Captive of Gor (31 page)

(pg. 213) A girl from the other side of the wagon squeezed between Ute and I.

“Get back,” I snapped at her.

“Be quiet,” she said.

“Look!” cried Ute.

There was, outside, the snap of a whip.

There was a great shout from the crowd.

I pressed closer to the opening, looking out. More carts of sleen and panthers,

with huntsmen and slaves, were passing.

Then I heard the snap of the whip again.

The crowd gave another shout.

“Look!” cried Inge.

And then we saw it.

A cart was passing, flanked by huntsmen and slaves, bearing their burdens of

gourds, flowers, nuts and fruits. On the cart, horizontally, parallel to the

axles, there was a high pole, lashed together at the point of their crossings.

It was a trophy pole, with its stanchions, peeled, formed of straight branches,

like the other trophy poles, from which had hung the skins of slain animal. Only

standing below this pole, alone on the cart, her skins knotted about her neck,

her wrists bound behind her back, her hair fastened over the pole, holding her

in place, was a beautiful panther girl, stripped, her weapons, broken, lying at

her feet. I recognized her as one of the girl’s of Verna’s band.

I cried out with pleasure.

It was the first of five carts. On each, similarly, wrists bound behind her

back, stripped, her hair bound cruelly over a trophy pole, stood a panther girl,

each more beautiful than the last.

I heard the blare of the trumpets, the clash of the cymbals, the pounding of the

drums. The men shouted. Women cursed, and screamed their hatred of the panther

girls. Children cried out and pelted them with pebbles. Slave girls in the crowd

rushed forward to surge about the carts, to poke at them with sticks, strike

them with switches and spit upon them. Panther girls were hated. I, too, wished

I could rush out and strike them and spit upon them. From time to (pg. 214)

time, guards, huntsmen, with whips, would leap to the cart and crack their

whips, terrifying the slave girls, who knew that sound well, back from the

carts, that they might pass, but then the slaves would gather again, and rush

about the following cart, only to be in turn driven back again. Standing outside

the range of the whip they would then spit, and curse and scream their hatred of

the panther girls.

“Slaves are so cruel,” said Ute.

Cart by cart passed.

“Look!’ cried Inge.

We now heard the snap of whips again, but this time the leather blades fell upon

the naked backs of girls.

“Look!” cried Lana, pleased.

A huntsmen came now, holding in his hand five long leather straps, dragging

behind him five panther girls. Their wrists were bound before their bodies,

lashed tightly. The same strap that lashed their wrists, I saw, served, too, as

their leash, that held in the huntsman’s grip. Like the girls bound by the hair

to the trophy poles, on the carts, these were stripped, their skins knotted

about their necks.

Behind them there walked another huntsman, with a lash. He would occasionally

strike them, hurrying them forward.

I saw the lash fall across the back of the blond girl, she who had held my leash

in the forest, who had been so cruel to me. I heard her cry out, and saw her

stumble forward, bound, in pain. I laughed.

Behind this first group of five girls there came a second group, it, too, with

its huntsman holding the leashes, dragging his beautiful captives, and another

following behind, occasionally lashing them forward.

How pleased I was. There had been fifteen girls, five on the carts, and two of

the tethered groups! All of Verna’s band had fallen captive!

There now came a great shout, and I squeezed even further forward in the wagon,

to peep out.

Then the crown became suddenly quiet.

One last cart approached. I could hear its wheels on the stones before I could

see it.

It was Verna.

(pg. 215) Beautiful, barbaric Verna!

Nothing, save her weapons, had been taken from her. She still wore her brief

skins, and about her neck and on her arms, were barbaric ornaments of gold.

But she was caged.

Her cage, mounted on the cart, was not of branches, but of steel. It was a

circular cage, between some six and seven feet in height, flat-bottomed, with a

domed top. Its diameter was no more than a yard.

And she was chained.

Her wrists were manacled behind her body, and a chain led from her confined

wrists to a heavy ring set in the bottom of her cage.

Her head was in the air.

She was manacled as heavily as might have been a man. This infuriated me. Slave

bracelets would hold her, as they would any women!

How arrogant and beautiful she seemed!

How I hated her!

And so, too, must have the other slave girls in the crowd, with their switches

and sticks.

”Hit her!” I screamed through the canvas.

“Be quiet!” cried Ute, in horror.

“Hit her!” screamed Lana.

The crowd of slave girls swarmed forward toward the cart with their sticks and

switches, some of them even leaping upon it, spitting, and striking and poking

through the bars of the high narrow cage.

I saw that the domed top of Verna’s cage was set with a ring, so that the cage

might be, if one wished, hung from the branch of a tree, or suspended from a

pole, for public viewing. Doubtless Marlenus had given orders that she be

exhibited in various cities and villages on the route to Ar, his prize, that she

might thus, this beautiful captive, an outlaw girl well known on Gor,

considerably redound to his prestige and glory. I supposed that she would not be

enslaved until she reached Ar. Then, I supposed, she would be publicly enslaved,

and perhaps by the hand of Marlenus himself.

(pg. 216) The slave girls swarmed about the cage, poking, and striking with

their switches, and spitting and cursing. Their abuse was endured by Verna. It

seemed she chose to ignore them. This infuriated them and they redoubled their

efforts. Verna now flinched with pain, and her body was cut and marked, but

still she would not lower her head, nor did she deign to speak to, or recognize

in any way, her foes.

Then there was a roar of anger from the crowd and, to my fury, men began to

leap, too, to the cart, but to hurl the slave girls from the cage. And huntsmen,

too, angrily, now leaped to the cart, striking about them with their whips. The

slave girls screamed, and fled from the cart. Men seized them, and disarmed them

of their sticks and switches, and them threw the girls to the stones at their

feet, where they cowered, at the sandals of free men, and then the men ordered

them from the street. The girls leapt up and, weeping, terrified, fled away,

humiliated, chastened slaves.

I was angry. I wished that I might have had a stick or switch. How I would have

beaten Verna! I was not afraid of her! I would have beaten her well, as she

deserved!

How I hated Verna!

Her cart was now moving away, drawn by the small, horned tharlarion.

In her cage, manacled, Verna still stood proudly. Her head was still in the air,

her body straight, her gaze level and fixed. She gave no sign that she had

noticed either those who had so rudely assailed her, or those who had protected

her from them. How arrogant and superior she seemed!

How I hated her, and hated her!

A spear butt struck at the wood of the wagon, near where we peeped out. We drew

back, frightened. The canvas was then tied down again. We were alone with

ourselves again, closed in the wagon.

We heard the drums, the trumpets and clashing cymbals growing fainter, down the

street, as the retinue continued on its way.

“Hereafter,” said Inge, “El-in-or will address each of us in this wagon as

Mistress.”

I looked at her in anger.

(pg. 217) “No,” said Ute, to Inge.

“Yes,” said Inge.

“That is being cruel to El-in-or,” said Ute.

“We shall treat El-in-or exactly as she deserves,” said Inge.

The other girls, except Ute, and Lana, who perhaps feared she might be similarly

treated, agreed.

“You will be treated exactly as you deserve, won’t you?” asked Inge, looking at

me.

I did not answer her.

“Is that not true, El-in-or?” asked Inge, sweetly.

I bit my lip.

“Is it not true?” pressed Inge. Her voice was not pleasant.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Yes, what?” asked Inge. Her voice was hard.

“Yes—Mistress,” I said.

The other girls, even Lana, laughed.

“Move your feet,” said the girl across from me.

I looked at Inge. Her eyes were hard.

“Yes, Mistress,” I said. I moved my chained ankles. I hated Inge, and Lana, and

Ute, and all of them!

The girls laughed.

We felt the wagon again begin to move, once again resuming its journey toward

the Field Gate. Once again we were goods, female slaves, on our way to be sold

in Ar.

But I had been forced to acknowledge myself most slave in the wagon. I was more

slave then they!

I was forced even to address them as Mistress!

I was furious.

* * *

Angrily, in the field, in the sunlight, more than a pasang from the wagons, on

the route to Ar, I picked berries, snapping them from their twigs and throwing

them into the bucket.

The sun and the grass, and the breezes, were doubtless as pleasant as they had

been, but I was not now in much of a mood to enjoy them. I recollected with

satisfaction my witnessing of the captivity of Verna, the Panther Girl, but I

recollected with much less satisfaction what had occurred in the slave wagon,

when Inge had so decisively bested me; (pg. 218) when I had learned that she

could beat me, if she pleased, and would, should it please her; when I, a former

bully among them, had so suddenly lost my status with them; when Inge, whom I

now feared, forced me, and cruelly, to address her, and the others, with the

exception of Ute, though slaves themselves, by the title of Mistress, as though

it was only I among them who might be the slave! Moreover, to my fury, the other

girls of the caravan, hearing of this, and thinking it a great joke, were quick

to demand of me the same dignity.

“Address them as Mistress,” said Inge, “or I will beat you.”

I wanted to be sold in Ar, to be free of them! I wanted to be a pampered,

perfumed girl, with jewels and cosmetics and silks, the pet and favorite of an

indulgent master, whom I might control. I wanted the luxuries, and the sights

and pleasures of Ar! I wanted to be an envied slave!

I had bowed my head to Inge.

I would have a very pleasant life, as a manipulative, kept female. The only

difference between myself and the kept girl of Earth, I speculated, was that I

would not be able to choose who it was that would keep me. I would be purchased.

What a fool I was! I did not yet know what it was to be a Gorean slave girl.

“Yes, Mistress,” I had said to Inge, humbly, hating her.

“You many now kiss my feet,” she informed me.

My fists clenched. Her eyes flashed.

I did so. I was afraid of her. The other girls about laughed. And so I called

them Mistress. I wanted to be free of them all!

I was miserable.

But two girls I did not address as Mistress, Ute, who did not wish it, and Lana,

in whose case, for reasons of her own, Inge did not insist upon it.

I wanted to get swiftly to Ar, and to be sold, to be free of them all!

I wanted to begin my new and pleasant life.

I looked at Ute.

(pg. 219) “Ute,” I said.

Ute turned in the strap, from picking berries.

“Yes, El-in-or?” she said.

“When will we reach Ar?” I asked.

“Oh, not for many days,” she said. “We have not yet even come tot he Vosk.”

The Vosk is a great river, which borders the claims of Ar, on the north.

Ute then returned to her picking of berries. Neither she nor the guard were

watching, so I stole some more of her berries for my bucket. Two I had placed in

my mouth, carefully, that no sign that I had tasted them be evident.

I looked up. The sky was bright and blue, and the white clouds scudded swiftly

by. I was wearing a camisk. I was out of the pens, out of the slave wagon. The

air was warm and clear. I was not particularly displeased.

Moreover, I had had an opportunity to be revenged on Verna, before whom I had

demonstrated my superiority and lack of fear.

It had happened five days out of Ko-ro-ba.

The Merchants have, in the past few years, on certain trade routes, between Ar

and Ko-ro-ba, and between Tor and Ar, established palisaded compounds,

defensible stockades. These, where they exist, tend to be placed approximately a

day’s caravan march apart. Sometimes, of course, and indeed, most often, the

caravan must camp in the open. Still, these hostels, where they are to be found,

are welcome, both to common merchants and to slavers, and even to travelers.

Various cities, through their own Merchant Law, legislated and revised, and

upheld, at the Sardar Fairs. The walls are double, the interior wall higher, and

tarn wire is strung over the compound. These forts do not differ much, except in

size, from the common border forts, which cites sometimes maintain at the