Outlaw of Gor (21 page)

“Tal,” said one guardsman. The other, attempting to guess the stones, did not even look up.

I walked between the tents and saw the girl.

She was a blond girl with golden hair that fell behind her to the small of her back. Her eyes were blue. She was of dazzling beauty. She trembled like a frantic animal. She knelt, her back against a slender, white birchlike tree to which she was chained naked. Her hands were joined over her head and behind the tree by slave bracelets. Her ankles were similarly fastened by a short slave chain which encircled the tree.

Her eyes had turned to me, begging, pleading, as though I might deliver her from her predicament, but when she looked upon me, those fear-glazed eyes, if possible, seemed even more terrified. She uttered a hopeless cry. She began to shake uncontrollably and her head fell forward in despair.

I gathered she had taken me for another slaver.

There was an iron brazier near the tree, which was filled with glowing coals. I could feel its heat ten yards away. From the brazier protruded the handles of three irons.

There was a man beside the irons, stripped to the waist, wearing thick leather gloves, one of the minions of the slaver. He was a grizzled man, rather heavy, sweating, blind in one eye. He regarded me without too much interest, as he waited for the irons to heat.

I noted the thigh of the girl.

It had not yet been branded.

When an individual captures a girl for his own uses, he does not always mark her, though it is commonly done. On the other hand, the professional slaver, as a business practice, almost always brands his chattels, and it is seldom that an unbranded girl ascends the block.

The brand is to be distinguished from the collar, though both are a designation of slavery. The primary significance of the collar is that it identifies the master and his city. The collar of a given girl may be changed countless times, but the brand continues throughout to bespeak her status. The brand is normally concealed by the briefly skirted slave livery of Gor but, of course, when the camisk is worn, it is always clearly visible, reminding the girl and others of her station.

The brand itself, in the case of girls, is a rather graceful mark, being the initial letter of the Gorean expression for slave in cursive script. If a male is branded, the same initial is used, but rendered in a block letter.

Noting my interest in the girl, the man beside the irons went to her side, and, taking her by the hair, threw back her face for my inspection. “She's a beauty, isn't she?” he said.

I nodded agreement.

I wondered why those piteous eyes looked upon me with such fear.

“Perhaps you want to buy her?” asked the man.

“No,” I said.

The heavy-set man winked his sightless eye in my direction. His voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “She's not trained,” he said. “And she is as hard to manage as a sleen.”

I smiled.

“But,” said the man, “the iron will take that out of her.” I wondered if it would.

He withdrew one of the irons from the fire. It glowed a fiery red.

At the sight of the glowing metal the girl uncontrollably screamed, pulling at the slave bracelets, at the shackles that held her to the tree.

The heavy-set man thrust the iron back into the brazier.

“She's a loud one,” he said, shamefacedly. Then, with a shrug in my direction, as if to ask my pardon, he went to the girl and took a handful of her long hair. He wadded it into a small, tight ball and suddenly shoved it in her mouth. It immediately expanded, and before she could spit the hair out, he had looped more of her hair about her head and tied it, in such a way as to keep the expanded ball of hair in her mouth. The girl choked silently, trying to spit the ball of hair from her mouth, but of course she could not. It was an old slaver's trick. I knew tarnsmen sometimes silenced their captives in the same way.

“Sorry, Sweet Wench,” said the grizzled man, giving the girl's head a friendly shake, “but we don't want Targo coming over here with his whip and beating the tharlarion oil out of us both, do we?”

Sobbing silently the girl's head fell down again in her breast.

The grizzled man absent-mindedly hummed a caravan tune while waiting for the irons to heat.

My emotions were mixed. I had rushed to the scene to free the girl, to protect her. Yet when I arrived, I found that she was merely a slave, and that her owner, quite properly from Gor's point of view, was attending to the routine business of marking his property. Had I attempted to free her, it would have been as much an act of theft as if I had driven off the tharlarion wagon.

Moreover, these men bore the girl no animosity. To them she was just another wench on her chain, perhaps more poorly trained and less docile than most. If anything they were merely impatient with her, and thought she made too much of a fuss about things. They would not comprehend her feelings, her humiliation, her shame, her terror.

I supposed even other girls, the other freight of the caravan, might think she made a bit too much of things. After all, did a slave not expect the iron? And the whip?

I saw the other girls some thirty yards away, in camisks, the cheapest of slave garments, laughing and talking to one another, disporting themselves as pleasurably as free maidens might have. I almost did not notice the chain that lay hidden in the grass. It passed through the ankle ring of each and, at each end, encircled a tree to which it was padlocked.

The irons would soon be hot.

The girl before me, so helpless in her chains, would soon be marked.

I have wondered upon occasion why brands are used on Gorean slaves. Surely Goreans have at their disposal means for indelibly but painlessly marking the human body. My conjecture, confirmed to some extent by the speculations of the Older Tarl, who had taught me the craft of arms in Ko-ro-ba years ago, is that the brand is used primarily, oddly enough, because of its reputed psychological effect.

In theory, if not in practice, when the girl finds herself branded like an animal, finds her fair skin marked by the iron of a master, she cannot fail, somehow, in the deepest levels of her thought, to regard herself as something which is owned, as mere property, as something belonging to the brute who has put the burning iron to her thigh.

Most simply the brand is supposed to convince the girl that she is truly owned; it is supposed to make her feel owned. When the iron is pulled away and she knows the pain and degradation and smells the odour of her burned flesh, she is supposed to tell herself, understanding its full and terrible import, I AM HIS.

Actually I suppose the effect of the brand depends greatly on the girl. In many girls I would suppose the brand has little effect besides contributing to their shame, their misery and humiliation. With other girls it might well increase their intractability, their hostility. On the other hand, I have known of several cases in which a proud, insolent woman, even one of great intelligence, who resisted a master to the very touch of the iron, once branded became instantly a passionate and obedient Pleasure Slave.

But all in all I do not know if the brand is used primarily for its psychological effect or not. Perhaps it is merely a device for merchants who must have some such means for tracing runaway slaves, which would otherwise constitute a costly hazard to their trade. Sometimes I think the iron is simply an anachronistic survival from a more technologically backward age.

One thing was clear. The poor creature before me did not wish the iron.

I felt sorry for her.

The minion of the slaver withdrew another iron from the fire. His one eye regarded it appraisingly. It was white hot. He was satisfied.

The girl shrank against the tree, her back against its white, rough bark. Her wrists and ankles pulled at the chains that fastened them behind the tree. Her breathing was spasmodic; she trembled. There was terror in her blue eyes. She whimpered. Any other sound she might have uttered was stifled by the gag of hair.

The slaver's minion locked his left arm about her right thigh, holding it motionless. “Don't wiggle, Sweet Wench,” he said, not without kindness. “You might spoil the brand.” He spoke to the girl soothingly, as if to calm her. “You want a clean, pretty brand, don't you? It will improve your price and you'll get a better master.”

The iron was now poised for the sudden, firm imprint.

I noted that some of the delicate golden hair on her thigh, from the very proximity of the iron, curled and blackened.

She closed her eyes and tensed herself for the sudden, inevitable, searing flash of pain.

“Don't brand her,” I said.

The man looked up, puzzled. The terror-filled eyes of the girl opened, regarded me questioningly.

“Why not?” asked the man.

“I'll buy her,” I said.

The minion of the slaver stood up and regarded me curiously. He turned to the domed tents. “Targo!” he called. Then he thrust the iron back into the brazier. The girl's body sagged in the chains. She had fainted.

From among the domed tents, wearing a swirling robe of broadly striped blue and yellow silk, with a headband of the same material, there approached a short, fat man, Targo the Slaver, he who was master of this small caravan. Targo wore purple sandals, the straps of which were set with pearls. His thick fingers were covered with rings, which glittered as he moved his hands. About his neck, in the manner of a steward, he wore a set of pierced coins threaded on a silver wire. From the lobe of each small, round ear there hung an enormous earring, a sapphire pendant on a golden stalk. His body had been recently oiled, and I gathered he may have been washed in his tent but moments ago, a pleasure of which caravan masters are fond at the end of a day's hot, dusty trek. His hair, long and black beneath the band of blue and yellow silk, was combed and glossy. It reminded me of the groomed, shining pelt of a pet urt.

“Good day, Master,” smiled Targo, bowing as well as he could from the waist, hastily taking account of the unlikely stranger who stood before him. Then he turned to the man who watched the irons. His voice was now sharp and unpleasant. “What's going on here?”

The grizzled fellow pointed to me. “He doesn't want me to mark the girl,” he said.

Targo looked at me, not quite understanding. “But why?” he asked.

I felt foolish. What could I tell this merchant, this specialist in the traffic of flesh, this businessman who stood well within the ancient traditions and practices of his trade? Could I tell him that I did not wish the girl to be hurt? He would have thought me a mad man. Yet what other reason was there?

Feeling stupid, I told him the truth. “I do not wish the see her hurt.”

Targo and the grizzled master of the irons exchanged glances.

“But she is only a slave,” said Targo.

“I know,” I said.

The grizzled man spoke up. “He said he'd buy her.”

“Ah!” said Targo, and his tiny eyes gleamed. “That's different.” Then an expression of great sadness transformed his fat ball of a face. “But it is sad she is so expensive.”

“I have no money,” I said.

Targo stared at me, uncomprehendingly. His fat small body contracted like a pudgy fist. He was angry. He turned to the grizzled man, and looked no more at me. “Brand the girl,” he said.

The grizzled man knelt to pull one of the irons from the brazier.

My sword pushed a quarter of an inch into the belly of the merchant.

“Don't brand the girl,” said Targo.

Obediently the man thrust the iron back into the fire. He noted that my sword was at the belly of his master, but did not seem unduly disturbed. “Shall I call the guardsmen?” he asked.

“I doubt they could arrive in time,” I said evenly.

“Don't call the guardsmen,” said Targo, who was now sweating.

“I have no money,” I said, “but I have this scabbard.”

Targo's eyes darted to the scabbard and moved from one emerald to the other. His lips moved silently. Six of them he counted.

“Perhaps,” said Targo, “we can make an arrangement.”

I resheathed the sword.

Targo spoke sharply to the grizzled man. “Awaken the slave.”

Grumbling, the man went to fetch a leather bucket of water from the small stream near the camp. Targo and I regarded one another until the man returned, the leather bucket hung over his shoulder by its straps.

He hurled the bucket of cold water, from the melted snow in the Sardar, on the chained girl, who sputtering and shivering opened her eyes.

Targo, with his short, rolling steps, went to the girl and placed one thumb, wearing a large ruby ring, under her chin, pushing her head up.

“A true beauty,” said Targo. “And perfectly trained for months in the slave pens of Ar.”

Behind Targo I could see the grizzled man shaking his head negatively.

“And,” said Targo, “she is eager to please.”

Behind him the man winked his sightless eye and stifled a snort.

“As gentle as a dove, as docile as a kitten,” continued Targo.

I slipped the blade of my sword between the girl's cheek and the hair that was bound across her mouth. I moved it, and the hair, as lightly as though it had been air floated from the blade.

The girl fixed her eyes on Targo. “You fat, filthy urt!” she hissed.

“Quiet, She-Tharlarion!” he said.

“I don't think she's worth very much,” I said.

“Oh, Master,” cried Targo, swirling his robes in disbelief that I could have uttered such a thought. “I paid a hundred silver tarn disks for her myself!”

Behind Targo the grizzled man quickly held up his fingers, opening and closing them five times.

“I doubt,” I said to Targo, “that she is worth more than fifty.”

Targo seemed stunned. He looked at me with a new respect. Perhaps I had once been in the trade? Actually, fifty silver tarn disks was an extremely high price, and indicated the girl was probably of high caste as well as extremely beautiful. An ordinary girl, of low caste, comely but untrained, might, depending on the market, sell for as little as five or as many as thirty tarn disks.

“I will give you two of the stones from this scabbard for her,” I said. Actually I had no idea of the value of the stones, and didn't know if the offer was a sensible one or not. In annoyance, looking over the rings of Targo and the sapphires which hung from his ears, I knew he would be a much better judge of their value than I.