Witness of Gor

43

I lay in the iron box, my knees drawn up. I was no longer bound or gagged. I was in some basement beneath a basement, I thought. We were still within the city, I was sure. I had no idea where in the city, in what district or quarter, we might be. Indeed, had I known, the names would have meant nothing to me. There had been very little light in the streets after we had left the vicinity of my master’s house. The streets had soon become very narrow and crooked. The footing, too, must have been uneven, judging from the movements of the box. We had evaded the watch once, but only soon after leaving my master’s house, by withdrawing into a deserted courtyard. As we had not later encountered the watch, or guardsmen. I conjectured that our present district or quarter must be a poor one, one far from affluent areas, perhaps even a dangerous one, one on which the city might not care to waste its forces. We had entered a building. I had been carried down a long, winding flight of stairs. Then, in some subterranean area, a trapdoor had been lifted, and I had been carried down, further. I had been told, and it was doubtless true, that cries from such a place could not be heard outside, that they would be unavailing, even the most piercing screams. Indeed, the place had doubtless been chosen, at least in part, because of this property.

I moved a little in the box, to ease my body. Its iron sides were so strong. I was so cramped within!

Such boxes are sometimes used for slave discipline.

I had been taken out of the box at various times, to be fed and watered, and permitted to relieve myself, on a leash, only to be returned to it later. Too, once, while I was out of the box, the golden collar had been cut from my neck. Even the fittings from the saw had been gathered in a silken napkin, laid under my head and neck, my hair tied up, over my head. The collar, even the filings, were of value. The two men continued to wear masks. Their accents were like those of most of the guards in the house, but I did not recognize them as from among those guards. They were, I think, local hirelings, indeed, ruffians of some sort, brigands. It was only too clear that they were interested in the collar, for its gold. But then, too, of course, it would make sense that it be removed, as it bore on itself, engraved upon it, the name of the house of my master. After the golden collar had been cut away, and the napkin, with its filings, carefully gathered up and folded, I had been led, held by the hair, my head held at the hip of one of the men, to an anvil. My head and neck were laid upon it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a sturdy, rounded bar of iron. This bar was bent into a curve, but the curve was not closed on one side. It was shaped rather like the letter C. this was put about my neck. I saw a heavy hammer rise. Then, as I closed my eyes, this bar, with powerful, expert strokes, was shaped about my neck. The C had now become a closed circle. The curve was regular; the two ends were flush. It had been well put upon me. I suspected that my captor, he who had wielded the hammer, might be, or might once have been, of the Metal Workers. I could no more removed the collar, of course, than I could have opened a link in a heavy chain, one which might have held a ship, with my fingers. No longer, then, did I wear a collar of gold. I now wore a simpler collar, indeed, a collar that was no more, in fact, physically, than a ring of iron. To be sure, legally, socially, and psychologically, a collar is a collar, and it marked me as a slave. Indeed, it marked me as a very lowly slave, or, more likely, one who had now been put, for one reason or another, in a temporary collar, perhaps for purposes of transit, or prior to her sale, or such. There are also strap collars which are similar, in which a flattened strap of metal is beaten around the neck, usually also for similar purposes. “Do not fear,” had said one of the men to me. “Even this will be removed, if your ankles are to be tied together and weighted, and you are to be cast into a carnarium.”

It was three days ago, I think, that I had been brought to this place.

From where the box had been put on the floor I could look out though the perforations and, in the light of the lamp in the room, it set on a small table, see Aynur.

Shortly after we had first come to this place the box had been put on the floor and one of the men had ascended the stairs again, to put down the trapdoor, and lock it shut, from the inside.

When he came downstairs, putting the key away in his wallet, he went to Aynur, who was standing, and brushed back her hood. He then unhooked the cloak and opened it, holding it open for a time, regarding her. She was in her silks, again, the sleeveless, silken scarlet vest, tied shut with a mere string, and the belly silk, scarlet, too, in the Harfaxian drape, fastened at the left hip with a golden clasp. Her earrings, her bangles and bracelets, her armlet, her talmit, had been removed before the mat check. My ornaments, including even the tiny golden earrings, had been removed earlier, before I had been switched in the garden. It is common to account for, and lock up, such valuables at night. One would not want, for example, a girl trying to barter such things, bracelets and such, for, say, the caress of a guard. Before coming to arouse me, on the pretext of taking me to the master, I supposed that she must have donned her silk. That would have been safer than wearing it under her silken sheets. For mat check, Aynur, under the lamp of the house master, under her sheets, was to be as bared as any other girl. She was, when all was said and done, only another flower. Let her beware then lest the house master should in his check lift back the sheets and not find her naked.

The fellow then slipped the cloak from Aynur’s shoulders. It fell back, behind her, on the floor.

“Turn about,” he said.

She obeyed, and, in a moment, he had unlocked her slave bracelets, those which he had put on her in the small room, those lovely, linked, twin confinements by means of which her wrists had been pinioned behind her. He returned the bracelets to his wallet.

“Go to the straw by the wall,” he said. “Stand there, in the light of the lamp.”

She did so.

I realized that Aynur was a quite beautiful woman, and, without her talmit, and her switch, and, now, in the presence of the men, did not seem, really, different from the rest of us.

“May I speak?” asked Aynur.

“No,” said the man.

Yes, she seemed rather like the rest of us now.

“She is a high slave,” said one of the men to the other.

“That was before,” said the first man.

“She was first girl in the house of Appanius,” said the other.

“Do you think you are first girl, and that you are now in the house of Appanius?” inquired the first man of Aynur.

“No, Master,” she said.

“Do you think you still wear the talmit?” he asked.

“No, Master,” she said.

“Are you a high slave?” asked the first man.

“Yes, Master,” she said, hesitantly.

“No, you are not,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Are you a proud woman?” asked the first man.

“I do not know, Master,” she said, uncertainly.

“If you are,” he said, “you will soon be cured of that.”

“Yes, Master,” she said, frightened.

“We do not coddle slaves here,” he said.

“No, Master,” she said.

“You have ten Ihn,” he said, “to strip, and kneel where you are, on the straw.”

Frenziedly Aynur fumbled with the string at her vest, at last jerking the vest open and slipping it back. With her right hand she seized the golden clasp at her left hip and opened it, flinging the silk to the side and dropping to her knees.

“On your back,” said one of the men.

Swiftly Aynur obeyed.

She then served them.

After a time, I heard one of the men ask her, “Are you proud?”

“No, Master,” she cried. “No, Master!”

and then I realized that Aynur, indeed, was now no different from the rest of us. She was now only another slave, at the mercy of masters.

That had occurred, I think, three days ago, at any rate within a few minutes of our having come to this place. I could now see Aynur though the perforations of the slave box. She was sitting at the wall, naked, on the straw, her knees drawn up, her head down, hair before her face, her wrists up, tied together, over her head, fastened to a ring in the wall. I thought the men were very cruel to her. Surely they showed her little mercy. Sometimes felt sorry for her, even though she had brought me into their power. These men, masked ruffians, brigands, I thought, were not gentle with slaves to begin with. They were the sort of men who would master a woman with great strictness, the sort of men whom we know we must please and obey, with no nonsense about it. But, too, I think they were cruel to her because she had not kept properly the office of the first girl, because she had dishonored her trust, because she had entered into an intrigue, because she had coveted gold, because she betrayed her master. Such things tend not to be overlooked by the men of this world. They tend to disapprove of such slaves. She was now theirs, and helpless. I did not know what they would do with her.

I looked at her, though the perforations in the slave box.

She now had her head turned toward me, looking at me, or the box. I did not know if she could see me within or not. Much would depend, I supposed, on the light. She shook her head a little, to move the hair from before her face. She would certainly realize that I would understand, if only from the voices, and the sounds, what had been done to her, and the sort of treatment which she had been accorded. Many times she had been made to thrash, and squirm, and howl with pleasure, within feet f me. She had been forced, many times, to show herself, to prove herself, helplessly, irreservedly, a female and a slave before me. Perhaps that cost her much, I such a lowly slave, and only a barbarian. Was she not made to squirm and thrash before me like the commonest pleasure slave in a tavern or brothel? Did she not kick and howl like the lowliest kettle girl? But why was I not used? These men had not so much as touched me. Her feelings must be complex, and mixed. She was a passionate woman, and all her passion had been liberated by her slavery. She, then, like the others, must have been starved in the gardens. How often could she have lain in the arms of her Camillus? Surely, seldom! And now she found herself, suddenly, at the mercy of masters who were callous, lustful brutes, being put frequently, mercilessly, to their pleasure. Her needs now, it seemed, were richly satisfied, and, as the men would have it, ruthlessly so. But her pride had been stripped from her, and before one she despised. With what joy and anguish must she have suffered, never knowing, too, what her fate was to be. And I, my feelings, too, were mixed. I envied her her uses, and had even, upon occasion, begged that I, too, might serve, but, for some reason, this had been denied to me. My slave needs were aroused, but I must not satisfy them. Once I was cuffed when I begged to hard. Too, I did not know for what I had been brought here, or who had arranged that it be so. And I did not know, either, what my fate was to be. The tiny things said to me upon occasion, or overheard, served in no way to allay my fears. I looked out at Aynur, through the perforations. She turned her head away. Her golden collar, too, had been removed, cut from her neck, the fillings, even gathered in the napkin. She, too, now, as she sat at the wall, her hands bound together, over her head, fastened to a ring, wore on her neck only a simple collar, like myself, a rounded, shaped bar of metal. And these were fitted closely to our necks.

We heard, suddenly, a tapping from above, on the other side of the trapdoor. It was not an ordinary tapping, but manifested, rather, a certain pattern, a complex pattern, which was thrice repeated.

I did not doubt but what it was a prearranged signal.

The men looked at one another.

Then one came toward me, carrying the cloak which had originally been put about Aynur in the house of Appanius. As he neared the box. I could see only his feet. He tossed the cloak over the box. I could then no longer see out through the perforations.

I heard the other man climbing up the stairs, toward the trapdoor.