Dancer of Gor (55 page)

"There is no garbage here, on which to make your bed," said one of the men, "and I have learned that, indeed, in any event, you are worth less than it."

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Nor do I have a cloak now, doubled, to soften the cruelty of the cobblestones to your back," he said.

"Hot sand will do, Master," I said, "and chains in which my limbs are enclosed."

"Yes," he said.

I saw I did not need to fear him, save in the ways any slave must fear a master.

I danced then to those whose eyes were hardest. Some of them were not even men I had trapped, but only men who knew what I had done. Some may have been as innocent as those I had lured, others might have been murderers and brigands, suitably enchained for the expiation of sentences, their custody having been legally transferred to Ionicus, my master, at the payment of a prisoner's fee, by the writ of a praetor or, in more desperate cases, by the order of a quaestor. I danced abjectly. I danced piteously. I danced beggingly. I danced as well as I could. I could not do more. They would either be pleased or not. My fate was in their hands.

"She is pretty," said one of them.

(pg. 333) "Yes," said another.

Hope sprang again high within me. I sought then to move another, with my helplessness, and the pleas of my body.

"Are you a good slave lay?" asked a man.

"It is my hope that I am pleasing, Master," I said. "Surely I shall endeavor to be so."

He grinned.

"She has the look of a wench who would be good in the furs," laughed a man. I heard the chain move in the heavy staple on his shackle.

"There are no furs here," laughed another man.

I had not had furs touch my body since a cool evening, five nights ago, in the overseer's tent. I had then worn the rectangle of red silk, that in which he was accustomed to put his use slaves. It is such, it thrust over a leather thong knotted above the girl's belly, that it may be easily brushed aside, or pulled away. It was my hope that I had pleased him well. Toward morning he had chained me, hand and foot, to a stake near his feet, where I could not reach him. I moaned for a time, but the kick of his foot had taught me that I must then be silent.

"She is an excellent dancer," commented a man, another whom I had lured in Argentum.

"Yes," said another fellow, another of those who owed his chaining to me.

I began to be conscious then, as I sometimes was, of the incredible power of the female slave, of how helpless men could be before her, and of what she could do to them."Ah," said one of the men, softly, watching.

I repeated the movement.

"Yes," said another man. "Yes!" said another.

How paradoxical I thought, that she who is branded, and collared, and owned, and is nothing, should have such power!

"Dance, slut, dance!" said a man.

And then again I danced, helplessly, piteously, suing for their favor, striving desperately to be found pleasing. In the end the power belongs to the master, totally, and not to the slave. She is his.

"Excellent," said a man. "Excellent."

I danced.

I danced in such a way that a free woman might only dream of, awakening, sweating, in the night, clutching her covers, in terror, then feeling her throat with trepidation, with the tips of frightened fingers, to ascertain that no cpollar has been locked on it in the night. How could she, a free woman, have such a (pg. 334) dream? What could it mean? And what would the men do to her when they came to take her in their arms? She awakened, in terror. Perhaps she hurries to strike a light in her room. The familiar surroundings reassure her. She has had such dreams before. What could they mean? Nothing, of course. Nothing! Such dreams must be meaningless! They must be! But what if they were not? She shudders. Perhaps she then, in her long silken gown, curls up, frightened, at the foot of her bed. What, too, could that mean? She does not know. Surely that, too, means nothing. But what if it did? She lies there, troubled, but somehow comforted, somehow secure, in that position. It seems to her, somehow, that that is where she belongs.

"Superb," said a man.

I saw now that they, or most of them, were pleased. I sensed now that I might be spared, at least if I pleased them, too, well enough in the sand. I had lured many of them, but now I danced for before them, to please them, begging for my life, danced before them helplessly, at their mercy, submitted and dependent on their favor, for my very life, as much as though I might be their own slave. I saw to my joy, coming gradually to understand it, that they, or surely most of them, would accept this, my beauty, my submission and service, abject and total, in lieu of my blood. It would be vengeance enough for them. How mighty they were, and kind! To be sure, I would have to continue to show them perfections of slave service and total deference. How grateful I was to he whom I had most feared, he who was last upon the chain, he who had given me this eagerly embraced opportunity to save my slave's hide! But it was he, of all of them, who had refused to watch me dance. He stood with his back turned to me, his back straight, his arms folded, looking away. Many times I had danced to him, moving behind him in the sand, but he did not turn. He did not deign to glance upon me. Then, near the end of my dance, as it approached its climax, I was on my knees in the sand, writhing, bending forward until my hair was in the sand, bending back then, exposing the bow of my body, my thighs, my belly, my breasts and throat to them, my hands inviting attention to them, my hair back in the sand, and then I straightened, and then was on my back, and belly, twisting and moving, lifting my hands to them, begging for favor, piteously suing for mercy. Such things I had been taught as long ago as the house of my first training, but I think, truly, even had I not had such training, I would, in the circumstances, have done much the same. Perhaps it is instinctual in a woman. I had, when owned by Gordon, the musician, once seen a former free woman, new (pg. 335) to her collar, in an alley in Samnium, performing so for a master, he with whip in hand, encouraging her to adequacy. She did well. She, shuddering, half in shock, learned that she would be spared, at least for the time. he then began to instruct her in how to give pleasure to a man. She attended fearfully, and well, to her lessons.

At the end of the dance, I was on my knees again, behind him. I lifted my hands to him. "Master, please!" I begged. "Look upon me!" But he did not turn.

With a cry of joy the men surged about me. I was lifted by my upper arms and flung back in the sand. My legs were lifted up, my kneed bent. My wrist chain was pulled forward and thrust over and behind my feet. It was then jerked up, behind me. I could now not move my hands from my sides. I was helpless. My ankles, each in the grip of one man, were pulled apart, until my ankle chain, its links straightened, permitted no further extension. My opened tunic was thrust back on both sides. I, half submerged in the sand, put my head back, looking up and back. I could see the figures, and the palanquin, seemingly small, seemingly far above me, seemingly far away from me on the ridge. I thought my master, Ionicus, of Cos, might be looking at me, through the lorgnon. "Oh!" I cried, suddenly, as the first of them put me to his pleasure.

"Are you alright?" asked Tupita.

"Yes," I said, lying in the sand.

"The chain is gone," she said. "It has been taken elsewhere."

I nodded, stiff, aching. I had known that it had gone. A little later Tupita had come down the slope.

"Lie on your side," she said. "Pull your legs up. get your knees as close to your belly as you can."

She drew the chain down, from behind me, and, pushing back my ankles, I winced, put it over my feet and ankles. it was then again before me.

"Sit up," she said.

"Yes, Mistress," I said. She was not the "first girl" of the work slaves, not even the first girl in our pen. Of the two of us assigned to this chain, however, she was surely "first girl."

"You are sure you are all right?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

I turned and looked up to the height of the ridge.

"They are gone," she said.

"Yes," I whispered.

"Can you walk?" she asked.

(pg. 336)"I think so," I said.

"I think we should follow the chain now," she said.

"Mirus saved my life," I said.

She was silent.

"What is wrong?" I asked.

"I think we should follow the chain," she said.

"What is wrong?" I asked.

"It is lonely here," she said.

"I do not understand," I said.

"I heard them talking, up on the ridge," she said. "Something has happened."

"What?" I asked.

The sun was still bright. It was in the late afternoon. The sky was very blue. A soft wind moved between the dunelike hills, stirring the rough grass.

"It happened only a pasang or so from the walls of Venna," she said, "closer to Venna than our camp."

"What?" I asked, uneasily.

"A body was found, that of an official of Venna, an aedile, I think."

"I am sorry to hear that," I said. "I gather that he was robbed?"

"Apparently he was robbed," she said, "either by the assailant, or another. His purse was gone."

"I am sorry," I said.

"The body," she said, "was half eaten."

I shuddered.

"It was torn to pieces," she said. "The visera were gone. Bones were bitten through."

I winced.

"it is frightening," she said, "to consider the force, the power of such jaws, which could do such things."

"There is a sleen in the vicinity," I said. I remembered Borko, the hunting sleen of my former master, Hendow, of Brundisium,

"The tracks were not those of a sleen," she said.

"There are panthers," I said, "and beasts called larls. Such animals are very dangerous."

"As far as I know, there has not been a panther or larl in the vicinity of Venna in more than a hundred years," she said.

"It could have been wandering far outside its customary range," I said, "perhaps driven by hunger, or thirst."

"They were not the tracks of a panther or larl," she said.

"Then it must have been a sleen," I said.

(pg. 337) "Sleen have no use for gold," she said, uneasily.

"Surely someone could have found the body and taken the purse," I said.

"Perhaps," she granted me.

"It must then have been a sleen," I said. "There is no other explanation."

"The tracks," she reminded me, "were not those of a sleen."

"Then of what beast were they the tacks?" I asked.

"That is the frightening thing," she said. "They do not know. Hunters were called in. Even they could not identify them."I regarded her.

"They could tell very little about the tracks," she said. "One thing, however, was clear."

"What?" I asked.

"It walked upright," she said.

"That is unnatural," I said.

"Is it so surprising," she asked, "that a beast might walk upright?"

I looked at her.

"Or even that they should walk in power and pride?"

"I do not understand," I said.

"Our masters, the beasts, the brutes, those who put us in collars, and make us kneel, those from whose largess we must hope they will grant us a rag, those whose whips we must fear, do so," she said.

"Yes," I breathed. "They do!" Our masters, the magnificent beasts, so powerful, so free, so liberated and masculine, so glorious in their untrammeled manhood, so uncompromising with us, did so.

"But this thing, I think," she said, "is not such a beast, not a human beast, not a man in the full power of his intelligence, vitality and animality, but some other sort of beast, something perhaps similar somehow, but very different, too."

"I would be afraid of it," I said.

"I doubt that you could placate it with your beauty," she said."Am I beautiful?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "I who was, and perhaps am, your rival, grant you that. You are very beautiful."

"You, too, are beautiful," I said, and then I added, suddenly, "and doubtless much more beautiful than I!"

"I think that is not true," she said. "But it is kind of you to say it."

"I am sure it is true," I said.

"We are both beautiful slaves," she said. "I think we are (338) equivalently beautiful, in different ways. I think we would both bring a high price, stripped naked on a sales block. Beyond that it is doubtless a matter of the preferences of a given man."

"You are kind," I said.

"Did you betray me in the matter of the pastry?" she asked.

"No," I said. "Its absence was noted. Your presence in the vicinity was recalled. You were apprehended. In the lick of your fingers was revealed the taste of sugar."

"I was whipped well for that," she said, shuddering.

"I am sorry," I said.