Slave Girl of Gor (67 page)

I served her as she wished, with absolute perfection. I glanced at the beaded, feminine slave whip, hanging by its loop upon the wall. I had no wish to feel it.

I looked at the mistress luxuriating in her warm bath, beautiful in the multicolored foams of beauty.

I was Judy, her house and serving slave. I kept her compartments, dusting and cleaning. I cooked and washed. I did all trivial, unpleasant and servile work for her. It was a great convenience to her to own me. Often she would send me shopping, my hands braceleted behind my back, a leather capsule, a cylinder, tied about my neck, containing her order and coins. The merchant would then fill her order, tie the merchandise about my neck, put the change in the leather capsule, close it and, sometimes with a friendly slap, dismissing me, reminding me that I was pretty, regardless of being a woman's slave, send me back to my mistress. At other times my mistress would shop and I would follow her, deferentially, to carry her purchases, eyes cast down, lest I should be caught so much as looking upon a man. A handsome male slave had once smiled at me and I, inadvertently, had reddened and basked in his pleasure. I had been turned about and marched home, to be put under the whip. The Lady Elicia, as I soon discovered, and had earlier suspected, despised and hated men. Yet, too, she found them, somehow, intensely fascinating and intriguing. Often she asked me questions which a slave girl might respond to intimately and easily if asked by another slave girl, but which were difficult to respond to if asked by a free woman. She would ask questions about the tethering and chaining of slaves, and their feelings, and what men made them do and how they were expected to speak and behave. She wanted to know intimate details of such things as what it was like to be a peasant's girl and what men exacted of girls in a paga tavern. I tried to answer her honestly. She would profess rage and indignation. "Yes, Mistress," I would murmur, putting my head down. "How pleased you must be, Judy," she sometimes said, "to have been rescued from all that, to be a woman's slave." "Oh, yes, Mistress," I would say. How could I tell her the joys of a slave girl, obeying the uncompromising, dominant male and writhing in his arms?

She lifted one fair limb, her left arm, from the foam, and washed it slowly with her right hand, regarding it approvingly.

Like many frigid women she was incredibly vain of her beauty. Did she not understand that it, and she, were biologically meaningless, if not seized in the arms of a master?

"How rude and despicable men are, Judy," she said.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

Often, in the bath, for some reason, she would speak of men and her contempt for them.

"Today," she said, "in the market, I saw a man beating a slave girl, tied to a ring. It was terrible."

"Yes, Mistress," I said. I wondered what the girl had done. I supposed she had been displeasing. I had not accompanied her today to the market. I had been left at home, chained to the ring at the foot of her couch.

"Afterwards," she said, "the miserable girl covered his feet with kisses."

"Terrible, Mistress," I said. I supposed the girl was attempting to placate her master, and express her gratitude, her joy, at his reassertion of his dominance over her.

"Yes, terrible!" said the Lady Elicia of Ar, my mistress, of Six Towers.

"Too," she said, "my errand took me, inadvertently, near the Street of Brands."

"Oh, Mistress?" I asked. Sometimes, when she went on errands, I did not accompany her.

"There," she said, "I saw a chain of girls, stripped, in the open, men looking upon them. Disgusting!"

"Yes, Mistress," I agreed.

She lifted one leg, her right, gracefully from the water. Foam and water fell from it. Her toes were pointed. Her leg was shapely.

"Do you think I am beautiful, Judy?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress," I said. She often asked me this.

"Truly?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress," I said. It was indeed true. My mistress was an incredibly beautiful young woman. She was clearly more beautiful than I.

"Do you think that men might find me pleasing?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"Do you think," she laughed, as though jesting, "that I would bring a high price?"

"Yes, Mistress," I said. She had asked me this sort of thing before. I had answered her truthfully before, and I answered her truthfully now. I wondered at her curiosity concerning such matters. I had no doubt that Elicia Nevins, on the block, naked, under the auctioneer's whip, would sell for at least a piece of gold.

She finished washing her legs, one after the other, dreamily.

I heard the small noise that I had been waiting for, for several days.

She reclined in the tub, easing her lovely body gently lower in the water, closing her eyes. The water, the multicolored foams of beauty, were about her chin. Then she sat a bit more upright in the tub, the water and foam about her shoulders. She opened her eyes and looked up at the ceiling.

"What is it like being a man's slave?" she asked.

"Mistress will soon know," I said.

She turned about and then, suddenly, first seeing him, cried out, startled.

"Who are you!" she cried.

"Are you the lady Elicia of Ar, of Six Towers?" he asked.

"I am she!" she cried.

"I charge you," said he, "in the name of the Priest-Kings of Gor, with being an agent of Kurii, and as such subject to the penalties connected therewith."

"I do not understand a word you are saying," she cried.

He drew forth from his tunic a folded yellow paper, closed with a seal and ribbon. I saw, on the yellow paper, stamped upon it, in black ink, large, the common Kajira mark of Gor. "I have here," he said, "a bill of enslavement, signed by Samos of Port Kar. Examine it. I trust you will find that all is in order." He threw the paper to the tiles.

"No!" she cried, frightened, trying to cover herself. Then she cried out, "Tellius! Barus!"

"Your minions," said the man, "will be of little service. It is understood they are of Cos. They are already in the custody of the magistrates of Ar."

"Tellius! Barus!" she screamed.

"You are quite alone, Lady Elicia," he said. "There are none to hear your screams."

He was tall and strong, clad in a warrior's scarlet. At his belt there was a long leash, looped.

"Emerge from your bath," said he, "and prepare to accept slave bonds."

"No!" she cried. Then she cried out to me, "Run, Judy! Fetch help!"

"Do not," said the man.

"Yes, Master," I said. I looked at the Lady Elicia. "Forgive me, Mistress," I said. "I am a slave girl who has been commanded by a man." I knelt to one side.

"Bitch! Bitch!" she cried.

"Yes, Lady Elicia, my Mistress," I said.

She spun in the tub, agonized, covering herself, to face the tall guest.

"There is some mistake!" she cried. "Leave me! You intrude in a lady's compartments!"

"Emerge from your bath," said he, "to accept the bonds of a slave."

"Never!" she cried.

"Are you a virgin?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, angrily.

"If I must fetch you in the water," he said, "you will be taken in the water."

"Bring me my robe," she said.

He went to the robe on the couch, but, instead of handing it to her, he examined it, lifting it to the light. In one sleeve, in a tiny, narrow sheath, he found a needle, which he held up. Then he approached the bath. She shrank back, frightened. He washed the needle, dried it on a towel and replaced it in the sheath. I had not known the sheath and needle were there, so cunningly had they been concealed in the weaving.

He looked at her.

I had little doubt the needle had been poisoned, probably with Kanda.

"You have disarmed me, Warrior," she said. "Will you now, please, hand me my robe."

He threw the robe to the side of the room. She looked at it, crumpled at the side of the room.

"Please," she said. "I am rich. I can give you much gold."

"Stand in the bath," he said. "I would see your hands above your head."

"You intrude upon my privacy!" she cried.

"Soon," he said, "you will have no right to privacy."

"My modesty!" she cried.

"When you are a slave," he said. "you will not be permitted modesty." This was true.

"Have mercy, Warrior!" she cried.

"Obey, or be lashed," he said.

Elicia Nevins stood in the tub, and lifted her hands over her head, in an attitude of surrender.

The guest regarded her, casually, openly, at length, with the appraisal of a master.

She shook with fear, seen by a Gorean warrior.

The warrior then went to the side of the tub, crouching near what had been the side to her right. She stepped back in the water, away from him. He brushed back the foam. Carefully he examined the wall of the tub. In moments he had retrieved the tiny dagger which lay there, in its small compartment, concealed behind a tile. He cleaned the poison from the side of the dagger, dried it with a towel, as he had the needle, and then threw it to the side of the room, where lay her robe, which he had earlier discarded. I had not known of the existence of either the compartment or the small, poisoned weapon which it concealed.

Elicia stood in the water, on the far side of the large, sunken tub, her hands lifted.

"Free me!" she said. "I will pay you much."

He regarded her.

"I will give you enough to buy ten slave girls in my stead!" she said.

"But they would not be Elicia Nevins," he said.

She shook her head, haughtily. She still wore the colorful towel about her head.

"Would you care to examine the bill of enslavement?" he asked.

"If I may," she said.

"Step forth," he said, "keeping your hands lifted." She did so, and went to stand near the paper on the floor, her hands lifted.

"You will make a lovely slave," he said. Then he said. "You may lower your hands, and kneel." The woman always examines the papers of enslavement on her knees. "Slave Girl," said the man, speaking to me, "remove the towel from about her head and permit her to dry her hands upon it."

"Yes, Master," I said.

I removed it carefully, lest it contain a needle or other device of which I might be unaware. The lovely cascade of dark hair which was Elicia's fell down her back. "Yes," said the man, "a lovely slave." Elicia dried her hands and, miserably, broke the ribbon and seal and examined the paper.

"You are literate?" inquired the man.

"Yes," she said, acidly.

"Do you understand the document?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "It is an order of enslavement"

"You understand further, of course," said he, "that under Gorean merchant law, which is the only law commonly acknowledged binding between cities, that you stand under separate permissions of enslavement. First, were you of Ar, it would be my right, could I be successful, to make of you a slave, for we share no Home Stone. Secondly, though you speak of yourself as the Lady Elicia of Ar, of Six Towers, you are, in actuality, Miss Elicia Nevins of the planet Earth. You are an Earth girl and thus stand within a general permission of enslavement, fair beauty quarry to any Gorean male whatsoever."

Earth girls had no Home Stones. No legalities, thus, were contravened in capturing them and making of them abject slave girls.

"The first to capture you owns you," he said. "Prepare to be leashed as a slave." He unlooped the long leash at his belt, with its slip ring and snap lock.

"Wait," she said, extending her hand.

"Yes?" he said.

"Beware of leashing me in this city," she said. "I am truly of Ar!"

"Describe to me," said he, "the Home Stone of Ar."

She looked down, confused. She could not do so.

Young men and women of the city, when coming of age, participate in a ceremony which involves the swearing of oaths, and the sharing of bread, fire and salt. In this ceremony the Home Stone of the city is held by each young person and kissed. Only then are the laurel wreath and the mantle of citizenship conferred. This is a moment no young person of Ar forgets. The youth of Earth have no Home Stone. Citizenship, interestingly, in most Gorean cities is conferred only upon the coming of age, and only after certain examinations are passed. Further, the youth of Gor, in most cities, must be vouched for by citizens of the city, not related in blood to him, and be questioned before a committee of citizens, intent upon determining his worthiness or lack thereof to take the Home Stone of the city as his own. Citizenship in most Gorean communities is not something accrued in virtue of the accident of birth but earned by virtue of intent and application. The sharing of a Home Stone is no light thing in a Gorean city.

"You claim to be of Ar," said he. "Yet you cannot describe her Home Stone. Explain to me then in precise detail the ceremony of citizenship, or, perhaps, the performances enacted upon the Planting Feast."