Kur of Gor

Chapter, the Sixty-Fourth: THOUGHTS BEHIND THOUGHTS

"She is no longer beautiful,” said Archon.

The bell had been removed from the neck of the Lady Bina.

For four days she had been unconscious, and had then awakened raving, in delirium, her body burning with fever. In all this time Lord Grendel had remained at her side, watching over her, tending her, while the governance of the camp was surrendered to the human ally, Peisistratus, and the rule of the insurrectionists’ lines, the orders of the day, the arrangements of signs and countersigns, the inspection of weaponry, the postings of guards, the arrangement of patrols, and such, was accorded to Statius, who had once been a nondominant.

"If there should be any sign of enemy activity,” had said Lord Grendel, “I am to be notified, immediately."

But the habitats were quiet, and the field below was largely deserted, save for some cattle humans who had drifted back, to scavenge.

Flavion was missing.

This had been discovered shortly after the return to the insurrectionists’ lines.

Some ten days after her escape and recovery, and six days after it had begun, the Lady Bina's fever broke. She then, after imbibing some broth administered to her by Lord Grendel, slept soundly for a full day. When she awakened her delirium had passed, and she looked about herself, wonderingly, trying to gather together her thoughts, and comprehend what had happened to her. She then suddenly half sat up in the coverlets and screamed, but was gently pressed back by Lord Grendel. She felt about her neck for the bell, but it was not there. “Sleep,” he advised her, tenderly, and she again slept. Once she thrashed in her sleep and screamed, and awakened, but he again soothed her, and she again slept. It was on the twelfth day after her return to the insurrectionists’ lines that she awakened, lay there awake, not moving, for a long time, and then dared to touch her fingers to her face, and she then cried out, a long, wavering wail, one of horror. She then demanded a mirror. Lord Grendel demurred and tried to soothe her, but she would not be soothed, and would have the mirror. She looked into the mirror and then flung it away and begged to be brought a knife. This request Lord Grendel refused. “Kill me,” she begged. “Kill me!” This request was also refused.

"She is hideous,” said Peisistratus.

"Lord Grendel does not think so,” said Cabot.

"Then he sees something other than we see,” said Peisistratus.

"I think he does,” said Cabot. “I think he always did."

"I could not sell her for a pot girl, let alone a kettle-and-mat girl,” said Peisistratus. “She is good for nothing now but sleen feed, if that."

"She was refusing to eat,” said Statius, “until our friend Cabot spoke to her."

"What did you say?” asked Archon.

"Not a great deal,” said Cabot. “I merely informed her that if she did not eat she would be stripped and lashed, and then force fed, as might be a slave, and that her hands would be fastened behind her, that she not be able to rid herself of the food, that she would not be permitted to starve herself any more than a new slave, who does not yet understand that the will is her master's and not hers, one who does not yet understand fully, as she shortly will, that such things are not permitted to her, and that she is truly a slave, is to be treated as such, and will be treated as such, in short, that she is no longer hers, but is now the master's, that she is now property, his property."

"And Lord Grendel permitted this?” said Statius.

"He authorized me to do whatever I thought useful, or necessary, in the matter."

"How did it turn out?” asked Statius.

"When he entered with food,” said Cabot, “she fed, with neither protest nor dissent."

"Good,” said Peisistratus.

"But you treated her, in effect, as a slave,” said Statius.

"Every free woman, from time to time,” said Cabot, “should be treated as a slave."

"They are all slaves,” said Peisistratus. “The only difference is the collar."

"She may be quiet now, but I fear she will watch,” said Archon, “and, when the opportunity permits, destroy herself."

"She will not be given the opportunity,” said Cabot.

"How is it to be precluded?” asked Archon.

"We will keep her in slave chains,” said Cabot.

"But she is a free woman,” said Statius.

"She should be a slave,” said Cabot. “Thus it is appropriate that she be placed in the chains of a slave, and become accustomed to them."

"Cestiphon, who is a killer human, inured to the sights of the arena, and such, caught a glimpse of her, and cast up his food,” said Statius.

"She need no longer fear then,” said Cabot, “her stripping beneath his appraising glance, his accosting, the callous, imperious grasp of his strong hands on her defenseless beauty."

"I questioned Cestiphon,” said Peisistratus. “It was Flavion who encouraged his advances to the Lady Bina."

"I was sure of it,” said Statius.

It may be recalled, the look, perhaps one of puzzlement, or resentment, that Cestiphon had cast at Flavion. Cestiphon had not anticipated the intervention or fury of Lord Grendel. It had only recently become clear to Cestiphon that Flavion had put him to use, to further his own ends, to bring Lord Grendel hurriedly to the assistance of the Lady Bina, thus betraying his concern for a traitress, and, thus, he hoped, undermining and compromising his position in the camp.

"Not that he would have required a great deal of encouragement,” said Cabot.

"No,” said Peisistratus, “no more than any other healthy human male."

"She need no longer fear a rope on her neck, fastening her amongst his other women,” said Archon.

"Unfortunately,” said Cabot.

"It is my understanding,” said Archon, “that she has begged a sheet, a covering of some sort, with which to conceal her face and body."

"That is true,” said Cabot. “And I have no doubt it will be granted to her."

"Good,” said Peisistratus. “It sickens one to look upon her."

"At least Kurii no longer call for her blood,” said Peisistratus.

"Why should they?” said Archon. “What could they do to her now that she would not welcome?"

It would be injudicious, and certainly unnecessary, in a reportorial narrative of this sort, to delineate in any detail the terrible moments which were spent by the Lady Bina in the clutches of the cattle humans. They had, of course, their nails and teeth, small stones, sharpened sticks, and such. With these there had been a brief frenzy of tearing, poking, stabbing, gouging, and cutting, such things, which attentions had not been restricted to any particular portion of her small body, but had been delivered almost randomly, with a violent, vengeful, doltish zeal.

"Many,” said Statius, “feel she should be turned out of the camp."

"To die?” asked Cabot.

"Presumably."

"Lord Grendel would not permit it,” said Cabot.

"Her presence depresses many in the camp,” said Statius.

"She will cover herself,” said Cabot.

"Have any heard aught of the traitor, Flavion?” asked Archon.

"No,” said Statius.

"I should not like to be he, should Lord Grendel learn of his whereabouts,” said Archon.

"Nor I,” said Statius.

The reader notes that Archon referred to Flavion as a traitor. This was now common knowledge in the camp, given the freeing of the Lady Bina, the attempt on the life of Lord Grendel, his flight, and such.

The Lady Bina had confirmed, as was scarcely necessary, the collusion of Flavion in her escape. She had regarded him as a secret friend, concerned to protect her, as possible, from the wrath of Kurii. After all, had she not once served Agamemnon? She had thus been overwhelmed with gratitude at having been accorded an opportunity to escape. She had not understood, of course, her unwitting role in the attempt on the life of Lord Grendel, who was certain to follow her. Nor did she understand the nature of the cattle humans through which she was to make her way, identified in her tiara, to the lines of Agamemnon, of whose shelter, contrition, gratitude, and affection she had been assured by Flavion. It is true she had betrayed Peisistratus and Arcesilaus to Lord Agamemnon long ago but the profit she had hoped to accrue from that act had been persuasive, and, of course, although this consideration would do little to mitigate or extenuate the treachery of her act, it might be recalled that she was not a member of a party to which she would have owed an allegiance. Her act then could be conceived of as primarily one of shrewd calculation. Greed for significance, importance, power, and wealth is a motivation to which many humans are susceptible, and we must, in all honesty, acknowledge that it is one to which some Kurii, perhaps surprisingly, are not immune. That motivation, too, we might speculate, might be particularly acute for a certain type of human female, perhaps one at war with herself, self-estranged, self-alienated, discontented with her sex, envying males, or such, as she often finds herself precluded in virtue of her slightness and body from utilizing the usual routes to such advantages, leadership, dominance, aggression, charisma, violence, physical superiority, prowess with weapons, and such. Gorean males, in particular, it seems, prefer women on their knees, stripped and in collars, their lips pressed to their feet. They feel that is where they belong, by nature, and they will have them there, that nature's loveliest gift to them is the natural female; their slave. Too, many females, despite disparaging and alienating acculturations, sense that they rightfully belong at the feet of masters. Often they silently beg for the collar. Many is the female who has brought herself to the feet of a master. Many is the female who has knelt, lowered her head, and extended her arms, piteously, beggingly, wrists crossed, for binding. “I am a slave, Master. I beg to be yours. Please, I beg you, accept me."

Too, how is a woman a woman, truly, until she kneels, ineradicably submitted, hopelessly and irredeemably feminine, in the fullness of her vulnerable femininity, before a man, her master?

How tragic it is that many human females, the product of pathological cultures, cultures and civilizations at war with nature, are unhappy with their sex, even resentful of it. What an astonishing epiphany it is for them, then, to accept that they are females, and are profoundly different from males, that they are gloriously and wonderfully other than males, and come to understand the value, preciousness, and delicious specialness of their sex. Certainly this becomes clear to them when they find themselves being auctioned, offered to heated, competing, eager buyers.

Too, of course, considering matters of motivation, it seems the Lady Bina may have been displeased that Cabot had not proved more amendable to her considerable charms, that whilst both were clasped in breeding shackles.

Beyond the matter of the betrayal of Peisistratus and Lord Arcesilaus, she had, incidentally, as it turned out, no particularly active role in either the debacle of the arsenal or the projected massacre in the Vale of Destruction. Her first escape, that following her acquisition from the place of the slaughter bench, prior to the ambush of the arsenal, had been arranged by Flavion, that all suspicion would fall upon her, whilst he himself, in a putative scouting excursion, had earlier informed Kur patrols of the plan. The girl herself had been picked up shortly after her escape by a Kur outpost, and remanded to the palace. There, taken before Agamemnon, who had viewed her from one of his bodies, her hands had been pinioned behind her, though she was a free woman, in the shameful, but perfectly effective bracelets of a slave. She had then been taken into the forests and released, to be hunted down by, and devoured by, one or another of the sleen which had been released into the world to prey on humans. There were fewer such sleen, however, than Agamemnon realized, as traps had been set, one of which, we may recall, had snared the giant sleen, Ramar, and, too, humans, and their Kurii, had often defended themselves with vigor, often killing the animals, or, if their scent had not been taken, driving them away. After several days, miserable and half starving, still helplessly braceleted, she had stumbled upon a womb tunnel, in which she took shelter, and in which she managed to feed on the remains of small scavengers and compete with them for the nourishing blood ensuing so liberally from the rent wombs, consequent upon a Kur birth. She had been noted by killer humans, and was fleeing them, when she was apprehended by Lord Grendel, Statius, and the human, Tarl Cabot, which party brought her back, a prisoner, to the camp. It was Flavion's expressed speculation that she had earlier lurked about the camp, and learned the plans for marching on the palace, after first meeting at the Vale of Destruction, and that then she had conveyed these plans to the forces of Agamemnon. Supposedly it was after this that she had been captured by human patrols and back-braceleted, patrols from which, however, she had managed to escape, this accounting for the condition in which Lord Grendel and his confreres had found her. Thus, most in Lord Grendel's camp had considered her guilty of three betrayals, the first of Peisistratus and Lord Arcesilaus, the second pertaining to the arsenal, which was costly, and the third, which turned out well due to no fault of hers, given the intervention of the mariners. It was thus no wonder that many Kurii had hungered for her blood. In Lord Grendel's camps, that of the forest, and that later within their lines, she had been terrified to protest her innocence or even to speak, as she had been warned that her tongue might be torn out. Too, as she had no translator, and few were in her vicinity, and she could understand very little of Kur, she was not even clear as to what the nature and extent of the charges against her might be. It had been made clear to her, of course, by Flavion, the dreadful danger in which she stood, information which, if nothing else, would motivate her desire to escape at all costs.

* * * *

There were four females on the personal neck rope of Cestiphon, all women of killer humans. These were Cestiphon's own women, as opposed to the women held in common by his group of killer humans. On that rope there were fourteen. Cestiphon was the leader of his group, which contained some twenty males. It was his group which had flushed the Lady Bina into the open, earlier, when she had been noted by Lord Grendel, Statius, and Cabot, in the vicinity of a womb tunnel.

Perhaps too close to them a small, concealed figure moved, timidly, slowly, trying to pass about them, its motion impeded by the shackles it wore on its slim ankles. It was bent over and clutched a sheet about itself with closely braceleted hands. The sheet was clutched in a such a way that the face was effectively hooded, the opening on the sheet sufficing for little more than a lowered head to survey the next patch of ground on which it might dare to tread.

One of the women of the killer humans sprang to her feet and snatched at the sheet but the small figure hastily, frightened, drew back. But the other women of the killer humans, on the rope, had sprung up, and encircled her.

In a moment the small figure had cried out in misery, the sheet ripped from her, and she knelt in the dirt, cowering, covering her face with her hands, that none could look upon its horror.

Beneath the sheet she had been as naked as the women of the killer humans.

The killer humans keep their women naked.

Surely this is not unusual for the women of primates.

One supposes the hostility of these women of killer humans was the natural hostility of one type of female toward another, say, one of a certain race, breed or group to that of another race, breed, or group, or perhaps it was something like that of the glorious free woman toward the degraded, vulnerable female slave. In any event, these women clearly did not understand that the Lady Bina, for it was she whom they had entrapped, was a free woman, or, more likely, they had no concept at all of a free woman. Too, it is certainly possible that they remembered her from the pursuit of her in the vicinity of the womb tunnel and recognized that she might have been captured and put on their rope, and might perhaps have been more favored of food and caresses than they. Indeed, they may have been aware of her earlier accosting by Cestiphon. But clearly there was little they had to fear from her now.

Two of the women pulled the Lady Bina's hands away from her face, and a third drew her head up by the hair.

They made gleeful noises, the leader pointing to her, and all spat upon her. Their leader danced and posed before her, exhibiting her superior attractions, and lifted and flung her hair about, indicating its sheen and length. And then the Lady Bina's captors pulled her to her feet, and turned her about, and about, displaying her to the camp, but the men turned away, disgusted, and the women shrieked and laughed the more. But then, suddenly, the switch, for he had now obtained such a device, useful for the control of women, of an angered Cestiphon fell amongst them, and they went to all fours, and cowered, sobbing under the blows. “Master!” begged their leader, now on her knees, trying to fend blows. “Master!” The killer humans, this group, were scarcely speeched, but the word for a male, any male, was “Master.” Similarly, their word for a female, any female, was “slave."

Cestiphon hooked the switch on his belt, where he was accustomed to keep it. He glowered at the neck-roped women of the killer humans. They cringed under his gaze, not daring to meet his eyes. The switch had done its work well, its supple, stinging slash, far better than its humble predecessor, the stick, which, less yielding, was more likely to damage a woman than punish and instruct her. The stick was a makeshift device, crude and barbarous; the switch was an artifact, a boon of civilization, a tested, refined, efficient implement, one explicitly and intelligently designed for the management and improvement of slaves. Cestiphon then picked up the sheet and threw it about the Lady Bina, who gratefully, with her small, closely braceleted hands, clutched it about her.

"Begone, beast, monster,” said Cestiphon, angrily, and the Lady Bina, sobbing, clutching the sheet about her, fighting her shackles, moved away, as swiftly as she could.

Men withdrew from her course.

Female slaves slipped back, and knelt, their heads to the dirt, that she might pass, unimpeded.

The Lady Bina was, you see, despite what might be her misfortunes or fate, a free woman, and thus a thousand times, and more, above them.

The Lady Bina went to where Lord Grendel was in conference with Peisistratus, Statius, and Cabot, and, with a small sound of chain, lay down at his feet.

"Kneel up, knees together, in suitable fashion,” said Lord Grendel to her, kindly. “You are a free woman. You are not a slave, to lie curled at a man's feet, as a pet sleen."

"It is appropriate,” said Cabot, “for a slave to lie at her master's feet. They look nicely there, and it is where they belong. Too, most female slaves are worth less than a sleen, certainly less than a good sleen."

"But she is a free woman, dear Cabot,” admonished Lord Grendel.

"Ah, yes,” said Cabot, resignedly.

"She belongs in a collar,” said Statius.

"No one would want her now,” said Peisistratus.

The Lady Bina sobbed, softly, and knelt as she had been encouraged to kneel, as a Gorean free woman, demurely, erect, gracefully, her knees together. To be sure, even a tower slave will kneel with her knees together. The pleasure slave, of course, must kneel with her knees spread, as she is a pleasure slave.

"Lady,” suggested Peisistratus, “draw the sheet about you."

"You are free,” said Lord Grendel. “Do as you wish."

The Lady Bina carefully, closely, drew the sheet about her, and knelt beside them, her head down.

From time to time, from within the carefully arranged sheet, was heard a small noise, a soft noise, a sob.

The men then returned to their concerns.

"It has been too quiet,” said Lord Grendel.

"Many of our men grow impatient,” said Statius. “Many urge a rush upon the enemy ramparts."

"Perhaps we should have simply taken Flavion's advice,” said Lord Grendel, “and marched into a carefully laid trap."

"I would suppose,” said Cabot, “that there is a similar unrest amongst the forces of Lord Agamemnon. They, too, are Kurii."

"Let us hope,” said Statius, “that they will make the first such move."

"Agamemnon must manage his forces as well as we ours,” said Lord Grendel, “and he will be subject to similar influences and pressures."

"But he will not be mad enough to order a frontal assault,” said Cabot.

"No,” said Lord Grendel, “but he will do something, I am sure."

"He is subtle,” said Cabot.

"He has thoughts behind thoughts,” said Statius.

"And doubtless, too,” said Cabot, “he now has at his ready disposal the advice of a most astute counselor."

"One familiar with our lines, our leadership, our thinking,” said Peisistratus.

"Do not concern yourself with Flavion's knowledge,” said Lord Grendel. “As the positions are stable, it will do him little good, no matter how extensive it is. Fear rather his cleverness."

"I do not understand,” said Statius.

"There will be a new initiative,” said Lord Grendel. “It is only that we do not know what it will be."

"It will be conceived by Flavion?” asked Cabot.

"No,” said Lord Grendel. “It will be beyond Flavion. It will be of Agamemnon himself."

Shortly after this conversation, indeed, the next day, the nature of Agamemnon's initiative became clear.

To the insurrection's humans its potency was not evident.

Its potency, however, was quite clear to Kurii.

It depended, you see, on the ways of Kur.