Hunters of Gor coc-8 Page 18

  His hand closed more on the flower.

  “Such women,” said Marlenus, “ once conquered, make the most abject and superb slaves.” “I have heard this,” I said.

  Incidentally, brilliant and imaginative women, particularly if beautiful and high-born, are avidly sought in Gorean slave markets. High intelligence, and imagination, perhaps interestingly from the point of view of a man of Earth, are highly prized in women by Gorean men. Indeed, a woman who is known to be intelligent and imaginative will bring a much higher price than some duller, but more beautiful, sister in bondage. Goreans, unlike many men of Earth, have very little interest in stupid women. The ideal candidate, for the Gorean slavers snare is a highly intelligent, beautiful, imaginative woman, one who is strong willed, proud and free. It is such women that Goreans enjoy making slaves. Perhaps, surprisingly, once conquered, once they have learned their brand, once they have learned their collar and silk, they make the most helpless, the most incredibly delicious slaves.

  “Suppose,” I said to Marlenus, “the flower does not beg for mercy.” “Then,” said he, beginning to close his fist on the flower, “it is destroyed.” “You play a savage game,” said I, “Marlenus.” He dropped the flower back into the shallow bowl, among other, unthreatened, buds.

  “I am a Ubar,” he said.

  Marlenus would not wait for the ice in the river to melt. He was a Ubar. He would shatter it.

  Verna was totally unsuspecting.

  “I will tell her,” said Marlenus, “when to put a talender in her hair.” I nodded. Verna’s conquest would be total. She would be made his, utterly. “When does you game begin?” I asked Marlenus.

  “It has already begun,” said Marlenus.

  “How is that?’ I asked.

  “She will attempt to escape tonight,” said Marlenus.

  I regarded him, puzzled.

  “Surely, together,” he smiled, “we have motivated such an attempt?” It was true. I doubted that Verna, unless conquered, would willingly endure another examination of the sort to which we had casually subjected her this evening, the rather detailed appraisal of a slave girl by masters.

  “Did you note,” asked Marlenus, “how deferentially she served us the last cup of wine?” I smiled. “Yes,” I said. “It was served almost as if a slave girl served it.” “It was her attempt,” said Marlenus, “to pretend to be a slave. She served it as she thinks slave girls serve.” He smiled. “Later,” he said, “when she knows herself owned, she will serve, and naturally, as a slave girl serves.” I supposed it was true. The true slave girl knows that she is owned. This makes a difference in how she performs many tasks. Her body, in almost all of its movements, will betray her bondage. It is difficult for a free woman to imitate the actions of a slave girl. She does not know truly what it is to be slave. She has never been taught. She has not been slave. Similarly it is difficult for a slave girl to imitate the actions of a free woman. Knowing that she is, in actuality, owned, it is very difficult for her to act as though she were free. She is frightened to do so. Sometimes slavers use these differences to separate the two categories of Gorean female. Sometimes, when a city is being sacked, high-born free women, fearful of falling into the hands of chieftains of the enemy, have themselves branded and collared, and don slave tunics, and mix with their own slave girls, to prevent their identity from being known. Such high-born women may, by a practiced eye, be detected among true slave girls. They are then handed over to chieftains, for use in the public humiliation ceremonies to be inflicted upon the conquered city, for public rebranding and recollaring, and subsequent public distribution to high officers. The test may be as simple as removing a girl’s tunic and telling her to walk across a room. It may be as simple as telling her to present her lips to those if a warrior. Similarly, slave girls, attempting to escape, can be separated out from free women, even when all are veiled and wear the robes of concealment. Again, the tests may be simple. Once, in Ko-ro-ba, I saw a slaver, before a magistrate, distinguish such a girl, not even one of his own, from eleven free women. Each, in turn, was asked to pour him a cup of wine, and then withdraw, nothing more. At the end, the slaver rose to his feet and pointed to one of the women. “No!” she had cried. “I am free!” officers of the court, by order of the magistrate, removed her garments. If she were free, the slaver would be impaled. When her last garment had been torn away, there was applause in the court. The girl stood there. On her thigh was the brand. She was braceleted and leashed, and given to the slaver. He led her, weeping, away to his slave chain.

  “She attempted to serve as a slave,” said Marlenus, “to put us off our guard.” “Then you think,” I asked, “that tonight she will attempt an escape?” “Of course,” said Marlenus. “And I expect that by now she has left the camp.” I looked at him, astonished.

  “I gave orders for her departure not to be noticed,” smiled Marlenus. “It is dark,” I said. “She will have a long start.” “We can get her back when we wish,” he said. “I have arranged for the girls of Hura, more than a hundred of them, to be in the forests about the camp. If they do not pick her up, I shall go forth in a day or so and retrieve her myself.” “You seem confident,” I said.

  “There is little possibility of losing her,” said Marlenus. “I had her bedding, a blanket changed this morning. She thinks that she washed her blanket but I substituted another, an identical one from another girl.” “Tonight,” I said, “she would not have slept on the cleaned blanket.” “Of course not,” said Marlenus.

  “And,” I said, “in Laura there are trained sleen.”

  “Yes,” said Marlenus. “And given the scent of her blanket there will not be difficulty in picking her up, even if we begin to search days from now.” The sleen is Gor’s most perfect hunter.

  “Even,” said Marlenus, “if we did not have the blanket the smell of the shelter in which she slept last night should be sufficient for the sleen.” “You are thorough,” I said.

  “More thorough than you understand,” smiled Marlenus. He went to a heavy chest at the side of the room and, with a key hung at his belt, unlocked it. He drew from it some bits of scarlet slave silk. “I had her put these on yesterday,” he said. He grinned. “One of my men, unknown to her, pretended to be a merchant, arrived in the camp. He pretended he wished me to buy a consignment of pleasure silk for use in my pleasure gardens. He seemed anxious that I buy. He begged that Verna, who stood nearby, be permitted to display the product, so that I might better judge its sheen and quality. I consented and ordered her to do so. I pretended to purchase several rolls. When she removed the silks we put them to one side, as though for washing.” He laughed. “Of course,” he said, “when she was gone I locked them in the chest.” I thought of the fierce sleen, with their fangs and blazing eyes, long-bodied, six-legged, like a furred lizard.

  “She has no chance of escape,” I said.

  “She thinks, however,” said Marlenus, “that she had an excellent chance. She does not know Hura’s band. She thinks her bedding has been changed. She knows of no clothing, unwashed, which remains behind her. She will fear only that sleen, if we used them, might pick up her scent from the shelter in which she slept.” “She will think, then,” I said, “that she has a chance, perhaps and excellent on, with her lead and the darkness, of escaping.” “Yes,” said Marlenus.

  “But she has no chance of escape,” I said.

  Marlenus nodded his head. “That is true,” he said. “She had no chance of escape. “Ubar,” said a voice. It was one of the guards.

  “The girl, Verna,” he said, “had fled.”

  “Thank you, Warrior,” said Marlenus, dismissing the man. Then Marlenus turned to me. ”You see,” said he, the game is already begun.” I nodded.

  Marlenus looked about himself. He saw, to one side, the large board of one hundred yellow and red squares, the tall weighted pieces.

  “Would you care for a game?” asked Marlenus.

  “Tomorrow,” I said. “It is late now, Ubar
.”

  He laughed. “Good-night,” he said.

  I turned and left. I looked back once, to see Marlenus regarding the board, intently, it placed now before him on the table. He was moving pieces, trying combinations, lines and permutations.

  I thought of Verna fleeing through the night forest, swiftly, silently, wary, excited, elated, heart beating.

  I looked again to see the Ubar in his tent, his fist beneath his chin, regarding the board of the game.

  Verna was a lovely tabuk. Unknown to herself she was still on his tether. Scarcely had Marlenus flung his Ubar’s Tarnsman to Ubar’s Builder’s Seven when we heard the cry at the gate.

  It was a hot afternoon, late in the afternoon. It was the day following Verna’s flight.

  We rose together, and went to the gate, and had it opened. We saw Verna immediately. There were two short choke straps on her neck, each half by a different panther girl. Her wrists had been bound behind her back. Further, at two places, across her shoulders and belly, her arms with coils of binding fiber, very tight, were pinioned. She knelt between her two captors. There were several more girls, armed, behind her.

  She looked up, angrily. Her head was high.

  A dark-haired, tall girl strode forward.

  “Greetings, Hura,” said Marlenus.

  “Greetings, Ubar,” said the woman. I saw that Mira stood behind her. Mira was much pleased.

  Verna was clad only in the bit of yellow slave silk she had worn when she escaped. It was half torn from her. Shreds of it were held by the binding fiber on her body. She was barefoot. There were many scratches on her legs and body. About her neck, and shoulders and arms, and back, she had been switched. “We have caught an escaped slave,” said Hura.

  Verna struggled in the bonds.

  “A branded girl, collared,” said Hura. She struck Verna in the shoulder with the butt of her spear, that of a free woman.

  Hura reached to Verna’s collar. She dug her fingers between the neck and the steel, and jerked it, twice. “The collar of this slave girl, she said, “says that she belongs to Marlenus of Ar.” “That is true,” said Marlenus.

  Hura laughed. She was a tall, long-legged girl, rather hard looking, not unbeautiful. She seemed strong. I did not trust her. She spoke loudly. Her laugh was not pleasant.

  Marlenus was looking down on Verna, bound kneeling at his feet. She looked up at him, boldly, angrily.

  “It is true,” said Marlenus. “This is one of my girls.”

  “I am not one of your girls!” screamed Verna. “I am not one of your girls! I am Verna! Verna, the outlaw woman! Verna, the panther girl!” “She is pretty, isn’t she?” asked Hura.

  “A lovely girl,” said one of the panther girls, holding one of the choke straps. “Slave silks befits such a pretty little bird,” said another girl.

  Verna struggled in her bonds.

  “Do not injure your pretty body,” warned Hura, “You will be less pleasing to men.” “She-sleen!” wept Verna.

  “Doubtless,” said Mira, “she would be even prettier in cosmetics and earrings.” “Traitress!” screamed Verna. “Traitress!” “Slave girl!” said Mira. “Slave girl!” “She fled from us last night,” said Marlenus.

  “We have caught her,” said Hura.

  “I will give you a steel knife,” said Marlenus,and forty arrow points for her.” “Very well,” said Hura.

  The knife and arrow points were brought, and Hura took them.

  The choke straps were removed from Verna’s throat. With her foot, spurning her, Hura thrust her to the ground at the feet of Marlenus. She lay on her left shoulder, looking up at him.

  “Next time you may not be so fortunate, Marlenus,” she said.

  “Get up,” he said.

  She struggled to her feet. He took her hair in his hand and bent her over, her head at his waist, holding her as one does a female slave.

  “You, Hura,” said Marlenus, “and your lieutenant, Mira, may watch, if you wish.” “We would be honored, Ubar,” said Hura. She, and Mira, followed Marlenus, he holding Verna as a slave girl, within the stockade. I followed them. Behind us the gates were swung shut and locked.

  “I do not care if you beat me,” said Verna, in pain. “I have felt the whip.” But Marlenus dragged her past the whipping post. I could see that this frightened her.

  Marlenus stopped at the side of his great tent, in an open space.

  “Summon the camp,” he said. “Bring, too, the slaves.”

  He forced Verna to her knees beside him. He removed his hand from her hair. Soon the camp had gathered around, huntsmen, tarnsmen, retainers, slaves. Watching, too, circled about, were Verna’s girls, in their panther skins, chained together by the right ankle. There was no one in the camp who was not present. Present, too, of course, were Hura and Mira, Verna’s enemies. When we had all gathered about, there was a silence.

  It was in the late afternoon. A bird cried in the distance. There was not much stir in the air. It was hot.

  Verna looked up at Marlenus, proudly, defiantly.

  “Remove her bonds,” said Marlenus.

  She looked up at him, startled. A huntsman, one of Marlenus’ retinue, cowled in the head of a forest panther, stepped behind her. With his sleen knife he freed the girl’s arms and hands.

  She still knelt, apprehensive.

  “Who are you?” asked Marlenus.

  “I am Verna,” she said, “the outlaw.”

  Then, to her astonishment, and that of all those watching, saving the Ubar himself, Marlenus took the key to her collar from his pouch. He opened the collar and replaced the key in his pouch. He then removed the collar from her throat and cast it to one side, in the dirt.

  She looked up at him, puzzled.

  “Hamstring the outlaw,” he said.

  “No!” she cried. She leaped to her feet but two huntsmen, cowled in the heads of forest panthers, seized her by the arms. “No! No!” she screamed.

  “May we go, Ubar?” pleaded Hura. Mira, too, wanted to rush to the gate. “Remain where you are,” said Marlenus.

  The two women, frightened, did not move.

  “Ubar!” screamed Verna. “Ubar!”

  At a gesture from Marlenus the shreds of pleasure silk which still clung to her were torn from her by two huntsmen, they, too, like the others, cowled in the heads of forest panthers.

  She stood before him, free of his collar, stripped, held by huntsmen. Hanging is a not uncommon penalty in the northern forests for outlawry. Another such penalty, not infrequently inflicted, is hamstringing.

  “No, Ubar!” she said. “Please, Ubar!”

  In hamstringing the two large tendons behind each knee are cut. The legs my then no longer be contracted. They are then useless. No longer can the subject walk or run, or ever stand erect.

  The subject is, however, not without resource. He can, though it requires strength, and it is awkward and painful, drag himself about by the hands. When an individual is hamstrung he is often taken to a city where he is left, that he may, if he can, earn his living by begging. Sometimes tavern keepers gather several such unfortunates together, enslave them, and keep their beggings for themselves. A slave with a tharlarion wagon puts them about the city in the morning and picks them up at night. Sometimes the tavern keepers blind or mutilate them as well, that they be more piteous, and their earnings accordingly increased.

  Verna was looking at Marlenus with horror.

  “Let the outlaw be hamstrung,” said Marlenus.

  Two huntsmen threw Verna forward, holding her head toward the ground. Two others held her legs, somewhat higher, stretching them out.

  I saw the tendons, beautiful, taut, behind her knees.

  A fifth huntsman, at a sign from Marlenus, stepped behind the girl. He removed the sleen knife from its sheath. I saw the edge of the blade touch the right tendon.

  “I am a woman!” screamed Verna. “I am a woman!”

  “No,” said Marlenus. “You are an outlaw.”


  “I am a woman!” screamed Verna. “I am a woman! I am a woman!”

  “No,” said Marlenus. “You have only a body of a woman. inside your body you are a man.” “No!” she wept. “No! Inside I am a woman! I am woman!” “Is it true?” asked Marlenus.

  “Yes, yes!” wept Verna.

  “You acknowledge yourself a female then,” asked Marlenus, “within as well as without.” “Yes,” cried Verna. “I am a female!” “Completely?” asked Marlenus.

  “Yes,” cried Verna, “I am completely a female.”

  “And not a man as well?” pressed Marlenus.

  “I am completely and only a female,” wept Verna.

  “Then,” said Marlenus, “it seems we should not hamstring you as an outlaw.” Verna’s body shuddered with relief. She shook in the arms of her captors. But they did not release her.

  “Then,” said Marlenus, “you may be hamstrung for being an escaped slave girl.” Terror sprang anew into Verna’s eyes.

  It was true. The second penalty for an escaping girl, one who has fled before, is not uncommonly hamstringing. I had seem hamstrung girls, begging, piteous in the streets of Ar. It was not a pleasant sight.

  “Hamstring the slave,” said Marlenus.

  “Master!” screamed Verna. “Master!”

  Marlenus hand indicated that the knife, poised, hesitate. The words that she had spoken stunned us, all save Marlenus. She had called him Master.

  The huntsmen held the slave.

  “Please, Master!” wept Verna. “Do not hurt me! Do not hurt me!”

  “The slave begs for mercy,” said one of the huntsmen.

  “Is this true?” asked Marlenus.

  “Yes, Master,” wept Verna. “I am yours. I am your girl. I am your slave. I beg for mercy. I beg for mercy, Master!” “Release her,” said Marlenus. The huntsmen resheathed his sleen knife. The others released the girl. She knelt on the ground, her head down, her hair forward, her shoulders and body shaking, trembling with terror.

  The other girls, too, were frightened. Verna’s girls, in their panther skins, chained by their right ankle. Hura, and Mira, too, were shaken.