Renegades of Gor

12 The Cell; The Spy

The tether on my neck was removed.

I stood before an opened iron door.

"Remove his shackles," said an officer.

My hands and ankles were freed. I was covered by two crossbows. Any suspicions or sudden move, I was sure, would result in the entry into my body of those two stubby, heavy iron bolts.

I was then thrust through the door and it shut heavily behind me.

I heard it locked.

I stood in a cell, on huge, flat stones, strewn with straw. There was more straw piled in the corners of the cell. It was not a small cell. It was perhaps twenty feet square. It was lit by a shaft of light, descending from a window high in the wall. This window was barred. The bars appeared to be some two inches in thickness and were set about two inches apart.

I tried the door. It was sturdy. The hinges were on the other side. It had an observation panel in it, which, latched, as it was now, could be opened only from the outside. There was also a narrow paneled opening in the bottom of the door, also locked now, through which, when it was opened, a pan, say, of water, or bread, or dampened meal, might be inserted. I looked about the cell. I checked the floor, the walls. It was a sturdy cell. It was the sort of cell in which inmates, to their dismay, soon discover that they cannot escape, that they are helpless, that they are truly prisoners.

I then turned to face the other prisoner.

She shrank back, naked in the straw. She was at the side of the room. She knelt there, frightened, her knees clenched closely together. When I had been entered into the room she had cried out in protest and cringed. She had moved her head and her hands for an instant in such a way as to suggest she wished to bring her hair forward, before her, to use it to partially cover her breasts and body, but then she moaned. She could not do so. Her hair, as she had recalled, almost immediately, had been cropped short. She did pull straw up, about the thighs and waist, to help hide herself. She now looked at me, wildly, kneeling, huddling in the straw, covering her body, as she could, with her hands.

"Why have they done this?" she asked.

"What?" I asked.

"Put you in with me!" she said.

"I do not know," I said.

Then she bend down further, making herself even smaller in the straw, looking up at me.

"Are you a gentleman?" she asked, plaintively.

"No," I said.

She moaned. "They must hate me so," she wept. "They have done this deliberately! It is not enough that they have removed my clothing and incarcerated me?" "You are a spy." I said.

"So, too, then must you be," she cried, "that you have been put in with me!" "It seems they think so," I said, irritably.

"I was caught!" she cried. "What will they do to me?"

"Are you a free woman?" I asked.

"Yes!" she said. "Of course!"

"I do not think it will be pleasant then," I said.

She moaned.

I looked up at the high window. There was nothing in the room which made it possible to reach it, even to look out.

"They hardly feed me enough to keep me alive!" she exclaimed.

"You are probably fed as well as others in Ar's Station," I said. "Look," she said. "They took my hair!"

"In that way," I said, "they have seen to it that you have done your bit for Ar's Station."

"The city must soon fall," she said. "We must then be rescued!" "The citadel," I said, "can be held long after the walls. They would have time to deal with us."

She put her head down, weeping bitterly.

"When are we fed?" I asked.

"At noon," she said, lifting her head, looking at me, angrily.

"Do they make you perform for your food?" I asked.

She looked at me, in fury.

"I see that they did," I said.

"No more," she said. "There is a woman warder now. The men were needed on the walls."

"Full usage?" I asked.

"No," she said, angrily, "such things as dancing, and posing, before the panel. They never entered the cell."

"Did you dance and pose well?" I asked.

"When I did not, I was not fed," she said, bitterly.

"Still," I said, "you escaped easily."

"Undoubtedly," she said, bitterly.

"Did you enjoy dancing and posing?" I asked.

"Are you mad?" she asked.

"Perhaps," I said. I smiled inwardly. I had noted a tiny movement about her, and a fleeting, frightened expression, before she had answered so belligerently. I saw that she was female.

I glanced toward the door.

"There is a woman warder?" I asked.

"Do not rouse your hopes," she said. "She does not enter the cell." "Who are you?" I asked.

"Claudia, Lady of Ar's Station," she said.:Where were you caught?" I asked.

"On the parapet," she said. "I did not even know I was suspected until I felt the rope on my neck."

I sat down in the straw, facing the door. "Tell me of these things," I said. "Doubtless my story, in its way, is not much different from yours," she said.

"Perhaps," I said.

She spoke more freely, not under my eye.

"I did not receive the promotion and advancement which were my due here," she said. "I wanted even missions to Ar herself, but others were chosen in my place. How wrong this was!"

"Continue," I said.

"I am a beautiful and brilliant person," she said. "Yet my perfections were insufficiently rewarded."

"Perhaps you are only a pretty mediocrity," I said.

"My talents were ignored," she said, angrily.

I thought she might, if only latently, have excellent woman talents.

"Then the Cosians were upon us," she said. "We were all in fear of our lives. It became clear, after weeks, that Ar was not coming to our rescue. It would be everyone for himself. The clever must save themselves. I would be clever. Sometimes at night the women go to the parapets, to lower baskets with money, for food. Some women, as you probably know, particularly those without money, stripped themselves and lowered themselves over the wall, surrendering to the first Cosian they met, selling themselves into slavery for so little as a crust of bread or a handful of gruel."

There was still food, though it seemed not much of it in the city. For example, even she, a caught spy, was still being fed. The women who did this, I suspected, lowering themselves naked over the wall, their bodies brushing and touching the stone in their descent, had had motivations deeper than hunger. Hunger, however, might have provided a convenient and excellent rationalization for their action. The nudity of the suppliants, of course, was only to be expected. Stripping themselves, baring their breasts, and such, is natural for female suppliants, before men. the nudity, too, would make clear their intent, and make it less likely that they might, in the darkness, be slain as mere fugitives. Nudity, too, makes it difficult to conceal weapons. For example, sometimes, when slaves are taken to Ubars, and such, they are stripped and wrapped in a scarlet sheet, if they are "red silk," and in a white sheet, if they are "white silk." They are then placed in the master's chambers, often through a panel in the door, the sheet remaining behind. A girl normally makes the journey only once in a white sheet, of course. Nudity, all in all, is not uncommon, in women surrendering to men. it is also not uncommon, of course, in slaves presenting themselves before masters.

"I see," I said.

"But such was not for such as I," she said. "I had no wish to risk being hooded and chained in a crossing stall in Tyros, being used to breed quarry slaves for Chenbar, the Sea Sleen."

I rather doubted that she, who was slight, delicious and well-curved, would have to fear that fate. Too, most women would spend very little time in a crossing stall. How long, after all, she placed there without slave wine, at the exactly ideal moment in her breeding cycle, does it take to impregnate a slave? Most such slaves are used in this fashion only once or twice, and then they are assigned other duties.

"I formed the habit of going to the wall with the other women, "fishing, as we spoke of it. I made certain, of course, that I went to the same place on the wall at the same time each night. The first few times I put money in the basket. Later, when I increased the amount of money, I received some bread and vegetables. Can you imagine? A silver tarsk for a few suls?"

"The prices are higher now," I said. I recalled there had been a golden tarn disk in the basket which had been lowered to me at the foot of the wall. "Then," she said, "I began to put messages in the basket, innocent ones at first, asking questions about the position of the relieving forces, and such." "I understand," I said.

"But my intent seemed quickly grasped," she said, "for shortly thereafter, with food, concealed under the cloth, in the bottom of the basket, were questions pertaining to conditions in the city."

"Did you respond to these?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"You were at that point a spy," I said.

"I did not think so, yet," she said. "Such information was surely general knowledge."

"Not necessarily to those outside the city," I said. "To be sure, there are usually informers, if not traitors, sometimes several, who can be relied upon for such details."

"the next time I drew up the basket," she said, "there was a very specific question, concealed in a wedge of Sa-Tarna bread. "Are you for Cos? it asked. The next night I lowered the answer, "Yes. "

"You were then a traitress," I said.

"Ar's Station had betrayed me!" she said. "It had not given me what I wanted! It had not even given me missions to Ar. Too, do you think that I, a person such as I, wanted to remain out here, on the Vosk River, all my life?"

"What happened then?" I asked.

"I then made clear my position, that I would bargain, and bargain severely." "You requested food?" I asked.

"I had food," she said. "I had hoarded it from the beginning of the siege, when it was still thought that Ar, any day, would arrive with her banners fluttering in the wind, dispelling the Cosians like the sun the fogs on the river!" "For gold then?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "for gold, and jewels!"

"It seems you have little gold and few jewels now," I said.

I heard her move angrily in the straw.

"Once you had declared for Cos," I said, "I think you would have been wise not to begin bargaining for monetary returns."

"Why not?" she said.

"Because you had declared for Cos," I said. "Cosians, like those of Ar, or elsewhere, expect those whose allegiance has been freely given to serve as those who have given their allegiance freely, and not as merchants or mercenaries." "What difference does it make?" she asked.

"Occasionally such things mean the difference between riches and a collar," I said.

"I protected myself in my bargaining against such possibilities," she said, "demanding, as conditions of my cooperation, not only riches but my safety and freedom."

"That you not be made a slave, for example."

"Yes," she said. "But, suppose," said I, "that in the meantime, perhaps by others, you had been made a slave."

"Then that," she said, "would be the end of it. I would then be a slave. A slave is a slave."

"True," I said. The Cosians had agreed not to make her a slave, not to free her, if she had already been made a slave. As she had said, a slave is a slave. "I, too, demanded power in Ar's Station, should the city not be destroyed, for there were those here, those who had not granted me preferments, on whom I would have my vengeance. I even wanted some of the women consigned to me as slaves, so that I could sell them to men."

"You were thorough," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"You needed then only count on the honor of Cos."

"Men are honorable," she said.

"So, too, are some women," I said.

"My allegiance it to myself," she said, angrily.

"There are dispositions for women such as you," I said.

"I do not understand," she said.

"Proceed," I said.

"My terms agreed to," I said, "I received extremely specific instructions. These instructions to the supply of information on various topics, matters pertaining to supplies within the city, the condition of the gates and walls, and which were the weaker and less defended points, the numbers of the active garrison, civilian and military, the relative distributions and dispositions of these components, the numbers of the ready militia, the posting of guardsmen, the timing of their watches, and such. I could not find such things as the signs and countersigns. Too, I understand they are changed daily."

"Generally," I said.

"Bit by bit," she said, "I parceled out such information, as I could acquire it, each night. To be sure, some of the things I could not learn. In return I now received gold and jewels."

I smiled.

"Did you make your name known to your confidant, or more likely, confidants, at the foot of the wall?" I asked.

"I was too clever for that," she said. "I did, however, demand, and receive, a letter of safety, and an acknowledgment of services rendered, made out to the bearer."

"You are a clever woman," I said.

"I am extremely clever," I said.

"How came you then to be naked in a cell?" I asked.

She made a tiny, angry noise.

"Continue," I said.

"Perhaps I had excited suspicion," she said. "Perhaps guardsmen had noted my appearance frequently on the wall, at the same time and place. Once I had to strike another girl away from my place, fighting her for it. She did not understand my intensity. She had thought it perhaps only an excellent place for fishing. But it was my place! Perhaps my inquiries in the city, or my going about, examining places, had been noticed. Perhaps suspicions had been cast upon me by enemies. Perhaps some were angry that I had not had my hair cut for catapult cordage. Perhaps they were jealous of my beautiful hair! But I was a free woman! They could not make me have my hair cut, make me cut my beautiful hair!"

Her hair, now, of course, had been cropped.

I heard a small sound outside the cell, perhaps someone passing in the corridor outside. It must be, I thought, in the neighborhood of noon.

"Continue," I said.

"I grew bold," she said. "I would be rich. I saw Ar's Station, to my satisfaction, grow weaker each day. But when it fell, I would be safe! Too, I would have my vengeance on my enemies!"

"The city, of course, would be likely to be destroyed," I said.

"Either way I would have my vengeance," she said.

"I see," I said.

"Too," she said, "as you may recall, I had reserved my pick of certain women, to be consigned to me as slaves."

"Personal enemies?" I said.

"Of course," she said.

"Whom you might then sell to men?"

"Yes," she said. "And that pleasure would presumably remain mine even if Ar's Station were burned to the ground, and salt cast upon the ashes!"

"Of course," I said. "And so I went again to the wall, as I had so many times," she said. "This time the papers hidden in my basket pertained to the defenses at the great gate, the posting of guardsmen, the arrangement of their watches, and such. I put the basket over the wall, through the same crenel, and had begun to lower it. I had even feigned some weakness on the parapet, stumbling a little, as though I might be faint with hunger. I thought that I had acted skillfully. My attention was on the rope and basket. Then I felt the loops of a rope put about my neck, closely, tightly, and I was drawn backward. "Do not make a noise," said a voice. But I could not have made a noise, had I wished, so tight was the rope. I had made a noise, had I wished, so tight was the rope. I had wanted to drop the basket but I had had no opportunity to do so. There were three men. as one man had put his rope on me, making me his prisoner, another had taken the rope from my hands. A third, standing back, had a dark lantern. I had not even heard them approach. It took them only a moment, in the unshuttering of the dark lantern, to rifle beneath the cloth and money in the basket and find the papers. Their nature was immediately determined. I was immediately stripped. The rope which had made me its prisoner was then fastened on my neck as a tether. My clothing was put in the basket and lowered. I gathered that the nature of its message would not be lost on him, or those, below. The rope was then drawn up again and removed from the basket. My arms were then bound tightly to my sides with it, in what seemed a hundred coils. It is hard for me to make clear to you how helpless I felt. I was then drawn to my home, where my money and jewels were found, notes on my next reports and the letter of safety, with the acknowledgment of services. I was then conducted as I was, bound and naked, on a tether, before Aemilianus. I was knelt before him so. The evidence pertinent to my case, both from the parapet and from my home, was presented before him. That very night, I was put in this cell, as I am.

"And you now await the pleasure of those whom you betrayed," I said. "Yes," she said. In her voice there was terror.

I heard a sound behind the door, the placing of a pan on a stone.

"And what is your story? she asked. "I am a courier of Gnieus Lelius, Regent of Ar," I said, "mistaken for a spy." I was sure that there was significant treachery in Ar, and in high places. The regent's message, I was sure, had been removed from, or had never been inserted in, the letter cylinder. A substitution had been made, doubtless, of the contents of the cylinder or cylinders themselves. I had not, of course, seen the regent place the message in the cylinder and seal it. There would be nothing unusual in that, of course, for it is not permitted that couriers be present at such times. Seldom are they privy to the councils of state. Normally they simply receive the sealed letter or closed cylinder, or such, from a subordinate, later, and are on their cylinder, or such, from a subordinate, later, and are on their way.

"No! she said. "You are lying! You are trying to save yourself! You, too, are a spy!"

"Perhaps," I said.

The observation panel in the door slid back. Lady Claudia quickly hurried forward, to kneel a few feet before the door, back from it, thusly, but in easy view from the panel. "Kneel beside me," she whispered, tensely. "We are fed but once a day!" I saw no one in the observation panel. I remained sitting, as I was. "Kneel beside me," begged Lady Claudia. I then heard something like a stool or platform scrape on the stones outside the door. A moment later I saw a small head rise up behind the panel, that of a child or woman. I could see little, but it seemed to be a delicate head, covered closely with a white, scarflike turban, and I saw deep eyes, and a bit of veil, over the bridge of a fine, delicate nose.

"I se, Lady Claudia," said a woman's voice, from behind the door, amused, "that you will not be so lonely now."

"Glory to Ar!" cried Lady Claudia, frightened. Then she turned to me. "Kneel beside me," she begged, "or we will not be fed!"

I knelt beside her, and the woman behind the door laughed. Then she snarled, "Spies!" I did not think I could get my hand through the panel, as it was narrow. "Glory to Ar," said the woman behind the door.

"Glory to Ar! Glory to Ar! Glory to Ar!" cried Lady Claudia. Then she turned, distraught to me. I had been silent. "Please!" she begged.

"Glory to Ar," I said, three times. The woman behind the door laughed.

I wished I had a way to get my hands on her. Her small, turbaned, veiled head then disappeared from behind the opened panel and, a bit later, the low panel slid back and a pan of water was slide partway beneath the door. Lady Claudia went to it and took it back to the right, where she emptied it in a small, shallow cistern in the cell. She then slid it back under the door, and returned to kneel where she had been before. It did not seem probably I could get my hand well through the low portal, to seize an ankle or wrist. It was worth considering, of course. A male warder, taller, could see through the observation panel, and determine that we were kneeling in our proper places, at the same time that he might shove pans beneath the door with his foot. The woman would, however, would not be tall enough for that.

Her head again appeared behind the panel.

"Food pan forward," she said.

Lady Claudia immediately fetched a shallow pan from the side and put it about five feet in front of where she now again knelt. I gathered she had been well trained in these feeding procedures. Presumably to have put the pan forward earlier, before receiving the order, or permission, would have been regarded as presumptuous, and perhaps have resulted in its remaining empty for the day. "You are pretty, naked, Lady Claudia," said the voice.

Lady Claudia choked back a sob.

"Glory to Ar!" said the voice behind the door, sternly.

"Glory to Ar!" cried Lady Claudia, three times. I repeated this formula, as well, three times.

The head then disappeared again from the panel. At the same there was a tiny scrape, as of wood on stone, probably from a platform on which she had stood. There was then silence, no sound of pans, or such. I quickly, to the consternation of Lady Claudia, moved to the observation panel and looked through it. I saw the warder going down the corridor. She was barefoot, and wore tatters which barely covered her calves. These tatters appeared to be the remains of what had perhaps once been a double dress, now shortened. The hems of both the inner and outer skirt, doubtless in their shortenings, had been deeply serrated, each in a series of some seven or eight large, triangular points. These points were alternated in such a way that those of the inner skirt appeared between those of the outer skirt. Thus, though the general appearance of the garment suggested rags, they were, in their way, contrived rags. In a way, though she perhaps did not understand this, they invited a man to their removal. Perhaps it was her hope that if the city fell such a garment might save her life, sparing her for the collar. The white, scarflike turban on her head, I supposed, was a vanity, to conceal shortly cropped hair. The veil, of course, was appropriate for a free female. I observed her calves, her bare feet, the cleverly contrived rags she wore. Perhaps she had already rehearsed how she would surrender herself to a man. If the time came, I was sure, stern warder though she might pretend to be, she would submit herself quickly enough and appropriately enough, ending her farce, accepting nudity and a collar, to a master. She bent down and picked up a bucket, and, before she turned back, I left the observation panel and returned to my place.

"Do not leave your kneeling position at such a time," begged Lady Claudia, tears in her eyes.

The head appeared behind the observation panel and found us in our places. As soon as it left the panel this time I bent down to see if it might be possible to seize her somehow from under the door. But, to my irritation, a pan, into which had been ladled some meal and a piece of bread was thrust beneath the door with a rod. Lady Claudia rushed to the pan and placed the meal and bread in the cell's food pan some five feet in front of her and then replaced the delivery pan half under the door. It was pulled back with the rod. The warder, given that she was a female, had been well taught suitable alterations in the common routines of warders. Doubtless, too, somewhere there were men about, to back her up, if need be. I was angry. I then straightened up in time to be in place when she looked through the panel again. The use of the two pans is not primarily for security as one pan could be used, or an exchange of pans, provided suitable distances between the prisoners and the warders are maintained, but rather to keep pans localized to given cells. This helps to prevent the spread of infections and makes each cell responsible for its own hygiene.

"Please give us more to eat!" cried Lady Claudia.

"You are too fat now," said the warder. "Please!" begged Lady Claudia.:Lady Claudia, in my opinion, was certainly not fat. On the other hand, it was probably true that she had been better fed than most in Ar's Station, at least prior to her incarceration in the cell, given her former hoarding and the additional food she had obtained at the wall, in the basket.

"Are you afraid your pretty complexion will suffer?" asked the warder. "Please!" said the Lady Claudia. "Please!"

The panel slid shut.

"The she-sleen!" cried Lady Claudia. "How I hate her!" she clenched her fists. "I hate her! I hate her!" she said. She pounded her fists on the stone, the blows softened by the intervening straw. Then she looked dismally, angrily, at the bit of meal and the crust of bread in the pan. "Surely it is their intent to starve me!"

"Us?" I asked.

"Yes, us," she said.

"You are probably being fed as well as most in Ar's Station," I said. The men on the walls, hopefully, would receive more. Yet those I had met had seemed half starved. "Too," I said, "it is not unlike the rations given to new slave girls in their training period, when they are being taught their dependence on me for their food."

She made an angry noise and stood up. She made as though to move to the pan, but stopped short. "Oh!" she said. My hand had closed about her ankle.

"Get on your belly," I told her.

"What are you doing?" she exclaimed, angrily. She could not advance toward the food.

"Now," I said.

Angrily she went to her belly and I drew her back a foot or two by the ankle. She put out her hands but could not reach the food. I then got up and went to the pan. I picked it up and took it back, toward the back of the cell, where I sat down, cross-legged, the pan before me. She turned about, not daring to leave her belly, to look at me.

"You may approach," I told her. "But do not come close enough to touch the food."

She squirmed forward, desperately.

"Are you hungry?" I asked. "Yes!" she said.

"Would you like to eat?" I asked.

"Yes!" she said.

"Perform," I said.

"No!" she cried. "I am a free woman!"

"Very well," I said. I paid her no more attention. I fingered some of the meal into my mouth. It was in a glutinous, semisolid glob. It was neither sugared nor salted.

"Please!" she cried. She had not risen from her belly.

"Do you think you are still alone in the cell?" I asked.

"Please!" she begged.

I fingered more of the meal, a good two fingersful, into my mouth.

"I will perform!" she said.

"Stand up," I said, "back a bit, where I may see you." I put the pan to one side, on the straw, on the stone, and looked at her. She was not a woman of Earth. A woman of Earth, if not beaten, and swiftly forced to learn her womanhood, would doubtless have held out for a time, confident that Gorean men, like those to whom she had become accustomed on her native planet, would prove to be weak, that they would yield to her. They learn, soon enough, however, that the average Gorean male simply does not share the conditioned political conceptions of the female, which in so many cases have succeeded in crippling, weakening and demasculizing the men of Earth. She finds that she is viewed rather in the context of biology and nature. She quickly learns, too, that where women are concerned, and thus where she is concerned, the average Gorean male has a will of iron. She also quickly learns that he has, personally and culturally, the power to enforce this will.

"Stand straight," I said, "the palms of your hands on the sides of your legs." She did so.

The spy was lovely, though there was a kind of hardness, and nastiness, about her.

"Perform," I said.

"For such performances," I said, it is hard to believe that the guards would have fed you."

She looked at me, angrily. "Now," I said, "perform for me, as you did for them." "Not bad," I said, fingering more of the meal into my mouth. I was, after all, hungry, too. I had not eaten since early morning, at the small tent I had shared with Phoebe. To be sure, Lady Claudia would not have had anything since noon, the day before.

"Please!" she said.

"But I," I said, "am more demanding than the guards. Do you understand?" I put more meal into my mouth.

"Yes!" she said. She then began, again to try to please me, this time even more desperately. She did not do badly. Then, after a time, I helped her, giving her detailed instructions, putting her, here and there, and about the cell, through detailed woman paces. Then she lay on her belly before me, gasping, covered with sweat. I motioned that she should kneel near me, and I placed her hands on her thighs. I rubbed my hand on her head. The short-cropped hair was wet with sweat. I then, having her lean forward, eagerly. Sometimes I made her stretch, holding the food just a little out of her reach. Sometimes I had her lick and suck my fingers, too, which she did eagerly enough, that none of the meal would be lost. Then we had finished the bit of meal and bread between us. She knelt back, regarding me reproachfully.

"Stand," I said, "back a bit, where I can see you, straightly, with your hands on the sides of your legs, as you did before."

I then rose up and went to her, and looked at her, walking about her. Then I stood again before her.

I put my hands on her upper arms. "Look at me," I said. She lifted her head. "You are hard, and petty, and nasty," I said.

She looked up at me, angrily.

"But you are pretty," I said.

She did not respond.

"Yes," I said. "You will do."

"Do?" she said.

"Yes," I said.

"I do not understand," she said.

"Do not tire me," I said. I then flung her back, behind where we had stood, to the straw, and put her to my purposes.