Slave Girl of Gor (58 page)

The gross, corpulent man looked at one of his lieutenants, a helmeted fellow who stood nearby. They exchanged glances.

I had, by this response, identified myself for them. The identification would be confirmed by the next responses.

The corpulent man looked at me, and shifted his weight, rotund, immense and slack, on the cushions.

"You are commanded by Belisarius, Slave Girl," he said. I did not know if 'Belisarius' was his true name, or a code name for the contact.

I knew now, however, incontrovertibly, that this was the contact, this was the specific individual to whom I was expected to communicate the intelligence which I supposedly conveyed.

I wanted to cry out that I knew nothing. The small eyes, deep in the fat of the heavy face, regarded me.

"What is the command of Belisarius, the slave girl's master?" I asked. I could scarcely hear myself speak.

"It is simple," said the voice.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Bead a necklace, Slave Girl," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

A strange state of consciousness seemed suddenly to come over me. I was aware of what I was doing, and yet it seemed as though I behaved in terms of some prearranged pattern.

It was again almost as though I were in a dream.

I reached toward the strands of thread on the table, and toward the cups of tiny beads.

I do not know why I first chose a yellow bead, but I did, And then I chose a blue bead and a red, and then another yellow. I began to bead a necklace.

I knotted the end of the thread on the necklace.

I lifted it to Belisarius. One of his men took it, carefully, and handed it to him. He placed it on the dais before him.

I shook my head. Strangely, as soon as the necklace had been taken from me, my natural state of consciousness returned. The behavior, whatever might have been its import, had been discharged. It was as though I awakened from a dream.

I saw Belisarius looking carefully at the beads before him. I had strung the same order of beads more than once, to complete the necklace. Too, the necklace was long and loose, like most slave necklaces. It would loop at least twice about a girl's throat. It seemed to be indistinguishable from thousands of necklaces which I had seen on the throats of slave girls.

It did not take Belisarius long to regard the necklace.

Suddenly he pounded his heavy fist on the dais with pleasure. "At last!" he said. "At last!"

The men about him did not ask what significance he had found in the necklace, nor did Belisarius explain to them what he had seen in the arrangement of the beads.

I felt a knife at my throat. "Shall we kill her?" asked a man behind me.

"No," said Belisarius. "The message has now been delivered."

"What if she falls into the wrong hands?" asked a man.

"It would not matter," said Belisarius. He looked at me. "Bead the same necklace, Slave Girl," he said.

I trembled. Suddenly I knew I could not. I could not remember the order of the beads.

"I cannot, Master," I said. "Please do not kill me!"

"Even if she could rebead the necklace," said Belisarius, "its message could not be understood, and, even if it could be understood, it would be meaningless to others." He laughed. "And even if its meaning could be understood, it would be too late for the enemy to act. They could then understand only the danger in which they would then stand."

The knife was drawn away from my throat. I' almost fainted on the tiles.

Belisarius regarded me. "Besides," said he, "the Lady Elicia wants the pretty little thing for a serving slave."

"The Lady Elicia," said one of the men, "would, I wager, look well naked and in a collar."

The men laughed.

"Perhaps later," said Belisarius, "when she has served her purposes."

The men laughed.

I felt my hands being tied behind my back. The wadding of the gag of the slave hood was rolled and thrust deep in my mouth. The gag straps were drawn back, deeply, between my teeth; I winced; then, behind the back of my neck, they were cinched, tightly.

I looked at Belisarius, bound and gagged before him. "Use her for wench sport," he said, "and then return her to the Chatka and Curla."

The slave hood was pulled up, and opened, and then pulled down and over my head; it was folded and tucked under the chin, taking up its slack, and the leather belt, looped twice about my neck, was drawn through its loops, tightened and buckled shut.

By one ankle I was pulled across the tiles to the side of the room.

20

A Slave Girl's Revenge

I walked in the morning, an Ahn before noon, on the wharves of Telnus. I could see the great gates of the harbor some two pasangs across the water. The harbor was filled with many craft. I avoided the tar on the planks of the wharf. Beneath the planking of the wharves, here and there, I could see water, and small boats tied at pilings. Men came and went, going to and from ships, and disembarking and embarking cargo. I passed the throne of the wharf praetor, he in his robes, with the two scribes, for the settling of disputes which might occur on the quays. Four guardsmen, too, were there.

They grinned at me as I walked past, and I smiled back at them. They were handsome guardsmen, and I was a slave girl.

But I must not annoy them, soliciting their patronage for the tavern, for they were on duty. I had been struck five times across the back of the legs, my wrists held, when I had made this mistake before. The praetor was a sour fellow.

After I had delivered the message to Belisarius, and had served to amuse his men, I had been returned to the Chatka and Curla, still hooded, and bound in the slave sack, as I had been brought from it, by the same men, through the secret door in the rear of the alcove. I had been removed from the sack in the alcove, unbound, unhooded and ungagged. The man who had taken me from the alcove and returned me to it then swiftly used me for his pleasure, and left, through the customary, leather-curtained door. I was left behind in the alcove, naked and had. I put on the garments of the tavern. I looked behind the hanging at the rear of the alcove. There was a stout door there, made of iron. I put my finger tips on it. Timidly, softly I tried the handle. It was now locked. It had been locked, apparently, behind the man who had brought me back into the alcove. There was no key or lock mechanism on my side of the door. It may have been, of course, that the door had been left unlocked originally, and that it had locked automatically, when closed, behind the man when he had re-entered the alcove, returning me to it. I did not know. I did know that it was now locked, and that I could not open it. I let the hanging fall back, concealing the door. Even had I been able to open it, I would not have dared to go through it. Suppose I had been found in an area where I was not supposed to be. I did not know what would be done to me. On the whole surface of the planet there was nowhere to run, nowhere to go. I was a slave girl. I left the alcove, to return to my duties on the floor, those of a paga slave. The man who had taken me from the alcove and returned me to it had not, incidentally, as nearly as I could tell, conducted me to and from the house of Belisarius. I had been carried and transported for a time in a small boat, and, for a time, in a cart. Hooded, and captive in the slave sack, I had no sense of direction and very little of time. I gathered, from what I had heard, that contacts had been made by men wearing masks, who spoke signs and countersigns. I doubted that my original captor himself knew the identity of these other men.

"Paga!" had cried a man, and I had fled to serve him.

After I had delivered the message I was no longer under the same security which I had earlier experienced at the Chatka and Curla. Sometimes now, like certain other girls, I was permitted to wander forth, before the busy hours of the tavern, to solicit patronage for its proprietor, my master, Aurelion of Cos. I wore the belled collar, and belled ankle ring, of the tavern, and a bit of black silk. On the silk, in yellow, there were words, which Narla had translated for me. "I am Yata. Own me at the Chatka and Curla." I was barefoot. I wore a red kerchief, for my hair had not as yet fully regrown.

I saw a sailor, and ran to him, kneeling at his leg, touching it.

"Does Master desire paga?" I asked.

"Begone, Slave," he said.

I drew back, and he strode away, with the rolling gait of his profession.

I looked about, at the boxes and bales on the wharves. I did not bother the men who were busily engaged. Their foremen did not wish them distracted by the presence and banter of a slave girl. More than once they had taken their belt to me, driving me from the vicinity of the men.

I perched on top of a large box on the wharves, holding my legs closely together.

I enjoyed the smell of the salt water, the sight of the soaring harbor gulls. I wore a collar, and was clad for the pleasure of men. But I was not unhappy.

When I had first been sent to the wharves, some weeks ago, my wrists had been braceleted behind me, and I had been accompanied by other girls: later I had been permitted to go alone, my wrists still locked behind my back; later I had been permitted to go alone to the wharves in wrist rings and chain, my hands before my body, separated by some twenty inches of light, gleaming chain; there are many things, clever, subtle exciting things a girl may do with such a chain; some of these were shown to me, and others I invented, sharing them with other girls at the tavern; girls struggle to become ever more perfect, and beautiful, in their slavery; girls often share slave secrets; I struggled hard to learn all that I could, to become more pleasing to masters; something in me was not displeased to belong to men; at one time such a thought would have horrified me, and I would have thrust it wildly from my consciousness, not daring to regard it; now I entertained it with a shameless pride; I had become a slave girl. One thing that was shown to me was the slave bridle; the male takes the light chain back between the teeth of the girl and holds it, together, behind her neck, thus, too, pinning her hands there, helplessly; he then controls her by means of the bridle; my own invention was the chain kiss; one clasps the leg with the chain against the interior of the thigh, and then, from the side of the knee, one begins to kiss the leg, one's lips and teeth hot about the chain; the male feels both the chain and her mouth, biting and kissing, climbing the chain; she climbs the chain and descends it, and climbs it again, until he orders her to leave it.

I heard the sounds of chains, and a whip. Below me I saw a line of prisoners, men of Ar who had been captured on the Vosk River in the river fightings. Cos and Ar, I knew, were at war, contesting commerce rights on the western Vosk. There were some twenty of them. They wore rags. Their wrists were manacled behind them. They were in neck coffle. The chain was heavy.

"Hurry, Sleen!" called their whip master. There were four guards with them.

One man fell and the whip master was upon him in an instant. He struggled again to his feet and continued on, in the coffle, trudging along the hot wharf.

They would be taken to a holding area, I knew, and there branded slave. They would then row on the merchant galleys of Cos. Warships commonly have free oarsmen; merchant ships commonly, but not always, use slaves.

Seeing the men, sweaty, chained, under the whip, I was affrighted. It was a grim fate which awaited them, the confinement and pain of the benches, the weight of the long oars, the shackles, the whip, the drum of the hortator, the stench, the black bread and onions of the ponderous galleys.

Then I thought that such a fate was too good for them, for they were of Ar. I remembered Clitus Vitellius, who had sported with me, and then discarded me. I remembered I hated Clitus Vitellius. How I hated him!

But I felt sorry then for the men of Ar.

They were not Clitus Vitellius.

Better it were Clitus Vitellius in their place! But he was a noble captain of Ar, and would not be involved in the insignificant skirmishes on the Vosk.

The prisoners, the men of Ar, disappeared down the wharf. I dropped down from the box on which I had sat.

Aurelion of Cos would not be pleased if I did not bring customers to the Chatka and Curla.

I was not chained now; the last four times I had been permitted to come to the wharves unchained; Aurelion, I think, was pleased with me. Once he had ever permitted me to serve his pleasure. How proud I had been, and how envious the other girls had been. I struggled to be fantastic to him. I think he was not displeased. Afterwards he had, before leaving, thrown a candy to the floor before me which I, gratefully, in the manner of the Chatka and Curla, which was necessary, had picked up in my mouth. "Thank you, Master," I had said. The candy was hard and very sweet. I showed it off to the other girls. "I pleased the master," I boasted. "He once gave me five candies," said Narla. "Liar!" I cried. I knew the master had never even called for her. We leaped toward one another. Tima, the first girl, had separated us with a whip.

I looked about the wharves.

A long ship, I could see, was moving into its wharfage, its lateen sail furled on the long, sloping yard. It was a warship of Cos. I saw other girls, from other taverns, running down to its mooring.