Rebels of Gor (22 page)

“Clothe yourself,” I said to the girl.

While she rose up, and dressed, I went to a narrow window in the wall, which looked out, onto the night, and the palace courtyard. In the light of the yellow moon, I could see guards below. The window was barred.

“It seems I am a prisoner,” I had said to one of the two lovely, briefly tunicked Pani slave girls who had earlier attended on me.

“The bars, Master,” had responded one of them, “prevent intruders from entering, from the outside.”

“I see,” I said.

The window was high above the courtyard, but I supposed an unbarred window might be accessible from ropes, fastened above.

On continental Gor slavers sometimes utilized such a mode of entry. Such a portal might be used as an avenue of egress also, of course, through which a bound and gagged woman might be extracted. Sometimes the woman is not removed from the chamber but sedated. When she awakens she discovers herself bound on her couch, naked and gagged, her limbs rudely, widely spread. She then realizes she has been “marked for slavery.” This is sometimes used as a “mode of preparation” for bondage. Sometimes it is spoken of as letting the woman “cook” or “simmer” while awaiting the collar. She realizes how vulnerable she is. She does not know when she will be “collected,” only that she is to be collected. It will be done at the slaver’s pleasure, of course. She does not know, of course, who might be the slaver, or slavers, or when they will strike. Her fears torment her. Is it he, or another, one who passes her on the street, one who sits near her in the theater, one at her elbow in a market? She may try to flee, her efforts may become frantic. Then, perhaps when she feels safe, another sign or token may be discovered. Perhaps she unrolls a scroll and finds within it a slip of paper, “You are a slave,” or perhaps on the very mirror of her vanity, drawn in grease pencil, she discovers an image, the small, lovely, cursive “Kef,” much like the one which might be burned into her left thigh, somewhat below the hip. Finally, unable to stand things longer, distraught, frightened, miserable, she may take to courting the collar, traversing high bridges at night, moving on dismal streets after dark, wandering unescorted outside the walls, renting rooms in cheap inns, booking passage on lightly guarded caravans. She may actually cry out with relief and joy when she feels the ropes encircle her robes.

“It seems,” I had said, “passage would be difficult from either side.”

“Yes, Master,” had said one of the slaves.

I regarded her. Pani, like those of continental Gor, obviously chose slaves for their beauty.

“Master?” she said.

“Come here,” I said. “Do not kneel.”

The slave, summoned, commonly kneels before a free person, waiting to be commanded.

“You are slim, and exquisite,” I said. “Try to squeeze through the bars.”

“I am not permitted to touch the bars, Master,” she said.

I gestured toward the bars, and she hurried to them.

“Try,” I said.

She pressed her small body against the bars, trying to insert her body between them, even writhing against them.

“Enough,” I said.

She backed away, frightened. It had been clear that not even so small, and lovely, a body could begin to pass though those bars.

I tested them. They were sturdy, and well fixed.

“You may go,” I told the slaves.

“All windows in the palace, Master,” said the girl whom I had ordered to the bars, “are similarly barred, even those in the private quarters of Lord Yamada himself.”

I nodded, and indicated that they might leave.

They backed away, and then turned, and slipped from the room, gracefully, with the grace of slaves.

I went back to the window. Perhaps, I thought, Lord Yamada has a point in these bars. Might they not make it more difficult for an assassin to gain admittance to the palace, whether through one room or another? Bars do have their purposes, I thought, and not always to confine. Might they not also serve to protect? In any event, I seemed to be no more a prisoner than Lord Yamada himself. I had then gone to the door. I had found it unlocked.

Saru had now finished dressing herself.

She looked at me.

“Master?” she asked.

“Return to the slave quarters,” I said.

“Saru is dismissed?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Is Saru so poor a slave?” she asked.

“You had best not be,” I said, “or you will feel the whip.”

“Please!” she said.

“No,” I said.

“Do you not understand?” she said. “I am a slave! I did not know what it was to be biologically real, what it was to be wholly female. I now know! It has been done to me! I can no longer be anything but a slave. I no longer want to be anything but a slave! It is my life! I now belong in the collar of a slave! Do you not understand? It has been done to me!”

“I understand,” I said.

“Regard me as nothing, if you wish,” she said.

“I do,” I said. “You are a slave.”

It is interesting, I thought, what men can do to women, how one can turn them into slaves. To be sure, one does little more than open a door, little more than draw aside a curtain, and let them see themselves in the secret mirror, into which they had feared to look.

“I am such as is appropriately to be owned!” she said.

“I know,” I said.

“I want only to kneel, to kiss the feet of a master, to love and serve him as the slave I am, to please him, and wholly, as the slave I am!”

“I understand,” I said.

“In bondage,” she said, “at the feet of men, I have discovered who I am and what I am for, and who I want to be and what I want to be for. I have discovered myself, who I am and wish to be! I now inhabit the country of my heart.”

“On Earth,” I said, “you should have put yourself to the feet of Gregory White, and begged a collar.”

“Do not joke,” she said. “I need a man, a master. How can I be a woman without a man, without a master!”

“Your slave fires burn, do they not?” I asked.

“Yes, Master!” she said.

“To the slave quarters,” I said. “Squirm and writhe there, in your kennel. Sweat on your chain.”

“Please,” she said. “No!”

“Perhaps, one day,” I said, “I will throw you to the feet of another.”

“Master!” she wept.

“Get out,” I said, “before you are beaten.”

“Yes, Master,” she wept.

She steadied herself at the portal, with two hands on the jamb. I feared she might fall.

At that moment, throughout the palace, there rang a large gong, the note of which was taken up by, and repeated by, smaller gongs.

“What is that?” I cried out, amidst the din.

“It is the alarm, Master!” she cried.

Chapter Fourteen

The Balcony;

My Conversation with Lord Yamada

“There!” said Lord Yamada, pointing.

“Yes!” I said.

We stood on an extended balcony, near the roof of the palace. Ashigaru were about, several armed with bows.

“It is a tarnsman, against the moon,” said Lord Akio, looking upward.

I would have given much for a glass of the Builders.

“It is one rider,” I said. “I do not think it is a raid. Hold your fire.”

“It is a scout?” said Lord Akio. I heard the metal blades of the war fan ripple briefly.

“An invasion?” said an officer.

“I understand this,” said Lord Yamada. “Bring torches! And you, Tarl Cabot, tarnsman, please step forward.”

Torches were brought, several held about me, as I stood near the railing of the balcony. The rider was circling, and would shortly be near again.

“Do not loose your arrows,” I said.

“They will not,” Lord Yamada assured me. “Do you know the rider?”

“It could be one of several,” I said. “I have no glass of the Builders.”

“Bring a long glass,” said Lord Yamada, and a servitor hurried from the balcony.

“The rider,” said Lord Yamada, “may be so equipped, with what you call a glass of the Builders?”

“Almost certainly,” I said.

“A seeing tube?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “What, I take it, you speak of as a long glass.”

“Excellent,” said Lord Yamada. “I have been awaiting this moment. As the rider approaches, please stand forward, please, even more so, Tarl Cabot
san
, there, in the light, and please, if you would, lift your hand, pleasantly acknowledging his presence, and inquiry.”

“What is going on, Lord?” inquired Lord Akio.

I lifted my hand, waving, to the rider, after which he whirled away.

“It is a representative of our friends,” said Lord Yamada, “the cohorts of our guest, Tarl Cabot, tarnsman, come to investigate, come to ascertain his health and well-being.”

“We might have brought him down, with arrows,” said Lord Akio, nervously, snapping the fan open and shut.

“A difficult shot,” said Lord Yamada, “but, if successful, it might have purchased little time, and brought about the end of the house of Yamada.”

“How is that?” asked an officer.

“We cannot protect ourselves from the lightning of the sky,” said Lord Yamada. “He who has demon birds may come and go as he pleases. He who has demon birds is elusive and may strike unexpectedly, in the day or night, at dawn or dusk. He who has demon birds, in time, could rain fire from the sky, far above futile, angrily brandished glaives, and burn with impunity where archers are not. In a year every fortress, castle, palace, barracks, warehouse, and humble shed of our house could be collapsed and charred wood, the ashes like dry fog, borne on the wind to the sea.”

“I did not expect honor and appointment,” I said to Lord Yamada, “when I was delivered to you.”

“You expected to bear the brunt of a shogun’s wrath,” said Lord Yamada, “exquisitely expressed over weeks with cords and irons, with needles and clamps, with flaming splinters, perhaps culminating eventually in the horror of the straw jacket?”

“I did not know what to expect,” I said.

“Perhaps that was just as well,” smiled Lord Yamada.

“Lord Temmu and Daichi, the reader of bones and shells, perhaps were more apprised of various possibilities than I,” I said.

“And yet,” said Lord Yamada, “they willingly supplied you to me.”

“I shall not forget that,” I said.

“I did not expect you to forget it,” said Lord Yamada.

“You wish the services of the tarn cavalry?” I said.

“Who would not?” he said.

“Surely it remains in the service of Lord Temmu,” I said.

“I know more of the house of Temmu than its master,” said Lord Yamada. “He expected to deliver you to me, and merely appoint a new commander of the demon birds. Thus, he would gratify me, avoid the flight of the iron dragon, and retain his cavalry.”

“That seems, within its limits,” I said, “a sensible, well-judged plan.”

“But one based on a faulty intelligence,” said Lord Yamada, “an intelligence which, if I am not mistaken, you share.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“My judgment in these matters,” he said, “was sounder than either his or yours.”

“How so?” I said.

“I know something of men, of war, and leadership,” said Lord Yamada.

“You are shogun,” I said.

“The men are yours, the cavalry is yours,” he said. “Lord Temmu did not understand this, nor, apparently, do you. It has been so since the place called Tarncamp, far away. You gave men the sky, and the broad-winged tarn. You took soldiers and mercenaries and forged tarnsmen. You formed these men into an arm of war, a cavalry, trained it, and led it, even in a great sky battle across the sea. You brought it across Thassa, nurtured, sheltered, and protected it. You have flown with it, enduring the same hardships and risks, the same hunger, fatigue, cold, and danger as those you led. The men will follow no other.”

I did not respond.

“With Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” he said, “goes the cavalry; with the cavalry goes the sky; with the sky goes victory.”

“Two approach!” cried Akio, the fan snapping open.

“The long glass,” said the servitor, returning to the balcony.

Lord Yamada lifted it, peering through it.

“They are confirming the matter,” said Lord Yamada.

He watched the two tarns approaching in the distance, small against the yellow moon.

“Fortunately for Lord Temmu,” said General Yamada, “they are confirming that Tarl Cabot, commander of the cavalry, is alive.”

“And if they could not make this determination?” I asked.

“Then,” said General Yamada, “I think the holding of Lord Temmu would be destroyed.”