Norman Invasions (39 page)

I should mention that she was well dressed, richly so, I suppose, but with a simplicity that achieved an elegance. She was the sort of young woman whom one might expect to see stepping from a limousine, but she lacked the rigidity or hauteur, the disdain, that one might have expected of such.

I had the sense that she had undergone unusual experiences, which had freed and shaped her.

I did not know if she were a creature of this world and culture or not. I had the brief, disconcerting impression that she was the sort of woman who might be literally sold to men.

And that that might be good for her.

She carried a package. It was wrapped in leather, and tied closely, with several flat leather bands.

More than once I had seen such an unusually wrapped article.

I hesitate to convey what then occurred, lest it be found offensive by some, but I feel it best to do so, at least in the interest of the completeness of this recollection.

She then, with a lovely naturalness and grace, as of one long habituated to such practices, and one who found such ceremonies and deferences lovely, appropriate, and fulfilling, knelt before me, yes, knelt before me, and put her head down to my feet.

I wonder if you can understand what it is to have such a woman kneel before you, how it fills you with glory and power, this submission and prostration, and seems somehow fitting, and a perfection of nature. And, too, I sensed that she, too, in her way, found this fulfilling, and profoundly, keenly emotionally reassuring, fitting, that it was what she wanted to do, and that for her, too, in its way, it was a perfection of nature. I recalled, inadvertently, a saying from the Gorean miscellany: “Let she who should submit, submit; let he who is master master.”

Perhaps, I thought, could it be, the sexes are not, when all is said and done, the same.

She then pressed her lips to my shoes, and then knelt up, and, her head down between her extended arms, humbly and delicately proffered to me the package she bore.

I doubtless should have admonished her for this astonishing and unexpected gesture, the kneeling, and such, should doubtless have denied to her this lovely, so naturally, so willingly granted token of respect, should doubtless have tried sharply, cruelly, to reprimand and shame her, or at least, surely, I should have hurried her to her feet in embarrassment, but, for whatever reason, I did not do so.

Rather I understood then, I think for the first time, how it could be that a man could kill for a woman.

“Wait!” I called after her, but she had then sprung up and darted away. She was responsive, it seemed, to imperatives other than mine. As she sprang to her feet and turned, I caught a glimpse, ever so briefly, beneath her long, dark, glossy, swirling hair, of her one piece of jewelry, a lovely, flat, narrow band which closely encircled her lovely throat.

This all occurred very quickly, and she had not spoken to me one word.

I watched her disappear down the corridor, and then, the package in hand, returned within.

The following account is extracted from the Gorean miscellany. Unlike many of the other items in the miscellany, which tend to be meditative or expositional, and are sometimes little more than lists, it has a narrative flow, at least somewhat, and deals with an interaction between two individuals. Given these considerations I thought it might then not inaptly be brought to public attention, in a context such as that of the present, in the event that perhaps some might find it of interest.

I do not think the author is Tarl Cabot, as the style, and handscript, do not suggest those of Cabot, with whose style and script I am familiar. An additional inducement to this reservation is that what is apparently the original seems to be in Gorean, or, at any rate, in a language with which I and my immediate associates are unfamiliar. It is clear that the letters in the original proceed from left to right, and then right to left, in alternate lines, which is, as I understand it, “as the bosk plows.” Cabot writes in English, and seems to be uncomfortable, as I understand it, with literary Gorean. This is apparently not that unusual for it seems that many Gorean warriors, though surely not all, are actually illiterate, and deliberately so, and this in accord with a certain martial vanity, regarding letters as being an occupation and concern more suitable to scribes than to those of the “scarlet caste.” The original is clearly in a bold, masculine hand, but the translation into English, or what I take to be the translation, is, interestingly, in a feminine hand. I take it then the original was presumably written by a male who may or may not have known English and that the translation may have been made by a female who was fluent in both languages, or, at least, copied by such a female. There are other possibilities, but those seem to me the most plausible.

I present it now without further introduction.

I trust it will not be found offensive.

“Do not use me!” she begged.

Her Gorean was imperfect.

She moved, frightened, to the back of the alcove. Her small hands went to the chain that attached to the collar on her throat. How small and lovely are the hands of women! She held it tightly, helplessly, protestingly. It was about five feet long, and fastened her to a ring, set to the side. She was naked, as is common with her sort, in alcoves, slaves. She was half sunk in the deep furs. The alcove was a common one, small, with incurving walls, now closed with leather curtains which he had drawn shut behind him.

I do not mention the tavern, nor its city, other than to place it in the middle latitudes of the world, east of Brundisium, north of our mother, the great Vosk; there are those, enemies, you see, who might use such knowledge. They do not understand us, and are prompt to kill.

He had tied the curtains shut on the inside. It is commonly done. One is less likely then to be disturbed. There were some smaller chains about, cuffs, and such. He carried a switch, brought in from the outside. The light was furnished by a small tharlarion oil lamp set in a niche to the left, as one faces the back of the alcove. The flame was straight, responding to the subtle draft above and behind the lamp. He found her very beautiful in the alcove, but that is common with tavern slaves. They are purchased with such things in mind.

“You should beg use,” he informed her.

It is pleasant for a man, as is well known, for a beautiful woman to beg use.

“No, no!” she wept.

He regarded her, sadly.

“You may speak in your native tongue,” he said.

“I do not wish to be beaten,” she said.

“I will not beat you for that—
now
,” he said.

He thought it best for her, given what he wished to do, to speak in her own language. He did not wish her to misunderstand anything which might transpire between them, in the least.

Indeed, her life, as he had reason to believe, might depend on such things.

“I do not wish to be tricked, and then struck!' she wept.

He frowned. Did she think him such, one who would so behave, a boor, one without honor? Such would dishonor his caste.

He fingered the switch.

All females understand such things, and certainly slaves. A great deal of good is often accomplished with as little as a single, sudden, swift, impatient stroke.

“Thank you,” she said, in English, quickly, uncertainly. She was obviously intelligent. He had had fears on that score. “But you will not understand me.”

“I think I am likely to understand you,” he said, “
and well
,” he added.

“You speak English,” she said.

“I speak three of the languages of your world,” he said. “How many do you speak?”

“—One,” she said. “You have an accent.”

“So, too, do you, in your Gorean,” he said.

“Of course,” she said.

“Many women of your world learn Gorean swiftly, and well, and, in time, are so fluent that it is difficult, if at all possible, to distinguish them from native speakers, save for an occasional phonemic indiscretion or lapse. I do not know, however, if you will be one of them. Perhaps your diction will retain a piquant touch of the exotic. Some men like that.”

“Doubtless” she said, bitterly.

“I have a great admiration,” he said, “for the common aptitudes of females to absorb, and learn, new languages. Doubtless it is a gift which has been selected for.”

“Doubtless,” she said, trying to move back a little, more toward the back of the alcove.

How small and well curved she was. What a delicious thing she might prove to be.

It seemed a shame, what was likely to be done to her.

How pleasant it is to take such things in your arms, and press them to you, to embrace them, and put them to use.

It is little wonder that there are such as she—slaves.

He wondered if she even understood him.

If she had, would it not have been an insight weighty in portency?

Throughout generations, doubtless on various worlds, such as she had been acquired, bartered, bought, exchanged, traded, abducted, and such, and, often, as a consequence of such an eventuation, she would find herself translated into an alien speech environment, it then being incumbent upon her to learn, and as quickly and well as possible, a new language, that of her captors, her owners, her masters.

Did she truly think it was no more than the flipping of a coin by nature, that women should be such?

To be sure, statistically it might once have been nature playing with possibilities, scattering about the coins of reality, trying this and that, but there were winning tosses, and losing tosses, and, statistically, the winning tosses would generate further winning tosses, and soon the coins would seem of themselves to replicate the advantages accrued originally in what must once have been little more than a meaningless lottery.

And the coins became an instrument of survival, a lovely currency, a concealed treasure wherewith she might purchase life.

Did she not know that women were property?

Too, of course, when a woman finds herself an owned animal, yes, that is it, precisely, and legally, an
animal
, subject to her owner, her master, she learns quickly.

She pulled up one of the furs, clutching it about her, to cover herself. She held it about her throat, over the collar.

He smiled. Did she not know that she was not to cover her body without his permission?

Perhaps she was stupid.

No, he thought, simply not yet tutored, not yet trained.

He could well understand the reservations of the taverner, his complaint, his fear for his investment.

I do not mention the name of the taverner, nor of his establishment, for obvious reasons.

“Many here,” she said, pulling the furs up even higher about her throat, “do not even know my world, Earth, exists.”

“From the existence of such as you,” he said, “for you are not unique, I am sure they accept that there is a place called ‘Earth,' but I think it is true that few understand it to be another world.

“I am not unique?” she said.

“No,” he said.

“There are others?”

“Yes,” he said. “But most of us doubtless think of it only as a far place, from which such as you are brought to civilization.”

“To civilization!” she exclaimed.

“Certainly,” he said. “I have been to your world, and there is little there worthy to be called civilization.”

“You are barbarians here!” she said.

“Why?” he asked. “Because you are on a chain?”

She was silent.

“You must not think badly of our world,” he said. “We are fond of it. It is complex and beautiful. We have our literatures, our musics, our architectures, our games, our sports, our crafts, our professions, our commerce, our enmities, our perils, our wars, our loves, our hatreds, all the accouterments of a high civilization.”

“I see,” she said.

“And you must not identify a civilization with politics, crowding, greed, misery, loneliness, pollution, and technology. These are not essential to civilization. Too, on this world we have Home Stones.”

“I do not know what they are,” she said.

“And that is one reason that you are a barbarian,” he said.

“I, a barbarian!”

“Yes,” he said. “On this world it is such as you who are the barbarians, though we may hope to teach you some of the refinements of civilization, a few perhaps—at our feet.”

“At your feet!”

“Should you be granted the opportunity,” he said. And his eyes briefly clouded.

“I do not know anything of Home Stones!” she said, angrily.

“You will not have one,” he said. “At best, if you are permitted to live—”

“‘If'!” she cried.

“Yes,” he said, “‘if'.”

“I do not understand,” she said, apprehensively.

She had interrupted him. He found that of interest. More and more did he begin to understand the consternation, the reservations, of the taverner.

“Yes,” he said, “—
if
—
if
you are permitted to live, you may be permitted to live to please and serve, wholly and helplessly, and with the abject fullness of perfection, as is fitting, one who has such.”

“A Home Stone?”

“Yes.”

He saw clearly she did not understand this matter. She knew little of the world.

“If those of this world do not even know of the existence of Earth, my world, they must be terribly stupid,” she said.

“Many on your world,” he said, “do not even know this world exists.”

She made an angry gesture.

He thought her hair was nice. To be sure, she did not seem to know what to do with it. In time it might become much longer, and more free and silken. Such hair improves the price of such women. They are careful, and jealous, of it. He wondered if it would have time to become such, and if she would have time to understand its value, and that of herself. She did have value. He wondered if she realized that. She did have value—of a sort. Five of her might be exchanged for a kaiila, three for a sleen, ten to fifteen for a tarn. He remembered the taverner. He wondered if she knew the danger in which she stood.