Raiders of Gor

5 Festival

"I think I shall win you," said a lithe, dark-haired girl, holding my chin and pushing up my head, that she might better see my face. She was dark-eyed, and slender, and vital. Her legs were marvelous, accentuated by the incredibly brief tunic of the rence girl.

"I shall win him," said another girl, a tall, blond girl, gray-eyed, who carried a coil of marsh vine in her right hand.

Another girl, dark-haired, carrying a folded net over her left shoulder, said, "No, he will be mine."

"No, mine!" said yet another.

"Mine!" cried yet another, and another.

They gathered about me, examining me, walking about me, regarding me as one might an animal, or slave.

"Teeth," said the first girl, the lithe, dark-haired girl.

I opened my mouth that she might examine my teeth. Others looked as well. Then she felt of my muscles, and thighs, and slapped my side two or three times. "Sturdy," said one of the girls.

"But much used," said another.

She laughed, with others. They referred to my mouth. On the right side it was black, and cut, and swollen. Diagonally it wore the marks of the teeth of Telima.

"Yes," said the first girl, laughing, "much used."

"But good for all that!" laughed another.

"Yes," said the first girl, "good for all that." She stepped back and regarded me. "Yes," she said to the others, "all things considered, this is a good slave, a quite good slave."

They laughed.

Then the lithe girl stepped close to me.

I stood with an oar pole at my back, bound to it for their inspection. The pole, thrust deep in the rence of the island, stood in a clearing near the shore of the island. My wrists were bound behind the pole with marsh vine. My ankles were also fastened to the pole. Two other coils of marsh vine bound my stomach and neck to the pole. On my head my Mistress, Telima, had placed a woven garland of rence flowers.

The lithe, dark-haired girl, standing close to me, traced a pattern on my left shoulder, idly. It was the first letter of the Gorean expression for slave. She looked up at me. "Would you like to be my slave?" she asked. "Would you like to serve me?"

I said nothing.

"I might even be kind to you," said the girl.

I looked away.

She laughed.

Then the other girls, too, came close to me, each to taunt me, with whether or not I would not rather serve them.

"Clear away there," called a man's voice. It was Ho-Hak.

"It is time for contests," called another voice, which I recognized as that of Telima, my mistress. She wore the golden armlet, and the purple fillet tying back her hair. She wore the brief tunic of the rence girl. She was exceedingly well pleased with herself today, and was stunning in her beauty. She walked, head back, as though she might own the earth. In her had she carried a throwing stick.

"Come, come away," said Ho-Hak, gesturing for the girls to go down to the shore of the rence island.

I wanted Ho-Hak to look at me, to meet my eyes. I respected him, I wanted him to look upon me, to seign to recognize that I might exist.

But he did not look upon me, nor notice me in any way, and, followed by Telima, and the other girls, made his way to the shore of the rence island. I was left alone, tied at the pole.

I had been aroused at dawn by Telima, and unbound, that I might help in the preparations for festival.

In the early morning the other rence islands, four of them, which had been tethered close by, were poled to the one on which I was kept, and now, joined by flat rence rafts, acting as bridges, they had been tied to one another, now forming, for most practical purposes, a large single island.

I had been used in the fastening of the bridges, and in the drawing up and tying of rence craft on the shore, as other rencers, from distant islands, arrived for festival. I had also been used to carry heavy kettled of rence beer from the various islands to the place of feasting, as well as strings of water gourds, poles of fish, plucked gants, slaughtered tarks, and baskets of the pith of rence.

Then, about the eighth Gorean hour, Telima had ordered me to the pole, where she bound me and placed on my head the garland of rence flowers.

I had stood at the pole the long morning, subject to the examination, the stares, and the blows and abuse of those who passed by.

Around the tenth Gorean hour, the Gorean noon, the rencers ate small rence cakes, dotted with seeds, drank water, and nibbled on scraps of fish. The great feast would be in the evening.

Around this time a small boy had come to stare at me, a half-eaten rence cake in his hand.

"Are you hungry?" he had asked.

"Yes," I had told him.

He had held the rence cake up to me and I bit at it, eating it.

"Thank you," I had said to him.

But he had just stood there, staring up at me. Then his mother ran to him and struck him across the side of the head, scolding him, dragging him away. The morning was spent variously by the rencers. The men had sat in council with Ho-Hak, and tehre had been much discussion, much argument, even shouting. The women who had men were busied with the preparation of the feast. The younger men and woman formed opposite lines, shouting and jeering at one another delightedly. And sometimes one or the other boy, or girl, would rush to the opposite line to strike at someone, laughing, and run back to the other line. Objects were thrown at the opposite line, as well as jocose abuse. The smaller children played together, the boys playing games with small nets and reed marsh spears, the girls with rence dolls, or some of the older ones sporting with throwing sticks, competing against one another.

After the council had broken up one of the men who had been seated there came to regard me. It was he who wore the headband of the pearls of Vosk sorp about his forehead, who had been unable ot bend the bow.

Strangely, to my mind, he carried over his left shoulder a large, white, silken scarf.

He did not speak to me, but he laughed, and passed on. I looked away, burning with shame.

It was now about the twelfth Gorean hour, well past noon.

I had been examined earlier by the girls who would compete for me.

Ho-Hak, with Telima, had summoned them away for the contests.

Most of these took place in the marsh. From where I was bound, over the low rence huts and between them, I could see something of what went on. There was much laughter and shouting, and cheering and crying out. There were races, poling rence craft, and skill contests maneuvering the small light craft, and contests with net and throwing stick. It was indeed festival.

At last, after an Ahn or so, the group, the girls, the men watching, the judges, turned their several rence craft toward the island, beaching them and fastening them on the woven-mat shore.

Then, the entire group came to my pole, with the exception of Ho-Hak, who went rather to speak with some men carving rence root and talking, on the other side of the island.

The girls, perhaps more than forty or fifty of them, stood about me, laughing, looking from one to the other, giggling.

I looked at them, with agony.

"You have been won," said Telima.

The girls looked at one another, saying nothing, but laughing and poking one another.

I pulled at the marsh vine, helpless.

"Who has won you?" asked Telima.

The girls giggled.

Then the lithe, dark-haired girl, slender-legged and provocative, stepped quite close to me.

"Perhaps," she whispered, "you are my slave."

"Am I your slave?"

"Perhaps you are mine," whispered the tall, blond girl, gray-eyed, in my ear. She pressed a coil of marsh vine against my left arm.

"Whose slave am I?" I cried.

The girls gathered about, each one to touch me, to caress me as might a mistress, to whisper in my ear that it might be she to whom I belonged, she whom I must now serve as slave.

"Whose slave am I?" I cried, in agony.

"You will find out," said Telima, "at the feast, then, at the height of festival."

The girls laughed, and the men behind them.

I stood numb at the pole, while Telima unbound me. "Do not remove the garland of rence flowers," said she.

Then I stood free at the pole, save that I wore teh collar of marsh vine she had fastened on my neck, and a garland of rence floweres.

"What am I to do?" I asked.

"Go help the women prepare the feast," said she.

All laughed as I turned away.

"Wait!" called she.

I stopped.

"At feast," she said, "you will, of course, serve us." she laughed. "And since you do not know which of us is your mistress, you will serve each, every one of us, as slave. And you will serve well. If she who is your mistress is not well satisfied, doubtless you will be severely punished."

There was much laughter.

"Now go," said she, "and help the women with the food."

I turned to face the girl. "Who," I begged, "is my mistress?"

"You will find out at feast," she said angrily, "at the height of festival! Now go and help the women to prepare the feast — Slave!"

I turned away, and, as they laughed, went to help the women in their work, preparing food for festival.

It was now late on the night of festival, and most of the feast had been consumed.

Torches, oiled coils of marsh vine wound about the prongs of marsh spears, thrust butt down in the rence of the island, burned in the marsh night. The men sat cross-legged in the outer circles, and, in the inner circles, in the fashion of Gorean women, the women knelt. There were children about the periphery of the circles but many of them were already asleep on the rence. There had beeen much talking and singing. I gathered it was seldom the rencers, save for those on a given island, met one another. Festival was important to them.

Before the feast I had helped the women, cleaning the fish and dressing marsh gants, and then, later, turning spits for the roasted tarsks, roasted over rence-root fires kept on metal pans, elevated about the rence of the island by metal racks, themselves resting on larger pans.

During most of the feast I have been used in the serving, particularly the serving of the girls who had competed for me, one of whom had won me, which one I did not know.

I had carried about bowls of cut, fried fish, and wooden trays of roasted tarsk meat, and roasted gants, threaded on sticks, and rence cakes and porridges, and gourd flagons, many times replenished, of rence beer.

Then, the rencers clapping their hands and singing, Telima approached me. "To the pole," she said.

I had seen the pole. It was not unlike the one to which I had been bound earlier in the day. There was a circular clearing amidst the feasters, of some forty feet in diameter, about which their circles formed. The pole, barkless, narrow, upright, thrust deep in the rence of the island, stood at the very center of the clearing, surrounded by the circles of feasting rencers.

I went to the pole, and stood by it.

She took my hands and, with marsh vine, lashed them behind it. Then, as she had in the morning, she fastened my ankles to the pole, and then, again as she had in the morning, she bound me to it as well by the stomach and neck. Then, throwing away the garland of rence flowers I had worn, she replaced it with fresh garland.

While she was doing this the rencers were clapping their hands in time and singing.

She stood back, laughing.

I saw, in the crowd, Ho-Hak, clapping his hands and singing, and the others, and he who had worn the headband formed of the pearls of the Vosk sorp, who had been unable to bend the bow.

Then, suddenly, the crowd stopped clapping and singing.

There was silence.

Then there came a drumming sound, growing louder and louder, a man pounding on a hollowed drum of rence root with two sticks, and then, as suddenly as the singing and clapping, the drum, too, stopped.

And then to my astonishment the rence girls, squealing and laughing, some protesting and being pushed and shoved, rose to their feet and entered the clearing in the circle.

The young men shouted with pleasure.

One or two of the girls, giggling, tried to slip away, fleeing, but young men, laughing, caught them, and hurled them into the clearing of the circle. The the rence girls, vital, eyes shining, breathing deeply, barefoot, bare-armed, many with beads worn for festival, and hammered copper bracelets and armlets, stood all within a circle.

The young men shouted and clapped their hands.

I saw that more than one fellow, handsome, strongfaced, could not take his eyes from Telima.

She was, I noted, the only girl in the circle who wore an armlet of gold. She paid the young men, if she noticed them, no attention.

The rence communities tend to be isolated. Young people seldom see one another, saving those from the same tiny community. I remember the two lines, one of young men, the other of girls, jeering and laughing, and crying out at one another in the morning.

Then the man with the drum of hollow rence root began to drum, and one fellow had bits of metal, strung in a circular wire, and another a notched stick, played by scraping it with a flat spoon of rence root.

It was Telima who began first to pound the woven rence mat that was the surface of the island with her right heel, lifting her hands, arms bent, over her head, her eyes closed.

Then the other girls, too, began to join her, and at last even the shiest among them moved pounding, and stamping and turning about the circle. The dances of rence girls are, as far as I know, unique on Gor. There is some savagery in them, but, too, they have sometimes, perhaps paradoxically, stately aspects, stylized aspects, movements reminiscent of casting nets or poling, of weaving rence or hunting gants. But, as I watched, and the young men shouted, the dancers became less stylized, and became more universal ot woman, whether she be a drunken housewife in a suburb of a city of Earth or a jeweled slave in Port Kar, dances that spoke of them as women who want me, and will have them. To my astonishment, as the dances continued, even the shiest of the rence girls, those who had to have been forced to the circle, even those who had tried to flee, began to writhe in ecstasy, their hands lifted to the three moons of Gor. It is often lonely on the rence islands, and festival comes but once a year. The bantering of the young people in the morning, and the display of the girls in the evening, for in effect in the movments of the dance every woman is nude, have both, I expect, institutional roles to play in the life of the rence growers, significant roles analogous to the roles of dating, display and courtship in the more civilized environments of my native world, Earth. It marks the end of a childhood when a girl is first sent to the circle. Suddenly, before me, hands over her head, swaying to the music, I saw the dark-haired, lithe girl, she was such marvelous, slender legs in the brief rence skirt; her ankles were so close together that they might have been chained; and then she put her wrists together back to back over her head, palms out, and though she wore slave bracelets.

Then she said, "Slave," and spit in my face, whirling away.

I wondered if it might be she who was my mistress.

Then another girl, the tall, blond girl, she who had held the coil of marsh vine, stood before me, moving with excruciating slowness, as though the music could be reflected only from moment to moment, in her breathing, in the beating of the heart.

"Perhaps it is I," she said, "who am your mistress."

She, like the other, spit then in my face and turned away, now moving fully, enveloped in the music's flame.

One after another of the girls so danced before me, and about me, taunting me, laughing at their power, then spitting upon me and turning away.

The rencers laughed and shouted, clapping, chering the girls on in the dance. But most of the time I was ignored, as much as the pole to which I was bound. Mostly these girls, saving for a moment or two to humiliate me, danced their beauty for the young men of the cicles, that they might be desired, that they might be much sought.

After a time I saw one girl leave the circles, her head back, hair flowing down her back, breathing deeply, and scarcely was she through the circles of rencers, but a young man followed her, joining her some yards beyond the circle. They stood facing one another in the darkness for an Ehn or two, and then I saw him, gently, she not protesting, drop his net over her, and then, by this net, she not protesting, he led her away/ Together they disappeared in the darkness, going over one of the raft bridges to another island, one far from the firelight, the crowd, the noise, the dance.

Then, after some Ehn I saw another girl leave the circile of the dance, and she, too, was joined beyond the firelight by a young man and she, too, felt a net dropped over her, and she, too, was led away, his willing prize, to secrecy of his hut.

The dance grew more frenzied.

The girls whirled and writhed, and the crowd clapped and shouted, and the music grew ever more wild, barbaric and fantastic.

And suddenly Telima danced before me.

I cried out, so startled was I by her beauty.

It seemed to me that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and before me, only slave, she danced her insolence and scorn. Her hands were over her hand and, as she danced, she smiled, regarding me. She cut me with her beauty more painfully, more cruelly, than might have the knives of a torturer. It was her scorn, her contempt for me she danced. In me she aroused aginies of desire but in her eyes I read that I was but the object of her amusement and contempt.

And then she unbound me.

"Go to the hut," she said.

I stood there at the pole.

Torrents of barbaric music swept about us, and there was the clapping and the shouting, and the turning, and the twisting and swirling of the rence girls, the passion of the dance burning in their bodies.

"Yes," she said. "I own you."

She spat up in my face.

"Go to the hut," she said.

I stumbled from the pole, making my way through the buffeting circle of dancers, through the laughing circles of rencers, shouting and clapping their hands, and made my way to Telima's hut.

I stood outside in the darkness.

I wiped her spittle from my face.

Then, falling to my hands and knees, lowering my head, I crawed into the hut. I sat there in the darkness, my head in my hands.

Outside I could hear the music, the cries and clapping, the shouts of the rence girls dancing under the moons of Gor.

I sat for a long time in the darkness.

Then Telima entered, as one who owns the hut, as though I was not there. "Light the lamp," she said to me.

I did so, fumbling in the darkness, striking together the flint and steel, sparks falling into the small bowl of dried petals of the rences. In this tiny flame I thrust a bit of rence stem, from a bundle of such, and, with it, lit the tiny tharlarion-oil lamp set in its copper bowl. I put the bit of rence stem back, as I had seen Telima do, in the small bowl of petals, where, with the flaming petals, it was soon extinguished. The tharlarion-oil lamp, now lit, flickering, illuminated the interiour of the hut with a yellowish light. She was eating a rence cake. Her mouth was half full. She looked at me. "I shall not bind you tonight," she said.

Holding half the rence cake in her mouth she unrolled her sleeping mat and then, as she had the night before, she unlaced her tunic and slipped it off over her head. She threw it to a corner of the hut, on her left, near her feet. She sat on the sleeping mat and finished the rence cake. Then she wiped her mouth with her arm, and slapped her hands together, freeing them of crumbs.

Then she unbound her hair, shaking it free.

Then she reclined on the mat, facing me, resting on her right elbow. Her left knee was raised. She looked at me.

"Serve my pleasure," she said.

"No," I said.

Startled, she looked at me.

Just then, from outside, there was the wild, high, terrifed scream of a girl, and suddenly the music stopped. Then I heard shouts, cries of fear, confusion, the clash of arms.

"Slavers!" I heard cry. "Slavers!"