Conspirators of Gor

Chapter Fifty

“Scribe’s Urt,” had said the Lady Bina, and I located the card, and placed it on the pile.

Only one other card was left, and so she needed not read it. It was Warrior’s Sleen. I placed the last card on the pile. As I suppose is clear, when one wishes to transmit the message, one takes a deck, rearranges the cards, inscribes the message on the edges of the deck, and then replaces the cards in the usual order. The recipient, then, who has the card sheet used for the particular message, places the cards in the order prescribed by the sheet, and, once again, the message is visible. In the Cave, the visible message was in substitutions, a Tau for an Al-Ka, or such, but often enough, now, it was in clear Gorean. Substitutions were still used if the matter was sensitive, but, now, often enough, this layer of security was omitted. All that was sought, frequently enough, now, was a certain level of privacy. To be sure, the message could be in clear Gorean, inscribed openly on a sheet of paper, and it would have remained opaque to me. The Lady Bina would not even tell me the names of the letters, or their values. “You do not need to read, Allison,” she informed me. “I have little doubt, Mistress,” I said, “that you are far more intelligent than I, but I am sure that I, just as you have, might learn to read.” “I am still learning,” she said. “Cursive script is a bother.” “Even so,” I said, “is there that much difference between us?” “There is a considerable difference between us,” she said. “And what is that?” I asked. “Your neck is in a collar,” she said.

When the Lady Bina or Lord Grendel received, or sent, a card message, I was often used. In preparing a message, I would rearrange the cards, randomly, following which the message would be placed on the edges of the deck. After that, I would read the order of the cards that the card sheet might be prepared. After that, I would place the cards again in the normal order, in which case the message disappeared. In receiving a message, which would have the cards in the normal order, as in the current case, the Lady Bina or Lord Grendel would read from the appropriate card sheet, and I would place the cards in the order prescribed by the card sheet, after which they would have the message, either in clear Gorean or in a substitution related to clear Gorean. I was also used to carry these messages back and forth. The wine shop of Amyntas remained a station in this exchange, but only one, to which I would deliver a message or from which I would receive a message, to be returned to the Lady Bina or Lord Grendel, almost always Lord Grendel. Sometimes Lord Grendel would deliver a message somewhere in person, and, sometimes, retrieve a message from some unknown source. This was almost always done at night.

To my apprehension, particularly at first, I would deliver and receive these messages as I had at first, when I had been robbed on my way to the wine shop of Amyntas, that robbery which had placed false information in the hands of the conspirators, namely, with the sack tied about my neck, closed with a signature knot, and my wrists braceleted behind me. You may well imagine my fear, at first, in this sort of coming and going. Anytime anyone came close to me, I would tense, and almost cry out. I would start when a shadow fell across my body, or on the street before me. A word, casually spoken, in a crowd, might make me half faint in fear. I half expected, particularly at first, to be seized, gagged, and thrust into an alley or doorway. The first time I had scarcely been uneasy, fearing little more disruption in my service than an occasional stolen kiss. Certainly I had not expected to be seized, rudely dealt with, and robbed. Now, when there was little, or nothing, to fear, I was as skittish as a tabuk doe who has caught the scent of a sleen. Lord Grendel had been very wise not to inform me of the nature of his plans, and his expectations, when I had carried that first message.

“Very interesting,” said the Lady Bina, considering the deck of cards, and turning it about a bit. “Yes,” she said, “very interesting.”

“Mistress?” I said.

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

“Please teach me to read, Mistress,” I said.

“Do not forget, Allison,” she said, “that you are in a collar.”

“Yes, Mistress,” I said. “Forgive me, Mistress.”

“My offer,” she said, looking at the cards, “was refused, again refused.”

“What offer?” I asked.

“This is a matter between free persons,” she said.

“Yes, Mistress,” I said. “Forgive me, Mistress.”

“Well,” she said, “I shall respond.”

“Mistress?” I said.

“I shall wipe the edges of this deck clean,” she said. “I will then mix the cards, and inscribe a new message. You will then put the deck in its normal order and deliver it to the wine shop of Amyntas.”

“Must I be back-braceleted?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said.

“I will be helpless,” I said.

“Of course,” she said.

It was now a month and a passage hand after I had been robbed on the way to the shop of Amyntas. I had gathered, though I had not been explicitly told, that the ruse of Lord Grendel and his associates had been successful. A number of men, apparently several, masked and armed, perhaps two hundred, had converged on a given barn outside the city, had broken into it, and found it empty. Attempting to withdraw, they found the building surrounded by a large number of armed men, many armed with crossbows, and some, Peasants, armed with the great bow, the Peasant bow. A torrent of quarrels and arrows apparently made departure unwise. Fires were set about the building to further discourage any projected withdrawal. As negotiations apparently proved inconclusive, the barn was set afire, following which the occupants must weigh a number of options, none welcome, dying in the fire, dying of missile fire, or surrender. The rumors of this I heard in the city universally understood the event as the cornering of a large number of bandits by vengeful Peasants. As Lord Grendel had left the domicile the afternoon of the event with his ax, and returned in the late morning, in high spirits, I am supposing that the affair may have had less to do with bandits and more to do with the hirelings of Kurii and their allies. As far as I know, no Kur was personally involved in the business. Shortly thereafter, as I understand it, the market for male work slaves in Ar was considerably depressed, with the result that several, stripped and coffled, were herded to Torcadino.

Late that afternoon I arrived at the shop of Amyntas, entered, knelt, put my head to the floor, then knelt up, and, at his gesture, rose to my feet. He then checked the signature knot on the small sack tied about my neck, the signature knot of the Lady Bina. On my former world, which may be called Terra, or Earth, we do not use signature knots, or, perhaps better, have not done so for a long time. You secure packages with such knots, boxes, even doors. Satisfied with the knot, he undid it. He would, of course, when he later closed the sack, do so with his own signature knot. He placed the deck of cards on the counter behind him, took me by the hair, and pulled my head down, to a ring set in the floor. He had never done this before. Usually I was tethered, kneeling, by a loop of chain slung about the ring and the linkage of my slave bracelets. But now I was fastened by the neck closely to the floor ring. “You may lie down, if you wish,” he said. “Thank you, Master,” I said. I did not ask the meaning of this departure from his normal procedure. It is done with us as masters please. We are slaves.

Amyntas then summoned an assistant to mind the shop, while he took, I suppose, the cards into the back, to work out the message. Doubtless he had a pertinent card sheet. I lay there for a time. Customers came and went. A chained slave is a common sight on Gor. There are many slave rings in public places, to which a slave might be fastened. This is a convenience to masters. Some of these places are in the shade, and furnished with a pan of water. My head was held close to the floor. I sensed that more than one fellow regarded me. One fellow brushed me twice on the left thigh with the side of his foot. “Not bad,” he said. I pulled a little at the bracelets. I heard two men laugh. One approached me, and put one hand on my right ankle and his other hand on my left leg, just below the knee. I made a tiny, inadvertent noise. “Good,” he said. I was afraid then that he had learned something about me, something of which I might even be unaware.

After a few Ehn I was released from the ring, and stood. The sack was then, with its new signature knot, tied about my neck. “You are Allison, are you not?” he asked. “Yes, if it pleases Master,” I said. This was the first time he had asked my name. “You are pretty,” he said. “Thank you, Master,” I said. I had the sense I was being appraised. “You are a barbarian, are you not?” he asked. “Yes, Master,” I said. I had hardly spoken to him before. “Interesting,” he said. “Master?” I asked. “Hurry home, Allison,” he said. “Yes, Master,” I said. He then gave me a sharp, stinging slap below the small of the back, and I cried out, and stumbled away, before I caught my step. Slaves may be so treated. We are not free women. Men enjoy treating us as they wish. They are men, and our masters. We have nothing to say about such things. I suppose that one might find them humiliating, but we do not do so. We do not object. It reminds us that we are slaves, and, of course, of sexual interest. I did not look back. I hurried away. Several things had been different this time. I did not understand why this might be. Perhaps there was no reason. Too, what kajira is foolish enough to question a master?