Swordsmen of Gor Read online

  “You have a Home Stone here somewhere?” I said to Pertinax. Usually the Home Stone is displayed in a place of honor. I did not, however, detect its presence. In his own hut, if it has a Home Stone, it is said that even a beggar is a Ubar.

  “This is an outpost hut,” said Pertinax, “a temporary place, a mere domicile of convenience. I have no Home Stone here.”

  “But elsewhere?”

  “My Home Stone,” he said, “is the Home Stone of Port Kar.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  I noted Constantina take a bit of meat from one of the trenchers, presumably her own. Cecily had carefully, earlier, removed the tabuk strips from their skewers and had laid them on a plate to the side. From that location Constantina had selected hers, and later, those for others. The suls and turpah, too, had been put to the side, for servicing onto the trenchers.

  Constantina must have noticed my eyes on her. She put down her trencher, on a small stand to the side, and, bending down, handed a trencher to Pertinax.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  That was interesting, I thought. He had thanked one who was merely a slave.

  She then fetched another trencher, mine, it seems, and brought it to my place, and, bending down, put it toward me, for me to take it. I did not, however, take it.

  She looked at me, puzzled, irritated.

  “On your knees,” I said to her, unpleasantly.

  She cast me a look of fury.

  “Kneel,” I said to her.

  She looked at Pertinax, angrily, but he merely smiled.

  “Now,” I said.

  Angrily she knelt beside me, clutching the trencher. Her knuckles were white.

  I had repeated a command. It should not be necessary to do that. Such is cause for discipline. Cecily looked frightened. Slaves, of course, are to obey immediately, and unquestioningly. Exceptions to this practice should occur only if the slave has not heard the command or does not understand it. If the masters should ask, “Must a command be repeated?” the slave knows that she is in jeopardy; at the least, the master is thinking, “Whip.” At such a point, the slave will doubtless do her best to make it clear to the master, honestly, that she did not hear the command or does not understand it. “Please be merciful, Master,” she might plead. “I did not hear Master.” Or, say, “Your girl desires to please, but she does not understand what she is to do. Please tell her, Master.” The girl might, of course, honestly suspect that the master did not say himself as he intended. An inquiry in such a case, is simple, and should clarify matters. She might, of course, beg permission to speak, and attempt to discuss or review the command, perhaps if she fears the command might have been ill considered, perhaps contrary to the master’s own best interests. For example, it would not be regarded, or, perhaps better, should not be regarded, as a breach of discipline if the slave were to remonstrate against, or at least question, the advisability of a master’s putting his own life or welfare in jeopardy. Few slaves will happily bring a master his cloak if he is in no condition to walk the high bridges, or, more dangerously, enter for some reason unarmed amongst enemies. In the end, of course, the master’s will is definitive. It is for the slave to hear and obey. In all such matters, ideally, however, common sense and judgment should hold sway.

  “Head down,” I said to Constantina.

  She put her head down, before me.

  I waited for a few moments, and then took the trencher. “Draw back,” I said to her. “And wait, kneeling.”

  She moved back a little, regarding me with fury, but obeyed.

  “You look well on your knees,” I said.

  She made a tiny, angry noise, but remained as placed.

  I glanced to Pertinax, to see if he objected to my treatment of the slave. But his eyes were alight. I wondered if he had never seen his own slave so.

  I wondered if she were a slave.

  Pertinax was not a forester.

  “Perhaps the slaves may now feed,” said Pertinax.

  “Surely,” I said.

  It was at that time that Cecily, regarding her trencher, first became aware of its lightness. Constantina had given her little, and, I suspected, that little was not of the best.

  After a bit I snapped my fingers that Cecily should approach me, and then, bit by bit, as she knelt by me, and extended her head, delicately, I fed her. She was not to use her hands, of course. Such homely practices remind the slave that she is dependent on the master for all things, not only for her collar, her clothing, if any, and her life, but even the tiniest morsel of food. Bit by bit I fed Cecily and watched her take the food gently, delicately, between her small, fine white teeth. Some of the sul I let her lick from my fingers.

  I stole a glance at Pertinax, and noted that he, as I had suspected would be the case, was almost aflame with admiration and awe, with delight and envy. To have a beautiful woman so at one’s mercy, so much in one’s power, so much one’s own, fills a man with triumph and joy, even with exultation. He then begins to understand what it can be, to be what he is, a man. To be sure, Goreans take this sort of thing much for granted.

  Cecily took the food gratefully from me, and seemed almost dreamily content. Sometimes, head down, she kissed softly at my hand, and fingers.

  “Slave, slave!” hissed Constantina.

  “Yours, Master,” Cecily whispered to me.

  “Slave!” cried Constantina.

  “Perhaps,” I said to Pertinax, “you might similarly feed your girl.”

  “Never!” said Constantina.

  “That will not be necessary,” said Pertinax.

  “Perhaps it is time for paga,” I said.

  Pertinax made as though to rise, but I motioned him to remain as he was, and he, with a glance at Constantina, a glance almost apologetic, resumed his position.

  “Cecily,” I said.

  She rose, and went to the side. In a moment she had removed the lid from the vessel, set it aside, and half-filled two goblets. One she placed where Constantina might reach it, and the other she brought to my place, holding it, and knelt there. She lifted her eyes to me, to see if the serving ritual might begin, but my eyes cautioned her to wait.

  I glanced back at Constantina, where she knelt, seething with rage, with humiliation.

  “Is she a pleasure slave?” I asked Pertinax.

  “Scarcely,” he said, almost laughing, as though the idea were somehow preposterous.

  Constantina cast him an ugly glance.

  I had told from her manner of kneeling, of course, that she was not a pleasure slave. There are a variety of ways in which a pleasure slave may kneel, but the most common is back on her heels, knees spread, back straight, head up, the palms of her hands down, on her thighs. Sometimes, when her needs are muchly upon her, she may kneel muchly like that, save that her head may be lowered humbly, daring not to meet the eyes of the master, and the backs of her hands, not the palms of her hands, may be down on her thighs, which exposes the delicate palms of the hands to the master, a lovely hint of hope and petition. As is well known the small, soft palms of a woman’s hands are sensitive and alive with nerve tissue, though far less so than what they are symbolizing, the moist, pleading tissues of her begging, heated belly.

  “Any woman can be made a pleasure slave,” I informed Pertinax.

  “I should like to think so,” he said.

  A tiny, angry noise escaped Constantina.

  “Where is your whip?” I asked Pertinax.

  “I have none,” said Pertinax. “It is not necessary.”

  “You are mistaken,” I said.

  “Would you dare to whip me?” asked Constantina.

  “Were you given permission to speak?” I inquired.

  “She has a standing permission to speak,” said Pertinax, hastily.

  “In her case, that may be a mistake,” I said.

  Pertinax was silent, and looked away.

  “Would you dare to whip me?” persisted Constantina.

  “That is for y
our master to do,” I said.

  “He dares not do so,” she said, haughtily.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Let us have paga,” said Pertinax, quickly, affably.

  “Serve your master,” I said to Constantina.

  She seemed startled, but no more so, I think, than Pertinax.

  I gathered that this relationship, the ritual serving of drink to the master by a slave, was unfamiliar to them.

  By now it was overwhelmingly clear that Constantina’s relationship to Pertinax was not that of a slave to her master, even should she be a slave, perhaps in some legal sense.

  She picked up the goblet.

  “Both hands,” I informed her.

  She put both hands on the goblet.

  The justification for this grasp is practical and aesthetic, practical in the sense of assuring greater control of the vessel, and aesthetic, having to do with symmetry, and a framing of the slave’s beauty. But, too, in this fashion the position of the slave’s hands is clear. No hand is free, for example, to grasp a dagger, or slip powder into the drink. Long ago, in Turia, it is said that a free woman, armed with a dagger, disguised as a slave, attempted to assassinate a Ubar in his cups. Fortunately for the Ubar the attack was botched. Unfortunately for the would-be assassin, she failed to make her escape. It seems her anonymous employers had had no intention that she should escape, as arrangements for such a withdrawal might have been dangerous, and might have resulted, should confederates be captured, in the exposure of their identities. Fleeing, she had found doors locked before her. Captured and put under the iron, the Ubar would later find much pleasure in her. Too, as she had been of high family in Turia, her public bondage, exposure in triumphs, and such, afforded the populace much delight. No longer carried in her sedan chair by slaves, for whom citizens must make way, she was now less than a tarsk in the city. Surely she had been chained in more than one paga tavern. One wonders why a woman would have risked so much. One wonders if there are secret wheels, and springs, and engines, deep in the mind and heart, which impel one to travel fearful, beckoning roads. One wonders why some women place themselves at risk, why they undertake hazardous journeys and voyages, why they walk the high bridges at night, such things. Perhaps she was, in her way, courting the collar. If so, she found it. It is hard to understand the mind, and even harder, one supposes, to understand the heart.

  In any event, both hands are to be on the goblet.

  She rose to her feet, holding the goblet with both hands. She approached Pertinax. She bent down, and, irritably, extended the goblet to him.

  “On your knees,” I told her.

  Angrily she knelt.

  Pertinax much enjoyed, I could tell, having her on her knees before him. How right she looked.

  I wondered if, somewhere, there might not be a man in Pertinax.

  Again, she extended the goblet to Pertinax.

  “No,” I said to her.

  “I am on my knees,” she snapped. “What more do you want?”

  “Have you never served wine or paga to a man?” I inquired.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “Cecily,” I said, “it seems we have here an ignorant slave. Instruct her.”

  “I, too, Master,” she said, “am ignorant. I am little trained.”

  “That is true,” I said, “but do what you can.”

  “I will not be instructed by a slave,” said Constantina, adding, quickly, “such a slave.”

  “Then you will be stripped and instructed by my belt,” I said.

  “I protest,” said Pertinax.

  “You have no Home Stone here,” I said.

  “It is my hut,” he said.

  “I am not sure of that,” I said.

  “You are not my master,” she said. “You cannot whip me!”

  “Are you sure of that?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. She then looked at me uncertainly. Perhaps for the first time she sensed she was looking into the eyes of a man who could bring the whip to her back and legs. I saw she was trying to deal with this thought. Too, I saw a flicker in her eyes, perhaps of fear, but, too, perhaps of something else, as well.

  She had never before been, I suspected, subject to a male.

  Certainly one does not go about punishing the slaves of others, though free women tend to be rather free in this regard, and most Goreans are not above reprimanding errant slaves, whether their own or those of others. An errant slave girl is not above being, say, knelt and cuffed by a free person. Do not all slaves call free men “Master,” and free women “Mistress”?

  Too, Constantina was clearly in need of discipline, and I suspected I might be willing to make an exception to my general reservations in her case.

  To be sure, if she were a free woman, the whip would not do at all. Free women on Gor, as on Earth, are free to do much what they wish, with little or no fear of consequences. They are free to do almost anything, without fear of punishment. This indulgence and latitude are not extended, of course, to the slave.

  “Master?” asked Cecily.

  “Begin,” I said to her.

  “You are before your master,” said Cecily. “Split your knees.”

  I sensed Cecily would enjoy this.

  “Never!” said Constantina.

  “Now, slave!” snapped Cecily.

  Constantina threw me a pleading glance, but I fear she found little comfort in my gaze.

  “Ai!” said Pertinax, softly.

  Constantina knelt before him, her knees spread, in the position of a Gorean pleasure slave. I gathered he had never had this woman so before him.

  Obviously he, if not Constantina, was muchly pleased.

  “Press the metal of the goblet to your belly,” said Cecily. “Press it in there, so that you can feel it. Really feel it, the metal against your belly. Surely you understand this, the metal against your belly. More. Better. More. Good. Now, to your breasts, softly but firmly. Feel the metal.”

  There was a change in the breath of Constantina. She cast me a glance, almost piteously. I think she did not understand her sensations.

  “Look at your master, not mine,” said Cecily, unpleasantly.

  Constantina turned to Pertinax, unwillingly, it seemed, the goblet at her breasts.

  “Now,” said Cecily, “lift the goblet to your lips, and, gazing over the rim at your master, kiss the goblet, tenderly, and lick it, lovingly, lingeringly, for he is your master, and he is permitting you, a mere slave, to serve him. Keep your eyes on your own master, slave!”

  Constantina turned back to Pertinax.

  Then she put down her head, frightened, for perhaps it was the first time she had seen him regard her as what she was, or supposedly was, a slave.

  “Now,” said Cecily, “extend your arms, holding the cup, to your master, and put your head down, humbly, between your extended arms.”

  This is, of course, a beautiful sight.

  Pertinax, it seemed, would almost forget to accept the cup. Perhaps he was unwilling to let the moment go. Then he accepted the cup, and drank.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “You do not thank her,” I informed him. “It is a great honor and privilege for a slave to be permitted to serve her master. Too, it is what she is for.”

  “True,” said Pertinax.

  “That was not so hard, was it, girl?” I asked Constantina.

  “No,” she said.

  “No, what?” I asked.

  “No,” she said, “— Master.”

  “You may now draw back,” I said, “but you will remain in the vicinity, kneeling. You may be required later.”

  “‘Required’,” she said, uncertainly.

  “For further serving,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, “— Master.”

  Pertinax seemed unable to take his eyes from her. I wondered what their relationship might be.

  “May I serve Master paga?” inquired Cecily.

  “Yes,” I said, and she
served me paga, and well. I trusted Constantina was attentive.

  How incredibly beautiful was the former Miss Virginia Cecily Jean Pym!

  Then she withdrew, a bit, to kneel in the background, where, unobtrusively, she would be at hand, should she be needed, or wanted, or desired. The slave does not withdraw from the master’s presence without permission.

  I finished the paga and set down the goblet.

  “I thank you for your hospitality,” I said to Pertinax.

  “It is nothing,” he said. “I hope you will stay the night.”

  “The others, I gather,” I said, “have not yet arrived.”

  “What others?” he said.

  “I do not know,” I said.

  “I do not understand,” he said.

  “Perhaps we should talk,” I said to Pertinax.

  “Remain as you are,” I said to Constantina, for it seemed she stirred, and would have risen to her feet.

  She was not accustomed, it seemed, to obeying men. I found this odd, as she had a collar on her neck.

  “By all means,” said Pertinax, uncertainly. “But talk of what?”

  At that moment, far over the roof, high, outside the hut, far overhead, there was a thunderous noise. It was like a sudden, passing surf, a storm in the sky. It lasted no more than a part of an Ehn.

  “Master?” said Cecily, startled.

  Constantina seemed frightened.

  Perhaps she had at one time seen tarns.

  I did not leave my place.

  “Migratory tarns,” said Pertinax.

  “The tarn is not a migratory bird,” I said.

  “Forest tarns,” he said.

  “Tarns are of the mountains and the plains,” I said. “They do not frequent the forests. They cannot hunt in them, for the closeness of the trees.”

  “Perhaps it was thunder,” he said.

  “You may be unfamiliar with the sound,” I said, “but I am not. That was the passage of several tarns, perhaps a tarn cavalry.”

  “No,” he said, “not a cavalry.”