Rebels of Gor (27 page)

“You would not wish to soil the hem of your robes,” said Tajima.

“That is true, young warrior,” said Lord Akio. “You are perceptive. The Ashigaru in attendance within will see to your selections. They have been informed.”

“I gather,” I said, “that we will not be served by contract women at supper.”

“You may if you wish,” said Lord Akio. “Lord Yamada thought that you might find the presence of slaves more pleasing.”

I recalled our first tea, which he had had served by Saru, though he had had her decorously garbed, apparently to provide less of a distraction.

“He would not waste the subtleties, the delights and skills, of contract women on such as we?” inquired Tajima.

“No, no, young warrior,” said Lord Akio. “Rather the shogun hopes to please you.”

“I for one,” I said, “am perfectly content with slaves, and would prefer them. I know how to relate to Gorean free women, which is sometimes trying, and often annoying, and I know how to deal with slaves, which is quite simple, but I am uncertain how to behave with your contract women, the modes of address, how to respond appropriately, the ceremonial aspects, and such.”

“Lord Yamada is sensitive to your uneasiness,” he said.

“I am not a barbarian,” said Tajima.

“Forgive me, young warrior,” said Lord Akio, “your accent suggested as much.”

“Perhaps,” said Pertinax, “the shogun might supply a contract woman for my friend.”

“Do not speak like a barbarian,” said Tajima.

“I am a barbarian,” retorted Pertinax, not pleasantly.

I had taken the remark of Pertinax to be well-intentioned. I think he had hoped it would have been genuinely helpful. He was, of course, as I, a barbarian.

A look of distress had crossed the features of Lord Akio. “Does the young warrior desire the services of a contract woman?” he asked.

“No,” said Tajima, irritably.

“Why not?” I asked.

“It would be unaesthetic,” he said, “to mix the two.”

“Quite right,” said Lord Akio. “I see the young warrior, despite his accent, is Pani.”

“Also, I suppose,” said Pertinax, “such a mixture might be offensive to the contract woman, that she would serve with slaves.”

“Certainly,” I said. “We would not want her to put herself to the ritual knife, or such.”

“True,” said Lord Akio.

I had thought my remark a joke, but rethought the matter, following the response of Lord Akio.

“Would you not prefer, really,” I said to Tajima, “to be served by a slave?”

“Of course,” said Tajima, “what man would not? The matter is that of a possible slight.”

“I assure you,” said Lord Akio, “no slight is intended.”

“I am sure that is true,” I said.

“Very well,” said Tajima.

I did not think he was disappointed.

“I shall wait here,” said Lord Akio.

* * *

“This place smells,” said Tajima.

“Do not be fastidious,” I said.

Beneath the roof of the large shed was more than one pen. We were led to one of the larger pens.

“Those selected will be washed, and placed in clean tunics before being bound and led to the palace,” said the Ashigaru keeper. Two others were about.

There was no escape for the slaves, even outside the pen, given their condition, garmenture, and such, even were it not for the palings enclosing the general area, but slaves are often bound, perhaps for no better reason than that they are slaves. I suppose that such things, like the collar and the brand, the tunic, and such, help them to keep in mind that they are vendible beasts, objects and properties, slaves.

“You may choose three,” said the Ashigaru, “one each, for your personal pleasure.”

The light in the shed was feeble. It was furnished from the now-opened door, and various narrow apertures in the ceiling and walls. It took a bit of time to adjust to the light.

We looked through the bars.

The bars of the pen were some three or four horts in thickness, and six horts apart; they reached from the wooden flooring of the shed to the low roof; they were reinforced with crossbeams lashed in place, one a foot Gorean from the ceiling, one a foot Gorean from the floor, and one, about three and a half feet Gorean from the floor, between them.

“I see no Pani here,” said Tajima.

“No,” said the Ashigaru.

“You would prefer a Pani slave?” I said to Tajima.

“Of course,” he said.

The slaves were placed in lines, kneeling, facing away from us, facing the far wall. They had doubtless been placed in this fashion, that they could not see who might be present. Furthermore, as would be expected, they were silent. This is common with slaves who are being inspected, considered, observed, and such. Indeed, it is commonly understood that a slave may not speak without the permission of a free person. “Master, may I speak?” is a common formula for soliciting this permission. Many slaves, of course, have a standing permission to speak. They understand, of course, that this permission is revocable, even instantly, at the discretion of the free person.

The girls were stripped, as is common in slave pens. Would you clothe penned tarsk or verr?

“I take it,” I said, “as there are no Pani here, these slaves are from amongst those bought from Lord Temmu, those sold for rice.”

“Yes,” said the Ashigaru. “They are simple field slaves.”

“I see no more than twenty, no more than twenty-five or thirty here,” I said. “Lord Yamada received something like one hundred and fifty slaves from the holding of Lord Temmu.”

I did recall that, as far as I knew, only one slave had been retained in the holding of Lord Temmu. I did not understand that. Perhaps she was a preferred slave of some sort. I did not think she could have been that much more beautiful than the others, who had gone for rice. I did not know the name of the slave in question.

“There were more,” said the Ashigaru, “many more, at first. But they were distributed about, given as gifts, sold, used in trade, bartered, and such.”

“Of course,” I said. “I trust that some of these are passable.”

“The whole lot, the original lot,” he said, “was excellent.”

“Good,” I said.

I had known, of course, that that would be true. I knew most of these girls from Tarncamp, from Shipcamp, from the voyage of the ship of Tersites, from the holding of Lord Temmu. The Pani, on the continent, had made their purchases with exquisite care, sometimes with the assistance of agents, deemed to be authorities on the quality of collar meat. Most purchases had been from the markets and taverns of Brundisium.

“Attend me,” barked the Ashigaru to the occupants of that stout pen.

I saw the reaction of the girls, sudden, startled, their alertness, their apprehension, their readiness to obey, instantly. They had been addressed by a free man.

How appropriate it is, I thought, to have women so, in their place, as slaves.

“Attend me, field girls, miserable urts, barbarian beasts,” said the Ashigaru. “Three of you, by the beneficence of Lord Yamada, Shogun of the Islands, are to be extraordinarily privileged, are to be permitted, following appropriate ablutions and garmenting, to serve in the palace.”

Soft cries, tiny, eager, hopeful cries, inadvertently, escaped several of the kneeling, facing-away slaves.

“Perhaps, who knows,” said the Ashigaru, “if you serve well, and beautifully, you might be noticed, you might come to the attention of a free man, if not, perhaps you can steal a mouthful of food, other than the gruel in the troughs which you must feed on, head down, on all fours, as the beasts you are. Perhaps you might even be thrown a scrap of meat. Would you like that? Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master,” cried several of the girls.

“But perhaps,” he said, “you would prefer the stink and filth, the rudeness, and darkness, of the pen, the long labors, neck-roped, of readying the fields.”

“No, no, Master,” said several.

“Then attend me, and well,” he said. “Stand, facing away. Good. Stand well, stand as slaves! You are not free women. Be beautiful! Remember that you are nothing, only slaves. Be beautiful then, you beasts, you mere lovely objects. Good. Now, clasp your hands behind the back of your neck. Good. You will form a single line and will, in line, at intervals of three paces, come about the interior of the pen. Each will, before the bars, before me, and those who will make their selections, pause, turn slowly, pause again, and then return to your former place, and kneel as you were, facing away. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master,” said several.

“Begin!” he said.

And the inspection of the slaves, slowly, with its pauses, while items were displayed and assessed, began.

“I suspect,” I said to Pertinax, “you never saw anything of this sort while working in the offices of Earth.”

“Unfortunately, not,” he said.

“Here are women, as they should be,” I said.

“I know that now,” he said. “I have learned it.”

“You are fulfilled, in the mastery,” I said.

“I have known it,” he said. “I will never surrender it.”

“What you may not understand,” I said, “is the complementarity involved, the female’s desire to be owned, to be the property of a master.”

The Ashigaru at our side carried a switch, a common accouterment for one in charge of slaves. When he felt each girl had suitably presented herself, pausing, turning slowly before us, and facing us again, he dismissed her with a slight motion of the switch, and the next approached.

I was, of course, looking for a particular slave. What I did not know, of course, given the light, was whether or not she was amongst those confined in the pen.

“What of this one?” inquired the Ashigaru.

“You like red hair,” I said.

“It is like fire,” he said.

“If her slave fires have been lit,” I said, “she would flame in your arms.”

“Perhaps I will buy her,” he said.

“Next,” I suggested.

His switch moved slightly, and the girl, tears on her cheeks, moved away, later to assume her position at the rear of the pen, kneeling, facing away from the gate. We could see her shoulders shaking, the sobbing of her body.

“This one,” said the Ashigaru, “is as supple as a reed, as delicate as a talender.”

“There are no Pani here,” said Tajima.

“No,” said the Ashigaru, and the tip of his switch moved slightly, dismissing the slave.

“You will have to take one,” I said to Tajima.

“None are Pani,” he said.

“Even so,” I said.

A brunette, well-formed, her hair slave long, stood before the bars, and turned, and regarded us.

Her lips trembled, but she dared not speak.

Again the switch flicked.

The hands of the women, as directed, were clasped behind the back of their neck. This immobilizes the hands and lifts the breasts nicely. In this way one’s view is less obstructed. Too, this stance makes it less likely that the woman, yielding to a foolish lapse, will try to shield her body with her hands. A common examination position in markets is to have the woman stand upright with her legs widely spread, the hands clasped behind the back of the neck or behind the back of the head. The spreading of the legs makes it harder for her to move and easier for her to be caressed, sometimes unexpectedly. Some assessors will put the woman to the floor and she will find herself struggling, startled, perhaps only half comprehendingly, to respond to a rapidly issued series of commands. She is being put through slave paces. This is a device for displaying her body in a diversity of aspects. And the paces might occasionally be halted, that a given pose might be the better assessed.

“Master!” cried a slave, wildly, joyfully.

“That one,” I said, indicating the slave.

“She spoke,” said the Ashigaru. “She must be whipped.”

“No,” I said. “Have her sent to the palace.”

“Master, Master!” she wept.

“Be silent,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Do not reach through the bars,” said the Ashigaru, lifting his switch. “You stink, you are filthy.”

“Yes, Master,” she said, quickly, backing away, lowering her head, frightened, before the gaze of a free man.

He motioned her to the side.

“She will be fully cleansed, hair and body, and clad before being taken to the palace,” he said.

“Slave clad, I trust,” I said.

“Surely,” he said.

“That is Cecily,” said Pertinax.

“Yes,” I said.

She was a dark-eyed brunette, sweetly bodied, and exquisitely featured, highly intelligent and helplessly responsive. Indeed, she had been my personal slave, even on the ship of Tersites. I had obtained her on a steel world. I had first met her on the Prison Moon where I had been confined by Priest-Kings, a confinement which had been ended by a raid of Kurii on that facility, following which I had been taken to one of the steel worlds, on which world, as noted, I had acquired the slave in question. On the Prison Moon, a largely automated prison, it had been intended by the Priest-Kings that I should be defeated and broken as a warrior, by means of an ingenious torture consisting of the counterpoising of desire and honor. In my small, cylindrical, transparent cell, supplied with oxygen, water, and nourishment administered by means of tubes and valves, were two exquisite free women, as unclothed and helpless as I. It was no mistake that I had been confined with precisely these two women. Each, unbeknownst to herself, had her role to play in the machinations of Priest-Kings. It was not a simple matter of placing two stripped beauties within my power, beauties such as one might conveniently take off any slave block on Gor. Surely that would have been cruel enough, but each had been brilliantly selected, with the end in view of my suffering, that I should be torn between desire and honor, suffering indefinitely until, inevitably, I should succumb to the implacable imperatives of nature, and put them to my pleasure. Had they been slaves, there had been no dilemma, but a feast of joy, but both were free women. The first and I, I do not doubt, had been ingeniously matched, physically, psychologically, physiologically, and such, by all the technological and scientific brilliance of Priest-Kings, with the end in view that we should be irresistible to one another. Indeed I had sometimes wondered if she had been, perhaps over generations, given the technology of Priest-Kings, their foresight and their knowledge of the world, bred for me. Certainly we shared a native language, and, to an extent, a common background. She was English, as I, and similarly educated. We had been raised, substantially, in the same culture. Thousands of tiny strands in our biographies, consciously or unconsciously, would be shared. Moreover, we had been matched not simply as man and woman, but, more deeply, clearly, as master and slave. In the container, of course, recently translated to Gor, indeed, awakening to discover her new reality, that of a naked prisoner in a transparent alien containment device, she was dismayed, shocked, frightened, and confused. What had happened to her? Where was she? What was going on? Who had done this? What was the meaning of this radical transformation in her circumstances, the meaning of her startling, unanticipated, terrifying incarceration? The other woman was the human pet of a Kur, for Kurii sometimes keep humans as pets, as well as feed on humans bred for feed, cattle humans. She was, in effect, a primitive, appetitious, uninhibited, untutored, ignorant little animal. She had not been taught any human speech, Gorean or otherwise, and could understand little of Kur, probably no more than a miniature sleen, her name, and some simple commands. She did have, however, besides her raw energy and beauty, enormous ambition, and a quick, fine mind. She had become, thanks largely to the tutelage of a beast, partly human, partly Kur, speeched. The last I knew of her she thought of herself as the Lady Bina. I did not know her present whereabouts. I supposed her somewhere on continental Gor. Much of this had to do with events which had transpired on the steel world mentioned. I was aware that she, and the beast mentioned, who, it seemed, cared for her, and was determined to protect her, were no longer on the steel world. When the Kur raid had taken place on the Prison Moon the English girl, hoping to avoid being eaten, had pronounced herself slave, after which pronouncement, whether she understood it well or not, she was slave. Later, I put my collar on her, making her my slave. Once I had lost my honor in that container, and become a ruination to myself, I am supposing the Priest-Kings would have executed me, or, if satisfied, merely returned me to some wilderness on Gor, where I might eke out a lonely, shabby existence, lost to myself, friendless, excluded, despised, impoverished, and dishonored.