Renegades of Gor (26 page)

women in terms of the perfection of the collar. Too, many had been frustrated by

free women, and free women in their own city. It was a rare fellow who did not,

from time to time, regard the women of his own city as quite as suitable for

collaring as those of other cities. Were they not all women? Many Goreans, for

example, rejoiced in the situation in Tharna, where almost every female is a

slave.

“I will not do it again!” whispered Klio.

“You may attempt to do it, as you please, in the future,” I said, “but I think

you will do it within the limits of the collar.”

“Oh, please, no!” she wept.

“I have shaken the leash, once,” I said. “You did not then perform. Fortunate it

was for you then that you were a free woman, and not a slave. Even so, I was not

pleased. Do you understand?”

“Yes!” she said.

“Now, when I shake it again, you will perform.”

She put her head down, trembling.

“Do you understand?” I asked.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“You must remember, gentlemen,” I said, “she is only a free woman.”

I shook the leash and Lady Klio, naked, attempted to perform.

Some of the men laughed.

“Surely you can do better than that,” I said.

She sank to her stomach, in the dirt, at the bottom of the trench, weeping.

“Whip her,” said a tall fellow, watching her, with his arms folded.

(pg.174) She looked up at him, frightened.

His eyes suddenly glinted. I had not seen what passed between them but I suspect

that he had seen in her eyes something swift, some flash of sudden fear and

recognition, that she had seen him as her master.

Then she put down her head again and there, in the dirt, shuddered.

“On your knees,” I said. “Now,”

She cried out, and rose quickly to her knees.

“Knees spread,” I said.

She knelt there, her knees spread. She blushed crimson. It seemed she could not

take her eyes off the tall fellow.

“Perform,” I encouraged her. “Move. Call attention to your charms.”

Again the Lady Klio began to perform, as she could.

“It may not be much, gentlemen,” I informed them, holding the leash, “but surely

for such a woman it is an unusual activity. I suspect that she is not accustomed

to doing it. Perhaps in the future she will be better at it. Look, gentlemen.

Little as it may be, I suspect this is far more than was provided for the many

chaps who paid for her meals, her lodging, her wardrobe, her transportation, her

luxuries, her claimed needs, her numerous bills.”

“Continue to perform,” I said. “You may leave your knees, but do not rise to

your feet.”

She regarded me, in wild protest.

“Yes?” I said.

“Do not make me do these things,” she begged. “Do not make me dance and writhe

so. I am a free woman!”

“Your freedom will soon be a matter of the past,” I told her. “How well you do

now could influence the quality of your life in the future.”

“Do not fear,” I said. “I know you are truly a slave. I learned it in your kiss,

when you were shackled at the wall at the Crooked Tarn. I think that perhaps, in

the same kiss, you learned it.”

The men laughed. She sneaked a glance at the tall fellow, and then, hastily, put

down her head. He smiled.

“Lady Elene, of Tyros, your friend, whom you remember from the Crooked Tarn, and

the coffle,” I said, “is even now (pg.175) in a slave collar. “ It had been put

on her within moments of her sale.

Klio looked back at me.

“In her performance,” I said, “the slave, unrestrained, emerged quickly and in

moments the woman discovered that it was she. It pleased the men abundantly. It

brought a good price. It is now collared.”

Klio sobbed.

“Frankly,” I said, “I had not expected you to be inferior to her.”

She looked at me, angrily.

“But perhaps the women of Tyros,” I said, “are superior to those of Cos?”

“I think not,” said a man, rather angrily.

There was laughter from the others. I supposed he must be Cosian, natively.

“But then,” I said, “it is said, I have heard, that those of Port Kar prize

Cosians as slaves.”

“Show us what a Cosian can do,” said a man.

“Thus,” I said, “it seems that it is not, really, that the women of Tyros are

superior to the women of Cos, but merely that, in your particular case, you are

inferior to the Lady Elene.

She looked at me, again, angrily.

“But that is only to be expected, upon occasion, I suppose,” I said, “that some

woman of Tyros would be superior to some woman of Cos. Too, it is no disgrace to

be inferior to the Lady Elene, who is quite attractive and, in time, might even

make a dancer.”

“I am not inferior to Elene,” she said, angrily.

The men laughed at her vehemence.

She looked at the tall fellow.

I quickly then, that she would feel the authoritative signal of the leash and

collar rings while she was looking at the tall fellow, shook the leash.

“Ah!” said a fellow.

I was quite pleased then with Klio.

My expectation, I then felt, that she would prove to be the most exciting and

desirable of the two, was borne out. That was why I had saved her for last, of

course, for use in the trench closest to Ar’s Station. To be sure, I might have

been (pg.176) somewhat prejudiced, for I remembered Klio’s lovely dark hair, and

I tend to be partial to brunets. Who, eventually, would prove to be the best

slave I did not know. Let such women compete desperately with one another, and

with other slaves, each striving to be the best.

One of the men cried out with pleasure.

That had been an excellent leash move, to be sure. Klio displayed herself

brilliantly on the leash. Such things seem very natural for a woman. perhaps

they are, to some extent, like slave dance, instinctive, the biological

template, or genetic dispositions for them, having been selected for thousands

of years ago, the most pleasing of captive women, perhaps, those squirming best

on their tethers, or in their bonds, tending to be utilized for sexual conquest.

Perhaps, however, they are associated, in their way, with something even deeper,

something clearly selected for, the biological need of a woman to belong, to be

approved of and to love.

“Superb!” said a fellow.

I wondered if Klio, sensing these deep, dark, wonderful, frightening things

within her, the rightfulness of the destiny of submission to men for her, and

such, had not, perhaps in the privacy of her own chambers, before her mirror,

put the leash on herself. Perhaps she had then, there, before the mirror, in the

privacy of her own quarters, moved similarly. It is not unusual for women to do

this sort of thing, alone, often in bonds and chains, expressing plaintively

therein their longing for a master.

“Superb! Superb!”

Klio, I recalled, had chosen a dangerous way of life, one which she must surely

have realized, on one level or another, might lead to the collar.

“’Klio’,” I said to the men, “might be an excellent name for a slave, do you not

think so?”

“Yes!” said more than one.

Klio flushed with pleasure. Somehow it seemed she became even more sinuous, more

sensuous, then.

I saw that she was paying a bit too much attention to the tall fellow.

“On your belly,” I said to Klio. “There, that fellow,” I said, indicating a

grizzled sapper to one side, his tools near him, “address yourself to him, about

the feet and legs.”

(pg.177) He grinned.

“No!” said the tall fellow.

I had thought this move on my part might bring him into action.

Klio stopped, and turned, from her knees, to regard him.

“I will buy her!” he said.

“She is not cheap,” I said. It seemed to me I might as well get what I could for

Klio. I fear I must admit occasionally to a streak of opportunistic greediness.

“A silver tarsk!” he cried.

“Done!” I said. I had not really expected anything like that. Klio, redeemed

through Ephialtes, had only cost me thirty copper tarsks. Perhaps I should have

held out for more, seeing the eagerness of the fellow, but, after all, I was

taken by surprise by the splendid offer, and even opportunistic greediness has

its limits, particularly when surprised.

“On all fours,” I said to Klio.

Immediately she went to all fours.

“A silver tarsk,” I said.

It was placed in my palm and I put it in my pouch. I then removed my leash and

collar from her neck. I had not even returned the leash and collar to my pouch

before I heard a decisive click and a small cry from Klio. She looked up,

collared, a slave, at her master.

“She dances the leash dance well, does she not?” I asked.

“I will improve her in it,” said he, grimly.

Klio quickly bend her head, unbidden, to his feet, and kissed them.

“Share her,” said a fellow.

“Let her dance again,” said another, “not in the leash.”

“Proffer her to the arms of each of us,” said another, “in turn.”

“She is mine,” said the fellow.

“We are your comrade in arms,” said another.

“True!” said another.

“Have no fear,” said the tall fellow. “I will share the slave, and my good

fortune, with you, but do not forget that in the end it is I alone to whom she

belongs, that it is mine alone whose slave she is.”

The men had crowded about Klio now, and I could hardly see her among them. Even

the fellow from the low wooden (pg.178) platform, which gave him a vantage over

the top of the trench, had joined them.

I backed away, unnoticed, toward the nearest sapling trench. In a moment I had

then turned and was making my way rapidly toward the walls. In places the

sapping trench was covered with planking, which might protect workers, or

soldiers in their advance. In an Ehn or so I had come to its end, some twenty

yards or so from the wall. Boulders lay about there, probably rolled from the

height of the wall. Some were lodged at the trench, having crushed in the timber

cover. The trench had not been taken around these obstacles. My heart was

beating rapidly. I emerged from the trench, and waving a piece of white cloth,

which on Gor is a truce cloth, as it is on Earth, climbed, slipping up, up the

rather steep incline toward the base of the walls.

“Ho!” I said. “Do not fire! I am a friend. I have come here at great risk! I

have a message for Aemilianus from Gnieus Lelius, Regent of Ar! Admit me!”

There was silence from the height of the wall.

There were no posterns here, and the great gate was hundreds of yards away. Too,

in such a time, it would surely not be open for one man.

I waved the white cloth vigorously.

That such a cloth may be used upon Gor as a truce cloth may have a direct

historical connection with the similar device on Earth. Certainly many Gorean

institutions and practices would seem to have Earth origins. On the other hand,

in relationship to the Earth device may be merely a coincidental one, a white

cloth, in effect, a blank flag, seeming to be a reasonably natural device to

signify neutrality. Blank standards, too, or, more commonly, standards draped

with white cloth, sometimes serve similar purposes. There are other devices,

too, pertinent to such matters, particularly in formal contexts, such as the

symbolic laying aside of arms, but I was certainly not, in this context, about

to lay aside any arms.

“Admit me!” I cried.

Was there no one on the wall?

I looked back, toward the trench. I saw no unusual activity there.

“Ho!” I called, waving the cloth. “Ho!”

There was silence.

(pg.179) “Is there no one there?” I called.

For a wild, irrational moment I wondered if the city might have been deserted.

But that would not be possible, of course. The garrison and population could not

have withdrawn unnoticed. The land side was invested. The countryside swarmed

with Cosians, and their mercenaries and allies. The harbor was closed with ships

and rafts. What was more likely, of course, was that there were few men on the

walls. What defenders there were would presumably be summoned by alarms to

threatened points. I feared my position might be noticed at any moment by

Cosians, and that I might be trapped against the wall.

“Is there anyone there?” I called. I assumed that at the distance I could not be

heard in the Cosian lines.

Suddenly a basket, on a rope, was flung over the wall and lowered.

I hurried to it. In it lay a golden tarn disk.

“You are mad to come in daylight,” called a voice from above. “Put your food in

the basket, quickly, and be gone! Hope that no one has seen you!”

I stepped back a few yards.

I thrust the white cloth in my belt.

There would be no point in climbing the rope as it could be cut or dropped, or,

if I were not welcomed at the height of the wall, I could be cut from it there.

“I am Tarl, of Port Kar,” I called, “a city enemy to Cos.”

“Do you have food?” called a man. I could see his face now, in one of the

crenels at the height of the wall, some eighty feet above the embankment at the

foot of the wall. It was gaunt, and hard.

“I come from Gnieus Lelius, regent in Ar,” I called. “I bear a message for

Aemilianus! Admit me!:

I saw part of a crossbow at one of the other crenels. There crenels, like many,