Chapter 8
I Find Myself Prisoner In The North

“There seems to be no end of them,” said a man’s voice. “We kill hundreds a day, and yet more come.”

“Increase then,” said a girl’s voice, “the ratios of your slaughtering.”

“The men are weary,” said the voice.

“Double then the fees,” she snapped.

“It will be done,” said the voice.

“The wall weakens a pasang east of the platform,” said another man’s voice.

“Strengthen it,” she said.

“Logs are now few,” he said.

“Use stone,” she said.

“It will be done,” said the voice of the man who had spoken.

I lay on a wooden floor, of heavy, rough boards. I shook my head.

I felt the roughness of the boards with my shoulder. I was stripped to the waist. I wore loose trousers of fur, tied about my waist, and fur boots. My hands were manacled behind my back.

“This is the new one?” asked the girl’s voice.

“It is he,” said a man’s voice.

“Arouse him,” she said.

I was dragged to my knees and struck with the butts of spears.

I shook my head, and regarded her.

“You are Tarl Cabot,” she said.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“What men could not do,” she said, “I have done. I have taken you.”

“There were some men in Lydius,” I said.

“They were in my fee!” she said. “Thus, it is I who have taken you.”

“Of course,” I said.

“We have been watching for you,” she said. “We were warned that you might be foolish enough to venture northward.”

I said nothing.

“You are a strong, sensuous brute,” she said. “Is it true that you are so dangerous?”

I saw no point in responding to her.

“Your acquisition,” she said, “will earn me a promotion with my superiors.”

“Who might they be?” I asked.

“Ones who are not Priest-Kings,” she smiled. She went to a table. I saw belongings of mine upon the table, doubtless fetched from Lydius.

“It was clear quite early,” she said, “that you were no common ruffian from the docks of Lydius.” She sifted golden tarn disks through her fingers. She drew forth the blade from the sheath. “I am told,” said she, “this is a finely tempered blade, keen, subtly balanced, the weapon of one who is of the warriors.

“Perhaps,” I said.

She unwrapped from its fur the carving, in bluish stone, of the head of a beast. “What is this?” she asked.

“Do you not know?” I asked.

“The head of a beast,” she said.

“That is true,” I said.

She placed it back in the fur. It seemed clear to me that she did not understand its import. Kurii, like Priest-Kings, often work through men, concealing themselves from those who would serve them. Samos, for example, had little inkling of the nature of Priest-Kings.

“You are a woman,” I said.

I regarded her. She wore trousers and a jacket of whitish fur, of the sea sleen; the jacket had a hood, thrown back, rimmed with lart fur, on which human breath does not freeze. Her boots were of the fur of sea sleen, trimmed, too, with lart fur. The jacket was held about her waist, closely, by a narrow belt, black, and shining, with a golden catch. To this belt, on two small straps, hung a dagger sheath; the handle of the weapon was ornamented with reds and yellow swirls. Over her shoulder, across her body, was a second belt, from which hung, at her right hip, a pouch and, on a ring, a slave whip, its blades folded, and four coils of narrow, rawhide rope.

“You are perceptive,” she said.

“And one who is perhaps beautiful,” I said. Surely her face was beautiful. It was one which, like that of Constance, was very feminine and delicate. It did not comport well with what I took to be the harshness of her charge in the north. Her complexion was very fair; her eyes were softly blue; her hair, fallen about her shoulders, revealed by the thrown-back hood, was a soft, lush auburn in color.

“What do you mean ‘one who is perhaps beautiful’?” she asked.

“The furs obscure my vision,” I said. “Why do you not remove them?”

She strode toward me, angrily, and struck me across the mouth with her small hand.

She could not hit me hard, for she was too weak. I did not think she weighed more than one hundred and twenty Earth pounds. She was about five feet five inches in height.

I laughed. “I suppose you would bring something in the neighborhood of a silver tarsk in the market,” I said.

She struck me again, and again. And then desisted, in fury.

“I will make you regret your insolence,” she said.

“Do you know the dances of a Gorean slave girl?” I asked.

“Beast!” she screamed.

“You are of Earth,” I said. “Your accent is not Gorean.” I looked at her. “American, aren’t you?” I asked her, in English.

“Yes,” she hissed, in English.

“That explains,” I said, “why you are unfamiliar with the dances of the Gorean slave girl.”

She looked at me in fury.

“But you might be taught,” I said.

She pulled the whip from her belt in a rage and hysterically, holding it with both hands, began to strike me with it. It was not pleasant, but she did not have the strength to make the blows tell. I had been whipped by men. Finally, angrily, she stepped back.

“You are too weak to hurt me,” I said. “But I am not too weak to hurt you.”

“I will have you whipped by my men,” she said.

I shrugged.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“Sidney,” she said.

“What is your first name?” I asked.

“That is my first name,” she said, not pleasantly. “I am Sidney Anderson.”

“’Sidney’,” I said, “is a man’s name.”

“Some women have it,” she said. “My parents gave it to me.”

“Doubtless they wanted a boy,” I said. Then I added, “They were fools.”

“Do you think so,” she asked.

“Certainly,” I said, “both sexes are utterly splendid. One is fortunate to have either. Women are rich, and subtle and marvelous.”

“I did not think you respected women,” she said.

“I do not,” I said.

“I do not understand,” she said.

“The man who respects a woman does not know what else to do with her,” I said. “I meant only to indicate that women are inordinately precious and desirable.”

“We look well in collars,” she said, acidly.

“You belong in collars,” I said, “at the feet of men.”

She turned away, angrily. I could not see her face.

“Are you still attempting to be the boy your parents wished?” I asked.

She spun about, in fury.

“In such a task,” I said, “you will never be successful.”

“You will be lengthily and sufficiently beaten,” she said.

I looked away, at the room. It was high, and of wood, and with an arched roof. There was a dais at one end, on which, in a rough-hewn curule chair, she had sat. There was a rug of sleen skin beneath the chair, and another before the dais. A table was to one side, on which were some of my things. There was a hearth to one side, in which wood burned.

I turned my attention back to the auburn-haired girl.

“Are you well paid?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Do you understand the nature of the cause in which you work?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said. “I labor in the cause of Sidney Anderson.”

“You are a true mercenary,” I smiled.

“Yes,” she said, proudly, “I am a mercenary.” She looked at me. “Do you think a woman cannot be a mercenary?”

“No,” I said, “I see no reason why a woman cannot be a mercenary.”

She came over to me and touched me on the cheek with the whip.

“I will put you to work on the wall,” she said.

“What wall?” I asked.

“You will see,” she said.

“Are you a virgin?” I asked.

She struck me across the face with the whip. “Yes,” she said.

“I shall be the first to have you,” I told her.

She struck me again, savagely. “Be silent!” she said.

“Surely you are curious about your sexuality,” I said.

“Do not use that word before me!” she said.

“It is obvious,” I said. “Consider how closely you have fastened the belt on your furs. That is done, even if only unconsciously, to draw attention to your figure, accenting and emphasizing it.”

“No!” she said.

“Have you never considered,” I asked, watching her, “what it would be like to be naked on a slave block, being sold to men, what it would be like to be a nude slave, owned, at the command of a master?”

“No! No! No!” she cried.

“You have seen slaves,” I said. “Surely you are curious what it would be like to be one.”

“No!” she screamed.

The intensity of her responses had conveyed to me the in-formation in which I was interested.

“There is a slave in you,” I said. “I will collar her.”

I closed my eyes that I be not blinded by the blows of the whip.

Then she stopped and, angrily, fastened the whip at her belt.

“Sidney Anderson,” she said, “will never be a man’s slave. Never!”

“When I own you,” I told her, “I will give you a girl’s name, an Earth girl’s name, a slave name.”

“And what name would that be?” she asked, curious.

“Arlene,” I said.

Momentarily she trembled. Then she said, “That is only a girl’s name.”

“And you are only a girl,” I said.

“I see,” she said. She backed away from me a few feet, and regarded me. “You are clever,” she said. “You seek to anger me.”

“No,” I said, “I merely, in response to your request, informed you of the name I would give you, when I own you.”

“You are my prisoner,” she said.

“For the time,” I said.

“I will teach you to fear me,” she said.

“It is you who will be taught to fear me,” I said, “when I am your master.”

She threw back her head and laughed.

I saw that she, too, as had the Lady Tina of Lydius, knew too little of men to fear them. I supposed she had known only the men of Earth and, on Gor, those who were her subordinates in the discipline of the Kurii cause.

I saw the sense of the Kurii enlisting such women. They owed no Gorean allegiances. They possessed no Home Stones. They were aliens on this world.

Did they not know that they, not having a Home Stone, were subject to any man’s collar?

She looked at me. She had laughed, but I saw that she seethed with fury. Too, in her eyes there was another emotion. I think she was wondering what it would be like to be owned by me. She would learn.

“The mighty Tarl Cabot,” she said, “a manacled, kneeling prisoner.”

Too, such women, in their frustrations, so desperately fighting their femininity, made excellent agents.

“Where men have failed to take you,” she said, “I have succeeded.”

Too, their sex and alien origin, being from Earth, gives them an excellent distance from their subordinates.

She pulled the loops of rawhide rope from the ring at her belt, the same ring which held the hook on the whip, and tied one end of the rope about my neck, knotting it tightly.

Yes, I thought, such women would make excellent tools for the Kurii.

“There,” she said, “the feared Tarl Cabot is tethered, kneeling on a woman’s rope.”

I was puzzled only that the Kurii would enlist such obviously feminine, genuinely feminine, even beautiful, women in their cause. Surely they could find more masculine women upon Earth. Why did they not use harder, harsher, more manlike females?

I looked up at her. She jerked the rawhide rope, testing it.

“An interplanetary force,” she said, “unknown to the fools of Earth, lays siege to this solar system. Its programs will culminate in conquest. I, participating in this struggle, will find high place in the ranks of the victors.”

“Priest-Kings oppose them,” I said.

“I understand Priest-Kings are weak,” she said. “Do they move other than defensively?” she asked.

“Upon occasion,” I said.

Yet it was true, surely, that Priest-Kings were not an aggressive species. It did not seem to me, objectively, that it was unlikely they would eventually be supplanted in the system by a fiercer, more territorial, more aggressive form of life. Kurii, it seemed to me, were well fitted to become the dominant life form in the system.

“I shall be on the winning side,” she said.

“The mercenary speaks,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

I regarded her. She was slim, blue-eyed, auburn-haired, delicately beautiful and feminine.

“Do you truly think,” I asked, “that if the Kurii are victorious you will stand high in the ranks of the victors?”

“Of course,” she said.

I smiled to myself. I now knew why such women had been brought to Gor. When they had served their purpose, they would be made slaves.

She jerked the rope. “On your feet, Beast,” she said.

I rose to my feet.

I looked down on the beauty. She had been brought to Gor, ultimately, to wear a man’s collar.

I determined that it would be mine.

“Come, Beast,” she said, leading me leashed from the room. “I will show you our work in the north. Later, as I choose and direct, you will labor for us.” She turned and looked at me. “You have opposed us long enough,” sue said. “Now you will, in your humble way, contribute, if only by carrying stone and wood, to our cause.”