Renegades of Gor (18 page)

Such a construction, of course, requires the more time-consuming, hovering

landing of all birds, not simply draft tarns, carrying tarn baskets. It does,

however, make the landing platform unnecessary. The construction of the Crooked

Tarn, incidentally, was more typical of a military installation, in that it

permitted the more rapid development and return of tarnsmen, coupled with the

capacity to open and close the tarn gate in a matter of Ihn. The tarn gate’s

construction here suggested that the Crooked Tarn might not always have served

as an inn. Probably at one time or another, before the founding of Ar’s Station,

it had served to garrison troops, perhaps concerned to monitor the more northern

reaches of the Vosk Road. This was suggested, too, by its distance from the

Vosk, which was approximately one hundred pasangs. The ordinary one-day march of

the Gorean infantryman on a military road is thirty-five pasangs. The Crooked

tarn, then, was almost exactly three days march from the river.

I loosened my blade in my scabbard and returned to the vicinity of the tarncot.

The tarn was ready.

It was within the cot, tearing at a piece of meat, a haunch of tarsk, hung from

a rope. The rope was some two inches thick. The suspension of the meat reminded

me of the way peasant women sometimes cook roasts, tying them in a cord and

dangling them before the fire, then spinning the meat from time to time. In this

way, given the twisting and untwisting of the cord, the meat will cook rather

evenly, for the most part untended, and without spit turning. The rope (pg.121)

then, drawn tightly as it was, so tautly, so fiercely, toward the tarn,

suddenly, a foot or so above the meat, snapped. The tarn then had the meat and

the lower portion of the rope on the ground, the meat grasped in his talons,

tearing it away from the bone.

I spun suddenly about, the sword half drawn.

The girl stopped, extremely frightened.

She put her hand before her mouth, the back of her hand toward her face.

She stepped back, faltering, frightened.

She was slim, and extremely dark-haired, and very white-skinned. Her hair was

drawn back behind her head and tied there with a yellow cord. Her breasts were

bared. A black cord was knotted about her waist. Tucked over this cord in front

was a long strip, some seven inches wide, of heavy, opaque, yellow cloth. It

then passed under her body and was pulled up, snugly, and thrust over the cord

in the back. The front and back ends of this cloth hung evenly, and fell about

midway between her knees and ankles. the effect was much like that of the curla

and charka, a portion of the garmenture, or livery, in which the wagon peoples

of the south place most of their female slaves, save that the curla, the cord,

was black and not red, and the chatka, the strip, was of cloth and yellow, not

of black leather. She had nothing corresponding, of course, to the kalmak, or

southern slave’s brief, open vest of black leather, and the cord binding her

hair was quite different from the koora, the red band of cloth commonly used to

confine the hair of the southern slave. In all then, since she wore cloth and

not leather, and less than the southern slave, her appearance, if anything, was

even more slavelike than hers.

“Why are you not kneeling,’ I asked her, “and with your knees spread?” she was,

after all, in the presence of a free man. Too, clad as she was, I assumed she

must be a pleasure slave. Such kneel before men in the open-kneed position.

She sank to her knees on the stone, and hastily spread them. The cloth looked

well, fallen between her thighs, on the damp stone.

I looked upon her.

She was now in a position of subservience and respect, suitable for a woman

before a man.

(pg.122) I replaced the blade in the sheath.

She looked up at me, frightened.

I regarded her.

She had a beautiful face, exquisitely and sensitively feminine.

She lowered her eyes before my gaze.

She was slimly beautiful.

I regarded her garbing. It did afford her a nether closure, but it was, at

least, a precarious one. In compensation it well bared her thighs.

“Are you frightened?” I asked.

“Yes,” she whispered.

It seemed to me, interestingly enough, if I did not misread the matter, that she

was extremely sensitive to, and timid concerning, the revealing nature of her

garbing. I had the feeling, based on certain expressions and tiny movements,

that she more than once resisted the impulse to huddle before me, her head down,

covering herself with her hands. But she remained much as she was. Indeed, she

even straightened herself, and lifted her body before me, timidly, as if for my

consideration.

“What is wrong?” I asked.

It seemed she wanted to speak, but lacked the courage to do so.

“What is that in your hand?” I asked. She had something clutched in her right

hand.

She opened her hand, holding it out a little, that I might see what she held.

There, in the palm of her right hand, was a small sack, bulging, seemingly

weighty for its size, from the look of it, a sack of coins. It was leather. It

had strings.

“Move your hand,” I said.

She did so.

“I see now why you were so frightened,” I said. “You have stolen a sack of

coins.”

“No, no!” she said.

“Many masters,” I said, “do not permit a slave to so much as touch money. To be

sure, they might let her carry coins in an errand capsule, or an errand sack,

tied about her neck, instructions to a vendor perhaps also contained within it,

her hands braceleted behind her.”

She looked up, frightened.

“And few masters, indeed, I assure you,” I said, “even if (pg.123) so lenient as

to let her venture to a market with a coin or two in her mouth, on a specific

errand, would permit her to scamper about with a trove such as that which now

seems to be in your keeping.”

“You do not understand,’ she said.

“Kneel more straightly,” I said.

She complied. I viewed her. I wondered what her master had paid for her.

Probably a goodly price. She was worth such.

“How did you expect to escape the palisade?” I asked.

She looked at me, agonized.

“Were you approaching me, intentionally?’ I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“It was your intention, I gather,” I said, “to attempt to bribe me, that I might

abet your escape.”

Tears sprang into her eyes.

“But do you think I would do other then to carry you into my own chains?”

She trembled. She clutched the tiny sack.

“You have been caught,” I said. “You are a caught slave. I will now turn you

over to an attendant, for binding and holding, pending what punishments your

master might see fit to visit upon you.”

“You do not understand,” she whispered.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The coins are mine,” she said.

“Surely you are an inn girl,” I said, “though your collar is now off.

“I do not have a collar,’ she said.

“That is surely an incredible oversight on the part of your master,” I said.

“I do not have a master,’ she whispered.

I looked at her, puzzled, such a woman.

“Am I truly pretty enough to be an inn girl?’ she said.

“Of course,” I said, “and a superb one.”

She looked up at me, elatedly, gratefully,

“Who is your master?” I asked.

“I do not have a master,” she repeated.

“Do you seek to compound your crime with deceit,” I said.

(pg.124) “I am not a slave,” she whispered. “I am a free woman. Oh!”

I had seized her, half lifted her, and turned her from side to side, examining

her slim, attractive thighs for the tiny brand which would confirm the matter.

The most common brand sites, that on the left thigh, the favorite, and that on

the right thigh, lacked slave marks. This determination, given the nature of her

garmenture, could be instantly made. I then put her on her feet. “Oh!’ she said.

She was not branded on the lower left abdomen. That is perhaps the third most

favored brand site. I then checked several other brand sites, such as the

insides of the forearms, the left side of the neck, behind and below the left

ear, the backs of her legs, and her buttocks. I even examined the insteps of her

left and right feet. Her body was not branded.

“I am a free woman,” she said, so rudely handled.

“It seems you have not yet been branded,” I said.

“I am not a slave,” she said. “I am a free woman.”

This did not seem to me possible, of course, clad as she was, in this place.

“Do you not recognize me?” she asked.

“On your knees,” I said.

Swiftly, she knelt.

“Don’t you recognize me?” she asked.

I looked at her, puzzled. To be sure, something about her seemed familiar.

“Crouch before me,” she said.

I did so.

She put her hands before her face, the strings of the sack looped twice now

about her left wrist. As she held her hands before her, rather to the bridge of

the nose, they concealed the lower portions of her face, much as would a veil.

“Ah!” I said. It was not so much at first, however, that I recalled her upper

facial features, as hey would have appeared over the veil, if only because it

had been very dark in the upper level when I had sought my space last night, as

I recalled immediately, vividly, the appearance and positioning of her small

hands. The small palms of them, with their delicate, extremely sensitive,

exposed openness, faced outwards. It was in this way that I first realized who

she was. During the night she had perhaps realized what she had done. (pg.125)

Perhaps, then, she had sobbed with shame. Yet now, in the morning, presumably by

now fully aware of what she was doing, she dared to again so hold her hands

before a man. Even last night, once she must have realized how her hands were

positioned, I recalled she had not quickly, shamed, turned them about,

presenting their backs to me. One expects a Gorean woman, attempting to conceal

her features from a man, to place her hands, cuplike, over her nose and mouth.

As I have indicated, the lips and mouth of a female are commonly regarded as

extremely sensuous features to a Gorean, hence the concern of many free women,

particularly of high caste, in the high cities, to conceal them. A simple way to

uncup the woman’s hands is to take the small finger of her left hand in your

right hand and pull that hand to the side, and then take the small finger of the

right hand in your left hand, and pull that, too, to the side. This opens the

barrier and reveals the mouth and lips of the woman to you. In this case,

however, as she held her hands, with the palms facing me, I simply took her

wrists and, gently, drew them apart. This exposed her lips and mouth to me. Her

lips were slightly parted. She was breathing quickly.

“I remember,” I said. Last night I had face-stripped her, before gagging her

with her own veil. It had been very dark on the level last night, with only the

tiny lamps far to the side and back, but I could see now, upon close

examination, that it was indeed the same woman.

“You gagged me,” she said. “You made it so that your will was imposed upon mine.

I could not cry out or speak. You did not choose to permit it.”

I nodded.

“And you tied me!” she said.

“Of course,” I said. I had done so with her stockings, hand and foot.

She looked at me, with awe in her eyes. Perhaps she had never been tied before.

I considered her beauty. It seemed made for rope, and steel and leather.

“Did you manage to free yourself?” I asked. I was curious to hear what she would

respond.

“No,” she said. “I was absolutely helpless. I could not begin to free myself. I

was freed by an itinerant metal worker.”

“I see,” I said.

(pg.126) “You knew I could not free myself!” she said, suddenly, reproachfully.

“Yes,’ I said.

She shuddered. “Are slaves sometimes bound like that?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” I said.

“You cut apart my clothing, and removed the hooks and fastenings from it,” she

said. “Yet you did not strip me. You left it lying upon me in such a way that my

modesty might be protected. You even covered my head and face with my hoot, that

I might not lie there face-stripped. Thank you.”

I nodded.

“To be sure,” she said, “the hood in such a placement functioned almost like a

slave hood.”

“True,” I said.

“If I did not move I could not see,” she said, “and if I did move I might well

face-strip myself.”

“The choice was yours,” I said.

“And if I had as much as squirmed,” she said, “I would have stripped myself.”

“Again,” I said, “the choice was yours.”

“As I am a free woman,” she asked.

“Of course,” I said.

“Had I been a slave girl,” she said, “I gather I would not have had such

choices.”

“Probably not,” I said. “The slave girl, normally, stays simply as men put her,

for example, in such a case, presumably naked and bound.”

“After you disarmed me, and made me helpless, what did you do with my dagger?”

she asked.

“I destroyed it,” I said, “and threw it out.”

She nodded.

“Do you object?” I asked.