Mariners of Gor (76 page)

I regarded Callias’ gift.

The Pani had tied her kneeling, and bent tightly over. Her head was down, to the floor, and was held in place, in slave humility, by a short, taut cord which ran from her collar back, under her body, to her small, crossed, thonged ankles. In this way any pressure is at the back of the neck, away from the throat. Her small wrists were also crossed, and thonged together behind her back. She was, thus, cruelly and tightly bent over, a small, compact, nicely curved, well-tethered, attractive bundle of slave meat. She had also been blindfolded and gagged.

I again regarded her.

She was totally helpless, and unable to either see or speak.

I went again to the door, and again addressed the stranger. “Ho!” I called. “Come and see your gift!”

He then turned, though I fear reluctantly. Indeed, I had feared he might have left the warehouse.

“What is it?” he called.

“I fear it is negligible,” I said. It was, after all, only a slave.

“Good,” he said.

He had been denied passage on the
River Dragon
, which had been of desperate importance to him. What then might compensate him for a loss so grievous? A valuable gift would have been, under the circumstances, cruel, or insulting. A negligible gift thus, at least, demonstrated that Lord Nishida and Tarl Cabot understood and respected his feelings, acknowledging, in this way, the accepted disparity involved, that the values involved were incommensurable.

He approached the door, and I stood aside.

He stopped within the threshold. He stood still, there, as though shocked, as in disbelief. He put a hand to the door jamb, on his right, suddenly striking it, to steady himself. He wavered. I feared, for a moment, his knees would buckle. Was this the man, I asked myself, who had faced mutineers, who had stood before a gate at the World’s End? He trembled. He tried to speak. No words emerged. He shook his head, twice, as though to assure himself that what he saw was real.

“Are you well?” I asked. “What is wrong?”

He did not respond to me.

“You need not accept it,” I said, “but I think it would be churlish not to do so. When the ship is gone, which will apparently be soon, sell it. It is your right.”

“Can it be?” he said. “Can it be!” he cried.

“No one would blame you,” I said. “Not Lord Nishida nor Tarl Cabot.”

“Aii!” he cried out, suddenly, and flung himself on his knees, beside the object, his dagger free.

“Do not kill it!” I cried, alarmed.

I seized his arm, holding it.

“Do not be enraged!” I said. “Do not take your disappointment out on the slave. She is innocent! She is only a slave. See, she is bound! She is blindfolded! She is gagged! She can help nothing!”

I struggled to hold his arm.

I could not determine if he were laughing, or crying.

“Innocent?” he cried. “A slave, innocent! See her beauty! You say she can help nothing! Every movement, every wisp of her hair, is guilty! Her ankles, her wrists, her bosom, her eyes, her lips, her feet, her hands, each quarter hort of her, each bit of her, each particle of her is guilty! Innocent? A slave, innocent! Does her beauty not wrench the heart of a man! Might not her smile slay with the swiftness of a quarrel? Is her touch not more dangerous than that of the ost? Does she not make a man helpless! Might she not conquer with a whisper, a caress? A kiss might breach the walls of a city, overturn the thrones of Ubars! What net, what web, can compare with her laughter?”

“Do not be concerned,” I said. “They are animals, she-sleen! Keep them in collars. Hold the whip over them. They understand the collar, the lash! It is a question of who will be master. They crave strength, not weakness! Freed they are the bitterest and most frustrated, the subtlest and slyest of enemies. In their collars, they are content, appetitious, desirable, grateful, and fulfilled. They find the wholeness of their joy only when they are choiceless, and mastered. Men seek their slaves, and women their masters.”

He pulled his arm away from me, and the dagger swiftly parted the cord that held her head down, fastened to her feet.

Her eyes must have been wild, open, but unable to see anything, blocked in the darkness of the blindfold. She made tiny, helpless, piteous, desperate noises, scarcely detectable outside the sturdiness of the gag, its tight, encircling leather perimeters.

The Pani had done their work well.

The slave could neither see nor speak.

“Kneel her up,” I said. “What does her collar say?”

As the collar was light, it seemed to me likely that it was a private collar, not a public collar, not, say, a ship’s collar.

“Read it,” he said.

“I cannot read Pani script,” I said. I had seen samples of it amongst the trading tables.

“You can read it,” he said.

“Ah!” I said.

I could indeed read it.

“It is in familiar Gorean,” I said.

“Tarl Cabot,” he said.

“But the gift, surely,” I said, “is from Lord Nishida.”

“Yes,” said the stranger. “He is a
daimyo
.”

The collar read as follows: “I am Alcinoë. I belong to Callias, of Jad.”

“It was for this,” I asked, “that you would have ventured to the World’s End, for this, a mere slave?”

“Yes,” he said, “for this, a mere slave.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

A Scribe Concludes an Account

“Wine, Master?” said my slave.

“Wine, Master?” said the slave of the stranger.

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes,” said the stranger.

They served the wine well, kneeling beside the two small tables, behind which we sat, cross-legged, touching the goblet softly, tenderly, appropriately, to their body, then lifting it, and licking and kissing the goblet’s rim, as they looked over the rim, into the eyes of their masters, then lowering their heads humbly between their extended arms, both hands on the goblet, proffering the goblets to the masters.

My slave had done well in the market, and I was quite pleased. The ka-la-na, for example, was excellent. I was impressed as she was a barbarian. I wondered if the slave of the stranger would have done as well. For example, when she had been free, given her station, she had probably had few experiences making her way amongst the stalls and baskets.

The ka-la-na was indeed excellent.

I wondered how much that had to do with her market skills, and how much might have had to do with her smiles and the brevity of her tunic. To be sure, for a slave, one supposed a sharp distinction amongst such things might not be warranted.

* * * *

It had taken Callias only a moment, in the back room of the warehouse, at the side of the slave, to cut away her bonds, and tear loose the blindfold and gag.

“Master! Master! Master!” she had wept, joyfully, clutching him, melting against him.

“Oh!” she cried.

“Do not break her back,” I warned, for he held her with possessive address, with ferocity.

I supposed few free women had ever been so held, unless they were on their way to the marking iron, the collar.

She drew back for a moment and her lips were reddened, and bruised, and the lower lip bleeding, and then she thrust them, again, wildly to his.

“Stand,” I said to Callias. “She is a slave. Put her to your feet!”

But, both kneeling, they clung to one another, kissing, each weeping.

I stood to one side, embarrassed, if not dismayed, at this demonstration.

“It is only a slave,” I said.

“Yes!” he gasped.

“Are you going to keep it?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, “yes!”

“For a time, at any rate,” I said.

“Yes!” he said. “Yes!”

I feared he was not attending much to me.

“I take it,” I said, “that that is Alcinoë. That was the name, at any rate, on the collar.”

“Yes,” he said.

“I gather you do not need now to journey to the World’s End, as it, so to speak, has been brought to you.”

He mumbled something, but the words were blurred, as he had his mouth on the side of her neck, under her hair.

“I suppose Lord Nishida, and perhaps Tarl Cabot, suspected you had some interest in this slave. Otherwise, certainly her presence here would seem fortuitous. Are you listening to me? She is a well-formed slave, but you could probably trade her in, at a slave house, for a better, given an extra coin or two.”

“No,” I think he said.

“I do not much care for that tunic,” I said, “it is too long, too heavy, too opaque. A scrap of silk would better remind her that she is a slave.”

He then put her at arm’s length, and looked upon her, enraptured.

“What color are her eyes?” I asked.

But I received no answer, for they were again in one another’s arms. Her eyes, as I later ascertained, were brown. It seemed difficult to communicate with Callias at the time.

“Is she white silk?” I asked.

“I do not know,” he mumbled.

“Surely you are interested,” I said. To be sure, a white-silk slave is quite rare.

I was having not much fortune in conversing with Callias, and so I thought I might try it with the slave. “May she speak?” I asked Callias.

“Yes,” he said. “Certainly.”

I was alarmed for Callias. Apparently he had given the matter very little thought. In any event, it seemed he accorded her a standing permission to speak. Many masters do, but, of course, with the understanding that that permission is revocable at any time. He had not even made the slave wait, in unsettled apprehension, for a time, to see what might be his decision in the matter. Whereas many masters do accord their girls a standing permission to speak, many others do not, but expect the slave, under normal conditions, at least, to request permission to speak, before speaking. Fewer things make it clearer to a woman that she is truly a slave, than that she may not speak without her master’s permission.

“Slave,” I said.

“Master?” she said.

“Are you white silk or red silk?”

“White, white, white!” she said, continuing with her kisses, then licking at the shoulder of her master, thereby confessing herself the more his loving, begging beast.

That answer, it seemed to me, was clear enough. I supposed that she had been kept white silk deliberately. I would not have guessed, however, from the sheen of sweat on her body, her avidity, the eagerness of her kisses, the wetness of her hair back against her neck, that she was white silk. As mentioned, white-silk slaves are rare. Often there is not one in a slave house.

Given the look of this slave, who was quite beautiful, though I had seen many better, it seemed unlikely she was truly white silk. Her body, its deliciousness, its vitality, its movements, its pressings and brushings, its piteous closures with, and its desperate touchings against, the master, its pleadings, did not suggest white silk. To be sure, there is a simple test for such things, often conducted by slavers. If she were truly white silk now, it was interesting to speculate on what she might be if red silk, if become the victim of irresistible slave fires. How easily a slave may be managed, and controlled, by such things! Must she wait? Will one choose to satisfy them, and how often, and in what way, and to what extent? A red-silk slave is often deprived of attention for some days, say, four or five, before being brought to the block, that she may writhe in the sawdust, extend her hands pathetically, and howl her need to the buyers.

“Have you had your slave wine?” I inquired.

I thought this a judicious question, and one that might not occur to Callias, and the slave, given the reckless pitch of their activities. A sober head is not amiss in such matters. It also seemed a good question to ask, too, as the slave, if white silk, did not seem destined to long remain in that condition.

“Yes, Master,” cried the slave, gasping, “that horrid stuff was forced down my throat shortly after my first collaring, and when I first came aboard the great ship, that of Tersites, and before I was landed, at the World’s End, and again, here at Brundisium, before I was brought ashore.”

I was well satisfied in this. Indeed, given improvements in slave wine, dating back some years, brewed from the sip root, the first administering of the wine would be sufficient indefinitely, until the administration of a releaser, which removes its effects. The releaser, I am told, unlike slave wine, which is quite bitter, is quite pleasant, rather like a sweet wine, or fruit liqueur. It is usually administered when it is decided that the slave is to be bred. Sometimes slave wine is administered more than once. There could be several reasons for this, for example, one might not know if it has been administered before, and one might wish to make sure of the matter, or one might simply wish additional security in the matter, which seemed to explain the dosage at the World’s End, or that before bringing the slave ashore in Brundisium. Too, one might administer it as a punishment, rather like a whipping or a night in close chains. Needless to say, if the slave comes with papers, a certification with respect to slave wine, and the date of its most recent administration, will usually be included in the papers.