Vagabonds of Gor (48 page)

"Still it was only a touch," I said.

"It was in an entire context," she said.

"That is true," I said.

"And the thing is a wholeness," she said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"And there was in me, I sense now, a readiness for that experience," she said, "and a fittingness in me for it. Too, in it I sensed the hint of a possibility, of a modality of existence, of a way I might be, of a possible way of life."

"I did very little," I said.

"It was you," she said, "who constructed the entire context of surrender, of helplessness, of submission."

"Of submission?" I asked.

"Yes!" she said.

"Interesting remarks," I said, "from a Cosian spy."

"Forget what I have been," she said. "Think of me now only as what I am, and only am, a woman at your feet!"

"I see," I said.

"For the first time," she said, "I begin to sense what it might be to belong to a man, to be his, totally."

"I see," I said.

"And the perfection, and rightfulness, of it," she said.

"I see," I said.

"It is morning," she whispered.

"Yes," I said.

She then crawled back, on all fours, a few feet, and put her head to the floor, the palms of her hands, too, on the floor, in a common position of obeisance. "I hope to be pleasing to you today," she said.

"That is a slave formula," I said. With such formulas a girl might greet her master in the morning.

"I know," she said.

"And you know what is involved in such formulas?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"And you still dare to say such?"

"Yes," she said.

"Very well," I said. "You will be held to it, as a slave, and if you are not pleasing have no fear but what, also as a slave, you will be suitably, and severely, punished."

"That is as I wish it," she said.

"You may raise your head," I said.

She lifted her head. Her hair was wild, and damp. She trembled.

"Oh, I must be touched," she whispered. "Be kind to me, I beg of you."

"But there are gants to prepare," I said. "We will have a feast."

"Let Ina first be your feast," she begged.

"Do you know how to be a feast?" I asked.

"Teach me," she said. "Teach me to be a man's feast!"

"Rise," I said. "Approach."

She obeyed.

"You are permitting me to face you?" she asked, disbelievingly.

"As it pleases me, at the moment," I said.

She looked at me gratefully, tears in her eyes.

"So much is often permitted even a slave," I said.

"I understand," she said.

I motioned her forward and she hurried to my arms, sobbing, holding me. She pressed herself against me, closely, tightly, crying. There would be the print of accouterments on her body. My tunic was dampened by her tears. When I held her back a bit from me, by the upper arms, I saw, as I expected, the mark of my sword belt, diagonal, across her body, and the print of two buckles in her flesh, that of the sword belt, and that of the pouch, or knife, belt.

I then lifted her up and carried her back, and to the side, where I put her down, on her back, on the floor.

When I removed the pouch and knife from my knife belt, I doubled it, and held it to her, and she took it in her hands, and kissed it, as a slave might have the whip.

"You understand our relationship?" asked.

"Yes," she said.

I then knelt beside her and she lifted her arms and put them about my neck.

"What it must be, to be a slave," she whispered.

"But you are not a slave," I said.

"No," she moaned.

I then lowered myself to the floor beside her, our lips meeting.

Chapter 26 - THE CRY

"Do not sing," I said.

"I am sorry," she said, happily. It was not the first time I had warned her about such things.

She sat at the rear of the raft, facing forward. Her legs, to the thighs, were muddy. We had recently left the raft, together, to thrust it through thick rence. Though her strength was small she lent it unstintingly, unbidden, to this common task. It was anomalous to see her, a lady of Ar, slipping unbidden into the marsh, eagerly, zealously, pitting her tiny strength against those recalcitrant logs, therein attempting to assist in the progress of our bulky conveyance.

She now, for the most part, rode on the raft, at the back. As her weight was negligible compared to that of the raft, this did not impede our advance. Her hands were now free, but the collar and strap, fashioned from the harness I had once worn, was still on her throat, fastened to the raft. She was forbidden, of course, to remove it without permission.

I did not always permit her hands to be free. Sometimes I tied her hands behind her back, and fastened her ankles closely to her hands, and put her on her back, on the logs in the back. At certain other times I kept her bound hand and foot, but in a more common fashion, her ankles not fastened to her wrists. At other times I had her tied as I usually slept her, her ankles crossed and bound in the center of the length of binding fiber, the same fiber, now in its double strand, being brought up and used to tie her hands together before her body, its separated ends then tying behind her back, to keep her hands at her belly, to keep the knots behind her back, where she could not reach them. A similar tie may be used, of course, with the girl's hands tied behind her back, the knots then before her. In such ties, helpless, being transported on my raft, lovely Ina would have little difficulty in recollecting that she was my prisoner.

In all these ties, of course, when she was on the raft, she wore the collar and strap. Too, when her hands and feet were free, I kept a length of binding fiber thrust over the collar. In this way it would be handy, if I wished to make use of it. Similarly the common camisk is often belted with a length of binding fiber, which, pulled free, may be used to bind the occupant of the garment, usually a female slave. Ina, of course, did not have a camisk. I kept her stripped.

It was now five days since we had been on the barge.

Ina splashed water from the marsh on her legs, washing the mud from them. Then she dangled her legs in the water, sitting on the raft, rather toward the back.

"I told you about singing," I said.

"I'm sorry!" she said.

She regularly took great care now to keep her body clean. Too, she did what she could to keep her hair washed and combed. These things were not easy tasks in the marsh. One might even have thought she was a slave. Such must, as they can, keep their bodies, and hair, and such, attractive and clean. Indeed, they are commonly subject to discipline in the matter. They are not free women. Too, had Ina cosmetics at her disposal, even the bold, exciting cosmetics of slaves, which so scandalize free women, I suspected she might not have hesitated to use them.

"There is a movement in the water there, to the left," I said. "Beware."

Quickly she drew her legs up on the logs, sitting then, facing the front.

We saw a narrow, dark shape, about five feet long, like a slowly undulating whip, glide past. A small triangular head was almost level with the water surface. I did not think there had been much danger, but there was some possibility that the movement of her legs in the water might have attracted its attention.

"That is a marsh moccasin," I said.

"Are they poisonous?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I never saw one before," she said.

"They are not common," I said, "even in the delta."

"Are they poisonous like the ost?" she asked.

I thought of a small fellow I had once known in Tharna. He had been called "Ost." It had not been an unfitting name for him. I had neither seen him nor heard of him since the revolt in the mines, that upon which the revolution in the city had been consequent. I did not know if he had survived the revolt and revolution or not, in that revolution the gynocracy in Tharna had been overthrown, devastatingly.

Even to this day women in Tharna are kept almost uniformly as helpless, abject slaves, the men of Tharna having an excellent memory for history. The youth of Tharna is usually bred from women temporarily freed for purposes of their conception, then reenslaved. In Tharnan law a person conceived by a free person on a free person is considered to be a free person, even if they are later carried and borne by a slave. In many other cities this is different, the usual case being that the offspring of a slave is a slave, and belongs to the mother's owner.

The education, however, of the Tharnan youth differs on a sexual basis. The boys are raised to be men, and masters, and the girls to be women, and slaves. The boys, as a portion of the Home Stone Ceremony, take an oath of mastery, in which they swear never to surrender the dominance which is rightfully theirs by nature. It is in this ceremony, also, that they receive the two yellow cords commonly worn in the belt of a male Tharnan. These cords, each about eighteen inches long, are suitable for the binding of a female, hand and foot.

In the same ceremony the young women of Tharna are also brought into the presence of the Home Stone. They, however, are not permitted to kiss or touch it. Then, in its presence they are stripped and collared. They are then, by the young men, bound with the yellow cords, so that they will know their feel. Afterwards, they are usually conducted home by one of the young men, often he whose cords have bound them, and who may be interested in their acquisition, on his leash, usually to the home of their mother's owner, usually their father, to whom, in virtue of such a ceremony, they now legally count as slave, who will see to their disposition, or sale.

Even free women visiting Tharna from other cities must, at the gates, don temporary collars and slave tunics, and be leashed. The ruler in Tharna, paradoxically, was for several years a tatrix, Lara. To be sure, she herself apparently had some understanding of what it was to be a female slave. It seems it had once been taught to her.

I had heard, incidentally, a few months ago, in Port Cos, from a Tharnan silver merchant, that Lara had abdicated. Perhaps her abdication was in the best interests of the city. I do not know. Doubtless it ended something of a political tension in the city, and I take it that Tharna now, under the governance of its councils, and its administrator, Kron, has at last achieved a commendable political consistency. As nearly as I could determine from the reports of the silver merchant Lara's abdication was not forced, nor even the result of extreme political pressures brought on her, but a voluntary act, one apparently regarded by her as being not only in the best interests of the city but in her own best interests as well. He did not know what had become of her. I would suppose that she is now merely another Tharnan woman, another slave. It is my hope that she is happy.

"Like the ost?" she asked.

"What?" I asked.

"Are they poisonous, the marsh moccasins, like the ost?" she said.

"They are quite poisonous," I said, "but their venom, as I understand it, does not compare to that of the ost."