Renegades of Gor (20 page)

which may be used in fastening things to it, or across it. Needless to say, such

may be used to fasten females in place. Lady Phoebe of Telnus was, of course, a

free woman, and though she was a capture, in a sense, she had a special status

with me. I did not, thus, throw her across the saddle, on her belly, or back,

fastening her there in utter helplessness as I might have a common capture. I

did, however, loop a left strap about her right wrist, and tie it back to its

ring, and loop a right strap on her right wrist, tying it back to its ring. In

this way, as she wore slave bracelets, although she might slip, she could not

fall, and her hands would be kept in the vicinity of the pommel. I then put the

safety strap about myself, and buckled it shut.

Once before, long ago, in the vicinity of the city of Ar, I had been lax in

doing that. It had been fortunate that I had survived. It was a precaution

which, if time permitted, I had seldom neglected thereafter. I thought of lithe,

sinuous, olive-skinned Talena, the daughter of Marlenus of Ar until disowned,

(pg134) she having given evidence that she was a slave. After she had been

returned to Ar by Samos, of Port Kar, into whose chains she had fallen,

Marlenus, shamed, had had her sequestered, in the Central Cylinder. Now, in his

absence, he having vanished in the Voltai Mountains, on a punitive raid against

the tarnsmen of Treve, it seemed her fortunes were recovering. She had appeared

at public functions. Her palanquin was now again seen abroad in the streets.

Doubtless she was once again becoming proud and haughty. I had not seen the

slave in her. On the other hand, Rask of Treve, and others, had. I, too, now, I

suspected, might be more perceptive. Though she had been the daughter of a Ubar,

and now, again, it seemed, stood high in Ar, she was, after all, only a female.

I wondered what she might look like, naked and in chains, or writhing at my

feet, trying to interest me.

“Oh!” said Lady Phoebe, softly.

“You are slim,” I said, “but you are well curved.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“It is pleasant to caress you,” I said.

She was silent.

“Do you object?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“I am a full servant,” she said.

Her body was unusually sensitive for that of a free woman. It was not slave, of

course, but then she was not a slave. Such transformation in her, of course,

might easily come with the collar, and discipline.

I again, briefly, considered the proud, haughty Talena, who had been the

daughter of a Ubar, and who now, again, it seemed, stood high in Ar. Yes, she

would, I thought, considering the matter carefully, look well in chains, or

writhing at my feet, trying to interest me. Too, I recalled she had been

contemptuous of me, and haughty and cruel to me, in Port Kar, scorning even the

memory of my love, when I had been paralyzed, helpless to move from a chair, the

victim of the poison of Sullius Maximus, once one of the five Ubars of Port Kar,

before the Sovereignty of the Council of Captains. I wondered if she thought

that I was still in Port Kar, perhaps huddled before a fire in that same chair,

an invalid, its (pg.135) prisoner. But I had recovered, fully, receiving even

the antidote for the poison of Torvaldsland. I suspected, however, she might

have seen me from her palanquin in Ar. The following night an attempt had been

made on my life in the Tunnels, one of the slave brothels of Ludmilla, from

which the street called the Alley of the Slave Brothels of Ludmilla is named.

Too, I had seen evidence near Brundisium that she was guilty of treason against

Ar.

“Oh!” said Lady Phoebe.

“Ah, yes, Talena, I thought. Yes, I thought, now, upon reflection, that there

had been a slave in her. Perhaps I had been a fool to let it get away. Yes, she

might make an interesting slave, perhaps a low slave. Then I dismissed thoughts

of her from my mind.

“Ohh!” gasped Lady Phoebe, crying out in the blindfold, squirming on the saddle

before me. I heard the tiny sounds of the linkage of the slave bracelets. Her

white thighs contrasted nicely with the smooth, dark, glossy leather. Sometimes

they were flattened against the leather, as though gripping it for dear life,

and, at other times, they rubbed, and squirmed, and moved helplessly, piteously,

against it. I considered the glossiness of the saddle leather. I did not think

she was the first woman who had been carried on it, or so handled. Her knees

suddenly bent and she almost climbed up, about the pommel. I wondered if I

should have fastened her ankles to rings, holding her thighs down and apart, on

the saddle, forcing her to endure the sensations, for the most part

relieflessly, within physical-restraint limits of my choosing.

“Oh, ohh,” she Lady Phoebe.

“Be silent,” I said to her.

“You have stopped!” she whispered.

“Be silent,” I said. Had she been a slave, and not a free woman, this causing of

the repetition of a command might have earned her a beating.

The attendant looked about. There was the sound of some commotion coming from

the vicinity of the court.

“Here, my good fellow,” I said to him.

“My thank, tarnsman!” he cried, not having expected a gratuity of such size.

I was reasonably confident as to what the commotion might (pg.136) well be

about, and so I thought I might as well take my leave of the Crooked Tarn.

“You are generous, indeed, tarnsman,” said the attendant, backing away now. It

would scarcely do to be struck or swept from the platform to the moat some

seventy or eighty feet below, particularly as one had just made an entire silver

tarsk. Giving such a coin, of course, was, in its way, I suppose, a bit of

braggadocio on my part, something of a gesture or flourish. On the other hand, I

would not really miss it that much as I had extracted it from among the coins I

had taken from the wallet of the fellow I had left in the tub, in the baths, the

burly fellow who was of the company of Artemidorus.

I drew up the mounting ladder and secured it at the side of the saddle.

The shouting, angry shouts, a tumult almost, was clearer now. Four or five

fellows must have been involved. There were, too, if I am not mistaken, the

sounds of blows, or, at least, sudden grunts and cries of pain.

I moved the harness, drawing the straps evenly, and the bird, anticipatory,

alerted, stalked to the front edge of the landing platform, outside the portal

of the tarn gate. From such a platform the bird, with a single snap of its

wings, addressing itself to flight, is immediately airborne.

“Hold tightly,” I told my servant.

She moaned. She clutched the pommel with all her strength.

“There is a fellow back there,” said the attendant. “He is naked! He is

fighting!”

“Oh?” I said.

“Yes!” he said.

“Interesting,” I said.

“He has probably not paid his bills, and is trying to escape,” speculated the

attendant. To be sure, he did not seem eager to rush down and join the fray.

“Disgusting,” I said.

I myself had paid my bills properly before leaving the Crooked Tarn. It is the

thing to do. Inns, after all, if no one paid their bills, would have a difficult

time making a go of it. It is not really practical to hold every fellow for

ransom, or, every lady for redemption. This is not to deny that some outlying

Gorean inns, particularly where female travelers are (pg.137) concerned,

function as little more than slave traps, an arrangement usually being in effect

with a local slaver.

“He seems to be trying to come in this direction,” said the attendant.

“Interesting,” I said.

If the fellow was really trying to escape without paying his bills, and this was

a peculiar direction for him to be coming if that was the case, then I could

hardly blame him. The prices at the Crooked Tarn were indeed outrageous. My own

bill, for example, all told, had come to nineteen copper tarsks, and a tarsk

bit, the latter for the use of the Lady Temione last night. The itemization of

that bill, frightful to contemplate, had been ten for lodging, two for the bath

and supplies, two for blankets, five for bread, paga and porridge, and the tarsk

bit for the use of the Lady Temione, the only particular on the bill which might

have been argued as within reason. I had done without breakfast this morning

primarily to save time, but it could also have been done, and I think

legitimately, in protest over the prices of the Crooked Tarn. Fortunately I had

some dried tarsk strips in my pack. I did not know if the Lady Phoebe would find

these appealing or not but she would learn to eat them. Too, she would learn to

take them in her mouth from my hand. This would help her to learn that she was

now dependent on men for her food.

“How is our friend doing now?” I asked.

“He is down! They have him. No! He is up!” reported the attendant. “Hah! Now

they have a chain on him!”

“I wish you well,” I said to the attendant. I had thought I might wait on the

platform in case the fellow managed to reach it, and then take flight, but it

did not seem now that he would get this far, at least this morning.

“I wish you well!” called that attendant, clinging then to a stanchion of the

tarn gate.

I drew back, decisively, on the one-strap, and the tarn screamed and smote the

air with its wings, and, my servant crying out in terror and clutching the

pommel, was aflight!

Those who are horsemen know the exhilaration of riding, the marvelous animal,

its strength, its pacings, its speed, its responsiveness, how one seems

augmented by its power, how one can feel it, and its breathing, the movements of

its body, sensing even the blows of its hoofs in the turf. It is little (pg.138)

wonder that peoples knowing not the horse fled in terror when they first

encountered riders, taking the rider and his mount for one thing, something half

animal, half human, an awesome, unbelievably swift, gigantic, armed chimera,

something that could not be outrun, that seemed to fly upon the earth, that

seemed tireless, something irresistible, merciless and relentless to which it

seemed the world must rightfully belong.

To such initial glimpses, fraught with fear, might harken the stories of the

centaur, half man, half horse. And the legendary nature of the centaur, its

appetites, its rapacity and power, harken back, too, perhaps, in the canny ways

in which half-forgotten historical fact colors the fancies of tamer times, to

the first perceptions of the horseman, and his ways, among those afoot. And even

later, when the separation of man and mount became clearly understood, the fear

of the horseman, and his ways, would abide. Fortunate that they lingered largely

on the fringes of civilization. And yet, how often, as with the Hyksos, in

Egypt, did they ride in from the desert like a storm, their horses among the

barley. The mystique of the rider lingered unquestioned for centuries. Alexander

would turn cavalry into a decisive arm. Centuries later the stirrup and

barbarian lancers would crush the world’s most successful civilization. The very

word for “Knight” in German is “Ritter”, which, literally, means “Rider.”

The ascendancy of the cavalry would remain unchallenged until the achievement of

revolutions in infantry tactics and missile power, such things as the coming of

the massed pikes, and the flighted clothyard shafts of a dozen fields. Something

of the same joy of the rider, and mystique of the rider, exists on Gor in

connection with the tarn as existed on Earth in connection with the horse. For

example, if you have thrilled to the movements and power of a fine steed, you

have some conception of what it is to be aflight on tarnback. There is the wind,

the sense of the beast, the speed, the movements, now in all dimensions, the

climb, the dive, soaring, turning, all in the freedom of the sky! There is here,

too, a oneness of man and beast. There is even the legend of the tarntauros, or

creature half man, and half tarn, which in Gorean myth, plays a similar, one

might even say, equivalent, role to that of the centaur in the myths of Earth.

Too, the tarnsman retains (pg.139) something of the glamour which on Earth

attached to the horseman, particularly so as the technology laws of the

Priest-Kings, remote, mysterious masters of Gor, preclude the mechanization of

transportation. The togetherness of organic life, as in the relationship of man

and mount, a symbiotic harmony, remains in effect on Gor.

I was aflight!

For a time I muchly gave the bird its head, and then, some pasangs out, drew it

about, to sweep the sky in a vast circle, this centering about the inn, far

below.

“You will caress me again, will you not?” asked my servant.

“Perhaps,” I said, “if you beg it.”

“I beg it!” she said.

“Hold to the pommel, tightly,” I said.

She did so.

I would have time for her later. This was not the moment.

When one first ascends a new mount, or, indeed, masters a new woman, it is well

to put them through their paces, to see what they can do, to see what they are