Authors: John; Norman
“That name, that hated name,” said the taverner, “is not to be spoken.”
“Talena is avidly sought,” said the man in faded blue, in scribal robes.
“Do not name her that,” said another man.
“Even slaves no longer bear that name,” said another.
The stranger smiled, and quaffed his paga, then put down the goblet on the splintered table.
The collar girl was trembling. She dared to shake her head, negatively, pleading.
“Marlenus of Ar,” said the mercenary, “has put a reward of ten thousand tarns of gold on her head.”
“Tarn disks of double weight,” said another.
“There is not that much gold on Gor,” laughed another.
“But yes,” chuckled another. “It is the secret wealth of Talena herself, her own illicitly amassed wealth, which is put up to have her returned to Ar.”
“Doubtless stripped, and in chains,” said a man.
“Doubtless,” said another.
“What a vengeance would be enacted upon her,” said another.
“She betrayed her Home Stone,” said another.
“Woe to the slut,” laughed a fellow.
“Thousands before, hundreds even now, of bounty hunters,” said a man, “in hundreds of towns and cities, in hundreds of hamlets and villages, seek the former Ubara, Talena of Ar.”
“Never Ubara,” said a man. “Never true Ubara.”
“False Ubara,” said another.
“And no longer of Ar,” added another.
It was true that Talena was no longer of Ar, as she had betrayed its Home Stone. She was now without a Home Stone, a fugitive, no longer protected by law.
“Seriously, my friend,” said the taverner, “do not joke about Talena. If it were even suspected she might be in Brundisium, a thousand tarnsmen of Ar might be aflight within an Ahn.”
“Brundisium,” said a fellow, “is not prized in the eyes of Ar, for it was here, to our very piers, that came fleets of Cos and Tyros.”
“Brundisium is neutral,” insisted the fellow in blue.
“We welcomed the foes of Ar,” a fellow reminded him.
“We had no choice,” said another.
“You were on the streets, waving,” said another.
“It will take time for Ar to rebuild her power,” said a fellow.
“Meanwhile,” said another, “the larls of Thassa have returned to their lairs.”
“Their snouts were well burned in the south,” said another.
“Girl,” said the stranger to the slave.
“Master?” she said.
“I shall not name you Talena,” he said.
“Thank you, Master,” she whispered. She briefly lost position, half fainting in relief, but she then recovered herself, quickly, and, straightening her back, maintained the beauty of
nadu
. She did keep her head down, perhaps fearing to look into the eyes of masters. It had been said she had not been long in the collar. To be sure, an intelligent woman learns it swiftly, and the more intelligent the more swiftly.
“I did but jest,” he said to those about, “that I might sense your views, your moods, concerning Talena, once of Ar.”
“May her flesh, bit by bit, be fed to sleen,” said a man.
“May she be boiled alive in the oil of tharlarion,” said another.
“May she be cast naked, bound, amongst leech plants,” said another.
“I have seen Talena,” said the stranger.
For a moment the group was silent.
“Of course,” said the mercenary. “Thousands, hundreds of thousands, have seen her.”
“In Ar,” said a man.
“But none have seen her since her disappearance from Ar,” said a man.
“I have,” said the stranger.
“Where?” asked the taverner.
“—on the ship of Tersites,” said the stranger.
“You have a story to tell,” said the taverner.
“Yes,” said the stranger.
“Put more oil in the lamp,” said the taverner to his man, “and raise the wick.”
“More paga,” said the stranger to the girl, extending the damp, empty goblet to her.
She took the vessel and rose up, backing away, head down, then turning and hurrying to the paga vat.
In a few moments the stranger had renewed his paga, and looked about himself.
“Begin,” said the taverner.
But his eyes were upon the girl.
She, perhaps from the silence, perhaps sensing his gaze, lifted her head, but, seeing his eyes upon her, quickly put down her head, again. Some masters do not permit their girls to look into their eyes, but that is rare. Most wish to relish the beauty of the eyes of their slaves, and enjoy reading in them the most delicate nuances of expression, apprehension, fear, hope, desire, expectation, questioning, readiness, eagerness, supplication, love, and such things.
“What lovely hair she has,” said the stranger.
It was long, dark, and glossy. Yes, the little beast was nicely pelted. As she had allegedly not been long in the collar, I gathered that it must have been much that way even in her former life. I thought it interesting that a girl who must have once been free would have had such hair. Such hair is much favored in female slaves. It was such as might have been grown to enhance the beauty of a slave, grown to increase her slave beauty, grown to interest men, grown to make her more attractive to masters. I wondered if, in some corner of her mind, she had not, even when free, longed for masters. And she now, perhaps to her consternation, and terror, knelt before them, nude and collared.
“That is, in part, why I purchased her,” said the taverner, “in the sales barn at Market of Semris.”
Market of Semris is in the vicinity of Brundisium.
“You have sweet thighs,” said the stranger to the girl.
“I am pleased, if master is pleased,” she said.
He looked at her.
“Forgive me, Master,” she said. “A slave is pleased, if master is pleased.”
“Do not arouse the slave,” whispered the taverner. He then said to the girl, “Keep the palms of your hands down on your thighs.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
Sometimes a slave in
nadu
begs, turning her hands about, placing the back of the hands on the thighs, this exposing the soft, delicate, sensitive palms of her hands to the master. It is a way of supplicating a caress. To be sure, there are many silent ways in which this may be done. The bondage knot, for example, might be looped loosely in her hair. Too, it is a simple matter for the girl to kneel, or belly, and lick and kiss the master’s feet, daring to look up now and again in mute petition. Verbally, of course, the master’s attention might be variously solicited, from tiny need noises to explicit phrases, such as “I would be reminded of my collar,” “I would kiss the whip of my master,” “Chain me,” “Am I not to be bound tonight, Master,” “A slave begs to be caressed,” and such. And, of course, certain movements, postures, and such, sometimes subtle, are commonly enough to bring the master to her, rope in hand.
I recalled that the taverner had said that fires had begun to burn in her belly. Those, of course, would be slave fires. Perhaps it seems cruel to light such fires in a woman’s belly, which will eventually make her their helpless prisoner, but it is not. First, how can a woman be a true woman whose belly is not periodically, irresistibly, needfully, helplessly aflame, begging for a man’s touch. Second, this is not done with free women, of course, but only with slaves, as they are mere beasts, domestic animals, and it much improves them. Who would want a slave in whose belly slave fires did not burn? Such are the stoutest of chains.
“I do not know what we may hear,” said a man.
“True,” said another.
“Curiosity,” said another fellow, quietly, “is not becoming in a
kajira
.”
“True,” said the taverner. “She need know nothing of these things. I will have her returned to her cage.”
“Please, no, Master!” whispered the girl. Then she said, quickly, frightened, “Forgive me, Master.”
She had spoken without permission.
“Let her stay,” said the stranger.”
The lapse was slight, and obviously inadvertent, and had been immediately, fearfully, penitently, corrected. Masters use judgment, and common sense. The breach, so natural and trivial, did not require discipline. It was not as though boldness, or intention, had been involved. The punishment of slaves, as that of other animals, kaiila and such, is used sparingly, and seldom without clear justification. Gratuitous cruelty is frowned upon, and seldom occurs on Gor. To be sure, the whip exists, and the slave knows it will be used upon her if she is not pleasing, and fully pleasing. She is, after all, a slave.
The girl looked up, gratefully. How alive, and inquisitive, the little brutes are in their collars. They want to know everything.
Too, she may have wished, nude and collared, to remain in the presence of the stranger. Certainly, the second time, in delivering paga, she had licked and kissed the cup, before lowering her head and extending it to him, with all the fervor and forward lasciviousness of a helplessly aroused
kajira
, begging to be found worthy of an alcoving. Too, she may have read something in the eyes of the stranger, when he had looked upon her, which shook her to the core. It may have been something simple, such as “I am a master. You are a slave.”
“As you wish,” said the taverner.
“Of course,” said the stranger, “she is to be bound, hand and foot.”
The taverner gestured to his man, and he took up the looped binding fiber which the slave had placed on the yellow, carefully folded camisk. In moments, her small wrists, crossed, had been bound behind her and her ankles, crossed, had been fastened together.
Briefly the slave squirmed a little, trying the fiber, and found herself, as she would have expected, the wholly helpless prisoner of its snug coils.
At a gesture from the stranger to the taverner’s man the slave, nude, bound, and kneeling, was thrust back a little, a foot or two, rather outside the pool of light, rather into the shadowed darkness, presumably that her presence might be less obtrusive, and that she would better know herself for what she was, a woman and a slave.
“Speak,” urged the taverner.
“Speak,” said more than one man.
“I sailed on the great ship,” said the stranger. “Yea, the ship of Tersites.”
Chapter Two
This Occurred Betwixt Cos and Tyros
It was an awesome sight.
One feared it was a ship of no mortal creation, but rather a vessel of Priest-Kings, come from the clouds over the Sardar, gone on air. Yet, as our patrol craft had approached it, and we could more discern its make, it was seen to be clearly formed of wood, carvel-built, six-masted, single-ruddered, massively so, square-sailed.
We detected it first, by the glass of the Builders, from the stem castle, far off, through the fog, not clear, seemingly risen from the sea as might a mountain, as the islands that Thassa sometimes lifts from her bosom, in southern waters, with a roiling of waves, a casting of stones, and smoke and fire, when she pleases.
“It is a fortress, a city!” exclaimed the left helmsman.
“There can be nothing here,” said the captain. “These are open waters. Familiar waters. We know them well.”
“Take the glass, captain,” said the lookout.
“It is an illusion,” said the captain, “a lie whispered by the fog, the sea and wind.”
“The glass, captain,” insisted the lookout.
We were two days out from the port of Telnus, terraced Cos’s southern window to the sea, our mother, mighty Thassa, on routine patrol.
We had heard no report, no rumors. Another day, and a junction with the long ships of Tyros, and we would return to Telnus.
No ship, no vessel, might ply these waters without papers, bearing the seal of either Tyros or Cos.
Thus are the farther islands sheltered, protected from illicit trade, and the wealth of Cos and Tyros conserved.
“It is no illusion,” said the captain, his eye to the glass.
“What then?” asked his second officer, peering into the fog. The season was nearly over, the time when ships were taken from the water for their wintering, the time when rational mariners withdrew wisely from lashing, gleaming Thassa, leaving her, the mother, to her moods of violence, to her towering, rushing, lifting waves, higher than the masts of round ships, to her bitter storms and cruel ice.
We at the oars, free men all, for our vessel was a long ship, low in the water, knifelike, fit for war, were looking forward to our winter leave, and the paga and girls of the taverns, The Silver Chain, the Beaded Whip, the Pleasure Garden, the Chatka and Curla, the Ubar’s Choice, and others.
“It is moving,” said the captain. “It is no island, no mountain. It is afloat, moving, slowly, but moving.”
“Can we overtake it?” asked the second officer.
“Yes,” said the captain.
“Is it wise to do so?” said the second officer.