Renegades of Gor (64 page)

“Surely,” said Aemilianus. “I, you, the others, all of us, we have all be

pronounced renegades.”

“Should Ar not be warned?” he asked.

“And what do you think we, we who were abandoned by Ar, we whom she holds in

dishonor and contempt, we whose Home Stone she spits upon, we whom she has

pronounced renegades owe to her-—now?”

“We own her nothing,” said Marcus, bitterly. “But I would still see her warned.”

“And so, too, would I,” said Aemilianus, smiling. “So, too, would I.”

“But of what is she to be warned?” he asked.

“And to whom would you speak?” I asked.

“We do not know for certain what is going to happen,” said Aemilianus. “At the

moment we have little but our suspicions, our fears.”

“Ar will destroy the Cosians in the north, and then destroy them in the south,”

said Marcus.

“Quite possibly,” said Aemilianus.

“Then there is nothing to do,” he said, slowly.

“Not now,” said Aemilianus.

We were now within the harbor at Port Cos. The piers were some three hundred

yards away, jammed with people. Music came from them. Pennons waved. The pharos

on its promontory was behind us now, to port, something like a pasang away. The

flotilla, entering the harbor, with its flags and streamers, would be a splendid

sight. Already, too, from the piers, it would be able to be seen that the two

slaves hung (pg.426) from the outjutting display beams on either side of the

concave bow of the Tais.

“Do not concern yourself now about such matters,” said Aemilianus to the young

warrior. “Rejoice now. We have come safe to Port Cos.”

The slave whip snapped again, loudly, sharply, unmistakable in its definition

and authority. The two girls cried out again, startled. Publia jerked in her

harness as though she might have been struck, but it had not touched her.

Claudia, too, winced, but, too, it had not touched her.

“Publia, Claudia!” said the keeper.

“Yes, Master!” said Publia.

“Yes, Master!” said Claudia.

“You, Publia,” he said, “prepared well to surrender yourself to Cosians.”

“Yes, Master,” she wept.

“You, Claudia,” he said, “were a traitress to your city.”

“Yes, Master,” she wept.

“And you are not both slaves,” he said.

“Yes, Master!” they said.

“And so,” he said, “you will enter Port Cos as the slaves, and sluts, you are.”

“Master?” asked Publia.

“The movements of your hips, and your squirmings and glances,” he said, “will

leave no doubt as to the fittingness of your bondage.”

“Master!” wept Publia, in protest.

“Please, no, Master!” called Claudia.

“Your movements for the most part,” said the keeper, “will be slow and sensuous,

but terribly meaningful, sexually. These may be mixed upon occasion with sudden,

perhaps surprising, movements, almost spasmodic, or spasmodic, in nature. I

trust that you understand these things. If there is difficulty in the matter it

may perhaps be clarified by the whip.”

Publia threw back her head and wept, in the harness.

“You, Publia, first,” he said. He then required of her a variety of forward and

backward movements of the lower belly, and then lateral movements of the hips.

These things ranged, in their varieties, from almost imperceptible extensions

and shadings, to sharp, forward thrusts, such as bumps (pg.427) and buckings,

and from scarcely detectible lateral movements, to tantalizing or abrupt

movements, to rhythmical swayings. He had Claudia, too, do these things. “Now,”

said he, “consider transitions among such movements.” My hands clenched on the

rail. The slaves were beautiful. “Now,” said he, “slow, rotatory movements of

the hips, slow, agonizingly slow, grinding movements!” I thought that many on

the piers might have to hurry their own girls home, if they could make it that

far. I was almost in pain.

“Well done, girls,” said the keeper. “And do not forget the beauty of your

breasts, and your squirmings, your glances and smiles.”

Publia cried out in misery.

We were now something like a hundred yards from the piers. Two of the fellows on

the bow deck already had the forward lines in hand.

“It has been decided, slaves,” said the keeper to them, “hat you will be sold at

auction. In order, however, that you come into the keeping of Cosians,

attendance at the auction, save by sales personnel, will be limited to Cosians.

After a Cosian buys you, of course, he can do with you what he wants. We are now

nearing the pier. I will point out various Cosians in the crowd, for there will

be several. They are recognizable by their habiliments. You will then direct

your glances and your movements particularly to them. Be pretty. Arouse interest

in yourselves. We want them sweating blood when they bid for you!”

Aemilianus was already raising his hand to the crowds. There was much cheering.

“Look!” cried a fellow on the dock, pointing to the slaves.

“Yes!” said a man. “Yes!” cried another.

“Sensuous sluts!” laughed a man.

Claudia cried out with misery, but did not cease to move.

As so many were waving to us, I, too, with many of the others, at the starboard

rail, waved back.

All seemed a riot of music and color.

“There,” said the keeper, gesturing with his whip, as we drew alongside the

pier. “There is a fellow of Cos! Present yourselves to him! You are female

slaves! Do it! And there is another!”

“I am not such a girl!” suddenly cried Claudia.

(pg.428) Then she threw back her head and shrieked, as the lash, like lightning

and fire, struck about her body.

She dangled and jerked in the harness, sobbing, though she had been struck but

once.

“I am such a girl!” cried Publia, fervently, seeing the keeper turn toward her.

“I am such a girl!”

“If she is recalcitrant, or not pleasing,” cried slave girls on the pier,

“strike her! Strike her! Punish her! Punish her! Punish her severely!”

Slave girls, kept under strict discipline themselves, they wanted it imposed on

others with the same authority, exactness and perfection that it was imposed

upon them. They were deeply concerned that Claudia not be permitted to get away

with anything, no more than they. Was she, too, not a slave girl? Thus,

interestingly, it is often slave girls themselves who are most zealous to see

that masters are strict with their slaves.’’

The keeper turned back toward Claudia.

“I, too, am such a girl!” she cried out, wildly, swinging in the harness.

Clearly she did not wish another blow from the disciplinary instrument. Yet,

too, I think that the matter was far deeper than that, and this became clear but

an instant later. The chain-and-leather harness, incidentally, is muchly open.

That is what one would expect, considering its display purposes. On the other

hand, a consequence of this openness, also, of course, is that it affords

little, or no, protection, from the slave whip. Claudia swung in the harness to

face me. Our eyes met. “Yes!” she cried. “Yes! I am such a girl!”

“You are,” I assured her.

“Yes!” she wept. “Yes!”

I saw then that her small rebellion had been no more than a foolish sop to her

pride, one perhaps she thought in order, I wondered if she had uttered her silly

noise only because I was there, who had known her when she was a mere free

woman. I hoped not. But in any case, whether because of her own pride, in

itself, or her concern that I who had known her as a free woman was about, or

because of the strangers in the crowd, or the other slave girls, or whatever,

how woefully out of place was the absurd utterance in her new reality! But then

I saw in her eyes, she half laughing, half crying, that whatever had been her

motivation, whether some or all of (pg.429) the things I had wondered about, or

even others, that she had only wanted the reassurance of the whip, the

reassurance of the inflexibility of the will of men, that she must now obey, and

was truly a slave. Moving as she did, and being what she was, a slave, was the

deepest and most wonderful thing in her being, and she reveled in it, and loved

it! She had wanted only the clear understanding that she must now surrender to

it, that she was now truly a slave. She was elated in the harness.

“There!” said the keeper, pointing out a fellow with the coiled whip.

She swung about. “Am I pretty, Master?” she cried. “Will you bid upon me?”

“Bid upon me!: cried Publia to him. “I need a collar and a man!”

“There is another,” said the keeper.

“Perhaps it will be you who will own me?” called Claudia to him.

The forward lines were cast to fellows on the pier. Ina moment they were made

fast to mooring cleats.

There was much cheering, and waving, and calling out, between the pier and the

railing. Drums and pipes on board the Tais sounded. A plank was being run out to

the pier. The following ships in the flotilla, scarcely less resplendent than

the Tais herself would, in moments, in turn, take their own berths.

“What manner of slaves are those?” called a fellow on the pier, apparently, by

his garb, a Cosian, to the keeper on the bow deck. “Are they common slaves?”

“They are as common as you will have them!” shouted back the keeper.

“They are not branded, are they?” asked the fellow. “They are not collared!”

“Such details will be soon attended to,” laughed the keeper.

I did not doubt it. Goreans are efficient about such matters. For an instant

Publia, startled, and Claudia, frightened, stopped writhing in the harnesses. It

was, after all, their own branding and collaring of which the men were speaking!

“Move,” growled the keeper.

Then again they moved, frightened, obedient slave girls.

There was laughter from the pier.

(pg.430) “Wriggles!” called out a slave girl to them.

“Squirm! Squirm, Kajirae!” called out another.

“Do you not know how to squirm?” laughed another girl.

“How is it that these two are at the prow?” called another fellow.

“They squirm well,” said a man.

“Writhe—writhe—more slowly,” said the keeper to them.’

“Aiii!” cried a man.

“How is it that these two are at the prow?” called the fellow again.

“Stop,” said the keeper to the two slaves. Motionless were they then, their arms

high, their bodies beautifully elongated, stretched out, suspended from the

outjutting beams in the shackles and harness.

“Beautiful!” cried a man.

The keeper then, with his coiled whip, in two expansive gestures, one to port,

one to starboard, indicated, and called attention to, the lineaments of the

figures of the two lovely slaves. “Can you not guess?” he asked the fellow who

had asked the question.

“Yes!” said the fellow.

“Are they not worthy to be at the prow?” asked the keeper.

“They are!” called out more than one man. And they were worthy not only because

of the beauty of their figures, so well displayed, but because of their facial

beauty as well.

I saw a slave girl in her skimpy tunic, scarcely a rag on her, nuzzling a

fellow, rubbing her face and head against his left shoulder. She was trying to

distract him from the suspended slaves. She was urging a consideration of her

own not inconsiderable charms upon his attention.

“But perhaps, too, there is another reason!” hinted the keeper.

“Oh?” asked his questioner.

“This one was call ‘Publia,’” said the keeper, “and this one ‘Claudia.’” As he

said these names, he reached out, and, in turn, Publia first, flicked each of

them with the whip. At this touch, even as light and playful as it was, each of

them recoiled in dread. Both had now felt the whip at one time or another,

indeed, Claudia only a moment ago. There was more laughter. “They were both free

women of Ar’s Station,” (pg.431) continued the keeper. “Publia dressed in such a

way that her caste, that of the Merchants, would be concealed.”

A Cosian merchant in the crowd cried out in anger.

“And that none would know she was wealthy!” said the keeper.

“She is not wealthy now!” cried a man.

“Let her now serve the wealthy!” called out a well-dressed fellow.

“Or serve a master of low caste,” called out a fellow in the garb of the metal

workers, “with the same or greater perfections than would be required of her in

a high house!” I smiled. A great deal, indeed, is expected in low-caste

domiciles of slaves who were formerly of high caste. To be sure, they no longer

have caste then, of any sort. Even the lowest of castes is then undreamt-of

heights above them, for in such houses they are only animals.

“She was determined to survive the fall of Ar’s Station, whatever might prove to

be the fate of her sisters in the city,” said the keeper.

There were cries of anger.

“Thus, by such means as provocative dress and habiliments, baring even her

calves, hoping then to be taken for a lowly, beautiful, meaningless maid, by

even refusing to cut her hair on behalf of the city’s needs, an act by means of

which she hoped to appear more attractive to strong men, more attractive than

might her sheared sisters, and a lack which, incidentally, as you can see, has

been made up upon her, and by carrying gold with her, not shared with her