.

“You will remember,” she said, “that I was concerned, even at your purchase, with your attractiveness to men.”

“Yes, Mistress,” I said.

I recalled, too, her test in the market. How frightening had been that experience!

“It might serve my purposes,” she said.

“Yes, Mistress,” I said.

I did not inquire what purposes she might have in mind. The services and use of a slave, of course, may be bestowed as the master or mistress might wish. One advantage of a private male master is that they are commonly rather proprietary where their slaves are concerned, even jealous. It is a common act of courtesy at a feast, or a visit, to offer a guest the use of a slave, but too, it is understood that the sensitive guest will graciously forgo this gift. It is different, of course, with the girls kept at inns, and such, for such purposes. Also, feast slaves may be cheaply rented for the night, and longer. The Lady Bina, of course, was not a male master, let alone a jealous, possessive one, and I was afraid she might be generous, perhaps excessively so, in such matters. To be sure, I had not been put to slave use since the eating house and the gambling house, and that was long ago. I was uneasy, of course, for a master’s hands on my body, for which I subtly longed, but I was in no way in the sorry straits of many miserable girls, the conflagrations of whose slave fires periodically plunged them into acute torment.

And so I would have a new tunic.

To casually glance upon me, I supposed most would assume that I was a man’s slave. They enjoy putting us in such things. It was the sort of garment which, in Ar, might elicit a switching from a free woman.

“Too,” she had said, “we may buy two or three other girls, stupid girls, barbarians, as you.”

“I am not stupid, Mistress,” I said.

“Then uninformed, ignorant girls,” she said, “as you.”

“Barbarians, then?” I said.

“Of course,” she said.

“May I inquire,” I had asked, “the nature of Mistress’ business?”

“No,” she said. “Now put this on, and we will put you before men, and see if it should be shortened, or altered, a bit, perhaps slit at the hems, torn down some about the neck, such things.”

“Yes, Mistress,” I had said.

At least, I had thought, it is not a camisk.

I did not mention this, of course, for fear I would be camisked.

“Please do not look at me in that fashion,” I said.

I drew up my legs further. He did not require that I change the position of my hands.

“Yes,” he said, “I like you slave naked.”

“What are you doing here?” I said.

“Looking at a naked slave,” he said.

“Master!” I sobbed.

“I am of your party,” he said. “Perhaps if you are very nice, I will let you cook for me.”

“I would salt your food so that you could not eat it,” I said.

“Then,” said he, “it would be you who would eat it, after which I would have the pleasure of lashing you.”

“I see,” I said.

“Your ankles look well in shackles,” he said.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You may thank me,” he said.

“Thank you, Master,” I said, drawing my ankles a bit further back, with a rustle of chain.

“We are north of Ar, on the Venna road,” he said.

“We are bound for Venna?” I said.

“Doubtless for the tharlarion races,” he said. “It is the season.”

“I see,” I said.

“Actually,” he said, “I do not know.”

“I see,” I said.

“If you were to peep out, between the side boards and the canvas, you might occasionally see a tharlarion ranch.”

“Oh?” I said.

“But doubtless you are afraid to do so,” he said.

“Perhaps,” I said.

I did not know how long he had been with us. Perhaps he had noted, for all I knew, several times, the tiny lifting of the canvas. If the wagons were in the care of slavers, I supposed girls might be punished for such things. Slavers like to keep the girls in their wagons ignorant of their surroundings, their destinations, and such. Indeed, even in coffles the destination of the coffle is seldom made explicit to, so to speak, the “beads on the slaver’s necklace.” Native Gorean girls, of course, coffled, are rampant in their speculations in such matters. Here, however, in our party, there seemed to be permissiveness in such matters. Even so, I did not care to be discovered in my small, furtive reconnaissances.

“You have probably never seen a racing tharlarion,” he said.

“No,” I said.

“Perhaps they do not have them on the barbarian world,” he said.

“Perhaps not,” I said.

“Some,” he said, “are quadrupedalian, others bipedalian.”

“I do not even know your name,” I said.

“Why?” said he. “Do you want it on your collar?”

“No!” I said.

“Perhaps I will buy you,” he said.

“Do not!” I said.

“Are you comfortable?” he inquired, reverting to his initial question.

“No,” I said. “I am naked, the boards are hard, the Ahn are long.”

“Be glad,” he said, “the road is smooth. It may not be so later.”

“Master?” I said.

“I think we are going beyond Venna,” he said.

“Where?” I asked.

“Somewhere in the Voltai,” he said.

“What is there?” I asked.

“I do not know,” he said.

“Please, Master,” I said.

“Mountains,” he said.

I suspected that I might know more than he. There were three wagons in our small party. In the first, the stateliest and most comfortable, was the Lady Bina, and, possibly, Lord Grendel. I, as yet alone, occupied the second wagon, and, in the third wagon, its covering drawn tight, I was sure, was the blind Kur. It had been captured in the Voltai, and, I suspected, it was the intention of Lord Grendel to return it to its savage haunts, if savage haunts they were. Presumably, it might have fellows in the Voltai, who might look after it, if Kurii were concerned with such things.

“It is warm, and close, in here, is it not?” he asked.

“Master is perceptive,” I said.

“Beware you are not cuffed, girl,” he said.

“Forgive me, Master,” I said.

He seemed more amused with my insolence than annoyed. How, from the heights of his freedom, he looked upon me as nothing, only a slave! I was pleased, however, that he was not angry. I was quite certain that if a girl deserved a cuffing, or, in an ambiguous situation, it seemed she might deserve a cuffing, she would receive one, and sharply, at his hands. She must strive to keep things clear. It is dangerous for a slave to approach such borders. It is not wise for a girl to test the limits of a master’s tolerance. They do not care for such games, and the whip is theirs.

He smiled upon me, the beast!

I did not care to be so looked upon, as a meaningless chit. But before such men what could women be but meaningless chits?

“Perhaps Master has duties to which he might attend,” I suggested.

I was furious.

I lacked no confidence in my own excellencies, in my own qualities, and such, which I had deemed considerable, certainly for my former world, but I sensed, too, to my fury, that he, this brute, like so many Gorean men, was in many ways, and by far, my superior.

What could we be to such men but meaningless chits?

How angry that made me!

And yet, too, it made me want to yield to them, and serve, and please them.

How different he and so many others were from most of the men I had known on my former world. What had been done, I wondered, to the men of my former world? How superior to me, in so many ways, were these brutes of Gor! How slave I felt before them! Were such as I not fittingly owned by such as they, as the females of so many species of my former world were, in effect, owned by their males? To my chagrin such things were now, on Gor, indisputably obvious to me. I was unable to deny them, as much as I might wish to do so. And such relationships on Gor were institutionalized, fixed in law! I was collared! I sensed that I belonged on the block, stripped, before such men, who might, fittingly, purchase me as an object, or toy. It is strange how one can sense such things, but, to my irritation, I was in no doubt about it. Before such men women could be but properties; they belonged at the feet of such men, as slaves.

But if one were a slave, why should one not be a slave?

Is there not a freedom, a liberation, a relief, in such an acknowledgement?

Are the miseries of a free woman so superior to the joys of a mastered, loving slave?

Let each consider the matter for herself.

With two hands, he thrust open the canvas curtains at the head of the wagon and light, and fresh air, surged into that narrow, rectangular, hitherto oppressive wood-and-canvas enclosure.

I blinked against the light. I could see, over the wagon box, the broad, arched back of the plodding tharlarion which was drawing the wagon. It was tied by its nose ring to the back of the preceding wagon. Its reins were looped about a hook to the left of the wagon box. The Metal Worker, if that were indeed his caste, was on the Teamster’s bench, which was, too, the lid of the wagon box. Within it, parts, harness, and other tackle can be stored. Within it, too, I supposed, would be other sets of chains and shackles, should other girls be added to the party. I had gathered that two or three might be purchased in Venna, though I knew not for what purpose, if we were proceeding to the Voltai. Slave girls do, however, I knew, make lovely gifts.

I was at the back of the wagon bed, to which I had retreated, drawing back along the central bar, to distance myself from the Gorean scrutiny of the unexpected, offensive intruder.

I hated him.

I wondered what it would be, to have his collar on my neck. I knew it would be easy enough to put there.

I recalled he had stood between me and the beast nights ago, in the market of Cestias. It was fortunate for him that he had not been slain. What had he been doing there? I smiled to myself. He might have followed me there, as a man might follow a slave. If he were tangled in the coils of my beauty, such as it might be, fastened there, he might prove to be the slave and I the mistress! Much power I knew could reside within a collar. Have not Ubars succumbed to the smile of a kajira? I could taunt and torment him, I suspected, if I were clever, to my heart’s content. As long as he did not own me, I could enact a girl’s vengeance on the hapless tarsk. I reminded myself that I despised him, that I loathed him. I was sure I could make him suffer. But then I wondered what might be the feel of his bracelets on my wrists. If he were kind enough to bracelet my hands before my body I might, when no one was about, lift them to my lips and kiss them.

Strange, I thought, how a woman can desire to be owned, and helplessly so.

“Girl,” he said.

“Master?” I said.

“The air, and light, is better forward, and there is not much dust.”

The countryside was beautiful, mostly meadows. The road stretched ahead, a gleaming line between hills, beyond the first large-wheeled, lumbering wagon, that of the Lady Bina, and, perhaps Lord Grendel, a road, I learned, of layers of fitted stone blocks, feet deep. Like the Viktel Aria, the road was designed not to last some years, or a decade, but centuries, even millennia.

“With Master’s permission,” I said, “I shall remain where I am.”

He reached to the side, and bent down, and, from in front of the wagon box, lifted up a carefully folded blanket. My body roughened, and sore, I eyed it covetously. He dropped it inside the wagon, to the right of the central bar, just behind the wagon box. He then turned away, to look down the road.

The blanket lay there, neatly folded.

Why did he not cast it back to me? I knew.

“Oh!” I said, for the wagon had lurched.

The Venna road is smooth, but even so it has its irregularities. Indeed, over the years, its surface, in shallow grooves, records the passage of countless wagons. A wheel may scrape into, dip into, or climb from, such a groove. Too, the shifting of the earth, the occasional softening of the soil by rain, differences in weathering, various temperature changes, and such things, may produce a shifting of one stone in relation to another.

I crawled forward, to the back of the wagon box, the chain sliding along the wooden floor, along the metal bar.

I seized the blanket there and spread it beneath me. It was but one blanket, but it was welcome. I did not take it to the rear of the wagon, as it seemed clear its placement was meant to bring me, if I wished its comfort, to the front of the wagon. I was then close enough that he might turn and touch me, but he did not do so.

Was I not smooth, and attractive? Why did he not reach back and touch me? What difference would it make? Was I not a slave?

“A slave is grateful for the blanket,” I said.

“It rained a while ago,” he said.

I knew that, from the sound, earlier in the afternoon, the light patter on the canvas. It darkened, but, closely woven, it had not leaked.

“I think it will rain more, later,” he said.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“It rained last night,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“This morning,” he said, “I saw strange prints about the edge of the camp. Do you have an account of such things?”

“No,” I said. How would I know what beasts might lurk about the camp? I suspected, of course, that they might be the prints of Lord Grendel, or his fellow, the blind Kur.

“Perhaps you have a conjecture?” he said.

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

He had seen the blind Kur in the market of Cestias, though I suspected he had not realized it was blind. If he had been with the party, with the wagons, I suspected he knew of the presence of one, or both, of the beasts. Presumably, as might others, he thought them some sort of pet, or guard animal. I doubted that he recognized them as a form of rational life, of fearfully rational life.

I wondered if he had been testing me. Certainly he knew I would be aware of the existence of such things, from the market of Cestias that earlier night, some days ago.

I supposed that I had inadvertently told him what he wanted to know, that the wagons undertaking this mysterious journey might harbor secret denizens, of which I, and others, were not to speak, denizens which might be embarked on projects of a nature best concealed from public scrutiny.

“Tomorrow, we should reach Venna,” he said. “Have you ever been to Venna?”

“No,” I said.

“Nor I,” he said.

“Can you cook?” he asked.

“I am not a cook slave,” I said.

“What sort of slave are you?” he asked.

“I am a woman’s slave,” I said.

“You should be a man’s slave,” he said.

“What sort of man’s slave?” I asked.

“You have the curves of a pleasure slave,” he said.

“Oh?” I said.

“Are you hot?” he asked.

“Perhaps Master remembers, from Six Bridges,” I said.

“As I recall, you begged, liked a piteous little bundle of collar meat, to be bought.”

I was silent.

How he demeaned me!

How I loathed the brute!

But I knew I was a slave, in need of a master. What would it be, I wondered, to be his slave? I had little doubt I would be an excellent slave to him. He would see to it.

“I wager,” he said, “in a matter of Ehn, I could have you kicking and squirming, and moaning, and begging for more.”

“I am stronger now,” I said.

“No,” he said, “you are weaker now, and more needful, for you have been longer in bondage.”

I feared it was true. Slaves need their masters.

“I am a free woman,” I said, “who has had the misfortune to be placed in a collar.”

“No,” he said, “you are a slave.”

“Oh?” I said.

“You were never a free woman,” he said. “You were always a slave, though perhaps not always in a collar.”

“I see,” I said. How often I had sensed that true, even from girlhood.

“I tasted your lips, at Six Bridges,” he said. “They are those of a slut, and slave, a slab of worthless, needful collar meat.”

“I see,” I said.

I well recalled, to my humiliation, how he had aroused me, so profoundly, so quickly, so easily. But I, a slave, had been unable to help myself, even had I desired to do so.

“It is fortunate,” he said, “that you were captured on the barbarian world and brought to the markets of Gor. Otherwise you might never have fulfilled your birthright, heritage, and destiny, that of a female, to be a slave, to be owned, and mastered.”

“Perhaps you believe all women are slaves,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“I am not your slave,” I said.

“You would be, if I bought you,” he said.

We then drove on, for a time.

He pointed to the side, to the left. “There is a pasang stone,” he said.

“I cannot read,” I said.

“Fifty,” he said.

On the Venna road, from Ar, there is usually a well every ten or twenty pasangs. Sometimes there is an inn, or a camping ground, where there will be shops.

“Fifty pasangs to Venna,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“We will camp tonight,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “in an Ahn, or so.”

“I am in your care, I gather,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Will you let me leave the wagon?” I asked.

“Certainly,” he said.

“When I am out of the wagon, will you remove my shackles?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“‘No’?”

“No,” he said. “Do not be concerned. There will be many wagons there, and there will doubtless be other kajirae there, several more closely shackled than you.”

“More closely shackled than I?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Presumably because they will be regarded as more valuable,” he said.

“I see,” I said.

“A single chain, run through their shackle chain, and fastened between trees, will secure the lot. You may be added to such a chain.”

“My Mistress,” I said, “usually buys at the camps.”

“I know,” he said. “I have been with the wagons since Ar.”

“Why are you with us?” I asked.

“I have taken fee,” he said.

“And why have you taken fee?” I asked.

“I thought it might be nice to see Venna,” he said.

I smiled to myself. I thought I might be able to manipulate him. But then, too, I thought, it is difficult to manipulate a man when one is chained at his feet.

“You can cook, can you not?” he asked.

“On my former world,” I said, “I did not do such things.”

“But here,” he said, “you find that the lowliest, the most trivial and servile of tasks, are yours to perform, unquestioningly, and perfectly.”

“Yes,” I said.

“So?” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said. “I can cook, a little. I was taught in the slave house, that of Tenalion of Ar.”

“I know the house,” he said.

“Then Master knows it handles the most beautiful, and prized, slaves in Ar,” I said.

“All the houses do,” he said. “The house of Tenalion is also known for distributing she-tarsks amongst minor markets, for quick, cheap sales, some even in the Metellan district.”

“I see,” I said.

I recalled the small cell, facing the market area, behind the bars of which I, with others, as merchandise to be vended, were publicly displayed to passers-by, and then my sale, being turned about, exhibited naked, on the small cement sales dais.

“I am thinking of having you prepare my food tonight,” he said. “Do you think you could do it, passably?”

“A slave must do her best to please,” I said.

“If I am not satisfied,” he said, “you will be beaten.”

“A slave will do her best,” I said.

“If I am satisfied,” he said, “I will let you feed.”

“A slave is grateful,” I said.

“Would you prefer,” he said, “to have the food cast to the ground, or to take it, kneeling, or on all fours, from my hand?”

“From Master’s hand,” I said.

He well knows, I thought, how to teach a woman that she is a slave. I recalled a lesson in such things from the house of Tenalion, in which I fed, kneeling, leaning forward, from the hand of a guard, my right hand clasping my left wrist behind my back. Such things can enflame the belly of a woman.

“Master?” I said.

“Yes?” he said.

“I think my tunic may be in the wagon box.”

“So?” he said.

“May I wear it, outside the wagon?” I asked.

“Do you beg it?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” I said, “I beg it.”

“Very well,” he said.