Raiders of Gor (37 page)

blade.

“It is torture and impalement for you, Midice,” I said.

“No,” said Tab. “It is my fault. I forced myself upon her.”

“No, No!” cried Midice. “It is my fault! My fault!”

“Torture and impalement,” I said to her. Then I regarded Tab. “You have been a

good man, Tab,” I gestured with my blade. “Defend yourself,” I said.

Tab shrugged. He did not draw his weapon. “I know you can kill me,” he said.

“Defend yourself,” I screamed to him.

“Very well,” said Tab, and his weapon left its sheath.

Midice flung herself on her knees between us, weeping. “No!” she cried. “Kill

Midice!”

“I shall slay you slowly before her,” I said, “and then I shall deliver her to

the torturers.”

“Kill Midice!” wept the girl. “But let him go! Let him go!”

“Why have you done this to me!” I cried out to her weeping. “Why? Why?”

“I love him,” she said, weeping. “I love him.”

I laughed. “You cannot love,” I told her. “You are Midice. You are small, and

petty, and selfish, and vain! You cannot love!”

“I do love him,” she whispered. “I do.”

“Do you not love me?” I begged.

“No,” she whispered, tears in her eyes. “No.”

“But I have given you many things,” I wept. “And have I not given you great

pleasure?”

“Yes,” she said, “you have given me many things.”

“And have I not,” I demanded, “given you great pleasure!”

“yes,” she said, “you have.”

“Then why!” I cried out.

“I do not love you,” she said.

“You love me!” I screamed at her.

“No,” she said, “I do not love you. And I have never loved you.”

I wept.

I returned my blade to its sheath.

“Take her,” I said to Tab. “She is yours.”

“I love her,” he said.

“Take her away!” I screamed. “Leave my service! Leave my sight!”

“Midice,” said Tab, hoarsely.

She fled to him and he put one arm about her. Then they turned and left the

room, he still carrying the unsheathed sword.

I walked slowly about the room, and then I sat on the edge of the stone couch,

on the furs, and put my head in my hands.

How long I had sat thus I do not know.

I heard, after some time, a slight sound in the threshold of my quarters.

I looked up.

In the threshold stood Telima.

I looked at her.

“Have you come to scrub the tiles?” I asked, sternly.

She smiled. “It was done earlier,” she said, “that I might serve late at the

feast.”

“Does the kichen master know you are here?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No,” she said.

“You will be beaten,” I said.

I saw taht, about her left arm, she wore again the armlet of gold, which I

remembered from so long ago, that which I had taken from her to give to Midice.

“you have the armlet,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“How did you get it?” I asked.

“From Midice,” she said.

“You stole it,” I said.

“No,” she said.

I met her eyes.

“Midice gave it back to me,” she said.

“When?” i asked.

“More than a month ago,” said Telima.

“She was kind to a Kettle Slave,” I said.

Telima smiled, tears in her eyes. “yes,” she said.

“I have not see you wear it,” I said.

“I have kept it hidden in the straw of my mat,” said Telima.

I looked on Telima. She stood in the doorway, rather timidly. She was barefoot.

She wore the brief, stained, wretched garment of a Kettle Slave. About her

throat, locked, was a simple, steel collar. But she wore on her left arm an

armlet of gold.

“Why have you worn the armlet of gold?” I asked.

“It is al I have,” she said.

“Why have you come here at this time?” I asked.

“Midice,” she said.

I cried out and put my head in my hands weeping.

Telima timidly came closer. “She did care for you,” she said.

I shook my head.

“She cannot help it if she did not love you,” whispered Telima.

“Go back to the kitchens!” I wept. “Go back now, or I will kill you.”

Telima knelt down, a few feet from me. There were tears in her eyes.

“Go away,” I cried. “or I will kill you!”

She did not move, but knelt there, with tears in her eyes. She shook her head.

“no,” she said, “you would not. You could not.”

“I am Bosk!” I cried, standing.

“yes,” she said, “You ae Bosk.” she smiled. “It was I who gave you that name.”

“It was you,” I cried, “who destroyed me!”

“If any was destroyed,” said she, “it was not you, but I.”

“You destroyed me!” I wept.

“You have not been destroyed, my Ubar,” said she.

“You have destroyed me,” I cried, “and now I shall destroy you!”

I leaped to my feet, whipping the sword from my sheath and stood over her, the

blade raised to strike.

She kneeling, looked up at me, tears in her eyes.

In rage I hurled the blade away and it struck the stones of the wall thirty feet

across the room and clattered to the floor, and I sank to my knees weeping, my

head in my hands.

“Midice,” I wept. “Midice.”

I had vowed once that I had lost two women, and would never lose another. And

now Midice was gone. I had given her the richest of silks, the most precious of

jewels. I had become famed. I had become powerful and rich. I had become famed.

I had become powerful and rich. I had become great. But now she was gone. It had

not mattered. Nothing had mattered. And now she was gone, fled away in the

night, no longer mine. To me she had chosen another. I had lost her. I had lost

her.

“It is hard,” I said to Telima, “to love, and not to be loved.”

“I know,” she said.

I looked at her. Her hair had been combed.

“You hair is combed,” I said.

She smiled. “One of the girls in the kitchen,” she said, “has a broken comb, one

that Ula threw away.”

“She let you used it,” I said.

“I did much work for her,” said Telima, “that I might, one night, when I chose,

use it.”

“Perhaps the new girl,” I said, “to please the boy Fish, will sometimes wish to

use the comb.”

Telima smiled. “The she, too,” said Telima, “will have to work.”

I smile.

“Come here,” I said.

Obediently the girl rose to her feet and came and knelt before me.

I put out my hands and took her head in my hands. “My proud Telima,” I said, “my

former mistress.” I looked on her, kneeling barefoot before me, my steel

collared locked on her throat, in the scanty, miserable, stained garment of the

Kettle Slave.

“My Ubar,” she whispered.

“Master,” I said.

“Master,” she said.

I drew the golden armlet from her arm, and looked at it.

“How dare you, Slave,” I asked, “wear this before me?”

She looked startled. “I wanted to please you,” she whispered.

I threw the armlet to one side. “Kettle Slave,” I said.

She looked down, and a tear ran down her cheek.

“You thought to win my favor,” I said, “by coming here at this time.”

She looked up. “No,” she said.

“But your trick,” I told her, “has not worked.”

She shook her head, no.

I put my hands on her collar, forcing her to look directly at me. “you are well

worthy of a collar,” I said.

Her eyes flashed, the Telima of old. “You, too,” she said, “wear a collar!”

I tore away from my throat the broad scarlet ribbon, with its pedant medallion,

with the tarn ship and the intitials of the Council of Captains. I flung it from

me.

“Arrogant Slave!” I said.

She said nothing.

“You have come to torment me in my grief,” I told her.

“No,” she said, “no!”

I rose to my feet and flung her to the tiles of the bed chamber.

“you want to be first girl!” I cried.

She stood up, looking down. “It was not for that reason that I came here

tonight,” she said.

“You want to be first girl!” I cried. “You want to be first girl!”

She looked suddenly at me, angrily. “Yes,” she cried, “I want to be first girl!”

I laughed, pleased that she had spoken her guilt out of her own mouth.

“you are only a Kettle Slave,” I laughed. “First Girl! I am going to send you

back to the kitchens to be beaten, Kettle Slave!”

She looked at me, tears in her eyes. “who will be first girl?” she asked.

“Doubtless Sandra,” said I.

“She is very beautiful,” said Telima.

“Perhaps,” I asked, “you saw her dance?”

“Yes,” said Telima, “she is very, very beautiful.”

“Can you dance thus?” I asked her.

She smiled. “No,” she said.

“Sandra,” I said, “seems eager to please me.”

Telima looked at me. “I, too,” she whispered, “am eager to please you.”

I laughed at her, that she, the proud Telima, would so demean herself.

“You resort well,” I said, “to the wiles of the slave girl,”

She dropped her head.

“Are the kitchens that unpleasant?” I taunted her.

She looked up at me, angrily. There were tears in her eyes. “You can be

hateful,” she said.

I turned away.

“You may return to the kitchens,” I told her.

I sensed her turn to move toward the door.

“wait!” I cried, turning, and she, too, in the doorway, turned.

And then the words that I spoke did not seem to come from me but from something

within me that was deeper than the self I knew. Not since I had knelt bound

before Ho-Hak on the rence island had such words come from me, so unbidden, so

tortured. “I am unhappy,” I said, “and I am lonely.”

There were tears in her eyes. “I, too,” she said, “am lonely.”

We approached one another, and extended to one another our hands, and our hands

touched, and I held her hands. And then, weeping, the two of us cried out,

holding one another.

“I love you,” I cried.

And she cried, “And I love you, my Ubar. I have loved you for so long!”

16
   
What Occurred One Night in Port Kar

I held the sweet, loving, uncollared thing in my arms.

“My Ubar,” whispered Telima.

“Master,” I said, kissing her.

She drew back, reproachfully. “Would you not rather be my Ubar, than my Master?”

she asked.

I looked at her. “Yes,” I said, “I would.”

“You aer both,” she pronounced, again kissing me.

“Ubara,” I whispered to her.

“Yes,” she whispered, “I am your Ubara--and your slave girl.”

“You wear no collar,” I pointed out.

“Master removed it,” said she, “that he might more easily kiss my throat.”

“Oh!” I said.

“Oh!” she cried.

“What is wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she laughed.

I felt her back, and the five weals left there by the switch of the kitchen

master.

“But a few hours ago,” said she, “I displeased my master and he had me beaten.”

“I am sorry,” I said.

She laughed. “How silly you sometimes are, my Ubar. I left your side unbidden,

and so, of course, I was beaten.” She looked up at me, laughing. “I have richly

deserved many beatings,” she confided, “but I have not always received them.”

Telima was Gorean to the core. I myself would always be, doubtless, at least

partly, of Earth. I held her. There could never be, I told myself, any question

of sending this woman to Earth. In tht overcrowded desert of hypocracies and

hysterical, meaningless violences, she would surely wither and blacken, like

some rare and beautiful plant of the marshes uprooted and thrust down among

stones to die.

“Are you still sad, my Ubar?” she asked.

“No,” I told her, kissing her. “No.”

She looked at me, gently. And touched my cheek with her hand. “Do not be sad,”

she said.

I looked about and found the golden armlet. I slipped it once again on her arm.

She leaped to her feet, standing on the furs of the couch, and threw her left

arm into the air. “I am Ubara!” she cried.

“Commonly,” I said, “a Ubara wears more than a golden armlet.”

“On the couch of her Ubar?” asked Telima.

“Well,” I admitted, “I do not know about that.”

“I do not either,” said Telima. She looked down at me, brightly. “I shall ask

the new girl in the kitchens,” she said.

“You wench!” I cried, grabbing her ankle.

She stepped back swiftly, and then stood there, regally on the furs.

“How dare you address such a word to your Ubara, Slave!” demanded she.

“Slave!” I cried.

“Yes,” she taunted, “Slave!”

I cast about for the slave collar I had taken from her throat.

“No, no!” she cried, laughing, almost losing her footing in the furs.

Then I had the collar.

“You will never collar me!” she cried.

She darted away, laughing. I, laughing, leaped from the couch, pursuing her. She

ran this way and that, and dodged back and forth, laughing, but then I had her

pinned in the corner of the room, her arms held down by the walls and my body,

and snapped the collar again on her throat. I lifted her and carried her again

to the furs and threw her down upon them.

She jerked at the collar and looked up at me, as though in fury.

I held her wrists down.

“You will never tame me!” she hissed.

I kissed her.

“Well,” she said, “perhaps you will tame me.”

I kissed her again.

“Ah,” she said, looking up at me, “it is not unlikely that in the end I will

succumb to you.”

I laughed.

But then, as though infuriated by my laughter, she began to struggle viciously.

“But, in the meantime,” she hissed, between clenched teeth, “I shall resist you