Hunters of Gor (24 page)

if Verna had ever dreamed of herself in such silk. She now stood before

Marlenus, so clad. She tried to stand as a panther girl, but he had laughed at

her. Her girls too, had jeered her. She turned away, and fled to the wall of the

stockade, weeping.

It seemed important to Marlenus to separate her girls from her.

That was perhaps part of his plan. That was perhaps one reason for putting her

in slave silk. Another reason, of course, was that it pleased him, her master,

to see her so.

Once, she so clad, her hands braceleted before her, her arm held by a guard, she

was led past her girls, in their skins, chained by one of the stockade walls.

“Pretty slave!’ they had jeered at her.

She had tried to kick at them and fall upon them but her guard, controlling her

easily, for she was only a woman, dragged her away. The girls had jeered after

her.

She was taken to the kitchen tent, where she was given lessons, as a slave girl,

in the preparation and serving of food. She would also, of course, be taught how

to sew, and to wash and iron clothing. When Marlenus took his meals in his tent,

or wished refreshments or win, Verna, the new girl, served him

“Have you used her yet?” I asked Marlenus.

The girl poured us our wine. One may speak freely before slaves.

“That is enough,” said Marlenus, and the girl withdrew to one side, to wait

until she must serve again.

Marlenus turned and looked at her. “No,” he said. “She is a raw girl, ignorant.”

Verna, from where she knelt, looked at him, angrily, holding the two-handled

wine vessel. At her throat was his collar, in her thigh, burned, his brand, on

her body, his silk. She looked away.

“If you will observe,” said Marlenus, who had studied thousands of women, “she

seems ready, even marvelous, but yet there is a subtle unreadiness, a subtle

stiffness in her body. Note the shoulders, the wrists, the diaphragm.”

The girl’s fists clenched on the twin handles of the wine vessel.

“Remove you clothing, and stand,” said Marlenus.

The slave did so.

“You see?” asked Marlenus.

I studied her. The girl looked away. She was incredibly beautiful. Yet there did

seem something subtly different about her, something which separated her

softness, proud and vulnerable in the tent of her master, from the incomparable,

delicious yielded softness, eager, tender, at times pleading, of a girl such as

Cara.

Perhaps it was partly a stiffness in the shoulders. Perhaps it was something

about the wrists. The backs of her hands faced us. The normal fall of a girl’s

hands places her palms at her thighs.

“Place your palms on your thighs,” said Marlenus.

“Beast,” she hissed. She did so. She felt her brand.

I also noted a tenseness about her diaphragm, doubtless that which Marlenus had

wished to indicate. It was tight, not vital and expectant.

“Turn about,” said Marlenus. She did so. I noted the exquisite curvatures of

her.

“She is beautiful,” I said. Her fists were clenched.

“Yes,” said Marlenus. “But note how she stands.”

“I see,” I said.

It was indeed interesting. She stood very proudly, very angrily. Her head was

high, her fists were clenched. Her weight was equally on the balls of her feet.

I could see the hamstrings, the beautiful, resilient tendons behind her knees,

now like tight, proud cords, holding her erect.

“Disregard,” said Marlenus, “the obvious things, her pride, her anger, the

clenched fists.”

“Yes,” I said.

I tired to imagine how Cara might have stood, had she been in the place of

Verna.

She would have turned quietly, obediently, gracefully. She would have known that

she, a slave, was arousing free men, masters, and this would have excited her,

and this excitement would have been revealed in her body.

She would not know what their next command would be. And this waiting, not

facing us, would have been revealed beautifully in her body.

Commonly the slave girl, when not facing her master, if she is right handed, as

are most girls, will have her weight on the ball of her left food. Her left leg

will be slightly, subtly, flexed, and her right leg will be substantially

flexed. Her head will be turned slightly to the right, as though she would look

over her right shoulder. Her hamstrings will not be tight. They will be merely

beautifully resilient, heady to turn her eagerly, at his command, to face him.

We observed Verna.

“You see,” said Marlenus.

“Yes,” I said.

“Face us,” said Marlenus.

Verna, seething, did so.

“You see then in this woman,” said Marlenus, “though she is beautiful, an

unreadiness.”

“Yes,” I said.

“You may clothe yourself,” said Marlenus.

Verna, in fury, reach down and snatched up the bit of slave silk. She jerked it

about her body. She then stood there, facing us.

“Look upon her,” said Marlenus.

I did.

“Raw and ignorant,” he said.

He then indicated that she should again kneel to one side, and take up the

two-handled wine vessel, that she be ready, when we wished, to serve us once

more.

Marlenus did not take his eyes from the beautiful slave.

She looked away.

“In her, as yet,” said Marlenus, “there is a coldness, an arrogance, a

loftiness, a stubborn defiance, a pride, an ice.”

“In the eleventh passage hand,” I said, “many rivers are frozen.”

She looked at Marlenus, in fury.

“But in En’Kara,” I said, “again the rivers flow free.”

“Serve us wine,” said Marlenus, “and then leave.”

The girl did so.

When she had left, Marlenus looked at me. “I did not permit ice in the bodies of

my slave girls,” he said.

I smiled. “In time,” I said, “she will doubtless learn that she had been

branded. She will doubtless learn her silk and her collar.” I took a sip of

wine. “In En’Kara,” I said, “perhaps the rivers will flow free.”

Marlenus laughed.

I looked at him.

“I am a Ubar,” he said.

“I do not understand,” I said.

“What is it to me,” he asked, “if she should, in months, of her own accord, come

to understand her brand, her silk and her collar. What is it to me, if she

should, in months, of her own accord, choose to fasten a talender in her hair?”

I regarded him.

“Do you truly think,” he asked, “that I, Marlenus of Ar, will wait for En’Kara.”

“I suppose not,” I said.

“Other men,” said Marlenus, “might be content to wait for the breezes of En’Kara

to loosen the ice, to soften it and let the river run unimprisoned.”

I looked into his eyes.

“In owning a woman,” said Marlenus, “as in the game, one must seize the

initiative. One must force through an attack that is overwhelming and

shattering. She must be crushed, devastated.”

“Mastered?” I asked.

“Utterly,” he said.

Marlenus played a savage game. I did not envy Verna. She was totally

unsuspecting.

There was a shallow bowl of flowers, scarlet, large-budded, five-petaled

flaminiums, on the small, low table between us.

He reached out with his large hand and took one of the flowers.

He held it in the palm of his hand. His hand began to close.

“If you were this flower,” asked Marlenus, “and you could speak, what would you

do?”

“I suppose,” I said, “if I were such a flower, I would beg for mercy.”

“Yes,” said Marlenus.

“Verna,” I said, “Is strong willed. She is extremely proud, extremely

intelligent.”

“Excellent,” said Marlenus.

His hand closed more on the flower.

“Such women,” said Marlenus, “ once conquered, make the most abject and superb

slaves.”

“I have heard this,” I said.

Incidentally, brilliant and imaginative women, particularly if beautiful and

high-born, are avidly sought in Gorean slave markets. High intelligence, and

imagination, perhaps interestingly from the point of view of a man of Earth, are

highly prized in women by Gorean men. Indeed, a woman who is known to be

intelligent and imaginative will bring a much higher price than some duller, but

more beautiful, sister in bondage. Goreans, unlike many men of Earth, have very

little interest in stupid women. The ideal candidate, for the Gorean slavers

snare is a highly intelligent, beautiful, imaginative woman, one who is strong

willed, proud and free. It is such women that Goreans enjoy making slaves.

Perhaps, surprisingly, once conquered, once they have learned their brand, once

they have learned their collar and silk, they make the most helpless, the most

incredibly delicious slaves.

“Suppose,” I said to Marlenus, “the flower does not beg for mercy.”

“Then,” said he, beginning to close his fist on the flower, “it is destroyed.”

“You play a savage game,” said I, “Marlenus.”

He dropped the flower back into the shallow bowl, among other, unthreatened,

buds.

“I am a Ubar,” he said.

Marlenus would not wait for the ice in the river to melt. He was a Ubar. He

would shatter it.

Verna was totally unsuspecting.

“I will tell her,” said Marlenus, “when to put a talender in her hair.”

I nodded. Verna’s conquest would be total. She would be made his, utterly.

“When does you game begin?” I asked Marlenus.

“It has already begun,” said Marlenus.

“How is that?’ I asked.

“She will attempt to escape tonight,” said Marlenus.

I regarded him, puzzled.

“Surely, together,” he smiled, “we have motivated such an attempt?”

It was true. I doubted that Verna, unless conquered, would willingly endure

another examination of the sort to which we had casually subjected her this

evening, the rather detailed appraisal of a slave girl by masters.

“Did you note,” asked Marlenus, “how deferentially she served us the last cup of

wine?”

I smiled. “Yes,” I said. “It was served almost as if a slave girl served it.”

“It was her attempt,” said Marlenus, “to pretend to be a slave. She served it as

she thinks slave girls serve.” He smiled. “Later,” he said, “when she knows

herself owned, she will serve, and naturally, as a slave girl serves.”

I supposed it was true. The true slave girl knows that she is owned. This makes

a difference in how she performs many tasks. Her body, in almost all of its

movements, will betray her bondage. It is difficult for a free woman to imitate

the actions of a slave girl. She does not know truly what it is to be slave. She

has never been taught. She has not been slave. Similarly it is difficult for a

slave girl to imitate the actions of a free woman. Knowing that she is, in

actuality, owned, it is very difficult for her to act as though she were free.

She is frightened to do so. Sometimes slavers use these differences to separate

the two categories of Gorean female. Sometimes, when a city is being sacked,

high-born free women, fearful of falling into the hands of chieftains of the

enemy, have themselves branded and collared, and don slave tunics, and mix with

their own slave girls, to prevent their identity from being known. Such

high-born women may, by a practiced eye, be detected among true slave girls.

They are then handed over to chieftains, for use in the public humiliation

ceremonies to be inflicted upon the conquered city, for public rebranding and

recollaring, and subsequent public distribution to high officers. The test may

be as simple as removing a girl’s tunic and telling her to walk across a room.

It may be as simple as telling her to present her lips to those if a warrior.

Similarly, slave girls, attempting to escape, can be separated out from free

women, even when all are veiled and wear the robes of concealment. Again, the

tests may be simple. Once, in Ko-ro-ba, I saw a slaver, before a magistrate,

distinguish such a girl, not even one of his own, from eleven free women. Each,

in turn, was asked to pour him a cup of wine, and then withdraw, nothing more.

At the end, the slaver rose to his feet and pointed to one of the women. “No!”

she had cried. “I am free!” officers of the court, by order of the magistrate,

removed her garments. If she were free, the slaver would be impaled. When her

last garment had been torn away, there was applause in the court. The girl stood

there. On her thigh was the brand. She was braceleted and leashed, and given to

the slaver. He led her, weeping, away to his slave chain.

“She attempted to serve as a slave,” said Marlenus, “to put us off our guard.”

“Then you think,” I asked, “that tonight she will attempt an escape?”

“Of course,” said Marlenus. “And I expect that by now she has left the camp.”

I looked at him, astonished.

“I gave orders for her departure not to be noticed,” smiled Marlenus.

“It is dark,” I said. “She will have a long start.”

“We can get her back when we wish,” he said. “I have arranged for the girls of

Hura, more than a hundred of them, to be in the forests about the camp. If they

do not pick her up, I shall go forth in a day or so and retrieve her myself.”

“You seem confident,” I said.

“There is little possibility of losing her,” said Marlenus. “I had her bedding,

a blanket changed this morning. She thinks that she washed her blanket but I