Fighting Slave of Gor (43 page)

"Remove your clothing now, all of it," said the Lady Florence, coldly.

With a sob the Lady Melpomene suddenly fled from. the hall, to the anteroom beyond it. The Lady Florence indicated to Durbar and Hesius that they were not to pursue her. We heard the Lady Melpomene in the outer room, pounding on a door. It was apparently barred from the other side and whoever guarded it, probably Borto, one of the men of the Lady Florence, had been instructed not to open it in answer to her entreaties.

"Let me out! Let me out!" cried the Lady Melpomene.

"Come back, Lady Melpomene," called the Lady Florence, "and hurry, lest we become displeased."

The Lady Melpomene hurried back to the tables, sobbing, and fell on her knees at the low table of the Lady Florence. She extended her hands to the Lady Florence. She tried to touch the Lady Florence but the Lady Florence drew back. "What are you doing to me?" begged the Lady Melpomene.

"Go, stand there on the tiles, where you were before," said the Lady Florence, pointing.

With a sob the Lady Melpomene rose to her feet and went to stand where she had stood before.

"Now remove your clothing, all of it," said the Lady Florence, "or it will be done for you."

Trembling, garment by garment, the Lady Melpomene removed her clothing. Then she stood on the scarlet tiles, naked, near the iron ring.

"That is the sum of your resources," said the Lady Florence. "That is what you have, nothing."

"Please, Florence," moaned the Lady Melpomene.

"Am I not your single and full creditor?" asked the Lady Florence.

"Yes," whispered the Lady Melpomene.

Then, grandly, loftily, the Lady Florence lifted up the loan note from the table before her.

"I demand payment," said the Lady Florence. "I demand that you now pay me the sum of one thousand, four hundred and twenty taros of gold."

"I cannot pay you now," said the Lady Melpomene. "You know that."

The Lady Florence turned to look upon Brandon, who was a prefect in Vonda. He jotted down something on a paper before him.

"You cannot do this!" cried out the Lady Melpomene.

"Such notes as that I hold," said the Lady Florence, "are due, as you must know, upon the demand of the creditor."

"Yes, yes!" cried the Lady Melpomene, clenching her small fists. "But I did not dream you would desire to achieve so hasty a closure on your note."

"Such is my prerogative," said the Lady Florence, imperiously.

"You must give me time to recoup my fortunes!" cried the Lady Melpomene.

"I do not choose to do so," said the Lady Florence.

"Is it your intention to bring about my total ruin?" asked the Lady Melpomene.

"My intentions go far beyond your ruin," said the Lady Florence.

"I do not understand," said the Lady Melpomene.

"A demand for payment has been made, Lady Melpomene," said Brandon, a prefect of Vonda. "Can you pay?"

"You have lured me here," cried out the Lady Melpomene to the Lady Florence, "away from Vonda, beyond the shelter of her walls!"

"The walls of Vonda," said the prefect sternly, "would no longer afford you protection, for your debt, in its plenitude, is now owed to one who is a citizen of Vonda."

The Lady Melpomene shuddered. "I have been tricked," she said.

"Can you pay?" pressed the prefect.

"No," she cried in misery, "no!"

"Kneel, Lady Melpomene, free woman of Vonda," said the prefect.

"Please, no!" she wept.

"Would you rather this be done on the platform of public shame in the great square of Vonda, where you might bring shame upon the Home Stone?" inquired the prefect.

"No, no," sobbed the Lady Melpomene.

"Kneel," said the prefect.

"What is to be my sentence?" she cried.

"Kneel," said he.

She knelt, trembling, fearfully, before him.

"I pronounce you Slave," he said.

"No," she cried, "no!" But it had been done.

"Let her be collared," he said.

The girl put her head down, sobbing.

The Lady Florence cried out with pleasure and clapped her hands together in triumph. The Lady Leta and the Lady Perimene, too clapped their hands and laughed with pleasure. Then, for a moment they struck their left shoulders in Gorean applause, congratulating the Lady Florence on her triumph over her long-term enemy.

"On your hands and knees, Slave Girl," said Tenalion of Ar, who had risen to his feet. From the box beside him he had taken a collar, with a chain loop, and a length of chain.

"May I present our friend Tenalion in a new light to you?" inquired the Lady Florence of the naked, shuddering slave near the ring. "I was somewhat obscure, as seemed fitting, concerning his business to you. He is, of course, a slaver, as is his man, Ronald."

There was a decisive click as Tenalion locked the collar on the slender, lovely throat of the new slave. It fitted, snugly. Slavers can tell a woman's collar size at a glance. She sobbed, head down, on her hands and knees, at the ring. She was now collared. Tenalion crouched beside her. It interested me that Tenalion, a slaver of Ar, was in the vicinity of Vonda. I was curious as to what the reason for that might be. It was doubtless only a coincidence, I assumed. The chain loop depended from the girl's collar. Her breasts, now those of a slave, given her posture, depended beautifully from her body. Tenalion snapped the lock at the end of the length of chain he carried about the chain loop on the girl's collar. Such women, thriftless, then indigent, on my old world, Earth, I supposed, might be supported indefinitely at public expense. Tenalion then snapped the lock-loop at the other end of the length of chain about the iron ring in the tiles. The former Lady Melpomene of Vonda, now a nameless slave, collapsed to her belly, sobbing, on the scarlet tiles, chained by the neck to a slave ring. Goreans do not see fit to reward improvidence.

"Bring a slave whip!" cried the Lady Florence, leaping to her feet.

Pamela hurried from the room.

Brandon, though a prefect in Vonda, rose to his feet and carried papers to the Lady Leta and the Lady Perimene. They were, after all, free women. They affixed the seal of their witnessing signatures to the documents. He then returned to his place and himself signed the papers.

Pamela hurried back, pressing into the hands of the Lady Florence a long-handled, five-bladed Gorean slave whip.

She seized the whip with two hands and turned to look at Brandon.

I heard the stamp of Brandon strike on the papers before him. He looked up at the Lady Florence, and smiled. "The papers are in perfect order," he said.

"I have waited long for this moment!" cried the Lady Florence. "We have been rivals, and enemies, for years!" she said to the prone slave. "How I have despised you in your pride and pretensions, how I hated you, how I held you in contempt! And now you are fully mine, helpless and at my mercy!"

The girl sobbed.

"I name you Melpomene!" cried the Lady Florence.

The girl shook with uncontrollable sobs.

"Kneel to the whip, Melpomene!" she ordered her.

Melpomene then, sobbing, knelt, her legs close together, her wrists held crossed under her, as though bound, her head down, touching the floor, the bow of her back exposed, a slave girl awaiting punishment.

"Triumph! Joy!" cried the Lady Florence. Then, holding the whip with two hands, she lashed savagely down at the slave. She struck her again and again, as though in maddened fury. The struck girl, crying out with misery could not hold the position.

"Do you dare to obstruct a blow of the whip!" cried the Lady Florence to the girl who lay now terrified and supine, in pain, wild, her hands trying to fend the leather away, at her feet.

"No, no!" cried the girl.

"No, what!" cried the Lady Florence.

"No, Mistress!" cried the girl.

"On your belly," said Tenalion to the slave. "Hold to the slave ring with both hands"

The girl obeyed. The Lady Florence then again, wildly, angrily, laid the leather to the lovely back of her former rival. I smiled to myself. Tenalion, though doubtless a strict master, was merciful. He was helping the girl to endure her first beating. Usually, of course, a girl is tied or chained for her beatings. Sometimes, however, she is not secured but merely ordered to hold the ring. After the first two or three strokes it is sometimes difficult to pry her fingers from the iron. The most merciful thing, is my opinion, however, is always to tie or chain the girl. The beating can then be straightforward and efficient. The Lady Florence was now gasping. Holding the whip clenched in her hands, standing over the slave, gasping for breath, she stopped.

"Do you beg to be whipped?" she asked.

"No, Mistress!" wept the girl on her belly at the ring.

"Beg!" cried the Lady Florence.

"I beg to be whipped, Mistress," she wept.

"Very well," cried the Lady Florence, and then, again, she struck at the girl. Then, after a few blows, five blows, she stepped back, and threw aside the whip. The girl lay at her feet, sobbing, shuddering, her hands white on the ring, her back richly striped with the blows of the whip. The Mistress returned to her place, exhausted. The Lady Florence was not strong. She had only a woman's strength. I observed the back of the girl. It was red, and covered with an intricate pattern of deeper reds, as stripes, but it was not bleeding, nor was it cut. The Gorean slave whip is made to punish a girl, and terribly, but it is not made to permanently mark or scar her. A girl with a scarred back brings a lower price in the markets. Melpomene sobbed in pain and disbelief at the ring. She had not known what it could be to be beaten. I had no doubt she would now be docile, helpless and obedient, a true slave girl. Yet I could not help smiling to myself. I wondered what would have been her reaction had she been beaten not by a mere woman, but by a man, with a man's strength.

"On your knees, Melpomene," snapped the Lady Florence.

"Yes, Mistress," wept the girl.

"Feed and water the slave," said the Lady Florence to Bonnie.

"Yes, Mistress," said Bonnie. She brought forth a pan of crusts and one of water, which she placed before Melpomene, on the floor.

"You see what an indulgent Mistress I am, Melpomene," said the Lady Florence. "I permit a slave to eat before our supper is finished"

"Yes, Mistress," whispered Melpomene.

"From whom do you receive your food and water?" inquired the Lady Florence.

"From you, Mistress," said Melpomene. The chain dangled from her collar, down, between her thighs, to the ring.

"Eat," said the Lady Florence.

"Yes, Mistress," said Melpomene. She reached for one of the crusts.

"Melpomene!" said the Lady Florence.

"Mistress?" asked the girl, frightened

"Do not use your hands," she said.

"Yes, Mistress," said the girl. She then bent forward and, the palms of her hands on the tiles, began to eat from the pan. Too, as she ate, she lapped at the water.

"Pamela, Bonnie," called the Lady Florence, "we are now ready for the second course of our supper."

"Yes, Mistress," they said, and hurried to fetch the second course.

"It is a small dish," said the Lady Florence, "the white meat of roast vulos, prepared in a sauce of spiced Sa-Tarna and Ta wine."

The guests expressed a murmur of pleasure and anticipation. "It will be wonderful," said the Lady Leta.

The Lady Florence turned to the musicians, who were sitting to one side. "You may play," she said.

"Yes, Lady Florence," said the czehar player, their leader.

I looked at the girl at the ring, head down, feeding as a she-sleen.

"Why have I been brought here?" I asked Kenneth.

"Be patient," said Kenneth.

"Yes, Master," I said.

The dinner proceeded in a leisurely fashion through seven of its courses. There was light banter and charming conversation. The playing of the musicians was pleasant, and unobtrusive.

When the tiny plates and cups of the seventh course had been cleared away the Lady Florence looked over to the chained slave, kneeling at her ring. She had finished her own meager provender even to, at the Mistress' command, licking the pans. They had then been taken away by Bonnie.

"It is time for you to entertain us, my dear," said the Lady Florence to the slave.

The girl looked at her, frightened.

"Surely you do not think slaves are kept about only to be pampered and fed?" she inquired.

"No, Mistress," said the girl.

"I had intended to rent a dancing slave in Vonda," said the Lady Florence to her guests, "a decorous girl in blue silk and a golden collar, who might by the loveliness and grace of her movements please us, but it slipped my mind. I am so forgetful! I am afraid we must make do with poor Melpomene."

The Lady Leta laughed.

"Pamela," said the Lady Florence, "bring dancing silks for our slave."