Conspirators of Gor

Chapter Thirty-Six

“You know the master named Desmond, do you not?” asked Nora. She sounded frightened.

“Yes, Mistress,” I said. “I was even in his keeping, on the journey to the Crag of Kleinias.”

Nora clutched a small package in her hands. “I have been instructed by him to deliver this to Master Kleomenes,” she said.

“That is understandable enough,” I said, “as you are frequently called to the slave ring of Master Kleomenes.”

“This Desmond of Harfax,” she said, “knows you. Why would he not have you deliver it to Master Kleomenes?”

“I do not know,” I said, though I could easily speculate as to a possible motivation.

“It is clear the matter is sensitive,” said Nora. “If you were to deliver it, it might be noted. Curiosity might be aroused.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“I am afraid,” she said.

“I would not disobey a master,” I said.

“I do not want my tongue slit, or removed,” she said.

“No,” I said. I recalled such threats were made once to her by Desmond of Harfax. Since then she had lived in fear of him. It pleased me, somehow, that Nora, so proud, severe, and magisterial with us, so imperious and exacting a first girl, was no more than a cringing slave before Desmond of Harfax. I recalled her in the small slave cage into which he had forced her, kneeling, naked, clutching the bars, looking up at him in fear.

“What is in the package?” she asked.

“It is loosely wrapped,” I said. “There seems no secret about it. Why not look, and see?”

We turned back the wrapper.

“It is a deck of cards,” she said.

“You see,” I said, “there is nothing to worry about.”

She almost fainted with relief.

“May I see it?” I asked.

I took the deck of cards in my hand, and moved the cards about a little. I detected no slips of paper hidden amongst the cards, nor anything on the cards that was foreign to the expected designs and markings. As far as I could tell, it was a normal deck of cards. Perhaps, I thought, there is nothing more here than what appears to be here. Might this not be innocent? Perhaps Kleomenes had expressed an interest in play, which interest had come to the attention of Desmond of Harfax, who had somehow located and supplied a suitable means for exploring this interest? Certainly they knew one another from the time of the caravan. Kleomenes had been twice at a camp of ours, when we first met him and his hunters, and, second, when he had visited us after his hunt, the night the tharlarion had been driven away. The one difference in this deck of cards from the deck which I had earlier seen in the keeping of Desmond of Harfax was the attractive speckling on the edges of the deck, a sort of design with which I was familiar from the house of chance. Goreans tend to be fond of beauty and color, in garments, architecture, paving stones, utensils, tableware, and such. Often even the cords and straps, the binding fiber, and such, and sometimes even the chains with which slaves are bound, are colorful.

I closed the wrapper.

“You had best deliver it,” I said.

“Perhaps you would like to do so,” she said.

“Are you prepared to disobey a master?” I asked.

“No!” she said.

“Have you ever disobeyed a master?” I asked.

“Once,” she said, “in the training house. I never dared to do so again.”

“You have never disobeyed Master Kleomenes?” I said.

“I do not want to disobey him,” she said.

“What would happen if you did?” I asked.

“He is not man of Earth,” she said. “I am a slave. He is a Gorean master.”

“You would be punished?” I said.

“Of course,” she said. “If it were not the case, how could I yield to him with the trembling helplessness of the eager slave?”

“You had best deliver the package,” I said.

She sped from the slave quarters. It pleased me to see the proud Nora, whom I remembered from Earth, running as a slave.

She was well submitted, I gathered, to Master Kleomenes. I was sure he well knew what to do with a woman.