Prize of Gor

Chapter 29 WHAT OCCURRED NEAR THE VIKTEL ARIA,

In the Vicinity of Venna

The slave had run on ahead.

“Masters!” she called, delightedly, emerging from between the trees. Never before had she seen such a road. It was seated with large, fitted stones. She knew that these went down to a depth of several feet. In making such a road, a great trench is dug, and then the stones are laid, wall-like, within the trench. The road is, in effect, a sunken wall, and such a road will last for hundreds, even thousands, of years, with little repair. How old the road might be she had no idea, but she could see ruts worn in the stone, presumably by the continuing passage of carts and wagons, season in and season out, decade in and decade out.

She stepped back a little, as a caravan was passing, and there was a ringing of the bells on a kaiila harness. Guards flanked the caravan, and regarded her idly, appraisingly, as they rode past, conjecturing, as she wore a collar, her lineaments. She stood straighter, but did not dare smile, for fear one of the riders might, on an impulse, loosening his rope, spur toward her and in a moment, as she fled, have his cast, tightening loop upon her. But she did stand straight, and beautifully. She was no longer ashamed of her body, or embarrassed by it, now that it was owned. She loved it, and prized it, and was proud of it. But she knew that it was not only her body that was owned, but the whole of her. All of her was slave, and belonged to her master. There were pack kaiila aplenty with the caravan, in files, most roped together, but, too, there was a long train of wagons, behind, some open and some closed. A caravan this size, she conjectured, would not be the property of a single merchant, but doubtless of a number of merchants leagued together, traveling thusly for purposes of safety in what were doubtless unsettled, dangerous, troubled times.

From the pommel of one saddle, seemingly not that of a guard, but perhaps of a civilian or merchant’s agent accompanying the caravan, there looped downward a light, graceful chain to the throat of a naked, blond slave. She walked proudly. How beautiful she is, thought Ellen. Their eyes met. The blonde tossed her head, and gave her no more notice. This angered Ellen and she ran forward and then alongside the slave. “Do not toss your head at me!” said Ellen. “I have a tunic! You are only a naked slave! You are naked! Naked! Only a naked slave, publicly marched on a chain, exposed on a common road!”

The slave cast a furious glance at her but the fellow about whose pommel was looped the chain put back his head and laughed loudly, and gave the chain a little, admonitory shake. “Eyes front, Marga,” he commanded her.

“Yes, Master,” she said, frightened, and turned her head forward, and held it deliberately, fixedly, in that attitude, and kept her eyes, too, squarely ahead, not so much as glancing to the side.

Ellen was muchly pleased by this. She laughed delightedly, but muchly to herself. She is afraid, she thought. She is afraid of her master! She is well mastered! Let them all be well mastered!

Eyeing the guards then, one of whom, as though to frighten her, turned his kaiila toward her, Ellen retreated to the trees at the edge of the road. Selius Arconious was now there, having come forward at her call, from the wagon.

“The road! The Viktel Aria, surely, Master!” said Ellen.

“Yes,” he said.

The kaiila and wagons continued to pass.

“Were you discomfiting that slave?” he asked.

“Yes, Master!” laughed Ellen. “She dared to toss her head at me, so I ran to her and called her attention to my tunic, that I was clothed, be it only so minimally, so revealingly, and to the fact that she was only a naked slave, only that, and one publicly marched on a chain, one blatantly exposed on a common road.”

“She was quite lovely,” said Selius Arconious.

“I suppose that that was not difficult to see, Master,” said Ellen, “as she was chained and naked.”

“Quite lovely,” he said.

“Perhaps a little tall, Master?” said Ellen.

“Not necessarily,” he said.

“Oh,” said Ellen. Ellen would have conjectured that the blonde was some two inches taller than herself.

“It was thoughtful of her master to so display her,” said Selius Arconious.

“Master?” asked Ellen.

“Yes,” he said. “It is in the nature of a generous, welcome gift to fellow itinerants, to accompanying wayfarers, a way to lighten the burdens, sometimes the unrelieved boredom, of long marches. The sight of such as she, you see, provides a pleasure, a luscious glimpse, a pleasant interlude, for weary travelers upon a long road, at the least an incentive to increase one’s pace, to hurry one’s steps to the nearest paga tavern.”

“Paga tavern, Master?”

“Yes,” said he, “where the use of such as she goes with the price of a drink.”

“I see, Master,” said Ellen.

“Yes,” he said.

“Perhaps, Master,” said Ellen. “But well did I humble her!”

“Doubtless,” said Selius Arconious.

“Oh, look, Master!” said Ellen, pointing, having then first noticed towers in the distance.

“That is Venna,” said he. “Ar is but two day’s journey south from Venna. Indeed, those of Ar often have villas in the vicinity of Venna, and enjoy the races there.”

“Will we enter upon the road when the caravan passes, Master?” asked Ellen.

“Perhaps tomorrow morning, early,” said Selius Arconious. “The heat of the afternoon is now upon us. Portus Canio and Fel Doron are even now unhitching the tharlarion and preparing a camp.”

“I will stay here a moment, and watch,” said Ellen.

Selius Arconious turned about, and made his way back through the trees.

Ellen supposed that she should have asked permission to stay near the road, but then she dismissed the thought. Surely this little bit of assertiveness on her part, if that is what it was, was unimportant. Too, she was not too pleased with Selius Arconious, for he had, as in the grasslands, muchly ignored her, and had not put her to the usages of a slave, those usages which were appropriate for her, and which she, collared, craved. Indeed, some of her earlier feelings of ambiguity pertaining to Selius Arconious had begun to reassert themselves. I should hate him I suppose, she thought, as I am a woman of Earth, and he put a collar on me, a collar, but I do not. I love him and love him dearly. And I want to love him in the deepest way possible, as a slave. But I fear he is a weakling. Indeed, sometimes, as she lay in her place at his thigh in the night, begging his attentions, and failing to obtain them, she had, occasionally, petulantly, pettily, as in the morning before the attack of the beasts, challenged him to prove that he was her master, or to give or sell her to another, to one who would be a master to her slave, to one who was a man. In her frustration she had lashed out at him, in her petty way. To be sure, she did not wish to belong to another, though she was sure that another would not be as understanding, as patient, as kind, as boring, as neglectful, as trivial with her as Selius Arconious, but would see to it, firmly, severely, whip in hand if need be, that the finest and fullest of her slave service would be unhesitantly and perfectly, even fearfully, rendered.

She waited by the road while the caravan passed. One of the wagons was a slave wagon, with bars. Most of the women in it crouched down, below the low siding, a foot above the wagon bed, hiding, that they not be seen. Ellen supposed they might be free women, captured, or new slaves. In such a wagon they would doubtless be stripped, as women usually are in such a conveyance. Certainly she could see bared shoulders. They are perhaps shy, thought Ellen, or embarrassed to be seen as they doubtless now were, denied even the mockery of a tight thong and slave strip, presumably slave naked. One woman, however, was standing, and clothed, or partially so, in the remnants, or residual rags, of what might have been the final undergarments worn beneath the cumbersome Robes of Concealment. She clutched the bars, with two hands, looking out, in misery, in terror. Did she think to find succor, or rescue, or to elicit pity, from behind those narrow, closely set bars? Did she not know she was in a slave wagon? Did she not know she was on Gor? Did she not know that there were men here? Ellen thought that perhaps she had been troublesome, and that that was why she had been permitted, for the time, to retain some covering, that its removal then, at the hands of captors or masters, might be all the more momentous and shattering to her. It looked as though she had good legs, and her left shoulder, too, was exposed. Doubtless she will soon be in a collar, thought Ellen. In a few Ehn the last wagon had passed, and the following guards, carrying lances, mounted on kaiila, as well. Some tinier carts, some drawn by hand, followed the main column, though doubtless not associated with it, rather merely hoping in its shelter to shield themselves from brigandage.

Ellen supposed she had been away a rather long time, but she did not give this matter much thought. She smiled to herself. By now the camp would be largely made, and much of the work would be done. Excellent, she thought.

She cast one last look at the distant towers of Venna, and thought again of the former Lady Melanie of Brundisium, she sold at the festival camp, now doubtless a lovely, suitably embonded, obedient chattel behind those far walls.

I wish her well, she thought. And I hope she has a master who knows how to master her! Then she turned and made her way back through the trees, to where the men would have made the camp.

Selius Arconious is a weakling, she thought.

Most of the camp work will be done, she thought. Good!

When she reached the camp the men were waiting for her. Though in the presence of free men she decided she would not kneel.

“Greetings, Masters,” she said. Certainly it would not be wise to neglect such an obvious token of deference as an appropriate form of address.

“Remove your tunic,” said Selius Arconious.

“Master?” she asked. Her voice broke, slightly.

His gaze was not pleasant.

Certainly she did not wish for a command to be repeated, as that is a common cause for discipline. She slipped the tunic over her head. She hoped that she had not hesitated too long before doing so.

She then decided it would be a good idea to kneel, and so she did so, and, a moment later, trembling a little, before their gaze, carefully widened her knees. She now regretted not having knelt when she had first come into their presence. It is common for a slave to kneel when she comes into the presence of a free person, and to kneel, too, should they, as in entering a room, come into her presence. She clutched the tunic in two hands, desperately, frightened.

Selius Arconious approached her. He held out his hand. “Give it to me,” he said.

She lifted the tunic up to him.

“Hold your wrists before you, closely together, veins to veins,” he said.

“Master?” she asked. But she did as she was told, and wasted no time in doing so.

Her wrists were then bound together, tightly, separated only by looping cordage, but in such a way that a length of rope was left free in front, extending from her wrists, falling to the ground. By this free portion of the rope she could be led about, by her bound wrists. It constituted, in effect, a tether.

“Surely I have not displeased masters,” she said.

“There is an abandoned tarsk pen nearby?” Selius Arconious asked Fel Doron.

“Yes, as I said,” said Fel Doron. “I gathered some of the firewood there.”

“Then let us show our little she-tarsk,” said Selius Arconious, grimly.

Ellen was yanked rudely to her feet by the tether. She almost lost her balance. Then she was dragged, stumbling, perforce, trying not to fall, behind her impatient, precipitate master.

The tarsk pen, with its shed, was in ruins. But there was, at one side, the remains of the pen’s siding. It consisted of horizontal poles, some four inches thick. Here Selius Arconious angrily kicked away two of the lower horizontal poles, and left one horizontal pole in place, which was about four feet above the leaves, wood chips, rotted straw, and turf.

“Master, please!” said the slave.

She was forced down on her knees before the pole, facing it, and the interior of the pen, and then, in a moment, her wrists were lashed to the pole. She then knelt there, before it, her wrists up, fastened to it.

“What are you going to do, Master?” she wept.

But Selius Arconious had returned to the wagon, and there, as nearly as the slave could tell, looking wildly over her right shoulder, began rummaging through his belongings.

In a moment or two he had returned to where she knelt before the pole, her wrists up, bound to it. Portus Canio and Fel Doron were in the vicinity. “Masters?” she asked. She had been unable to see well behind her, given the angle from which Selius Arconious had approached. Accordingly she was not clear on what he might have fetched, if anything, from the wagon.

“I purchased this at the festival camp, outside Brundisium,” said Selius Arconious.

“It looks like an excellent buy,” said Portus Canio.

“I think it will do, nicely,” said Selius Arconious.

“What is it, Master?” asked the slave.

“A whip,” he said. “A slave whip.”

“No, Master!” cried the slave.

“I thought I might need it,” said Selius Arconious.

“You were right,” said Portus Canio.

“It is a useful tool,” said Fel Doron. “One should keep such a thing on hand. One never knows when it will be needed.”

“No, Master!” wept the slave. “Please, no, Master!”

She struggled to her feet, before the pole, twisting about, wildly, pulling at her bound wrists. There was no mistaking the device in the hands of Selius Arconious. She had not realized, perhaps foolishly, that he owned such a thing, that he would even own such a thing. “Get back on your knees,” she was told. She returned to her knees, facing the pole, staring ahead.

“What are you going to do, Master?” she asked, quavering.

“What do you think, little fool?” he said.

“Master?” she said.

“Whip you,” he said.

“No, Master!” she cried, in alarm. “Do not whip me!”

“Prepare to be whipped,” said he.

Her hair was thrown before her body.

Normally a slave girl’s hair is behind her shoulders, that there be less impedance to the vision of masters. If she is naked the hair is sometimes placed before her shoulders, that it may be brushed back by the master, or put behind her by the slave, upon the command to do so. The beauty of the slave is, of course, a source of great pleasure to the master.

“It is a joke, surely a joke, Master!” she said. “You have frightened me! I will be good!”

“Prepare to be whipped,” said he, angrily, “slave.”

“You cannot whip me, Master!” she cried. “I am an Earth woman! You cannot whip an Earth woman! Earth women are never whipped! We are never punished, no matter what we do! Even if we ruin lives, and destroy men, we are never punished!”

“Embonded women do not ruin lives and destroy men,” he said. She heard the strands of the leather shaken out.

“I am an Earth woman!” she cried. “We are never punished! Such things are not done to Earth women!”

“You are not now on Earth,” he said.

She began to sob.

“Surely you have been whipped before,” he said, “if not on Earth, where you should have been, and perhaps frequently, then on Gor.”

“Yes, Master,” she wept.

“Is it true,” he asked, “that Earth women, on Earth, are never whipped?”

“I do not know,” she wept.

“If they are free, of course,” he said, “it would be inappropriate to whip them.”

“Yes, Master,” she cried.

“But doubtless a whipping would do some of them a great deal of good,” said Portus Canio.

“Doubtless,” said Fel Doron.

“But what of the women of Earth who are not free?” asked Selius Arconious.

“All the women of Earth are free!”

“That is surely false.”

“Yes, Master,” she sobbed.

“So what of those who are not free?”

“If they are not free, then they are subject to the whip,” said Ellen.

“Do you feel that they should not be whipped?”

“It is up to their masters!” she said.

“But what of a woman of Earth who is brought to Gor and enslaved?” he asked. “What do you feel about such a one? Should she be whipped?”

“It is up to her master,” said Ellen.

“Precisely,” he said.

“What have I done to displease you, Master?” she cried.

This inquiry was met with silence, which was more terrifying to her than a response. A thousand subtleties, and fears, rushed in upon her. There seemed so much, great and small, that she might have done differently.

“For what reason would you whip me?”

“You are a slave,” he said. “I do not need a reason.”

She moaned with misery, and fought the bonds, but dared not rise from her knees. It was true. As a slave she could be beaten at the master’s pleasure, for any reason, or for no reason.

She cast about, wildly, in her mind, for some way to allay his anger, to put him from his purpose, to avoid the punishment which, in her heart, she knew she deserved, and only too well.

Then a desperate thought came to her.

She looked over her shoulder, and smiled, as prettily, as innocently, as, under the circumstances, she could. “Have I been inadvertently troublesome in some way, Master?” she asked. She asked this, lightly, dismissively, even flippantly. Too, she asked this as though quizzically, as though she might be genuinely puzzled to find herself on her knees, bound at the pole, or rail, as she was. “If so, it is my hope that Master will forgive me.” In this way she sought to reduce, or trivialize, any possible imperfections in her service. In this way she hoped to put Selius Arconious off his guard, and divert his wrath.

“She is a clever slave,” said Fel Doron.

“Yes,” said Portus Canio. “But I do not think that her cleverness will do her much good.”

She was not much pleased to hear the comments of her master’s fellows. She had thought herself subtle. But they spoke as if her subtlety, on which she was congratulating herself, was naught but the patent trick of an ignorant, foolish slave, indeed, a trick, in its obviousness, transparency and shallowness, insulting to the master. Did she think he was so simple, a fool?

But theirs were not the hands on the butt of a stern, corrective device.

“Have I been troublesome, Master?” she pressed, again.

“Occasionally,” said Selius Arconious.

“Forgive me, Master,” she said.

“Have no fear,” said he. “I will take it out of you.”

“Master?” she asked.

It was as though he was prepared to let her believe that he might have been so naive as to have accepted her own self-regarding, trivializing assessment of her infractions, which was, of course, absurd, as she now grasped, but was yet at the same time making quite clear to her something that she should have known, that no omissions, evasions, laxities, imperfections, or infractions whatsoever, even the tiniest and most trivial, were acceptable in one such as she, a slave girl.

She was thus summarily defeated by her master, casually, and on her own grounds of contest.

Her heart sank for she realized then she was not at the feet of an Earth man. She was at the feet of a Gorean.

Such tend not to be tolerant of even trivial, and inadvertent, imperfections of service. Once this sort of thing is understood, interestingly, it is remarkable how scrupulous a slave can be concerning even the smallest details of her service, her glances, her kneelings, her serving of dishes, her kissings of sandals, and such.

And she well understood, to her misery, that her own imperfections of service, extending even to actual infractions, far exceeded matters inadvertent and trivial.

She must try again!

“Master is kind!” she suddenly cried, lightly. “After the dance in the festival camp, when I was to be given fifteen lashes, ten for not having declared, however honestly, a proficiency in slave dance, and five for having spoken without permission, Master purchased the strokes, each for a tarsk-bit, and saved me the beating! How grateful I am to Master for his generosity, his thoughtfulness, his kindness! He would not have me beaten. And surely I have nothing to fear from him now!”

“Ah, yes,” said Selius Arconious. “The festival camp, outside Brundisium.”

“Yes, Master!” cried the slave, hopefully.

“It amused me,” said Selius Arconious, recollectively, “to see you dance as a slave, the slave you are. And well did you writhe, bond-slut.”

“Thank you, Master,” said Ellen, uncertainly.

“You do not know the effect you can have on men, petty, tormenting creature!” said he, suddenly, angrily. “To see your ankle, the turn of a calf, the sweetness of an arm, the softness of a small shoulder, the turning of a wrist, the delicacy of a hand, the provocative call of your love cradle, the joy of your waist, made for a slave chain, your swelling bosom, its delights, the whiteness of your encircled throat, the beauty of your face, the bright glance of your eyes, the trembling softness of your embonded lips! You could drive a man mad with passion and desire! It is for women like you that collars are made! What man, seeing you, would not want to own you!”

“Oh, Master!” cried Ellen. “And I am your slave!”

“And I will not be yours!” he said, angrily.

“Master?” she asked.

“Do you not know, truly, why I purchased those strokes?” he asked. “Do you think I would let another whip you? No! I will have you under my whip! Under my whip! You are mine to whip!”

She cast about again, frantically, for a new tactic, a new strategy, a new avenue of escape.

“You do not even care for me, Master!” cried Ellen. She must challenge his affections, appeal to his pity, confuse him, take him off balance, force him to acknowledge his undoubted feelings for her. Surely that would stay his hand! She was certain he had such feelings, for he had permitted her, certainly, in the past few days, to get away with much slackness of service and deference, to behave in ways that are simply not permitted to slaves, and certainly not to those with strong masters. This, it seemed, would be her last effort to turn him from what she feared might be, but yet trusted would not be, his purpose. This stratagem, she was sure, would succeed.

“You are correct,” he said.

“Master!” she cried.

“Who cares for a slave?” snarled Selius Arconious.

“Master!” protested Ellen.

“One lusts for slaves, one wants them, madly,” said he. “One chains and collars them, one uses them, one puts them as one wishes, in whatever postures or attitudes, one ropes and thongs them, one leads them about on leashes, one forces them to serve, fearfully, abjectly, licking and kissing, kneeling, crawling, begging to please! Such inspire in men the mightiest of conquering passions! There is no triumph which compares with the ownership of a woman! With a slave at one’s feet, one’s head brushes the stars!”

“It is so, too, for a woman, Master!” wept Ellen. “That is our place! That is our place in nature! We long to be in our place in nature! We belong at your feet! We beg our collars! We lift and kiss our chains in gratitude! We ask only to kneel, to be used, and to serve!”

“But do not speak of caring!” cried Selius Arconious.

“I speak of it, Master!” cried Ellen.

“No!” he cried, angrily.

“I think you care for me, Master!” wept Ellen. “You care! You care for me! I am sure you care for me, Master! You must care! You must care, Master!”

“No!” he cried, in fury.

“Yes, yes, Master!” she wept.

“Whether I care for you or not,” said he, “I own you!”

“Yes, Master!” breathed Ellen.

“And I am going to make you a slave amongst slaves,” he said. “I am going to master you as few slaves are mastered. I am going to master you, wholly, Earth slut, every hair of your head, every inch of you!”

“Be kind!” she begged.

“You will know yourself owned,” he said.

“Do not whip me, Master!” begged Ellen.

“Do you realize the will power that has been required for me, day and night, not to seize you, again and again, and put you to slave service? Do you understand what it is to lie in the darkness, with you at my thigh, and not grasp you by the hair as a master a slave, to warn you that your taking is upon you, not force you, in all your embonded loveliness and helplessness, to serve my fiercest pleasures, not seize you in my arms and possess you, yes, possess you, have you, you beautiful, tormenting collared slut, with all the authority, the violence and passion which it is your lot to endure as slave and my right to inflict as master?”

“I love you, Master!” cried the slave. “But you never touched me, Master! Take me! Take me now! Take your slave! But you did not touch me, Master, why? Why?”

“It was a test, slave girl,” said he, “and you failed it miserably!”

“How a test, Master?”

“I thought I would give you some laxity, to see if you could handle it, to see what you were really like. And I found out! You are nasty, small, petty and vain!”

“No, Master!” cried the slave.

“You tried to manipulate me, with sorry feminine tricks,” he said.

“No, Master!” she wept. But well did she recall, to her misery, a thousand omissions, slights and provocations. She recalled how she had challenged him to prove himself her master, to sell or give her to another, who might provide the master to her slave, to place her into the possession of one who was a man.

“Even today,” he said, angrily, “you did not ask permission to remain at the road, but announced that you would do so. Do you know the penalty for such insolence? You dallied in returning to the camp, until the work was largely done. Do you know the penalty for such truancy? You did not kneel when entering our presence! Do you know the penalty for such disrespect? You deserve to be left in the forest for sleen! On the road, itself, earlier, you ran beside a slave and discomfited her, and risked calling the attention of armed men to yourself. You are fortunate that the discipline of the guards was such that you were not thonged, tethered to a pommel, and taken along for an evening’s raping.”

“She tossed her head at me, insolently,” said Ellen. “She was haughty!”

“Surely that is a small thing,” said Portus Canio, “a squabble amongst slave girls, nothing with which masters need concern themselves.”

“So, too, it seems to me,” said Fel Doron.

“Yes, Masters! Thank you, Masters!” said Ellen.

“That leaves, of course, many other shortcomings,” said Portus Canio.

“True,” said Fel Doron.

Tears burst from the eyes of the slave. She was helplessly tethered, tied for whipping.

“Surely you care for me, Master!” she cried.

“You are petty, small and nasty!” he said. “You deserve only the whip and chain.”

“I want the whip and chain,” she cried out, suddenly, startling herself. She wept. “Without it how can I know that I am female and yours?” she whispered.

A bit of wind moved through the leaves, overhead. She felt it on her back, too, where her hair had been thrown forward, before her body.

Suddenly, in terror, she realized the meaning of that.

Nothing, no matter how trivial, would be interposed between her back and the whip.

“But I want love, as well!” she cried.

He laughed, sardonically, skeptically.

“It is true!” she cried. “And I love you! Yes, I do! I love you, Master! I love you, Master! Surely you love me, too, if only a little?”

“No,” said he, angrily, “but I lust for you, and you will be well taught what that means at the foot of my couch!”

“Surely you care for me, if only a little, Master!” she said.

“No,” said he, angrily.

“Oh, no, no, Master!” wept Ellen.

“Strive to be worthy of being cared for,” said Portus Canio. “Many men will feel a fondness for a kaiila or a pet sleen, so why not for a slave? Let yourself strive with all your might, with all your intelligence, with all your zeal and diligence, with all your helplessness and vulnerability, with all your service and beauty, for the least touch, for a gentle word, a kind glance.”

“Prepare to be whipped, slave girl,” said Selius Arconious.

“Do not whip me, Master!” begged Ellen.

“Are you in a collar?” asked Selius Arconious.

“Yes, Master!”

“Is it a slave collar?”

“Yes, Master!”

“Then you are a slave?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Whose collar is it?”

“Yours, Master!”

“Then whose slave are you?”

“Yours, Master!”

“Prepare to be whipped,” said he.

“Wait, Master!” she cried.

The lash did not fall.

“Recall that I am from Earth, Master!” she wept. “That is a different culture from yours. The women of Earth, certainly most of them, are not accustomed to being slaves. They would not even understand what it is to be a slave!”

“Every woman,” said Selius Arconious, “understands what it would be, to be a slave.”

“I am other than your Gorean women!” cried Ellen. “I am more delicate, more sensitive, finer! Your culture is primitive, a culture in which such a thing as the beating of a slave may be accepted, but I am not of that culture. In deference to my background, my upbringing, my education, my refinement, such things should not be done to me! They are not for me! I am above them! I should not be subjected to such things. They are inappropriate for me! Your culture is barbaric. You are barbarians! I am not a barbarian! I am civilized! I am a civilized woman!”

“‘Girl,’” corrected Selius Arconious.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“It is you who are the barbarian,” said Portus Canio, matter-of-factly.

“It is true, Master,” acknowledged Ellen, “that Gorean is not my native tongue.”

“Thus,” said Portus Canio, “you are a barbarian.”

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen, twisting in the ropes, “in that sense.”

The usual criterion on Gor for a barbarian is one who does not speak Gorean, or, perhaps better, whose original language is not Gorean. Ellen, for example, who is now fluent in Gorean, continues to be thought of as a “barbarian.”

“In more than that sense,” said Portus Canio.

“Yes, Master,” granted Ellen. Ellen knew that those brought to Gor from Earth were accounted barbarians in a sense stronger than one merely linguistic, one having to do with a remote and commonly little-understood point of origin. Many Goreans, incidentally, assume that “Earth” is a remote locale or land on their own world.

“You speak of yourself as civilized,” said Portus Canio, “say, in contradistinction, from Goreans?”

“Yes,” said Ellen, a little uncertainly.

It is hard to participate in such a conversation when one is on one’s knees, bound naked at a pole, and has a whip somewhere behind one.

“Your world is civilized?” asked Portus Canio.

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen.

“On the trail, from time to time,” said Portus Canio, “Mirus and I whiled away many a pleasant Ahn in conversation.”

“Yes, Master?” said Ellen, apprehensively.

“You recall Mirus?” he asked.

“Certainly, Master,” said Ellen, “— Master Mirus.”

Ellen was now much on her guard. Had it been a trap? A slave girl does not address a free person by their name, but will use the expressions ‘Master’ or ‘Mistress’, or, sometimes, if referring to one’s owner, ‘my Master’ or ‘my Mistress.’ Similarly, in referring to a free person, one would commonly use expressions such as ‘Master Publius’, ‘Mistress Publia’, and so on. If asked, say, her master, the slave might respond, ‘My master is Selius Arconious, of Ar’, or such.

“I am not at all certain that your world is civilized,” said Portus Canio.

“Master?”

“I gather you do have mighty machines, and such.”

“Yes, Master.”

“But there are, as I understand it, no Home Stones on your world.”

“No, Master, or I would suppose not.”

“How then can it be civilized?”

Ellen was silent.

“Mirus spoke to me of monstrosities of indiscriminate death, contrived by the clever and mindless, of crowdings, of manipulations, of hatreds, pollutions, diseases and famines. He spoke of the ruination of lakes and forests, of the extinction of life forms, of a world being poisoned. He spoke to me of a world in which brothers might kill brothers, or friends friends, were a particle of power or profit to be gained, a world in which nature is scarred, wounded and betrayed, a world in which human beings do not know one another, nor do they care to do so, a world in which fidelity is scorned and honor mocked.”

Ellen was silent.

“Our world,” said Portus Canio, “is a green world, a fresh, clean, honest world. It has its terrors, but it is a beautiful world, and a natural world. I do not think it is inferior to yours.”

“No, Master,” said Ellen.

“I do not think I would care to live on your world,” he said.

“No, Master,” said Ellen.

“Do you dare to call your world civilized?” he asked.

“No, Master,” whispered Ellen.

“Your world is in many ways a thousand times more primitive than ours,” he said, “and Gor, in many ways, is a thousand times more civilized than yours, than the unnatural moral barbarism which engendered your likes.”

“Yes, Master,” whispered Ellen.

“And you, a smug, haughty product of that world, dare to speak of yourself as civilized! You are only another barbarian, a true barbarian. I wonder if such as you are worthy of being brought to our world, even as slaves.”

“Forgive me, Master,” wept Ellen.

“So,” said Selius Arconious, angrily, “you are other than Gorean women? More delicate, more sensitive, finer!”

“Forgive me, Master!” wept Ellen.

“Weaker? Nastier? Pettier? More selfish?”

“Master?”

“A meaningless, vain, pretentious, worthless slut of Earth!” he said.

Ellen’s small hands twisted in the ropes.

“You are unworthy to tie the sandals of a Gorean woman,” said Selius Arconious.

“Yes, Master,” wept Ellen.

“But,” said he, “you are well-curved.”

“Master?”

“I do not object,” said he, “that slavers bring such as you to our world.”

“Thank you, Master.”

“I think we can find a use for you on Gor.”

“It is my hope to be pleasing to my master,” said Ellen.

“Let us speak no more of your pathetic, miserable, tragic world,” said Selius Arconious.

“As Master pleases,” said Ellen.

“You are on Gor now, Earth slut,” he said, angrily. “And here you are in a collar, a slave collar!”

“Yes, Master!”

“And I will teach you your collar in a way that you will never forget!”

“No, Master, please, no, Master,” wept the slave.

“No longer are you on Earth,” said he. “Understand that, slut. Understand it well. Understand that such things are behind you! You are not on Earth now, but on Gor. And understand, as well, that despite your origin, my charming little barbarian, you are no longer of Earth, but are now of Gor, and that you are now a Gorean slave girl, only that, and that you are going to learn that you are owned.”

“Yes, Master,” wept Ellen.

What was to be done to her was, of course, nothing unusual, nor unprecedented. She was to be, simply, a beaten slave. There would be no misguided, ignorant fellows here to rush forward and stay the hand of propriety and justice, no stalwart if simple heroes who would stupidly save her from the consequences of her numerous faults, who would see to it that she yet again evaded the consequences of her acts with impunity, who would see to it that she yet again escaped a richly deserved, much-needed punishment, who would then, perhaps scarcely daring to look upon her, clothe her modestly, free her, and return her promptly and courteously, she confused, upset and unfulfilled, to the meaninglessness of her former life. No. Such would not occur. This was Gor. She was slave. No passers-by, should they be about, would think twice about what was done there.

“Please do not whip me, Master!” begged the slave.

“Master?” she said. “Master?”

And then the lash began to fall.