Fighting Slave of Gor

8 I AM SHAMED;I WILL LEAVE THE HOUSE OF ANDRONICUS

"Get in," said Prodicus.

Gron, bare chested, stood beside him, resting the point of a great, long, curved sword on the tiles at his feet.

"Wait," said the Lady Gina.

I knelt, head down, before the square iron box, the exterior of which was enameled white, one side of which, its door, on hinges, lay opened on the tiles. I tensed. On two sides of the box, in red paint, was a Kef, in block printing. Kef, of course, is the initial letter not only of the Gorean expression 'Kajira', the most common Gorean expression for a female slave, but also `Kajirus', the most common Gorean expression for a male slave. The block printing indicated that the box was suitable for a male slave. This could also, of course, have been determined from its size which, though small, was larger than would have been that in which women would be placed. Such boxes, for women, were marked also with red on whiter but the letter, of course, would be the cursive Kef, which is also used as a common slave brand for imbonded females.

"Last night, Jason," said the Lady Gina, "we threw you a slave girl." She shook loose the blades of her slave whip. I kept my head down. "I was curious to see what you would do with her. I had wondered about you. I had thought there might be a bit of manhood in you." She suddenly lashed downward with the whip and I winced. "I see there was not," she said. She struck me again. The blades, in their stroke, burned cruelly on my back. I could not help tears forming in my eyes. Yet I think the tears were from frustration and misery, and from my shame, that I knew, in my heart, that I well deserved my beating, rather than from the mere pain of the harsh strokes.

"May I speak, my Mistress?" I begged.

"Yes," she said.

"I am a man of Earth," I said. "We prove our manhood by denying it. He who behaves least like a man shows himself thus to be most a man."

"Do you believe that?" asked the Lady Gina.

"No, Mistress," I said, miserably. I did not really believe it. I had only been taught to say it.

"Perhaps," she said, "those who pride themselves on the denial of their manhood deceive themselves. Perhaps it is thus they protect themselves from understanding that they have, in effect, no manhood to deny."

I kept my head down. I knew that males differed much, one from the other. Some were perhaps, for most practical purposes, without manhood. It would surely be easiest for them to pretend to expertise in its denial. Some males, I supposed, incredibly enough, did not feel strong urges and powerful appetites. There was nothing in their own experiences perhaps, which prepared them to understand drives, and desires and rages which might terrify them. There was simply nothing in their own experience, perhaps, thus, which prepared them to understand the desires and rages of natures deeper and mightier than theirs. These things would be to them simply colors they could not see, sounds they could not hear, worlds which must remain to them forever beyond their ken. But perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps there lies somewhere in all men a trace of the rover and hunter; perhaps no man is so weak or lost as to have forgotten completely the feel of the grasped, bloody bone in his paw, or what it was on a windy night to throw back his head and howl at a moon.

"How can one know," asked the Lady Gina, "if one has a manhood to deny, if one has never expressed it?"

"I do not know, Mistress," I said.

"Let those who have expressed their manhood," she said, "decide then whether or not they will ever again choose to deny it."

I did not speak.

I did not know what it would be, truly, to be a man. I feared manhood. Suppose that I became a man. How then, once having dared to taste meat and blood, and victory, could I again surrender so preciously recollected a birthright? I knew that men must not be men. I kept my head down.

"Slave," sneered the Lady Gina.

I knelt naked, the steel collar of the house of Andronicus on my neck, before the small, opened slave box. On its top it had two sets of rings, each set placed along an edge of the top, through which long carrying poles might be thrust. To one side, behind Grout and to the back, stood four carrying slaves, large, brawny, collared men, two of whom held the poles, like spears, butt down, on the tiles.

"Look up, Jason, Slave," said the Lady Gina. "Look about you."

I looked up, and at the Lady Gina, and the men in the room.

"How are you regarded, Handsome Slave?" asked the Lady Gina.

"With contempt, Mistress," I said.

"Yes," she said.

It was true. All in the room looked upon me with contempt, even the slaves, I, a kneeling man of Earth.

"Put down your head, Slave," she said.

"Yes, Mistress," I said. I lowered my head.

"How fit you are to be a slave," she said, scornfully.

"Yes, Mistress," I said. I did not know why she should be so angry with me. Somehow she seemed to feel that I had disappointed her.

What did she want of one who was only a slave?

Suddenly, crying out with rage, she began to strike at me with the whip. I knelt, naked, miserable, under the blows.

She struck me, again and again.

Then, after a time, she wearied. She hooked the whip again on her belt. She pulled up my head by the hair.

"Is there a man in you, Jason?" she asked.

I did not speak.

She smiled.

"Get into the slave box," she said.

I hesitated.

"Do you obey?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"Then obey," she said.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

I crawled into the tiny box, on my knees. It was barely large enough to contain me. The metal door, behind me, was lifted and flung shut. I heard bolts thrust in place. I pressed against the sides of the iron container. On both the right and left, about level with my eyes, the sides of the container were perforated with fifteen small holes, arranged in three horizontal rows of five openings apiece. Each opening was about a half of an inch in diameter. I heard the two long poles being thrust through the sets of rings on the roof of the box,

"Deliver him to the market of Tima," I heard the Lady Gina say.

"It will be done, Lady Gina," said Prodicus.

I felt the box being lifted into the air, suspended by the rings and poles.

I put my head down, and wept. I was a man of Earth. I was a slave.