Mariners of Gor (31 page)

This answer pleased me.

“You have come far in bondage,” I said.

“It is my hope to please my masters,” she said.

“You have been punished enough,” I said. “You may go.”

“Keep me,” she said. “I beg to please you!”

“Please me?” I said.

“Yes!” she said.

“How?” I asked. “In what way?”

“As a slave,” she said. “As the slave I am!”

“Do you know what you are saying?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, Master!”

“Speak,” I said.

“I beg attention,” she said.

“Attention?” I said. After all, why make things easy for a slave, particularly such a slave.

“You would make me speak, of these things, I, knowing who I once was?”

“Of course,” I said.

“Seize me, take me!” she wept, lifting her face to mine. “Put me to use! I beg it! Employ me as a means to your pleasure, a mere means! I ask nothing else, or further! I am collared! Behold me! I am a needful slave! Be kind! I beg! Put me to your pleasure! What am I for if not to please you? Put me to your pleasure, Master! Use me! I beg it!”

“And it was so,” I asked, “even from Ar?”

“Yes, Master,” she wept, putting her head down. “Even from Ar!”

I found this answer of interest.

“The deck is hard, cold, and wet,” said the tarnsman. “There is a large coil of rope nearby.”

The lantern was lifted a little higher, better illuminating what knelt at my feet, head down.

She did not now dare, her confession uttered, to raise her face to mine.

“Your use has not been given to me, slave girl,” I said.

“But you have tied me,” she said.

“As might any man,” I said.

She put her hands on my legs and looked up at me. I saw in the light of the lantern that her face was streaked with tears.

“Might not a slave find favor with Master?” she asked.

“Go,” I said.

“Master!” she begged.

“Must a command be repeated?” I inquired.

“No, Master,” she said, quickly. She then pressed her lips again, fervently, to my boots, and then rose to her feet, backed away, head down, and then turned and ran, weeping, from the lantern light, disappearing in the darkness.

“You well know how to handle a slave,” said the tarnsman.

I did not respond.

“The slut was quite ready,” said the tarnsman.

It is interesting to see how helpless slaves can be, like a blanket of heat and need. Much, I supposed had to do with the collar, with slavery itself.

Odd, I thought, how bondage can free them.

It is no wonder men put them in collars.

They belong in a collar. They want them. In the precincts of the collar they find themselves, fulfill themselves, and are whole.

“Her use is not mine,” I said.

I looked at the large coil of rope to the side.

“To be sure,” said the tarnsman, “it is scarcely the furs of love, spread on the floor at the foot of a master’s couch.”

As is well known, it is a mark of great favor for a slave to be permitted on the couch of a master.

If I owned the lovely Alcinoë, I doubted she would soon be there. Such a mark of favor is not easily purchased.

“She is a ship slave,” I said. “I do not own her.”

“It would be dangerous, as well,” he said, “for he who calls himself Rutilius of Ar finds her of interest.”

I had gathered that from long ago.

“I wonder what is his interest in her,” said the tarnsman.

“She is not without slave interest,” I said.

“She has grown in beauty,” said the tarnsman.

“That is common in the collar,” I said.

“True,” he said.

“It seems she has become a helplessly hot little slut,” he said.

“That, too, is common in the collar,” I said.

“True,” he said.

“If she were a free woman,” said the tarnsman, “I suspect she would purchase a collar, and kneel before you, begging you to make her your slave.”

I was silent.

Few free women can so conquer their pride. Slaves, on the other hand, are not permitted pride.

That is one of the attractions of a slave.

Free women often fear to be in a man’s arms, fearing what will become of them. Perhaps few understand the meaning of their restlessness, their irritations, their distractions, their turnings and thrashings in the night, or perhaps, somehow, they understand them only too well.

Many pillows have been dampened with the tears of free women.

Do they know the source of their tears?

Perhaps.

Many are the cultural expectations imposed upon the free woman. Is she not more of a slave than a slave? Abundant are her limitations; narrow are the corridors permitted for her movements; stout are the bonds of convention wherein she is bound. Can she fail to sense the invisible ties which bind her? How natural, then, imbued by unquestioned prescription and expectation, for her to justify the walls within which she is imprisoned. How natural then her pride, her aloofness, her struggle to maintain the pretenses demanded of her. What is her will compared to the weight of society? Too, is it not easy to make a virtue of necessity, that ice should commend cold, and the stone its lack of feeling? How natural then that she should, with all innocence and conviction, often with a raging earnestness, praise the treachery which has been done to her, and struggle to betray herself, to deny herself to herself. How natural then that she should compete with her sisters in her imperviousness to desire, in her frigidity and inertness, in her estrangement from herself. How glorious is the free woman! She possesses a Home Stone, as a slave may not. But she is a woman, still, and that, however denied, is adamant. It continues to exist. Its hereditary coils reign in each living particle of her body. Truth, primitive and antique, remains true. Her nature is with her, for it is herself. Does she suspect at times that there is a slave masquerading within her robes? Does she not, at times, hear the whimpers, the cries, of the slave within her? Does she not long, at times, for the collar of a master, for the weight of his chains? Does she not know in her heart that she is his rightful slave?

“You did not call for the punishment tag,” said the tarnsman, “or the thong.”

“No,” I said.

I did not care for the large women. I thought discipline, if required, was best administered to a slave by a male. That is the natural way, and is far more meaningful to the slave. She is, after all, his. And he is, after all, her master.

Too, I thought the slave had been sufficiently punished.

I glanced upward to the platform and ring, on the foremast, where Leros now stood his watch. The light of the lantern carried only partway on the mast. I shuddered.

“I would be armed,” I said.

“You are not an officer,” he said, “and not all officers are armed.”

“I would be armed,” I said.

“Then so, too,” said he, “would a thousand others.”

“The platform and ring,” I said, “is muchly open. It is an insecure, fragile fortress.”

“Less insecure, less fragile, I fear,” said he, “than a hundred others, remote passageways, darkened corners, blind turnings.”

“Had I used the slave, and Rutilius heard of it,” I said, “he might have sought me out, openly, in rage.”

“Quite possibly,” said the tarnsman.

“And you would have been near?” I said.

“Possibly,” he said.

“I am bait?” I asked.

“Possibly,” he said.

“His name,” I said, “is not Rutilius. He is Seremides, former master of the Taurentians.”

“I know,” said the tarnsman. “I know him from Ar.”

“What is the bad blood between you?” I asked.

“It is not important,” he said. “It has to do with a woman.”

“What woman?” I asked.

“Talena, Talena of Ar,” he said.

“The Ubara!” I exclaimed.

“Once,” he said.

“Why is he here, on the ship?” I asked.

“I gather he thinks I know her whereabouts,” said the tarnsman, “that he might somehow find her through me.”

“For the bounty?” I said.

“Of course,” said the tarnsman. “And an amnesty for himself, for bringing her to Ar.”

“There would be riches and freedom for him,” I said, “and great jubilation in Ar, when she was publicly impaled.”

“It would be holiday,” he said.

“Do you know where she is?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “But I suspect Seremides does not believe me. I am, in a way, much pleased that he is on the ship, as here I may kill him, and, at the least, he will be unable to pursue and capture Talena, for the bounty.”

“You know the Ubara?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“You could recognize her?”

“Yes.”

“Doubtless,” I said, “you would like to capture her and bring her shackled to the justice of Ar.”

The reward for her return to Ar was considerable, amounting to a dozen wealths, which might purchase a city or hire a hundred free companies.

“No,” he said, “I would have other plans for Talena.”

I shuddered at the tone of his voice.

I myself could recognize the Ubara, of course, but I did not think it judicious to bring this to the attention of the tarnsman.

“Where might be Talena?” I wondered.

“I do not know,” said the tarnsman.

“We have been long at sea,” I said. “By now any of a thousand hunters might have apprehended the Ubara. She may have perished naked and screaming months ago in Ar.”

“I think not,” said the tarnsman.

“Why do you think not?” I asked.

“It is late,” he said.

“I wish you well,” I said.

“Beware of Seremides,” said the tarnsman.

“I shall,” I said. “I wish you well.”

We turned about, to leave the open deck.

I doubted that I was the less in danger from Seremides, for having forgone the use of a slave. It might have been pleasant to fling her upon the coil of rope, head down, and thrust up her tunic, but one must concern oneself with discipline, and the ship. Too, her use was not mine.

Such things concern some men.

Not every man will untether another’s kaiila.

We had scarcely moved toward the port companionway leading under the stem castle when our progress was suddenly arrested by a cry from the height of the foremast.

“Ho!” cried Leros from above. “Ho! A light, a light! Ahead, ahead, a light!”

The bar sounded, struck twice.

Cabot and I hurried, followed by his lantern bearer, along the narrow port passageway about the stem castle, and stood at the bow. We heard others climb the steps to the stem-castle deck. We heard others hurrying about the starboard passageway about the stem castle, and were soon joined at the bow.

“Ahead, dead ahead!” called Leros, from above, his voice seemingly far away.

“There!” said Cabot, pointing.

Twice more the bar rang.

We could see the light now, even from the deck level.

“It is a ship!” cried a man.

“No!” said Lord Nishida, suddenly beside us. “It is too soon, too soon!”

At the same time, with a shift of the moist wind, a heavy, sweet odor emerged from the darkness.

“Turn about! Turn about!” cried Lord Nishida.

By now, given the ringing of the bar, one supposed that Aëtius, and perhaps even Tersites, and the major officers quartered astern, closest to the helmsman, had come to the command deck, the stern-castle deck, whence orders might be most conveniently and immediately conveyed to the helmdeck, some feet below.

Lord Nishida turned about and began to hurry aft. Cabot and I, and the lantern bearer, followed him. We pressed our way through excited and curious men, in their crowds, come from below decks, rushed forward.

Save for the lanterns rushing about the deck, it was dark.

The odor became more pervasive.

I heard something brush the side of the hull.

In a few Ehn Lord Nishida was at the foot of the helm deck. There were dark figures on the stern-castle.

“Put about!” cried Lord Nishida to the stern-castle deck. “Put about! Put about!”

From the darkness above came the shrill voice of Tersites. “Forward!” it cried. “Forward!”

“Fools! Fools!” cried Lord Nishida.

He clambered to the helm deck and began to fight the helmsman for the helm.

Two mariners pulled him from the helm.

“Forward!” cried Tersites.

The wind turned, and was fair, swelling the mighty sails, and the great ship, like an unleashed sleen, leaped forward.