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  Savages of Gor

  The Gorean Saga: Book 17

  John Norman

  1

  Kog and Sardak;

  The Parley in the Delta

  "How many are there?" I asked Samos.

  "Two," he said.

  "Are they alive?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said.

  At the second Ahn, long before dawn, the herald of Samos had come to the lakelike courtyard of my holding in many-canaled Port Kar, that place of many ships, scourge of Thassa, that dark jewel in her gleaming green waters. Twice had he struck on the bars of the sea gate, each time with the Ka-la-na shaft of his spear, not with the side of its broad tapering bronze point. The signet ring of Samos of Port Kar, first captain of the council of captains, was displayed. I would be roused. The morning, in early spring, was chilly.

  "Does Tyros move?" I asked blond-haired Thurnock, that giant of a man, he of the peasants, who had come to rouse me.

  "I think not, Captain," said he.

  The girl beside me pulled the furs up about her throat, frightened.

  "Have ships of Cos been sighted?" I asked.

  "I do not think so, Captain," said he.

  There was a sound of chain beside me. The chain had moved against the collar ring of the girl beside me. Beneath the furs she was naked. The chain ran from the slave ring at the foot of my couch, a heavy chain, to the thick metal collar fastened on her neck.

  "It is not, then, on the business of Port Kar that he comes?" I had asked.

  "I think perhaps not, Captain," said Thurnock. "I think that the matters have to do with business other than that of Port Kar."

  The small tharlarion-oil lamp he held illuminated his bearded face as he stood near the door.

  "It has been quiet," I said, "for too long."

  "Captain?" he asked.

  "Nothing," I said.

  "It is early," whispered the girl next to me.

  "You were not given permission to speak," I told her.

  "Forgive me, Master," she said.

  I threw back the heavy furs on the great stone couch. Quickly the girl pulled up her legs and turned on her side. I, sitting up, looked down at her, trying to cover herself from the sight of Thurnock. I pulled her then beneath me. "Ohh," she breathed.

  "You will grant him, then, an audience?" asked Thurnock.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Oh," said the girl. "Ohh!"

  Now, as she lay, the small, fine brand high on her left thigh, just below the hip, could be seen. I had put it there myself, at my leisure, once in Ar.

  "Master, may I speak?" she begged.

  "Yes," I said.

  "One is present," she said. "Another is present!"

  "Be silent," I told her.

  "Yes, my Master," she said.

  "You will be there shortly?" asked Thurnock.

  "Yes," I told him. "Shortly."

  The girl looked wildly over my shoulder, toward Thurnock. Then she clutched me, her eyes closed, shuddering, and yielded. When again she looked to Thurnock she did so as a yielded slave girl, pinned in my arms.

  "I shall inform the emissary of Samos that you will be with him in moments," said Thurnock.

  "Yes," I told him.

  He then left the room, putting the small tharlarion-oil lamp on a shelf near the door.

  I looked down into the eyes of the girl, held helplessly in my arms.

  "What a slave you made me," she said.

  "You are a slave," I told her.

  "Yes, my Master," she said.

  "You must grow accustomed to your slavery, in all its facets," I told her.

  "Yes, my Master," she said.

  I withdrew from her then, and sat on the edge of the couch, the furs about me.

  "A girl is grateful that she was touched by her Master," she said.

  I did not respond. A slave's gratitude is nothing, as are slaves.

  "It is early," she whispered.

  "Yes," I said.

  "It is very cold," she said.

  "Yes," I said. The coals in the brazier to the left of the great stone couch had burned out during the night. The room was damp, and cold, from the night air, and from the chill from the courtyard and canals. The walls, of heavy stone, too, saturated with the chilled, humid air, would be cold and damp, and the defensive bars set in the narrow windows, behind the buckled leather hangings. On my feet I could feel the dampness and moisture on the tiles. I did not give her permission to draw back under the covers, nor was she so bold or foolish as to request that permission. I had been lenient with her this night. I had not slept her naked on the tiles beside the couch, with only a sheet for warmth, nor naked at the foot of the couch, with only a chain for comfort.

  I rose from the couch and went to a bronze basin of cold water at the side of the room. I squatted beside it and splashed the chilled water over my face and body.

  "What does it mean, my Master," asked the girl, "that one from the house of Samos, first captain in Port Kar, comes so early, so secretly, to the house of my Master?"

  "I do not know," I said. I toweled myself dry, and turned to look upon her. She lay on her left elbow, on the couch, the chain running from her collar to the surface of the couch, and thence to the slave ring fixed deeply in its base. Seeing my eyes upon her she then knelt on the surface of the couch, kneeling back on her heels, spreading her knees, straightening her back, lifting her head, and putting her hands on her thighs. It is a common kneeling position for a female slave.

  "If you knew, you would not tell me, would you?" she asked.

  "No," I said.

  "I am a slave," she said.

  "Yes," I said.

  "You had me well," she said, "and as a slave."

  "It is fitting," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  I then returned to the couch, and sat upon its edge. She then left the couch, that she might kneel on the tiles before me. I looked down at her. How beautiful are enslaved women.

  "Perhaps," I said, "you might speculate on what business brings the emissary of Samos of Port Kar to my house this morning?"

  "I, Master?" she asked, frightened.

  "Yes," I said. "You once served Kurii, the Others, the foes of Priest-Kings."

  "I told all that I knew," she exclaimed. "I told all in the dungeons of Samos! I was terrified! I held back nothing! I was emptied of information!"

  "You were then valueless," I said.

  "Except, perhaps, as I might please a man as a slave," she said.

  "Yes," I smiled.

  Samos himself had issued the order of enslavement on her. In Ar I had presented the document to her and shortly thereafter, as it pleased me, implemented its provisions. She had once been Miss Elicia Nevins, of Earth, an agent of Kurii on Gor. Then, in Ar, a city from which once I had been banished, I had caught and enslaved her. In those compartments which had been her own in Ar she had become my capture, and had been stripped and placed in my bonds. In her own compartments, then, at my leisure, I had branded her and locked on her fair throat the gleaming, inflexible circlet of bondage. Before the fall of darkness, and my escape, I had had time, too, to pierce her ears, that the full degree of her degradation and slavery, in the Gorean way of thinking, be made most clear.

  To Gorean eyes the piercing of the ears, this visible set of wounds, inflicted to facilitate the mounting of sensual and barbaric ornamentations, is customarily regarded as being tantamount, for most practical purposes, to a sentence of irrevocable bondage. Normally ear-piercing is done only to the lowest and most sensuous of slaves. It is regarded, by most Goreans, as being far more humiliating and degrading to a woman than the piercing of a girl's septum and the consequent fastening on her of a nose ring. Indeed, such an aperture does not even show. Some s
lave girls, of course, are fixed for both. Their masters, thus, have the option of ornamenting their lovely properties as they please. It might be mentioned that nose rings are favored in some areas more than in others, and by some peoples more than others. On behalf of the nose ring, too, it should be mentioned that among the Wagon Peoples, even free women wear such rings. This, however, is unusual on Gor. The nose ring, most often, is worn by a slave.

  These rings, incidentally, those for the ears and for the nose, do not serve simply to bedeck the female. They also have a role to play in her arousal. The brushing of the sides of the girl's neck by the dangling ornament is, in itself, a delicate stimulation of a sensitive area of her body, the sides of her neck beneath the ears; this area is quite sensitive to light touches; if the earring is of more than one piece, the tiny sounds made by it, too, can also be stimulatory; accordingly, the earring's feel and movement, and caress, and sometimes sound, persistent, subtle and sensual, functioning on both a conscious and subliminal level, can often bring a female to, and often keep her indefinitely in, a state of incipient sexual readiness. It is easy to see why free women on Gor do not wear them, and why they are, commonly, only put on low slaves. Similar remarks hold, too, of course, for the nose ring, which touches, lightly, the very sensitive area of a girl's upper lip. The nose ring, too, of course, makes clear to the girl that she is a domestic animal. Many domestic animals on Gor wear them.

  The girl kneeling before me, once Elicia Nevins, once the lofty, beautiful and proud agent of Kurii, now only my lovely slave, reached for my sandals. She pressed them to her lips, kissing them, and then, head down, began to tie them on my feet. She was quite beautiful, kneeling before me, performing this lowly task, the heavy iron collar and chain on her neck.

  I wondered what the emissary of Samos might wish.

  "Your sandals are tied, Master," said the girl, lifting her head, kneeling back.

  I regarded her. It is pleasant to own a woman.

  "Of what are you thinking, Master?" she asked.

  "I was thinking," I said, "of the first time that I put you to my pleasure. Do you recall it?"

  "Yes, Master," she said. "I have never forgotten. And it was not only the first time that you put me to your pleasure. It was the first time that any man had put me to his pleasure."

  "As I recall," I said, "you yielded well, for a new slave."

  "Thank you, Master," she said. "And while you were waiting for darkness, to escape the city, whiling away the time, you made me yield again and again."

  "Yes," I said. I had then, after the fall of darkness, deeming it then reasonably safe, bound her naked, belly up, over the saddle of my tarn and, eluding patrols, escaped from the city. I had brought her back to Port Kar, where I had thrown her, a bound slave, to the feet of Samos. He had had her put in one of his girl dungeons, where we had interrogated her. We had learned much. After she had been emptied of information she might then be bound naked and thrown to the urts in the canals, or, perhaps, if we wished, kept as a slave. She was comely. I had had her hooded and brought to my house. When she was unhooded she found herself at my feet.

  "Are you grateful that you were spared?" I asked.

  "Yes, Master," she said, "and particularly that you have seen fit to keep me, if only for a time, as your own slave."

  Nothing so fulfills a woman as her own slavery.

  After I had used her, I had put her with my other women. Most of these are available to my men, as well as to myself.

  "A girl is grateful," she said, "that this night you had her chained to your slave ring."

  "Who is grateful?" I asked.

  "Elicia is grateful," she said.

  "Who is Elicia?" I asked.

  "I am Elicia," she said. "That is the name my Master has seen fit to give me."

  I smiled. Slaves, no more than other animals, do not have names in their own right. They are named by the master. She wore her former name, but now only as a slave name, and by my decision.

  I stood up, and drew about me one of the furs from the couch. I went to the side of the room and, with a belt, belted the fur about me. Also, from the wall, from its peg, I took down the scabbard with its sheathed short sword. I removed the blade from the scabbard and wiped it on the fur I had belted about me. I then reinserted the blade in the scabbard. The blade is wiped to remove moisture from it. Most Gorean scabbards are not moisture proof, as this would entail either too close a fit for the blade or an impeding flap. I slung the scabbard strap over my left shoulder, in the Gorean fashion. In this way the scabbard, the blade once drawn, may be discarded, with its strap, which accouterments, otherwise, might constitute an encumbrance in combat. On marches, incidentally, and in certain other contexts, the strap, which is adjustable, is usually put over the right shoulder. This minimizes slippage in common and recurrent motion. In both cases, of course, for a right-handed individual, the scabbard is at the left hip, facilitating the convenient and swift across-the-body draw.

  I then went again to the side of the fur-strewn, great stone couch, at the side of which, on the tiles, chained by the neck, knelt the beautiful slave.

  I stood before her.

  She lowered herself to her belly and, holding my ankles gently with her hands, covered my feet with kisses. Her lips, and her tongue, were warm and wet.

  "I love you, my Master," she said, "and I am yours."

  I stepped back from her. "Go to the foot of the couch," I told her, "and curl there."

  "Yes, Master," she said. She then, on her hands and knees, crawled to the foot of the couch and, drawing up her legs, curled there on the cold tiles.

  When I went to the door, I stopped and looked back, once, at her. She, curled there on the cold, damp tiles, at the foot of the couch, the chain on her neck, regarded me.

  The only light in the room was from the tiny tharlarion-oil lamp which, earlier, Thurnock had placed on the shelf near the door.

  "I love you, my Master," she said, "and I am yours."

  I then turned about and left the room. In a few Ahn, near dawn, men would come to the room and free her, and then, later, put her to work with the other women.

  * * * *

  "How many are there?" I asked Samos.

  "Two," he said.

  "Are they alive?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said.

  "This seems an unpropitious place for a meeting," I said. We were in the remains of a half-fallen, ruined tarn complex, built on a wide platform, at the edge of the rence marshes, some four pasangs from the northeast delta gate of Port Kar. In climbing to the platform, and in traversing it, the guards with us, who had now remained outside, had, with the butts of their spears, prodded more than one sinuous tharlarion from the boards, the creature then plunging angrily, hissing, into the marsh. The complex consisted of a tarn cot, now muchly open to the sky, with an anterior building to house supplies and tarn keepers. It had been abandoned for years. We were now within the anterior building. Through the ruined roof, between unshielded beams, I could see patches of the night sky of Gor, and one of her three moons. Ahead, where a wall had mostly fallen, I could see the remains of the large tarn cot. At one time it had been a huge, convex, cagelike lacing of mighty branches, lashed together, a high dome of fastened, interwoven wood, but now, after years of disrepair, and the pelting of rains and the tearings of winds, little remained of this once impressive and intricate structure but the skeletal, arched remnants of its lower portions.

  "I do not care for this place," I said.

  "It suits them," said Samos.

  "It is too dark," I said, "and the opportunities for surprise and ambush are too abundant."

  "It suits them," said Samos.

  "Doubtless," I said.

  "I think we are in little danger," he said. "Too, guards are about."

  "Could we not have met in your holding?" I asked.

  "Surely you could not expect such things to move easily about among men?" asked Samos.

  "No," I granted him.

>   "I wonder if they know we are here," said Samos.

  "If they are alive," I said, "they will know."

  "Perhaps," said Samos.

  "What is the purpose of this parley?" I asked.

  "I do not know," said Samos.

  "Surely it is unusual for such things to confer with men," I said.

  "True," granted Samos. He looked about himself, at the dilapidated, ramshackle building. He, too, did not care overly much for his surroundings.

  "What can they want?" I wondered.

  "I do not know," said Samos.

  "They must, for some reason, want the help of men," I speculated.

  "That seems incredible," said Samos.

  "True," I said.

  "Could it be," asked Samos, "that they have come to sue for peace?"

  "No," I said.

  "How can you know that?" asked Samos.

  "They are too much like men," I said.

  "I shall light the lantern," said Samos. He crouched down and extracted a tiny fire-maker from his pouch, a small device containing a tiny reservoir of tharlarion oil, with a tharlarion-oil-impregnated wick, to be ignited by a spark, this generated from the contact of a small, ratcheted steel wheel, spun by a looped thumb handle, with a flint splinter.

  "Need this meeting have been so secret?" I asked.

  "Yes," said Samos.

  We had come to this place, through the northeast delta gate, in a squarish, enclosed barge. It was only through slatted windows that I had been able to follow our passage. Any outside the barge, on the walkways along the canals, for example, could not have viewed its occupants. Such barges, though with the slats locked shut, are sometimes used in the transportation of female slaves, that they may not know where in the city they are, or where they are being taken. A similar result is obtained, usually, more simply, in an open boat, the girls being hooded and bound hand and foot, and then being thrown between the feet of the rowers.

  I heard the tiny wheel scratch at the flint. I did not take my eyes from the things at the far end of the room, on the floor, half hidden by a large table, the area open behind them leading to the ruined tarn cot. It is not wise to look away from such things, if they are in the vicinity, or to turn one's back upon them. I did not know if they were asleep or not. I guessed that they were not. My hand rested on the hilt of my sword. Such things, I had reason to know, could move with surprising speed.