Renegades of Gor (4 page)

drainages, dark and roiling, was almost to the foot of the bridge.

The lantern to my right, to the side, on its post, at the right side of the

bridge, swung wildly in the rain and wind.

I looked up. There was a blast of lightning. This illuminated starkly, for a

moment, the palisade at the height of the plateau.

Lightning burst again across the sky.

The boards of the bridge were slick with water. It was about eight feet wide.

Two wagons could not pass on it. It led upward to a covered gate, which,

probably, had a covered, walled hall and another gate beyond it. The two gates,

the inner and the outer, are seldom open at the same time. in the covered way,

like an enclosed hall between the gates, there would doubtless, both above and

to the sides, be arrow ports. Two massive ropes, better than eight inches in

diameter, sloped down from the gate structure to the bridge, which allowed for

the raising and lowering of a portion of it at will. When the section was

raised, pulled up against the gate, further protecting it, the inn would be, in

effect, sealed off, an island in its small sea.

Such inns can serve as keeps or strongholds, but they seldom do so. For example,

one can simply come to them, and buy entrance and lodging. In that sense they

are open, though it is not unusual for them to be closed at night. They can,

however, as I have suggested, serve as keeps. More than once, such inns have

served rural areas as a place of refuge from foragers or marauders. They have

been seized, too, upon occasion by the remnants of defeated forces, as places,

in which to make desperate, perhaps last, stands. Too, such places, particularly

in remote, restless or barbarous districts, may be pacified. Within the palisade

there would be room for several wagons. In this place I did not know how many.

Too, though I did not think it was now lit, there might be a sheltered tarn

beacon somewhere, usually under a high shed. This signifies not only the

location of the inn, and its amenities, but also a safe approach, one unimpeded

by tarn wire, for a tarnsman, or a tarnsman with tarn basket. One brings (pg.26)

the bird in to the left of the light, of course. By custom Gorean traffic keeps

to the left. In this fashion one’s sword arm, at least if one is right-handed,

as are most Goreans, faces the oncoming traffic.

There was a wagon to the left of the bridge. Its canvas cover was drawn down.

The rain poured from it. Under the wagon there was a small, huddled figure, a

tarpaulin clutched about its head and shoulders. Within the wagon, then, I

supposed, there might be a fellow and his free companion. Doubtless, unless it

had been displeasing in some way, the location of the small figure beneath the

wagon, huddling there in misery and cold, was a consequence of the presence of

the free companion within it. I did not doubt but what the small figure was more

beautiful and attractive than the free companion. That was suggested by what

must be its status. Free women hate such individuals and lose few opportunities

to make them suffer. I wondered if the fellow in the wagon had acquired the

individual under it merely for his interest and pleasure, or perhaps, too, as a

way of encouraging his companion to take her own relationship with him more

seriously. Perhaps, if his plan worked, in such a case, he might then be kind

enough to discard the individual beneath the wagon, ridding himself of it, its

work accomplished, in some market or other.

I crouched down. I could then see the heavy chain passed through the ring under

the wagon. One end of it went between the folds of the tarpaulin clutched about

the figure’s throat, probably to be padlocked there, about its throat, or

attached to a collar. The other end went behind the figure and downward,

probably to fasten together its crossed ankles. seeing my eyes upon it, the

small figure knelt under the wagon, and, its hands coming from the tarpaulin,

their palms now on the gravel, put down its head, rendering obeisance.

“Oh!” she said, softly, as I lifted the tarpaulin back. she looked up from all

fours. The chain which passed through the ring wound twice about her neck, where

it was padlocked. From her neck, through the ring, lifting, and thence

descending, it served also to secure her ankles, which were, as I had

anticipated, crossed and chained closely together. This makes it so that the

prisoner cannot walk. It is common to chain female prisoners so that they cannot

rise to their feet. In this (pg.27) there is not only a security but a

symbolism, one that bespeaks their rightful place. Beneath the tarpaulin I saw

that she was naked, and, as I had thought she might be, beautiful.

She looked up at me, from all fours. Her body now was streaked with the slanted

rain. Her hair, apparently from before, was wet and very dark. It fell about her

shoulders. Her knees were on the tarpaulin, within which she had huddles, over

the gravel. I knelt her back, and then took her hands in mine. They were also

cold. I rubbed them for a time. Then I put them on her thighs. I touched her

body, gently, rubbing the rain about it. She shuddered, her shoulders and

breasts wet now, and slick, with the rain.

“You are helpless,” I said to her, “and will make very little noise.”

“My ankles are chained,” she whispered.

I put her to her back, a bit more under the shelter of the wagon. The chain

moved a little through the loop ring above us. I heard the wagon creak a little,

too, above us. Someone had stirred in it, or was moving, it seemed. The fellow

who owned the wagon, I supposed, was turning in his sleep, or was addressing

himself to his companion. But it then seemed quiet, and there was little noise

except for the wind and rain, and the distant rumble of thunder.

My face was close to here. “You are slave,” I whispered.

Suddenly there was a great burst of lightning and crash of thunder.

I saw her eyes, and pressed down upon her, holding her head, pressing her lips

with the kiss of the master.

I drew back.

There was another great flash of lightning and I saw her eyes, looking up at me,

wild, frightened, needful. “Yes,” she whispered intensely, helplessly. “I am a

slave! I am a slave!” Then she lifted her body and seized me in her arms and

pressed her lips eagerly, needfully, gratefully to mine.

I put her to her back.

Then I caressed her, and she squirmed, writhing on the wet tarpaulin over the

gravel, beneath the wagon, in the flashes of lightning, in the explosions of

thunder.

She was small, naked and cuddly. Her thigh, as I determined, (pg.28) in turning

her about, and caressing her, first, by feel, and then, in a flash of lightning,

wore the common Kajira brand, the small, delicate “Kef,” for “Kajira,” sometimes

called the staff and fronds, suggesting beauty subject to discipline. On her

neck, beneath the coils of the heavy, padlocked chain, was a common,

close-fitting Gorean slave collar.

“Alas,” she wept softly, in misery, in frustration, “my ankles are chained!”

I gathered she might not have been a slave long.

“Oh!” she cried, softly.

I thrust up her legs and slipped between them, and hen her legs were tight about

me, I within their chained circuit. I lifted her up, and lowered her. “Ohh,” she

said, softly. She clutched me.

The storm was fierce.

Then, after a time, I lifted her up and slipped back, freeing myself.

There are various ways, of course, to use a woman whose ankles were bound. I had

utilized one of them.

“If a question comes up,” I said to her, “you were warned to silence, and were

helpless.” To be sure, this was even true. “You were merely utilized by a casual

passer-by.” I said. Such things, incidentally, are not that unusual with female

slaves, particularly if they are put out, without an iron belt, in effect for

the taking.

“I cannot believe the feelings I had,” she whispered.

“You must endure such feelings and more,” I said, “When men choose to impose

them upon you.”

“Yes, Master,” she whispered, in awe.

The extent and nature of such feelings, I think, are largely a function of the

individuals involved. To be sure, they are usually, too, a function of many

other factors, as well. For example, in this particular case, I suspected that

her chaining might have been a factor. Restraining the female, sometimes

symbolically, sometimes in fashions which are literally, physically coercive,

making her absolutely helpless, for various reasons, psychological and physical,

intensifies her orgasm. This sort of thing, I suppose, is largely unknown to

free women, though many seem to suspect it, dimly or otherwise. Its reality, of

course, can become clear to them, for example, as they might find themselves on

their knees, bound, kissing (pg.29) a man’s whip. The most significant

restraint, of course, it the condition of bondage itself, in which the woman

knows that the male is dominant over her and that she must submit to him, that

she is owned, and must, in fear of very life, be obedient and pleasing. Slavery

institutionalizes, in an organized, social, civilized context, the natural

biological relationship between men and women. It also, of course, as one would

expect, by means of various devices, legal and otherwise, clarifies it and

renders it more efficient.

“Oh, buy me, Master! Buy me!” she begged.

“Only a slave,” said I, “begs to be bought.”

“I am a slave,” she said. “That was taught to me weeks ago by the slaver who

captured me!”

“You are probably not for sale,” I said.

“My master does not care for me,” she said. “He bought me only to anger his

companion, who is terribly cruel to me. During the day, when my legs are open,

he even rents me out to strangers for a tarsk bit!”

“Does his companion grow more attentive and concerned?” I asked.

“I think not,” she said.

“Perhaps it should be she who is chained beneath the wagon,” I said.

“She is a free woman!” protested the girl, in horror.

“Your master charges a tarsk bit for your use?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Open your mouth,” I said.

She did so, and I drew forth a tarsk bit from my pouch, this one not a separate

coin in the sense of round or square coin, but a piece of such a coin, a narrow,

triangular, chopped eighth of a copper tarn disk, and placed it in her mouth.

“That is for your master,” I said. Many Goreans, particularly those of low

caste, on errands and such, carry a coin or coins in their mouths. Most Gorean

garments, a notable exception being those of artisans, lack pockets.

She looked at me.

I pulled the tarpaulin up about her, as it had been before, to protect her from

the storm.

In placing the coin in her mouth, I had not only, having discovered he was

interested in such things, and the price was (pg.30) not too much, compensated

her master for her use but had precluded further importunities on her part.

I kissed a little at her face. I had thought the streaks there might have been

rain, but they had a salty taste.

I moved from beneath the wagon and picked up my pack.

She looked up at me. She understood, the coin in her mouth, that she was now to

be silent.

I looked up to the height of the stony plateau, and the palisade. In a flash of

lightning, illuminated clearly for a moment, I could see, over the palisade,

hanging from its chains, the crosspiece on the high pole, swinging in the storm,

the huge sign with its emblematic representation of a bird, that with the

vulturelike neck and the distorted, grasping right leg and talons, the sigh of

the Crooked Tarn.

I looked back to the girl.

She was still looking at me.

I pointed to the gravel before her, under the wagon.

Immediately, kneeling, she lowered her head to the gravel, in obeisance.

I then turned away, and began to ascend the bridge, leading up to the gate. I

put the girl from my mind. She was, after all, a slave, and her use had been

paid for.

2
     
The Court; Chained Women

(pg.31) “You are not a female,” said the voice from behind the door, a small,

narrow door cut in the left panel of the gate, the eyes peering out from a small

sliding hatch in the door. “Show that you have money!”

I lifted up a copper tarsk. The fellow inside lifted up a small tharlarion-oil

lamp to the opening. I held the coin where he could see it but I did not put it

through the aperture.

“Not enough!” he said.

I then held up a silver tarsk. The door opened.

I entered.

He locked the door behind me.

I then followed him through a high, shedlike tunnel, walled with wood, about

forty feet long, to the interior gate. There he turned about. “Something for the

porter,” I said.

“You are paid by the keeper of the house,” I said.

“Times are hard,” he said. “And it is late. I have opened the door late.”

“That is true,” I said. I put a tarsk bit into his hand.

“Times are hard,” he said.

I put down my pack. I took out a knife and pushed it a bit into his gut, pushing

him back against the inner gate. He turned white. I lifted up his purse, on its