Vagabonds of Gor (49 page)

"Could I survive its bite?" she asked.

"Possibly," I said. "I do not know."

"I do not think I shall attempt to essay the experiment," she said.

"That is wise on your part," I said.

"Do men ever throw women to marsh moccasins, or osts?" she asked.

"Perhaps free women," I said, "as a form of execution."

"No," she said, "I meant slaves."

"What interest have you in slaves?" I asked.

"I was just curious," she said.

"Anything may be done to slaves," I said.

"Of course," she said.

"Perhaps if they were not pleasing," I said. "But then it would be more likely that something less impressive would be done to them, perhaps dismembering them for sleen feed."

"I see," she said.

"Too," I said, "if even a slave's most secret thoughts harbor the least hint of recalcitrance, such an absurdity being inevitably revealed in subtle bodily clues and such, they might be summarily given to leech plants, cast to pond eels, thrown to sleen, such things."

"But if they were pleasing?" she asked.

"And truly concerned to fulfill the complete requirements of their total slavery, internal and external?"

"Yes," she said.

"I would not think so," I said.

"Good," she said.

"That would be a waste of female," I said.

"How you put that!" she said.

I shrugged.

"Do I have some value, just as a female?" she asked.

"You mean, as might a slave?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Of course," I said.

"Good," she said.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said.

She stretched out her legs, a little. She looked at them. She put her hands near her ankles. "You know," she said, "I, too, think my ankles would look well in shackles."

"They would," I said.

"Indeed, I think I might look well as a whole in chains," she said.

I was silent, poling the raft.

"Do you think they would be becoming on me?" she asked.

"Of course," I said.

"Poor free women," she said. "They do not get to wear chains."

"Not often, at any rate," I said.

"I have seen you lustful men ogling slave girls in their chains," she said, chidingly.

"It is one of the pleasures of the mastery," I said.

"And I have seen some of those girls," she said, "how helpless and sensuous they are in their chains, helplessly their captive and yet at the same time using them to drive men mad with passion."

"Oh?" I said.

"Yes," she laughed, "how they move in them, how they make them make those little sounds, and so on."

"Where did you see such things?" I asked.

"On the street, here and there, now and then," she said. "Too, sometimes on an occasional shelf market."

"You might see some good chain work on a shelf market," I said.

"Chain work?" she said.

"Yes," I said. "Some women have an instinct, or a natural talent, for the use of their chains, but these instincts, or talents, are often honed by whip-masters."

"You mean they learn to use their chains?"

"Yes, much as they might learn to drape tunics, to tie slave girdles, to wear slave strips, to use perfume, to apply cosmetics, and so on."

"And to please a man!" she said.

"Of course," I said.

"Well," she said, "whatever the reason, some of them are very beautiful in their chains."

"Yes," I said. "Some girls wear their chains stunningly."

"Do you think I would look well in chains?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Do you think they would suit me?" she asked.

"They would suit you very well," I said.

"Do you think I would be beautiful in them?" she asked.

"All women are beautiful in chains," I said.

"But do you think I would be particularly beautiful in them?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Even though I were a free woman?"

"If you were in chains," I said, "you would presumably no longer be a free woman."

"I suppose not," she said.

"It is nearly morning," I said.

"It seems that slaves have various advantages over free women," she said.

"What did you have in mind?" I asked.

"Not being thrown to marsh moccasins, osts, and such."

"Presumably not," I said, "at least if they are pleasing."

"And truly concerned to be pleasing, fully!" she said.

"Yes," I said.

"They are not subject to execution," she said.

"No," I said, "but they are subject to disposal."

"True," she said.

"And I do not know if there is much difference between being tied on a pole for tharlarion or simply being bound and thrown to them."

"I suppose not," she said.

"I can think of an interesting advantage the free woman has over the slave," I said.

"What is that?" she said.

"Consider yourself," I said.

"Yes?" she said.

"As a free captive," I said, "you are subject to rescue. On the other hand, for most practical purposes, there is no rescue for a female slave, only a change of masters."

"True," she said.

"Suppose it were a kaiila," I said. "If a fellow goes to considerable risk to steal a kaiila, and is successful in doing so, he is not going to turn it loose."

"Of course not," she said.

"On the other hand," I said, "similarly, I can think of an obvious advantage which the female slave has over the free woman."

"What is that?" she asked.

"In many critical situations," I said, "such as the burning and sacking of cities, raids on caravans, and such, she, as she is a domestic animal, like the sleen and tarsk, is much more likely to survive, to be permitted to live, to be spared, than the free female. She is property, obvious loot, obvious booty. Indeed, her acquisition, like that of other wealth, gold, and such, may be one of the primary objects of such sackings or raids."

"Men find slaves of interest, do they not?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "Indeed, wars have been fought to obtain the beautiful slaves of a given city."

"The Slave Wars!" she said.

She was referring to a series of wars, loosely referred to as the Slave Wars, which occurred among various cities in the middle latitudes of Gor, off and on, over a period of approximately a generation. They had occurred long before my coming to Gor. Although large-scale slaving was involved in these wars, and was doubtless a sufficient condition for them, hence the name, other considerations, as would be expected, were often involved, as well, such as the levying of tribute and the control of trade routes.

Out of the Slave Wars grew much of the merchant law pertaining to slaves. Too, out of them grew some of the criteria for the standardization of the female slave as a commodity, for example, how, in virtue of her scarcity, her training, and such, she is to be figured as an item of tribute, for example, in terms of other domestic animals, given their current market values in the area, and so on, such as verr and tarsks. For example, she might, at a given time, be worth five verr or three tarsks, but she might be worth only a fifth of a sleen or a tenth of a tarn.

Obtaining women is one of the major reasons Goreans fight. Another is sport. The Slave Wars, incidentally, might be compared with the Kaiila Wars of the southern hemisphere. In the latter wars, fought among factions of the Wagon Peoples, the object, or principal object, was apparently the acquisition of the lofty, silken kaiila, the common mount of the Wagon Peoples. In those wars, as I understand it, the acquisition of female slaves was almost an afterthought, ropes being put on the necks of captured women, who were then, stripped, herded back with the captured kaiila to the wagons of the victors. To be sure, it did not take the Wagon Peoples long to learn the many exquisite pleasures attendant upon owning beautiful slaves.

With the unification of the Wagon Peoples under a Ubar San, Kamchak, of the Tuchuks, it is my impression that the riders of the swift kaiila now seldom ply their depredations against their own kind. Rather do they roam afield. It is said not a woman is safe within a thousand pasangs of the wagons. I would think that a very conservative estimate. Raiding parties of the Wagon Peoples have been reported as far north as Venna. Some claim to have seen them even in the vicinity of the Sardar.

The Wagon Peoples themselves are not likely to confuse their own slaves, as the different peoples have different brands, the Tuchuks the brand of the four bosk horns, the Kassars the brand of the three-weighted bola, the Kataii the brand of a bow, facing left, and the Paravaci the brand of the inverted isosceles triangle surmounted by a semicircle, a symbolic representation of the head of a bosk. I knew a girl who wore the brand of the four bosk horns, and, above it, the cursive Kef, the common Kajira mark, for she was a common girl, put there when I had branded her in a kasbah in the Tahari. Her name was Vella. She had once been a secretary, on Earth.

"I was thinking, rather," I said, "of various other wars, or conflicts, such as the second war between Harfax and Besnit, and the war, some years ago, between Port Olni and Ti, before the Salerian Confederation."

"Yes!" she said.

"There," I said, "I think the motivations were solely, or almost solely, the acquisition of slaves."

"Yes!" she said.

The war between Port Olni and Ti had ended in a truce. That between Harfax and Besnit had concluded, however, with a practical victory for Harfax. Besnit, her walls breached, had been forced to surrender her slaves, and a selection of her high-caste daughters, to be made slaves, and trained under the women who had formerly been slaves in their own houses.

Besnit and Harfax, now, interestingly enough, years later, were allies. Harfax had desperately needed the assistance of such an ally, but Besnit, understandably, despite the advantages which she stood to reap from such a relationship, given the past, was reluctant to form an alliance. At this point the young high-caste women of Harfax had approached the high council of the city with a bold plan. It had been to permit the men of Besnit to make a selection from among them, in the number of a hundred, the same number which had been that of the high-caste daughters earlier taken by the men of Harfax, this hundred then to be impressed into slavery, trained by slaves in the houses of Besnit, and then to be kept, or sold, or distributed, as their masters chose.