Fighting Slave of Gor

19 TAPHRIS

The training beam, about a foot Gorean square, sunk a yard deep in its wood-lined well, braced, too, within the wooden-floored, high-roofed barn, shook with the blows struck against it. On my hands I wore the gunni, training devices, curved weights of lead, several pounds heavy, with handles, cushioned with cloth. The value of these devices is twofold. First, they strengthen the muscles of the shoulders, back and arms, building up incredible strength; second, when they are removed, it seems as though the hands, relieved of such weights, can fly like hornets. I stayed close to the beam. The fist moves most swiftly and has the greatest power within the first six inches of its motion, with the back and arm behind it. Too, it is similar to the loosened arrow, which has its greatest swiftness, and maximum striking power, immediately after being sprung from the string, immediately after leaving the bow. The concave surfaces of the gunni face the user of the devices, and the handles are recessed within these surfaces. The outer surfaces, or striking surfaces of the gunni are usually shallowly rounded, being slightly convex. This tends to prevent excessive splintering of the beam. The blows thus, in a sense, compress and pack the beam, causing it to last longer, until it finally, after a few finishing blows, shatters. These beams are frequently replaced. It may seem surprising but a strong man, determined, and working against time, can break through a training beam in a matter of only a few Ehn. The gunni, in weight, are similar to the heads of sledge hammers. One may, of course, break through walls with such devices or bend iron.

I struck at the beam, denting it, causing it to shudder in its well and braces.

It had been yesterday that we had been inspected by the Mistress. After she had inspected me, it had seemed to me that she had brought her inspection to a rather swift termination. She had been cursory with the rest of the slaves in my line and she had barely glanced at the Kajirae.

I struck again and again at the beam. It is important to maintain one's balance. This permits maneuverability and reduces the opponent's opportunities to take advantage of a misstep or a momentary clumsiness in the distribution of one's weight; too, it provides greater impact for the blows which one strikes. My feet seldom moved more than some twenty inches apart; earlier in my training my ankles had been shackled; now, kinesthetically, habitually, without thinking, I tended almost invariably to maintain a sensible measure between my feet; I stayed, too, generally on my toes; thin reduces friction and enables quickness of movement; too, in the fighting pit, the toe, gouging into the sand, the body moving forward, increases leverage. Many slave fights are little more than bloody brawls, which free persons are pleased to witness. Kenneth and Barns, on the her hand, who bet op such matters, took these fights seriously. They had, over the years, devoted time and intelligence to the training and development of fighting slaves. The stables of the Lady Florence of Vonda had been, as a result of this, particularly in the last four or five years, unusually successful in the stable bouts. Indeed, Kenneth and Barns had accumulated small fortunes as a result of their efforts in this area. Gorean free persons of high caste, of course, tended to take little note of these matters.

I struck again and again at the beam, pummeling it. It groaned. I heard it crack. Again and again, over and over, I struck at it. The ceiling of the high-roofed barn and its walls rang with the sound of the blows on the weakening wood. I sensed that it would soon give way. I increased the number and speed of my blows.

Sometimes as often as every fourth or fifth day I was hooded and chained, and placed in a wagon, usually with some fellow slaves, fighters, too. I would then be unchained and unhooded, in my turn, in a shallow pit, about which free persons, almost always of low caste, would be gathered. In the pit, too, would be another slave. Our hands would be wrapped in leather that they might not be easily broken. One might kick but holds to the death were not permitted. One fought, with occasional rest periods, for this makes the fight last longer, the fighters being briefly refreshed, until one man or the other could no longer fight. There would be much shouting and betting. I had lost my first matches in our own stables but, in time, with training and advice, and pit experience, I had begun to do well. I had won my last seventeen bouts, five of which had been outside our own stables: I was usually one of a team of five fighters, divided by weight. I was in the heaviest weight class. Some small men, as is well known, are extremely fine fighters, though, of course, they do not have the size and weight to consistently best larger men, assuming that the distribution of skills is similar.

The beam splintered suddenly away, shattering back from the weights on my hands.

I threw back my head, sucking in air.

I sensed her suddenly beside me, the small, blond female, collared, in the brown rag.

"Telitsia," I said.

She removed one of the gunni, that which clothed my left fist. It was heavy for her. She carried it, with two hands, and placed it on the shelf to one side.

"Does Kenneth know you are here?" I asked.

She returned to my side and, from my right fist, removed gently the heavy, curved weight with which it was clad.

"Does Kenneth know you are here?" I asked.

She placed the second weight beside the first on the shelf. She turned and looked at me. I looked at her. She trembled. She put down her head, and went to a water-filled wooden bucket in the corner of the barn. There was a gourd dipper near the bucket. She lowered the gourd dipper into the water and then, the dipper brimming, returned to my side. I took the dipper and drank. I handed the dipper back to her and she returned it to its place. Her small, bare feet dislodged sawdust on the floor of the barn. She returned to my side with a large, coarse towel, and began, gently, to towel my body. I was soaked with sweat. We were alone in the barn. There were several stalls in the barn. These were empty, but filled with clean straw. She continued to towel my body.

I thrust back the hair from my eyes.

She was now on her knees beside me, head down, trembling, toweling my legs.

"Does Kenneth know you are here?" I asked.

She continued, head down, to towel my legs.

"Speak, female," I told her.

"No." she whispered.

She looked up at me, suddenly. "The wagon is to come for me this afternoon," she said. "I am to be taken to the market. I am to be sold."

"I know," I said.

"I do not want to be sold," she wept.

"You are a slave," I told her. "Your wishes are unimportant."

"I know," she whispered.

She continued to towel my body. "The wagon will be here soon," she said.

I nodded. She would then be hooded and bound, and placed in the wagon for transport to the market.

Suddenly she flung away the towel and, sobbing, looked up at me, tears in her eyes. She was quite beautiful, kneeling barefoot before me, clad only in the brief, sleeveless brown rag of a slave, her blond hair about her shoulders, her blue eyes moist, her throat graced by the narrow collar of dark iron, slave iron. "Telitsia is at your feet," she whispered, piteously, "-Master."

I lifted her into my arms and carried her to one of the stalls, where I placed her gently on the straw.

"Telitsia! Telitsia!" we heard. It was the voice of Kenneth, master keeper of the slaves of the Lady Florence.

The bar for the tenth Ahn, the Gorean noon, had already been struck.

"I must escape," wept Telitsia. I touched her brand, I fingered her collar, as she lay naked in the straw, looking up at me.

I shook my head. "No, Telitsia," I said. "There is no escape for such as you, a Gorean slave girl."

She turned her head to the side. "I know." she said.

"Telitsia!" said Kenneth, standing before the stall. We drew quickly, guiltily, apart. We both, immediately, knelt, heads down, before a free person.

"Where have you been?" said Kenneth.

"Here, Master," she whimpered.

"Get your rag on," said Kenneth. "The wagon is ready."

"Yes, Master," she said, hurrying to pull her tiny, pathetic garment over her head.

"You, Jason," said Kenneth, sternly. "Were you given permission by some free person to engage in slut sport with this bond girl?"

"No, Master," I said, head down.

"You understand that you could be slain for this?" he inquired.

"Yes, Master," I admitted.

"How was she?" he asked.

"Lovely, and slave hot," I said.

The girl blushed, all the exposed parts of her body turning red, even her legs.

I smiled. I did not think Kenneth truly objected to my rutting with the lovely, neck-ringed stable slut. Indeed, he had not kept her chained by the neck to her ring in the kennels for stable sluts this morning, a precaution which is not uncommon for a girl who is to be soon sold. Rather he had let her wander free. I think that he was not, in his way, unkind. He had doubtless suspected that she would seek me out, or another male slave of her choice. There had been no great search for her. Kenneth, it seemed, had come almost directly to the barn where I was training.

Kenneth threw me some binding fiber and a leash. "Tie and leash her, and bring her to the wagon," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said. I went to Telitsia and bound her wrists behind her back with the binding fiber, and snapped the leash on her collar ring.

Too, however, it should be noted that Kenneth, permitting the bedding of the lovely slave girl at this time, had assured himself that she would be warmed for her sale. His motivations, thus, were doubtless not entirely altruistic. A vital, passionate woman, of course, displays herself very differently on the block than one who is inert, cold or frigid. There are degrees in these things, of course. For example, a truly frigid girl is almost certain to be a first-sale girl. Frigidity is a neurotic luxury which Goreans do not see fit to indulge in female slaves. It is permitted only to free women. The same girl who in her first sale was frigid is likely to be, by the time of her second sale, even should it be within the year, a wonder of lascivious appetition, needful of love and the touch of as uncompromising owner.

"Come along," said Kenneth.

I followed him, leading Telitsia on her leash.

"Greetings, Kenneth," said Borto, the driver of the low bedded tharlarion wagon. "I see you have the slave."

"Greetings, Borto," said Kenneth. "Yes, and I think she is now well ready for her sale."

Borto laughed.

"I bring you another, a replacement," he said, indicating a prone figure, in a slave sack.

"Good," said Kenneth. "We are short on stable sluts. They are useful in keeping the male slaves content, and may well be applied to lighter labors, on which a man's strength would be wasted."

Borto smiled, and handed Kenneth a note, from inside his tunic.

Kenneth took the note and read it, frowning. "I see," he said.

"Put her in the wagon," said Kenneth, "kneeling position, leashed-legs tie."

"Yes, Master," I said.

Telitsia looked up at me. Her hands were bound behind her back. There were tears in her eyes. She lifted her lips to mine. I kissed her. I then lifted her into the wagon, kneeling her on the boards. Her breasts were loose and sweet within her small garment. It was high on her thighs. I then, using the leash, passing it before her body and between her legs, crossed and bound her ankles, thus fastening her in that same kneeling position in which I had originally placed her. She could not rise and the fastening on her collar kept her head down. It is a standard submission tie on Gor for a female slave.

The girl in the slave sack squirmed angrily, irritably.

Kenneth looked at the sack move, responding to the luscious girl curves within it.

"Does she not know she is not to squirm?" asked Kenneth.

Borto laughed. "Apparently not," he said.

"There is nothing in the note," said Kenneth, "to indicate that she is not to be a stable slut."

"Doubtless she will have to be taught a few things," said Borto.

"Bares!" called Kenneth.

"Yes," answered Bares, who was nearby, tallying feed sacks.

"Bring a stable collar," said Kenneth.

Bares put aside his tallying board and marking stick, and went into a nearby small building, an equipment shed.

"Hood her," said Kenneth to me.

Telitsia sobbed. I took the slave hood from the wagon bed and drew it over her head, adjusting the straps and buckling them under her chin. I then descended from the bed.

Kenneth threw the key to Telitsia's collar to Borto, who caught it and placed it in his pouch. Her collar would be removed only when a new one was ready to replace it, probably the house collar of some slaver's emporium.

"Remove her from the sack," said Kenneth. "We will have a look at her."

Borto untied the ropes at the foot of the sack.

Bares came to the wagon, handing Kenneth a stable collar, a light, hinged circle of iron, with an attached ring, that of the sort which is often used to loop the throats of stable sluts.

Borto lifted the sack somewhat, shaking and sliding the girl somewhat from it. Then she was on her knees, with the sack still covering the upper part of her body. I saw she had good legs. She also wore, I saw, a brown tunic, similar to those which are worn by stable sluts. It was, however, a little long.

Borto then drew away the sack.

"Ah!" said Kenneth.

I, too, was surprised. Kneeling before us, on the wagon bed, her hands braceleted behind her back, two small keys dangling from her enameled collar was Taphris, who was one of the personal serving slaves of the Lady Florence.

"It seems you have fallen from the Mistress' favor, Taphris," said Kenneth.

"Perhaps," she said.

He looked at her.

"Perhaps, Master," she said.

"On your belly," he said, "head over the end of the wagon"

Angrily Taphris lowered herself to her shoulder, and then to her belly, and put her head over the end of the wagon.

Kenneth, removing one of the keys from the enameled collar she wore, removed it from her, putting it, and its key, back in the wagon, to one side. He then, she briefly shuddering, locked the stable collar on her throat.

He let her lie there for a moment. Then he said, "Descend from the wagon bed, and stand here, before me"

She struggled up and then, carefully, that her tunic not be drawn upward, put her legs over the edge of the wagon bed and lowered herself to the ground.

Kenneth regarded her. Taphris was a luscious wench. "You are no longer a house slave," he said. "There are strong men in the stables. Stand straight, and beautifully."

"Master has, I trust," she said, acidly, "read the note which has accompanied me."

Kenneth removed the note from his tunic, where he had placed it, and read it again, to himself, with apparent care.

She tossed her head.

"I see nothing in here to the effect that you are not a stable slut," he said.

"Master!" she protested.

"Are you not now a mere stable slut?" he asked.

Taphris quickly looked at me. "Yes, Master," she said. "I have fallen from the favor of the Mistress. I am now only a mere stable slut."

"It is true," said Kenneth, grimly. He put the note again in his tunic.

"Master?" she asked.

"Bring heavy shears," said Kenneth to Bares.

"Master?" asked Taphris.

Bares returned in a moment with a heavy pair of largehandled iron shears, procured from the nearby equipment shed. They were of the sort which could be used for shearing the wool of the bounding hurt. The Lady Florence did not raise hurt, though some were raised on nearby ranches. Miles of Vonda, for example, raised hurt as well as tharlarion. They were used in the stables for a variety of cutting tasks, ranging from opening feed sacks to shearing the hair of Kajirae, which is unexcelled for the braiding of catapult ropes. Slaves, incidentally, were not allowed in the equipment shed. A careful accounting is kept in the stables of bladed equipment.

Kenneth, shears in hand, stepped back and regarded Taphris. "Your tunic has sleeves," he said. "Let us bare your arms, that you may work more efficiently."

"Work?" she said.

Kenneth, with the shears, cut away the sleeves of her tunic, so that her arms were bared.

Her hands tensed in the slave bracelets, confining them behind her back.

"Let us free, too, your legs," he said, musingly.

He then, with the shears, considerahlv heightened the hemline on the skirt of her tunic. This did not displease me. He handed the shears to Bares.

"Wait until the Mistress hears of this!" she cried.

"And this," said Kenneth, angrily, "I do for the pleasure of my men."

She shrank back. Angrily he tore away two additional ports from the tunic's freshly sheared hem. She cried out with misery, so exposed. "And this, tool" he said angrily. "Please, no, Master!" she wept. But his hands then tore open the tunic, that the beauty of her breasts be but ill concealed. Lastly he tore open, to the hip, on the left side, the now ragged, scandalously brief skirt of her tunic. I saw that she wore the common Kajira mark of Gor. It is that mark, lovely, small, a Kef in cursive script, the first letter of 'Kajira', which is worn by most Gorean slave girls.

He then kicked her legs out from under her, and she knelt sobbing in the dirt at his feet.

"Give me the shears," he said to Bares.

"The note, the note, Master," said the girl, looking upward, pathetically.

"Is it not time," Kenneth asked Bares, "that the hair of this Kajira was harvested?"

"I think so," said Bares.

Taphris had long, dark hair.

"The note, the note, Master," begged the girl.

"Have no fear, Slave," said Kenneth. "You will be treated in accordance with the exact letter of the note. But beyond that you are only and fully a stable slut"

He then, holding her hair, sheared it away at the base of her neck.

"Put a string on this and put it in the sack," he said to Bares.

The girl was sobbing.

Kenneth normally did not shear the hair of his stable sluts, even in the fall. He did occasionally use shearing, however, as a disciplinary device. Goreans tend, culturally, to be fond of long hair on a woman. The shorn girl, thus, in her collar, tends to be an object of scorn and ridicule. Girls will go to great lengths to please a man, that they not be shorn. The girls who are regularly shorn are usually slaves who work on the great farms or on the large, commercial hurt ranches, or low girls who are used in large numbers in such places as the mills, or the public laundries and kitchens. Any girl, of course, may be shorn, even a high pleasure slave, if she displeases the master. The girls know that there is always a market for their hair.

I watched Bares going toward the equipment shed. He carried the shorn hair and the shears. The sack in which the shorn,hair of Kajirae was kept until it was marketed was in the equipment shed, where the shears were kept.

"Stand, shorn slave," said Kenneth to the girl.

She quickly stood.

"Remember," said be, "you are now no longer a lady's house slave. You are now a stable slut."

She then, fearfully, stood straight and beautifully. To see her in the brief rag of a stable slut, she standing so beautifully, the narrow collar on her throat, was to desire to rape her.

"Not bad," commented Kenneth.

The girl trembled. Her small hands were still locked behind her back, in slave bracelets.

"Not bad at all," said Kenneth.

Bares was now returning to the vicinity, having bound and discarded the hair in the hair sack. Too, he had replaced the shears in the shed.

"Ah," said Batas. "She is not unattractive for a shorn slave."

"Yes," said Kenneth.

"She will be a pleasant addition to the Kajirae in the stables," said Batas.

"I think so," said Kenneth.

"I must be on my way soon," said Borto, who was the driver of the tharlarion wagon.

Barns went to the discarded, enameled collar, now open, which lay in the wagon bed. He removed the second key from it, that which opened the slave's bracelets. He went behind the girl and freed her hands. He threw the opened bracelets, leaving the key in one of the bracelet locks, to the wagon bed. Borto lifted up the rear gate of the wagon and, with two hooks, fastened it in place.

"I wish you well," said Borto to the two free men.

"I wish you well," said Kenneth to him.

"I wish you well," said Barns to him.

In a few moments Borto had climbed to the wagon box and, with a crack of his whip, had urged the two tharlarion whose reins he controlled into motion.

Borto began to sing.

I watched the wagon departing, its wheels leaving tracks in the soft dust of the stable yard. In the wagon, hooded, head down, tied on her knees, bound hand and foot, her shoulders shaking, was Telitsia, an animal bound for the market.

I turned again to regard Taphris.

"Turn your hip out," said Kenneth. "Place your feet like that," he said, kicking her right foot. "Suck in your gut. Put your palms on your thighs. Lift your head"

Taphris was learning quickly that she was no longer in the house, but in the stables, a province in which she was a woman and in which men were supreme.

"Bend over at the waist," said Kenneth. "More!"

Her knees were flexed. Her head was then at his hip.

Kenneth stepped back from her. I could see that he was not displeased to have the lovely Tahpris at his mercy.

She did not dare raise her head.

"Bares," said Kenneth, "will show you your kennel, and your duties."

"Yes, Master," she said.

Bares placed his hand in her hair, grasping it firmly. She winced.

She had not moved her head, of course, for she knew she had been placed in a common leading position for slave girls.

She tried to look up at Kenneth, but the hand of Barns did not permit it. She must look to the dirt at her feet.

Bares turned away from us, leading her.

"Bares," said Kenneth.

"Yes," said Bares, stopping, and looking back.

"See that the new girl is worked well," said Kenneth.

"The south stables should be cleaned," said Bares.

"Shoveled and scrubbed," said Kenneth.

Barns grinned.

"And then water must be drawn and carried to fill the tanks in stables six through ten"

"Yes," said Bares. He turned then and strode away, pulling the half-running Taphris beside him.

Water is drawn from wells. It is then carried, in yoked buckets, to great wooden tubs in certain of the stables.

I did not envy the beautiful Taphris.

Kenneth turned to me. "You cannot read," he said.

"No, Master," I said, "not Gorean." Slaves are commonly kept illiterate. It makes them more helpless. It gives the masters more control over them. Besides, it is said, why should a slave know how to read?

"I do not think our little friend, Taphris," said Kenneth, "has fallen in the favor of the Mistress."

"Oh, Master?"

"No," he said.

"But she has been sent to the stables," I said.

"And she will learn what it is to be a stable slut," said Kenneth, grimly.

I smiled. I had little doubt but what Kenneth said was true.

"May I inquire as to the contents of the note, that which accompanied her?" I asked I gathered that Kenneth would have been willing to let me read it, had I been able to do so.

"It specifies that she is to be exempt from assignment to male stable slaves, that she is not to be given to them for wench sport."

"That is interesting," I said.

"And, further, it specifies that under certain conditions she is to be granted certain freedoms of observation and movement. Too, once, weekly, she is to be sent to the house on some errand or other."

"What are these conditions under which she is to be granted movement and freedom of observation?" I inquired.

"Conditions deemed pertinent to the cognizance of a certain male slave's whereabouts and activities," he said.

"Mine?" I asked.

"Yes," said Kenneth, grinning.

I said nothing.

"Our lovely Taphris, it seems," said Kenneth, "has business in the stables."

I said nothing.

"It seems the Mistress has not forgotten her former silk slave."

I did not speak.

"Taphris is a spy," said Kenneth. "She has been sent to the stables by the Mistress to spy on you."

"I see," I said.

"Beware of her," he said.

"I will," I said.