Authors: John Norman
"True,” said Grendel.
"Also,” said Cabot, “you seem surprisingly adept with this despised weapon.” He then called to Lita, that she might retrieve the garland, which hung upon the quiet shaft.
Lord Grendel did not respond.
"You have been practicing, have you not?” asked Cabot.
"Yes,” said Lord Grendel.
"Why?” asked Cabot.
"This is the only match we have, against power weapons,” he said.
"You would not prefer to run nobly up the palace steps and be burned alive?” asked Cabot.
"No,” said Lord Grendel.
"Nor would I,” said Cabot.
"Make more arrows,” said Lord Grendel.
"I shall,” said Cabot. “And then we must join the fray."
"I will go ahead, tonight,” said Lord Grendel. “If the revolution should be successful, the Lady Bina, as a traitress, will be in great danger. She may need me."
"Forget her,” said Cabot.
"No,” said Grendel.
"She is worthless,” said Cabot.
"True,” said Lord Grendel, “but she is beautiful."
"I fear you are human,” said Cabot.
"Human, perhaps,” said Grendel. “Perhaps human, yes, and perhaps too human."
* * * *
"Master,” said the slave, Lita, kneeling before him.
It was now morning.
Yesterday evening, taking advantage of the darkness, Lord Grendel had exited the cave, taking with him a knife, the ax, one of the bows, and a sheaf of arrows.
About the slave's head was the wreath of blossoms, this of white Lirillium.
It is not unusual for slaves to bedeck themselves as they may, and to do so occasionally with flowers, sometimes a garland, sometimes with a mere blossom or two, fixed in the hair. Such things can be fetching, and it is likely they are not unaware of this. They can treasure simple things, too, a ribbon, a bangle, a bracelet, a string of colorful glass or wooden beads. Indeed, such simple things, as worn by a slave, herself recognized as goods, can be a thousand times more provocative to a male than the pearls and diamonds of a free woman.
Beautiful women tend to be vain of their beauty, and it is natural for them to nurse, guard, and enhance it, and slave girls, commonly the most beauteous of all, for commonly it is only the most beautiful of girls which are taken for collaring, are no exception. Accordingly, the slave girl, well aware of her beauty, which commonly far exceeds that of the plainer free woman, is seldom a stranger to vanity. Moreover, as a slave in a unapologetically and uncompromisingly male-dominated world, she is excruciatingly aware, as she might not be in a drabber, grayer, hypocritical world, of her femaleness, and its enormous importance. After all, it has been in virtue of that that she has been acquired, and it is in virtue of that that she will be bought and sold. Her femaleness in such a culture is not incidental to what she is. In such a culture it is not the unimportant empirical contingency, the biological irrelevancy, the meaningless anatomical fortuity, it is claimed to be in a world of anonymity and negativity, of neuterism, that of a world engineered to abet the mindless servicing of machines, technological and economic, political, and corporate. On Gor, the slave, particularly if extracted from Earth's barbarisms of fatuity and denial, discovers, usually for the first time, the enormous importance of her femaleness. It is no longer a supposed accident casually appertaining to her body but rather she herself, what she is. She is a female. It is what she is. Certainly this is clear to her when she is exposed on the block.
On Gor the woman discovers then, often for the first time, fully, that she is a female, and the specialness, preciousness, wonderfulness, and importance of this.
And, too, on Gor, she learns her desirability, and what this will mean in a world of strong men.
And she learns she has been designed in virtue of a binary sexual shaping, a complementary wholeness within which alone she can find her fulfillment, a wholeness within which there is one to command and one to submit, one to rule and one to obey.
A collar on her neck, her lips pressed fervently to the feet of a master, she rejoices to learn what she is, and would not be other than she is.
How else can she find her ultimate and perfect fulfillment?
On Gor these things are understood.
Too, on Gor, at last, as a slave, she finds she has an incontrovertible, indisputable, inexpugnable societal and cultural identity.
At last she finds she is real, quite real, and in two ways, one biological, and one societal and cultural.
Biologically she is a female, and societally and culturally, incontrovertibly, she is a slave.
And she learns on Gor what men are, and can be, and how she will be treated, and what will be done with her.
And she will have little to say about this, and this is welcomed, and it thrills her lovely belly.
Gor is a natural world.
And she finds herself a female in such a world, and the most female of all women, the female slave.
Not until she was collared did she understand the power and beauty of men, whose slave she is, and in whose arms she now longs to be enfolded.
"You are pretty, Lita,” said Cabot.
"Thank you, Master,” she said.
"What have you in your hands?” asked Cabot.
She put her head down and lifted and extended her arms, offering Cabot the object. “Master,” she said. In the pleasure cylinder, she had been taught to so proffer items to a free person.
"What is it?” asked Cabot.
He took the object from the girl, which was a small object, weighty, and of gold.
"It is a ring,” said Cabot, “a Kur ring."
"It is the ring of Lord Arcesilaus,” said the slave.
"He is dead?” said Cabot.
"No,” said the slave.
"How is it you have the ring?” asked Cabot.
"Yesterday,” said the girl, “Lord Arcesilaus gave it to Lord Grendel, to be given to you this morning."
"Why to me?” asked Cabot.
"I do not know,” she said.
"I cannot accept it,” said Cabot.
Cabot made his way to the back of the cave.
He crouched down beside Arcesilaus, and turned on the Kur's translator. “Here,” said Cabot, trying to press the ring into the paw of the large Kur.
His offer was received with a growl. A soft, tortured noise came from the Kur. The translator, however, rendered this in a natural volume, and clarity. “No,” it said.
"I cannot accept this ring,” said Cabot.
"You will fight against Agamemnon,” came from the translator.
"Yes,” said Cabot.
"Take the ring,” came from the translator.
"Why?” asked Cabot.
"Take it,” came from the translator.
"Very well,” said Cabot.
"Now, leave me,” came from the translator.
Cabot rose up, the ring clenched in his hand, and went back to where the slave waited. When he came into her proximity, as she was still kneeling, not having been given permission to rise, she put her head to the floor of the cave.
The former Miss Pym looked well, kneeling so.
As many times before, Cabot speculated how the young men she had known on Earth would regard her as she now was, a collared slave.
He did not doubt but what they would rejoice.
Perhaps they would make bids for her.
But he did not think he would sell the slave, at least not now.
"Be as you will,” said Cabot, absently.
She knelt up, regarding him.
"I do not understand it,” said Cabot, considering the ring. “If authority is here, it is not an authority I could use. I could not command Kurii."
"He did not explain its use?” asked Lita.
"No,” said Cabot. “If authority were involved, he should have given it to Lord Grendel, if only that he might give it to another."
"But he gave it to you,” said Lita.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I do not know,” said Cabot. He examined the ring. It was heavy, carved, ornate, but it did not seem unusual. It did not seem a mechanism. It did not seem a key. It did not seem a container of some sort. It did not open. “It is too large for my finger,” said Cabot. “I will put it on a string, about my neck."
The slave, unbidden, fetched a bit of cord, from which Cabot, with his knife, cut a strand of suitable length.
"You put it within your tunic,” observed the slave, who had returned to first position.
"Yes,” said Cabot, “in war, in certain lights, say, in moonlight, a glint on a buckle, a flash from an emblem, such things, might betray one's position."
She touched her collar, almost inadvertently.
"Yes,” smiled Cabot, “more than one fugitive slave has been betrayed by so small a thing."
Cabot turned away from the girl, and began to gather up accouterments. He took up the unstrung bow, and a quiver of arrows, formed from part of one of the blankets which had been purchased by Grendel.
"Lord Grendel,” said the girl, “left many arrows."
"True,” said Cabot. “He took some, but many he left. He has greater confidence in his ax, I fear."
"Surely he left them for Master,” she said.
"Perhaps,” said Cabot. “But it is inconvenient, and can be dangerous, to be overburdened. It is not as though I had a pack kaiila at hand."
"Master has a girl at hand,” she said.
"True,” he said.
"I have never seen a kaiila, Master,” she said, “but I understand I am worth far less than one, let alone the great tarn of which I have been told, but, too, have not seen."
"It is true that slaves commonly sell for less than a kaiila,” he said, “and, too, usually, for the price of a tarn one might purchase twenty or more slaves, even of great beauty."
"Even as beautiful as I?” she asked.
"Vain little beast,” he chided.
"Master?” she persisted.
"Yes,” said Cabot.
"I see,” she said.
"Perhaps you now better understand what you are, and your value,” said Cabot.
"Yes,” she said. “I am an animal, one animal amongst other animals, and not the most valuable."
Cabot wondered if he truly understood that. Probably not, he thought. Not in her belly.
To be sure, she had made progress, considerable progress. He remembered her helplessness, her squirming, her gasping, her thrashing about, her begging.
Surely she had begun to sense what it might be, to be a man's slave.
"But more valuable than some,” he said, “usually more valuable than verr or tarsk."
"I see,” she said.
"And animals such as you are special,” he said. “They appeal to men."
"That was clear,” she said, “from the pleasure cylinder."
"And,” he said, “some men would give a dozen tarns to bring a particular woman, say, one who had not treated them well, into their chains."
"I would fear to be she,” she said.
"Do not be upset,” he said. “Masters occasionally grow fond of an animal."
"But she is still an animal."
"Certainly,” said Cabot.
"And should that slip her mind?” she asked.
"The lash will correct such lapses,” he said.
"Then she is truly an animal,” she said, “not only legally, societally, and culturally, but even in the eyes of her master."
"Of course,” he said.
"Good,” she said.
That response interested Cabot.
The girl was perhaps on the edge of bondage. Perhaps she had begun to sense the stirring, the begging, of her secret slave, the need of a woman to be such, her master's beast, his animal, on his chain, licking and kissing, hoping to please.
It is apparently pleasant to own a slave.
Many are the wonders of the collar, many the marvels consequent upon its affixing.
"So many?” she said.
"What?” said Cabot.
"Twenty?” she said. “As many as twenty, for only one tarn?"
"Much depends on the market,” he said.
"As beautiful as I?” she asked.
"You are quite vain,” he said.
To be sure, this is not unusual with a beautiful woman, and it is certainly not unusual with a beautiful slave, who is probably well aware of the most likely reason a collar has been put on her.
"Master?” she persisted.
"Perhaps more beautiful,” he said.
"But I am beautiful, surely,” she said.
"You will do,” he said.
"I was publicly chained in the pleasure cylinder,” she said, “and I was not unaware of the approbatory glances of masters. They roved me well, and lengthily."
"So?” he said.
"And they are, as you may recall,” she said, “slavers, professionals in the assessment of slaves."
"It is true, as I have said,” he said, “that you would do. Vended off a platform at night, under torches, well displayed, your blemishes somewhat concealed, you might bring a handful of copper."
"I am extremely beautiful,” she said.
"Do you think you were the most beautiful woman in the pleasure cylinder?” he asked. He recalled that she had thought herself amongst the most beautiful women she had ever seen on Earth. To be sure, at that time she was unfamiliar with a particular form of merchandise, Gorean
kajirae
.
Her eyes filled with tears. “No,” she said.
"But more beautiful than some?” he said.
"Yes,” she said, “yes!"
"When on my chain,” she said, “I heard Master Peisistratus, assessing my lineaments and features, quite candidly as men will do, and which at the time was easily done, as I wore only a chain, commend me to another, ranking me above several of his girls."
"That is high praise,” said Cabot. Certainly the girls of the pleasure cylinder had been carefully selected, chosen with the pleasure of his crews in mind.
"So I am beautiful, am I not?” she said.
"Yes,” said Cabot, “you are beautiful."
"Quite beautiful!” she said.
"Yes,” he said, “quite beautiful."
"And though I am not free,” she said, “might not master find me of interest, if only as a slave."
"Perhaps,” he said.
He found this amusing, for most slaves were once free women, and, usually, only the most beautiful of free women were collared. Accordingly, almost all slaves would be likely to be more beautiful than most free women, a fact not lost on free women. Too, interestingly, women became more beautiful in bondage, this going well beyond the garmenting, dieting, training, and exercising of the slave, but having more to do with the life of a slave, and its fulfillments.