Plunder of Gor (63 page)

To my dismay I saw Paula behind Surtak and Master Drusus. In her hand was the heavy leather leash by means of which she led Eve. Eve's ankles were not shackled or hobbled, but her arms were bound to her sides by several loops of coarse rope. I did not look at Paula, for I feared to meet her eyes. I kept my head down. I felt miserable and cold.

“Your word, as I hear, has been granted,” said Surtak to Lord Grendel.

“It has been,” said Lord Grendel.

“I spoke it so,” said Master Drusus.

“You are here,” said Surtak.

“I am here,” said Lord Grendel.

“The conditions are satisfactory?” asked Surtak.

“My word was granted,” said Lord Grendel. This utterance was reproduced with the same neutrality as any other issuing from the translator, but even I could detect the exasperation or regret in Kur.

The explosive, sardonic snorting of Surtak, I took it, was an expression of irrepressible Kur mirth.

Lord Grendel looked aside, angrily. I saw Eve shudder in her ropes.

“You might have asked ten tarns of gold,” said Surtak, “of double weight.”

“
Ela
,” said Lord Grendel, “I did not know Lyris was so precious to you.”

A pleased sound escaped Lyris.

“I do not understand why you would want this malformed creature behind me,” said Surtak. “Surely she is not to be used for sleen feed. Perhaps you want her to carry swill to tarsks. Perhaps you want to sell her to a carnival, to be exhibited as the freak she is.”

I heard Eve sob.

“She was sent to me from Lord Arcesilaus,” said Lord Grendel. “Who could say why? I abide his will. Perhaps he did not want her on his world, who would, and did not know what to do with her.”

“So he sent her to you to be disposed of,” said Surtak.

“To be dealt with as I wished,” said Lord Grendel.

“So the matter has to do with the usurper, Lord Arcesilaus,” said Surtak. “I suspected it so. You wish, however unwillingly, to accommodate yourself to his vagrant whims.”

“Lord Arcesilaus is no usurper,” said Lord Grendel. “He is, by right of war, the Twelfth Face of the Nameless One, Theocrat of the Metal World.”

“Do not fear him,” said Surtak. “There is a place for you, even as you are, ill-constituted and malformed, in the rightful government, lurking in exile, to be soon restored. Indeed, I think you are out of favor with the usurper. Why else would he send you such a monstrosity, except in the way of mockery, to confront you with a living reproach and insult, reminding you of your own distortionate, manifold imperfections?”

Eve was shaken, weeping.

“Let us conclude the matter,” said Lord Grendel, an utterance that, in Kur, was tinged with impatience and embarrassment.

Lifting my head I saw Paula, tears in her eyes, attempting to comfort Eve. “How like Paula,” I thought. Her arms were partly about that shaggy body. I, too, of course, felt sorry for Eve. Who would not? But I do not think I would have dared to touch her, or would have wanted to touch her. She was too different, too hideous. In some laboratory a mistake had been made, an experiment had turned out badly, and a sentient creature had been twisted awry. How could one help but regard Eve askance, and yet I could understand, and well, what it was to want to be wanted, to want to be cared for, not to be rejected, or shunned. What a simple pleasure it is, I thought, just to look into a mirror, and not to want to cry out in pain, or weep.

Lord Grendel was relieving Lyris of the collar, the leash, and the metal impediments that had rendered her, even so formidable a beast, tractable and manageable. Meanwhile, Drusus Andronicus had thrust Paula aside, and was similarly relieving Eve of her restraints. He placed the leash, collar, and ropes in a large sack, which he wore at his left hip, slung from a strap over his right shoulder. Lyris rose up to her full height, snarling, and I backed away, frightened, against my master, who, to my misery, thrust me from him. The attitude of Lyris toward Lord Grendel, interestingly, was quite different. She made a soft, whimpering sound, but he gestured she should proceed toward the other group. Then, her demeanor changed again, abruptly, and she bared her fangs at Lord Grendel, and snarled and hissed, and he snarled back at her, and she turned about, angrily, and rushed to stand with Surtak and Drusus Andronicus, from which point, facing us, she, again, snarled and hissed. She drew herself up, then, with pride. Why should she not? Was she not beautiful, and had not Surtak, high Kur, been willing to spend the untold amount of ten tarns of gold, and of double weight, a sum that might ransom a Ubar's daughter, for her return?

Lord Grendel, angrily, disgustedly, motioned that Eve should join our group. “Hurry, loathsome creature,” he snarled, “bring your sorry self here, taking it from the view of a high Kur, the noble Surtak, servitor of mighty Lord Agamemnon. Hurry. Do not continue to offend his sight!”

Eve obediently, crouched over, shamed, hurried to join us, her head down, the fur about her muzzle wet with tears.

Paula seemed stricken that Eve should be so addressed, with such cruelty. I myself did not understand the apparent contempt and hostility with which Lord Grendel apparently saw fit to abuse Eve, who, surely, was not responsible for what she was, for the failure or negligence of some scientists or technicians on some remote steel world.

Indeed, earlier I had thought he had found her at least tolerable.

We were then preparing to leave the place of our rendezvous.

“Let us return to the house of Decius Albus,” we heard Lyris say, the words in Kur picked up by, and transmitted by, Surtak's translator. “I do not care to remain longer here, in the company of monsters.”

“We shall shortly do so,” said Surtak. It was not difficult to detect something menacing in the utterance, in Kur.

We turned about, curious.

“What is wrong?” said Lyris.

“Much, and nothing,” said Surtak.

“I do not understand,” said Lyris.

“You are a stupid little fool,” said Surtak.

Lyris, I supposed, might be small compared to a male Kur, but, to me, of course, she was large and formidable.

“Beware how you speak to me!” said Lyris.

“You are unworthy of your harnessing,” said Surtak. “You are an embarrassment. That your abduction did not disorder our plans was no fault of yours. It might have done so. It is one thing for the Lady Bina to be expeditiously removed from the House of a Hundred Corridors under the very nose of the fool, Decius Albus, and quite another for a Kur female, fully grown and supposedly intelligent, to be seized and carried away as easily as a human slaver or raider might hood and gag a human female, carrying her off to a well-deserved collar and brand.”

“Do not dare speak to me so!” cried Lyris.

“Surely you know the fate of many Kur females, females of the party of Lord Agamemnon, following the victory of the usurper, Lord Arcesilaus?”

“What has that to do with me?” she said.

“They will remain as they are,” said Surtak.

“I do not understand,” she said.

“We can learn something from humans,” said Surtak.

“Beware,” said Lyris, “I might be displeased.”

“You beware,” said Surtak, “lest I find you displeasing.”

“Sleen!” she said. “Stop! Stop! What are you doing?”

“You will not need these things any longer,” he said.

“No, stop!” she cried.

“You see, my dear Kurik,” said Lord Grendel, “she does look better without her harnessing.”

“If you say so,” said Kurik.

Deprived of her harnessing, I supposed Lyris must seem reduced, vulnerable, exposed, naked, in a sense, though, from my point of view, of course, she seemed little different from before. A female Kur without harnessing is without status. Other female Kurii look down upon her. Male Kurii, on the other hand, may then look upon her differently, and with a new, and aggressive, interest.

Surtak then seized Lyris, and threw her to his feet, and then held out his hand, or paw, to Drusus Andronicus, who removed an opened, metal object from the large sack at his left hip.

“No!” cried Lyris, struggling, her hands, or paws, trying to tear the encircling metal collar from about her neck.

“It is on you,” said Surtak. “Remain at my feet, where you belong.”

“Please, no!” she said.

“You have rejected and scorned me for the last time,” said Surtak. “Now you will have to hope to please me.”

“Release me!” she cried. “You would have paid ten tarns of gold, of double weight, to free me!”

“I would have paid that much, and more,” he said, “to have you where you are now, in my collar.”

“Take this hideous thing off my neck!” she cried.

“It is actually quite attractive on you,” he said. “It enhances your loveliness. It makes you a thousand times more beautiful.”

“Return my harnessing!” she cried.

“Kur slaves are not permitted harnessing,” he said.

“‘Slaves'!” she cried.

“Free males are to be addressed as ‘Master',” he said, “and free females as ‘Mistress'.”

“Free me!” she cried.

“As our human friends have it,” he said, “only a fool frees a slave girl.”

“Let me go!” she cried.

“Do not become tiresome,” he said.

“Free me! Free me!” she cried.

“Beware,” he said, “lest you be found displeasing.”

“Let me go!” she cried.

“Have you requested permission to speak?” he asked.

“I am not a slave!” she cried. “Take this thing off my neck! Return my harnessing!”

Angrily Surtak jerked Lyris to her feet and, holding her, forced her, struggling, to the side of the bridge.

Then she was very still, not daring to move, held at the edge.

Paula screamed, “No!”

“Be silent,” said Drusus Andronicus, sharply, and, seizing Paula by the hair, thrust her to his feet.

I closed my eyes.

It made me ill, to even think of looking over the edge, to the street far below.

Lyris was uttering terrified, rushing, howling, piteous sounds in Kur. The transmissions from Surtak's translator were jumbled, and crowded together, almost like static, as the machine tried to isolate and sort out Kur, and produce comprehensible Gorean. Even so, there was little similarity between the placid output of the translator, however hesitant and disjointed, and the marked agitation and terror registered in the original Kur.

“Mercy, have mercy!” cried Lyris. “I beg mercy! Mercy! I beg mercy! Please, Master! I beg mercy, Master! Master!”

Surtak then drew Lyris back from the edge, and she collapsed to the floor of the bridge, shuddering.

“Your name,” he said, “is ‘Lyris'.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“‘Lyris', Master,” she said.

Surtak then turned to Lord Grendel. “Now each of us has his worthless she.” He said.

“I wish you well,” said Lord Grendel.

“I wish you well,” said Surtak, and turned about, and took his leave.

I saw Paula at the feet of Drusus Andronicus. She thrust her cheek to his thigh, and held his leg.

How right she was there, at his feet!

How fulfilled she was to be a well-mastered slave!

How profound were her slave needs!

And on Gor, freed of the walls and fences, of the hobbles and lacerating wires, the closures and stern barriers, the prescriptions and prohibitions, the confinements and cruelties, of my former world, I, too, now liberated, now enslaved, had found the self I had been denied on Earth, a self I had been ordered not to recognize. If one hungers, why should one not eat; if one thirsts, why should one not drink; if one has slave needs, why should one not satisfy them, at the feet of a master?

Drusus Andronicus gently pushed Paula from him, and turned to follow Surtak. She, still kneeling, lifted her head and looked at me, and before I, frightened, and distraught, could look away, I saw her smile. She seemed clearly happy to see me, however briefly. I had read the light of affection in her eyes. She had now leaped up, to hurry behind Drusus Andronicus.

I sobbed with joy.

As I had anticipated, Drusus Andronicus had not informed her of my contemptible indiscretion, my petty attempt to interest and ensnare him. Why should he have informed her? My master had been wrong. Paula knew nothing of what I had done. She would never learn. Things would be as before, save that I now cared for her a thousand times more than in the past. I had not lost my friend. I had found her. She would never learn what I had done. My heart flooded with relief, with gladness, with my love for her.

I saw Lyris, trembling, following Surtak, Master Drusus, and Paula.

“Phyllis,” said Kurik, “prepare to heel.”

“Yes, Master,” I said, and hurried to kneel near him, at his side.

Eve was nearby, crouched down, weeping. I did not know why Lord Grendel had spoken to her so cruelly, so abusively. Surely she needed no additions to her other miseries and pains. To see herself, to think of herself, put a whip to her heart. Did she not suffer enough, being herself?

“Do not cry, Eve,” I whispered to her.

But my words, if heard, were not heeded.

Lord Grendel was looking after the retreating party. At his feet, looped, seemingly discarded, was the chaining, the manacles, shackles, collar, and such, that had restrained Lyris.

“They will have their weapons in a moment,” said Kurik.

“No matter,” said Lord Grendel. “Surtak has honor, and now he has Lyris, as well, and as he has always wanted her.”

“Would he have cast her from the bridge?” asked Kurik.

“Surely,” said Lord Grendel. “He is Kur.”

“May I speak, Master?” I asked Kurik.

“Yes,” he said, looking after the withdrawing party.

“Phyllis displeased Master,” I said.