Chapter 25
I AM SERVED WINE
I entered the wagon and stopped, startled.
Within, a girl, across the wagon, beyond the tiny fire bowl - in the centre of its floor, standing on the thick rug, near a hanging tharlarion oil lamp, turned suddenly to face me clutching about herself as well as she could a richly wrought yellow cloth, a silken yellow sheet. The red band of the Koora bound back her hair. I could see a chain running across the rug from the slave ring to her right ankle.
"You!" she cried.
She held her hand before her face.
I did not speak, but stood dumbfounded, finding myself facing Elizabeth Cardwell.
"You’re alive!" she said. And then she trembled. "You must flee!" she cried.
"Why?" I asked.
"He will discover you!" she wept. "Go!"
Still she would not remove her hand from before her face.
"Who is he?" I asked, startled.
"My master!" she cried. "Please got"
"Who is he?" I inquired.
"He who owns this wagon" she wept. "I have not yet seen him!"
Suddenly I felt like shaking, but did not move, nor betray emotion. Harold had said that Elizabeth Cardwell had been given by Kamchak to a warrior. He had not said which warrior. Now I knew
"Has your master visited you often?" I asked.
"As yet, never," said she, "but he is in the city and may this very night come to the wagon!"
"I do not fear him," I said.
She turned away, the chain moving with her. She pulled the yellow sheet more closely about her. She dropped her hand from before her face and stood facing the back of the wagon.
"Whose name is on your collar?" I asked.
"They showed me," she said, "but I do not know I cannot read."
What she said, of course, was true. She could speak Gorean but she could not read it. For that matter many Tuchuks could not, and the engraving on the collars of their slaves was often no more than a sign which was known to be theirs.
Even those who could read, or pretended to be able to, would affix their sign on the collar as well as their name, so that others who could not read could know to whom the slave belonged. Kamchak’s sign was the four bosk horns and two quivas.
I walked about the fire bowl to approach the girl. "Don’t look at me," she cried, bending down, holding her face from the light, then covering it with her hands. I reached over and turned the collar somewhat. It was attached to a chain. I gathered the girl was in Sirik, the chain on the floor attached to the slave ring running to the twin ankle rings. She would not face me but stood covering her face, looking away. The engraving on the Turian collar consisted of the sign of the four bosk horns and the sign of the city of Ko-ro-ba, which I took it, Kamchak had used for my sign. There was also an inscription in Gorean on the collar, a simple one. I am Tarl Cabot’s girl. I restraightened the collar and walked away, going to the other side of the wagon, leaning my hands against it, wanting to think.
I could hear the chain move as she turned to face me.
"What does it say?" she begged.
I said nothing.
"Whose wagon is this?" she pleaded.
I turned to face her and she put one hand before her face, the other holding the yellow sheet about her. I could see now that her wrists were encircled with slave bracelets, linked to the collar chain, which then continued to the ankle rings. A second chain, that which I had first seen, fastened the Sirik itself to the slave ring. Over the hand that shielded the lower part of her face I could see her eyes, and they seemed filled with fear. "Whose wagon is it?" she pleaded.
"It is my wagon," I said.
She looked at me, thunderstruck. "No," she said, "it is the wagon of a commander he who could command a Thousand."
"I am such," I said. "I am a commander."
She shook her head.
"The collar?" she asked.
"It says," I said, "that you are the girl of Tarl Cabot."
"Your girl?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Your slave?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
She did not speak but stood looking at me, in the yellow sheet, with one hand covering her face.
"I own you," I said.
Tears shone in her eyes and she sank to her knees, trembling, unable to stand, weeping.
I knelt beside her. "It is over now, Elizabeth," I said. "It is finished. You will no longer be hurt. You are no longer a slave. You are free, Elizabeth."
I gently took her braceleted wrists in my hands and removed them from her face.
She tried to twist her head away. "Please don’t look at me, Tarl," she said.
In her nose, as I had suspected, there glinted the tiny, fine golden ring of the Tuchuk woman.
"Don’t look at me, please," she said.
I held her lovely head with its soft dark hair in my hands, gazing on her face, her forehead, her dark, soft eyes, with tears, the marvellous, trembling mouth, and set in her fine nose, delicate and lovely, the tiny golden ring.
"It is actually very beautiful," I said.
She sobbed and pressed her head to my shoulder. "They bound me on a wheel," she said.
With my right hand I pressed her head more closely against me, holding it.
"I am branded," she said. "I am branded."
"It is finished now," I said. "You are free, Elizabeth."
She lifted her face, stained with tears, to mine.
"I love you, Tarl Cabot," she said.
"No," I said softly, "you do not."
She leaned against me yet again. "But you do not want me," she said. "You never wanted me."
I said nothing.
"And now," she said, bitterly, "Kamchak has given me to you. He is cruel, cruel, cruel."
"I think Kamchak thought well of you," I said, "that he would give you to his friend."
She withdrew from me a bit, puzzled. "Can that be?" she asked. "He whipped me, he—touched me," she shuddered, "with the leather." She looked down, not wanting to look Into my eyes.
"You were beaten," I said, "because you ran abbey. Normally a girl who does what you did is maimed or thrown to Been or kaiila, and that he touched you with the whip, the Slaver’s Caress, that was only to show me, and perhaps you, that you were female."
She looked down. "He shamed me," she said. "I cannot help it that I moved as I did I cannot help that I am a woman."
"It is over now," I told her.
She still did not raise her eyes, but stared down at the rug.
"Tuchuks," I remarked, "regard the piercing of ears as a barbarous custom inflicted on their slave girls by Turians."
Elizabeth looked up, the tiny ring glinting in the light of the fire bowl.
"Are your ears pierced?" I asked.
"No," she said, "but many of my friends on Earth who owned fine earrings, had their ears pierced."
"Did that seem so dreadful to you?" I asked.
"No," she said, smiling.
"It would to Tuchuks," I said. "They do not even inflict that on their Turian slaves." I added, "And it is one of the great fears of a Tuchuk girl that, should she fall into Turian hands, it will be done to her."
Elizabeth laughed, through her tears.
"The ring may be removed," I said. "With instruments it can be opened and then slid free leaving behind no mark that one would ever see."
"You are very kind, Tarl Cabot," she said.
"I do not suppose it would do to tell you," I remarked, "but actually the ring is rather attractive."
She lifted her head and smiled pertly. "Oh?" she asked.
"dyes," I said, "quite."
She leaned back on her heels, drawing the yellow silken sheet more closely about her shoulders, and looked at me, smiling.
"Am I slave or free?" she asked.
"Free," I said.
She laughed. "I do not think you want to free me," she said. "You keep me chained up like a slave girl!"
I laughed. "I am sorry!" I cried. To be sure, Elizabeth Cardwell was still in Sirik.
"Where is the key?" I asked.
"Above the door," she said, adding, rather pointedly, "just beyond my reach."
I leaped up to fetch the key.
"I am happy," she said.
I picked the key from the small hook.
"Don’t turn around!" she said.
I did not turn. "Why not?" I asked. I heard a slight rustle of chain.
I heard her voice from behind me, husky. "Do you dare free this girl?" she asked.
I spun about and to my astonishment saw that Elizabeth Cardwell had arisen and stood proudly, defiantly, angrily before me, as though she might have been a freshly collared slave girl, brought in but an Ahn before, bound over the saddle of a kaiila, the fruit of a slave raid.
I gasped.
"Yes," she said, "I will reveal myself, but know that I will fight you to the death."
Gracefully, insolently, the silken yellow sheet moved about and across her body and fell from her. She stood facing me, in pretended anger, graceful and beautiful. She wore the Sirik and was, of course, clad Kajir, clad in the Curia and Chatka, the red cord and the narrow strip of black leather; in the Kalmak, the brief vest, open and sleeveless, of black leather, and in the Koora, the strip of red cloth that bound back her brown hair. About her throat was the Turian collar with it chain, attached to slave bracelets and ankle rings, one of the latter attached to the chain running to the slave ring. I saw that her left thigh, small and deep, bore the brand of the four bosk horns.
I could scarcely believe that the proud creature who stood chained before me was she whom Kamchak and I had referred to as the Little Barbarian; whom I had been able to think of only as a timid, simple girl of Earth, a young, pretty little secretary, one-of nameless, unimportant thousands of such in the large offices of Earth’s major cities; but what I now saw before me did not speak to me of the glass and rectangles and pollutions of Earth, of her pressing crowds and angry, rushing, degraded throngs, slaves running to the whips of their clocks, slaves leaping and yelping and licking for the caress of silver, for their positions and titles and street addresses, for the adulation and envy of frustrated mobs for whose regard a true Gorean would have had but contempt; what I saw before me now spoke rather, in its way, of the bellowing of bosk and the smell of trampled earth; of the sound of the moving wagons and the whistle of wind about them; of the cries of the girls with the bosk stick and the odour of the open cooking fire; of Kamchak on his kaiila as I remembered him from before; as Kutaituchik must once have been; of the throbbing, earthy rhythms of grass and snow, and the herding of beasts; and here before me now there stood a girl, seemingly a captive, who might have been of Turia, or Ar, or Cos, or Thentis; who proudly wore her chains and stood as though defiant in the wagon of her enemy, as if clad for his pleasure, all identity and meaning swept from her save the incontrovertible fact of what she now seemed to be, and that alone, a Tuchuk slave girl.
"Well," said Miss Cardwell, breaking the spell she had cast, "I thought you were going to unchain me."
"Yes, yes," I said, and stumbled as I went toward her.
Lock by lock, fumbling a bit, I removed her chains, and threw the Sirik and ankle chain to the side of the wagon, under the slave ring.
"Why did you do that?" I asked.
"I don’t know," she responded lightly, "I must be a Tuchuk slave girl."
"You are free," I said firmly.
"I shall try to keep it in mind," she said.
"Do so," I said.
"Do I make you nervous?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
She had now picked up the yellow sheet and, with a pin or two, booty from Turia probably, fastened it gracefully about her.
I considered raping her.
It would not do, of course.
"Have you eaten?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"There is some roast bosk left," she said. "It is cold. It would be a bother to warm it up, so I will not do so. I am not a slave girl, you know."
I began to regret my decision in freeing her.
She looked at me, her eyes bright. "It certainly took you a long time to come by the wagon."
"I was busy," I said.
"Fighting and such, I suppose," she said.
"I suppose," I said.
"Why did you come to the wagon tonight?" she asked. I didn’t care precisely for the tone of voice with which she asked the question.
"For wine," I said.
"Oh," she said.
I went to the chest by the side of the wagon and pulled out a small bottle, one of several, of Ka-la-na wine which reposed there.
"Let us celebrate your freedom," I said, pouring her a small bowl of wine.
She took the bowl of wine and smiled, waiting for me to fill one for myself.
When I had done so, I faced her and said, "To a free woman, one who has been strong, one who has been brave, to Elizabeth Cardwell, to a woman who is both beautiful and free."
We touched the bowls and drank.
"Thank you, Tarl Cabot," she said.
I drained my bowl.
"We shall, of course," Elizabeth was saying, "have to make some different arrangements about the wagon." She was glancing about, her lips pursed. "We shall have to divide it somehow. I do not know if it would be proper to share a wagon with a man who is not my master."
I was puzzled. "I am sure," I muttered, "we can figure out something." I refilled my wine bowl. Elizabeth did not wish more. I noted she had scarcely sipped what she had been given. I tossed down a swallow of Ka-la-na, thinking perhaps that it was a night for Paga after all.
"A wall of some sort," she was saying.
"Drink your wine," I said, pushing the bowl in her hands toward her.
She took a sip, absently. "It is not really bad wine," she said.
"It is superb!" I said.
"A wall of heavy planks would be best, I think," she mused.
"You could always wear Robes of Concealment," I ventured, "and carry about your person an unsheathed quiva."
"That is true," she said.
Her eyes were looking at me over the rim of her bowl as she drank. "It is said," she remarked, her eyes mischievous, "that any man who frees a slave girl is a fool."
"It is probably true," I said.
"You are nice, Tarl Cabot," she said.
She seemed to me very beautiful. Again I considered raping her, but now that she was free, no longer a simple slave, I supposed that it would be improper. I did, however, measure the distance between us, an experiment in speculation, and decided I could reach her in one bound and in one motion, with luck, land her on the rug.
"What are you thinking?" she asked.
"Nothing that I care to inform you of," I said.
"Oh," she said, looking down into her bowl of wine, smiling.
"Drink more wine," I prompted.
"Really" she said.
"It’s quite good," I said. "Superb."
"You are trying to get me drunk," she said.
"The thought did cross my mind," I admitted.
She laughed. "After I am drunk," she asked, "what are you Being to do with me?"
"I think I will stuff you in the dung sack," I said.
"Unimaginative," she remarked.
"What do you suggest?" I asked.
"I am in your wagon," she sniffed. "I am alone, quite defenceless, completely at your mercy."
"Please," I said.
"If you wished," she pointed out, "I could in an instant be returned to slave steel simply be reenslaved and would then again be yours to do with precisely as you pleased."
"That does not sound to me like a bad idea," I said.
"Can it be," she asked, "that the commander of a Tuchuk Thousand does not know what to do with a girl such as I?"
I reached toward her, to take her into my arms, but I found the bowl of wine in my way, deftly so.
"Please, Mr. Cabot," she said.
I stepped back, angry.
"By the Priest-Kings," I cried, "you are one woman who looking for trouble"
Elizabeth laughed over the wine. Her eyes sparkled. "I am free," she said.
"I am well aware of that," I snapped.
She laughed.
"You spoke of arrangements," I said. "There are some. Free or not, you are the woman in my wagon. I expect to have food, I expect the wagon to be clean, the axles to be greased, the bosk to be groomed."
"Do not fear," she said, "when I prepare my meals I will make enough for two."
"I am pleased to hear it," I muttered.
"Moreover," she said, "I myself would not wish to stay in a wagon that was not clean, nor one whose axles were not greased nor whose bosk were not properly groomed."
"No," I said, "I suppose not."
"But it does seem to me," she said, "that you might share in such chores."
"I am the commander of a Thousand," I said.
"What difference does that make?" she asked.
"It makes a great deal of difference!" I shouted.
"You needn’t shout," she said.
My eye glanced at the slave chains under the slave ring.
"Of course," said Elizabeth, "we could regard it as a division of labour of sorts."
"Good," I said.
"On the other hand," she mused, "you might rent a slave for such work."
"All right," I said, looking at her. "I will rent a slave."
"But you can’t trust slaves," said Elizabeth.
With a cry of rage I nearly spilled my wine.
"You nearly spilled your wine," said Elizabeth.
The institution of freedom for women, I decided, as many Goreans believed, was a mistake.
Elizabeth winked at me, conspiratorially. "I will take care of the wagon," she said.
"Good," I said. "Good!"
I sat down beside the fire bowl, and stared at the floor.
Elizabeth knelt down a few feet from me, and took another sip of the wine.
"I heard," said the girl, seriously, "from a slave whose name was Hereena that tomorrow there will be great fighting."
I looked up. "Yes," I said. "I think it is true."
"If there is to be fighting tomorrow," she asked, "will you take part in it?"
"Yes," I said, "I suppose so."
"Why did you come to the wagon tonight?" she asked.
"For wine," I said, "as I told you."
She looked down.
Neither of us said anything for a time. Then she spoke. "I am happy," she said, "that this is your wagon."
I looked at her and smiled, then looked down again, lost in thought.
I wondered what would become of Miss Cardwell. She was, I forcibly reminded myself, not a Gorean girl, but one of Earth. She was not natively Turian nor Tuchuk. She could not even read the language. To almost anyone who would come upon her she might seem but a beautiful barbarian, fit presumably by birth and blood only for the collar of a master. She would be vulnerable. She, without a defender, would be helpless. Indeed, even the Gorean woman, outside her city, without a defender, should she escape the dangers of the wild, is not likely long to elude the iron, the chain and collar. Even peasants pick up such women, using them in the fields, until they can be sold to the first passing slaver. Miss Cardwell would need a protector, a defender. And yet on the very morrow it seemed I might die on the walls of Saphrar’s compound What then would be her fate? Moreover, I reminded myself of my work, and that a warrior cannot well encumber himself with a woman, particularly not a free woman. His companion, as it is said, is peril and steel. I was sad. It would have been better, I told myself, if Kamchak had not given me the girl.
My reflections were interrupted by the girl’s voice. "I’m surprised," she said, "that Kamchak did not sell me."
"Perhaps he should have," I said.
She smiled. "Perhaps," she admitted. She took another sip of wine. "Tarl Cabot," she said
"Yes," I said.
"Why did Kamchak not sell me?"
"I do not know," I said.
"Why did he give me to you?" she asked.
"I am not truly sure," I said.
I wondered indeed that Kamchak had given the girl to me.
There were many things that seemed to me puzzling, and I thought of Gor, and of Kamchak, and the ways of the Tuchuks, so different from those native to Miss Cardwell and myself.
I wondered why it was that Kamchak had put the ring on this girl, had had her branded and collared and clad Kajir was it truly because she had angered him, running from the wagon that one time or for another reason and why had he subjected her, cruelly perhaps, in my presence to the Slaver’s Caress? I had thought he cared for the girl. And then he had given her to me, when there might have been other commanders. He had said he was fond of her. And I knew him to be my friend. Why had he done this, truly? For me? Or for her, as well? If so, why? For what reason?
Elizabeth had now finished her wine. She had arisen and rinsed out the bowl and replaced it. She was now kneeling at the back of the wagon and had untied the Koora and shaken her hair loose. She was looking at herself in the mirror, holding her head this way and that. I was amused. She was seeing how the nose ring might be displayed to most advantage. Then she began to comb her long dark hair, kneeling very straight as would a Gorean girl. Kamchak had never permitted her to cut her hair. Now that she was free I supposed she would soon shorten it. I would regret that. I have always found long hair beautiful on a woman.
I watched her combing her hair. Then she had put the comb aside and had retied the Koora, binding back her hair.
Now she was again studying her image in the bronze mirror, moving her head slightly.
Suddenly I thought I understood Kamchak! He had indeed been fond of the girl!
"Elizabeth," I said.
"Yes," she said, putting the mirror down.
"I think I know why Kamchak gave you to me aside from the fact that I suppose he thought I could use a prettier wench about the wagon."
She smiled.
"I am glad he did," she said.
"Oh?" I asked.
She smiled. She looked into the mirror. "Of course," she said, "who else would have been fool enough to free me?"
"Of course," I admitted.
I said nothing for a time.
The girl put down the mirror. "Why do you think he did?" she asked, facing me, curious.
"On Gor," I said, "the myths have it that only the woman who has been an utter slave can be truly free."
"I am not sure," she said, "that I understand the meaning of that."
"It has nothing to do, I think," I said, "with what woman is actually slave or free, has little to do with the simplicity of chains or the collar, or the brand."
"Then what?" she asked.
"It means, I think," I said, "that only the woman who has utterly surrendered and can utterly surrender losing herself in a man’s touch can be truly a woman, and being what she is, is then free."
Elizabeth smiled. "I do not accept that theory," she remarked. "I am free now."
"I am not talking about chains and collars," I said.
"It is a silly theory," she said.
I looked down. "I suppose so," I said.
"I would have little respect for the woman," said Elizabeth Cardwell, "who could utterly surrender to a man."
"I thought not," I said.
"Abdomen," said Elizabeth, "are persons surely as much as men and their equals."
"I think we are talking about different things," I said.
"Perhaps," she said.
"On our world," I said, "there is much talk of persons - and little of men and women and the men are taught that they must not be men and the women are taught that they must not be women."
"Nonsense," said Elizabeth. "That is nonsense."
"I do not speak of the words that are used, or how men of Earth would speak of these things," I said, "but of what is not spoken of what is implicit perhaps in what is said and taught.
"But what," I asked, "if the laws of nature and of human blood were more basic, more primitive and essential than the conventions and teachings of society what if these old secrets and truths, if truths they be, had been concealed or forgotten, or subverted to the requirements of a society conceived in terms of interchangeable labour units, each assigned id functional, technical sexless skills?"
"Really!" said Elizabeth.
"What do you think would be the result?" I asked.
"I’m sure I don’t know," she said.
"Our Earth," I suggested.
"Women," said Miss Cardwell, "do not wish to submit to men, to be dominated, to be brutalized."
"We are speaking of different things," I said.
"Perhaps," she admitted.
"There is no freer nor higher nor more beautiful woman," I said, "than the Gorean Free Companion. Compare her with your average wife of Earth."
"The Tuchuk women," said Elizabeth, "have a miserable lot."
"Few of them," I said, "would be regarded in the cities as a Free Companion."
"I have never known a woman who was a Free Companion," said Elizabeth.
I was silent, and sad, for I had known one such.
"You are perhaps right," I said, "but throughout themammats it seems that there is one whose nature it is to possess and one whose nature it is to be possessed."
"I am not accustomed to thinking of myself," smiled Elizabeth, "as a mammal."
"What do you think of yourself as," I asked, "biologically?"
"Well," she smiled, "if you wish to put it that way."
I pounded the floor of the wagon and Elizabeth jumped.
"That," I said, "is the way it is!"
"Nonsense," said she.
"The Goreans recognize," I said, "that this truth is hard for women to understand, that they will reject it, that they will fear it and fight it."
"Because," said Elizabeth, "it is not true."
"You think," I said, "that I am saying that a woman is nothing that is not it, I am saying she is marvellous, but that she becomes truly herself and magnificent only after the surrenders of love."
"Silly!" said Elizabeth.
"That is why," I remarked, "that upon this barbaric world the woman who cannot surrender herself is upon occasion simply conquered."
Elizabeth threw back her head and laughed merrily.
"Yes," I smiled, "her surrender is won often by a master who will be satisfied with no less."
"And what happens to these women afterwards?" asked Elizabeth.
"They may wear chains or they may not," I said, "but they are whole they are female."
"No man," said Elizabeth, "including you, my dear Tarl Cabot, could bring me to such a pass."
"The Gorean myths have it," I said, "that the woman longs for this identity to be herself in being his if only for the moment of paradox in which she is slave and thus Freed."
"It is all very silly," said Elizabeth.
"It is further said that the woman longs for this to happen to her, but does not know it."
"That is the silliest of all!" laughed Elizabeth.
"Why," I asked, "did you earlier stand before me as a slave girl if you did not, for the moment, wish to be a slave?"
"It was a joker" she laughed. "A joker"
"Perhaps," I said.
She looked down, confused.
"And so," I said, "that is why I think Kamchak gave you."
She looked up, startled. "Why?" she asked.
"That in my arms you would learn the meaning of a slave collar, that you would learn the meaning of being a woman."
She looked at me, astonished, her eyes wide with disbelief.
"You see," I said, "he thought well of you. He was truly fond of his Little Barbarian."
I stood up and threw the wine bowl to the side of the room. It shattered against the wine chest.
I turned away.
She leaped to her feet. "Where are you going?" she asked.
"I am going to the public slave wagon," I said.
"But why?" she asked.
I looked at her frankly. "I want a woman," I said.
She looked at me. "I am a woman, Tarl Cabot," she said.
I said nothing.
"Am I not as beautiful as the girls in the public slave wagon?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, "you are."
"Then why do you not remain with me?"
"Tomorrow," I said, "I think there will be heavy fighting."
"I can please you as well as any girl in the slave wagon," she said.
"You are free," I told her.
"I will give you more," she said.
"Please, do not speak so, Elizabeth," I said.
She straightened herself. "I suppose," she said, "you have seen girls in slave markets, betrayed as I was by the touch of the whip."
I did not speak. It was true that I had seen this.
"You saw how I moved," she challenged. "Would it not have added a dozen gold pieces to my price?"
"Yes," I said, "it would have."
I approached her and gently held her by the waist, and looked down into her eyes.
"I love you, Tarl Cabot," she whispered. "Do not leave me."
"Do not love me," I said. "You know little of my life and what I must do."
"I do not care," she said, putting her head to my shoulder.
"I must leave," I said, "if only because you care for me. It would be cruel for me to remain."
"Have me, Tarl Cabot," she said, "if not as a free woman as a slave."
"Beautiful Elizabeth," I said, "I can have you as neither."
"You will have me," she cried, "as one or the other!"
"No," I said gently. "No."
Suddenly she drew back in fury and struck me with the flat of her hand, a vicious slap, and then again and again, and again.
"No," I said.
Again she slapped me. My face burned. "I hate you," she said. "I hate your"
"No," I said.
"You know your codes, do you not?" she challenged. "The codes of the warrior of Gor?"
"Do not," I said.
Again she slapped me and my head leaped to the side, burning. "I hate you," she hissed.
And then, as I knew she would, she suddenly knelt before me, in fury, head down, arms extended, wrists crossed, submitting as a Gorean female.
"Now," she said, looking up, her eyes blazing with anger, "You must either slay me or enslave me."
"You are free," I said sternly.
"Then slay me," she demanded.
"I could not do that," I said.
"Collar me," she said.
"I have no wish to do so," I said.
"Then acknowledge your codes betrayed," she said.
"Fetch the collar," I said.
She leaped up to fetch the collar and handed it to me, again kneeling before me.
I encircled her lovely throat with the steel and she looked up at me, angrily.
I snapped it shut.
She began to rise to her feet.
But my hand on her shoulder prevented her from rising. "I did not give you permission to rise, slave," I said.
Her shoulders shook with anger. Then she said, "Of course, I am sorry, master," and dropped her head.
I removed the two pins from the yellow silken sheet, and it fell from her, revealing her clad Kajir.
She stiffened in anger.
"I would see my slave girl," I said.
"Perhaps," she said, acidly, "you wish your girl to remove her remaining garments?"
"No," I said.
She tossed her head.
"I shall do it," I told her.
She gasped.
As she knelt on the rug, head down, in the position of the Pleasure Slave, I took from her the Koora, loosening her hair, and then the leather Kalmak, and then I drew from her the Curia and Chatka.
"If you would be a slave," I said, "be a slave."
She did not raise her head but glared savagely down at the rug, her small fists clenched.
I went across the rug and sat down cross-legged near the fire bowl, and looked at the girl.
"Approach me, slave girl," I said, "and kneel."
She lifted her head and looked at me, angrily, proudly, for a moment, but then she said, "Yes, master," and did as she was commanded.
I looked at Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, kneeling before me, head down, clad only in the collar of a slave.
"What are you?" I asked.
"A slave," she said bitterly, not raising her head.
"Serve me wine," I said.
She did so, kneeling before me, head down, handing me the black, red-trimmed wine crater, that of the master, as had Aphris to Kamchak. I drank.
When I had finished I set the wine crater aside and looked on the girl.
"Why have you done this, Elizabeth?" I asked.
She looked down sullenly. "I am Vella," she said, "a Gorean slave."
"Elizabeth" I said.
"Vella," she said angrily.
"Vella," I agreed, and she looked up. Our eyes met and we looked at one another for a long time. Then, she smiled, and I looked down.
I laughed. "It seems," I said, "that I will not make it to the public slave wagon tonight."
Elizabeth looked up, shyly. "It seems not, master."
"You are a vixen, Vella," said I.
She shrugged. Then, kneeling before me in the position of the Pleasure Slave, she stretched indolently, with feline grace, lifting her hands behind the back of her neck and throwing her dark hair forward. She knelt so for a languorous moment, her hands over her head holding her hair, looking at me.
"Do you think," she asked, "that the girls in the public slave wagon are as beautiful as Vella?"
"No," I said, "they are not."
"Or as desirable?" she asked.
"No," I said, "none is as desirable as Vella."
Then, her back still arched, with a half-smile, she stretched even more, and, as though weary, she slowly turned her head to one side, with her eyes closed, and then opened them and with a small, lazy motion of her hands threw her hair back over her head, and with a tiny motion of her head shook it into place.
"It seems Vella wishes to please her master," I said.
"No," said the girl, "Vella hates her master." She looked at me with feigned hatred. "He has humiliated Vella. He has stripped her and put her in the collar of a slaver"
"Of course," I said.
"But," said the girl, "perhaps she might be forced to please him. After all she is only a slave."
I laughed.
"It is said," remarked the girl, "that Vella, whether she knows it or not, longs to be a slave the utter slave of a man if but for an hour."
I slapped my knee with amusement. "That sounds to me," I said, "like a silly theory."
The girl shrugged in her collar. "Perhaps," she said, "Vella does not know."
"Perhaps," I said, "Vella will find out."
"Perhaps," said the girl, smiling.
"Are you ready, Slave Girl," I asked, "to give pleasure to a master?"
"Have I any choice?" she asked.
"None," I said.
"Then," she said, with resignation, "I suppose I am ready."
I laughed.
Elizabeth was looking at me, smiling. Then, suddenly, playfully, she put her head to the rug before me. I heard her whisper, "Vella asks only to tremble and obey."
I stood up and, laughing, lifted her to her feet.
She, too, laughed, standing close to me, her eyes bright. I could feel her breath on my face.
"I think now I will do something with you," I said.
She looked resigned, dropping her head. "What is to be the fate of your beautiful, civilized slave?" she asked.
"The dung sack," I replied.
"No!" she cried, suddenly frightened. "No!"
I laughed.
"I will do anything rather than that," she said. "Anything."
"Anything?" I asked.
She looked up at me and smiled. "Yes," she said, "anything."
"Very well, Vella," said I, "I will give you but one chance if you well please me the aforementioned miserable fate will not be yours at least for tonight."
"Vella will well please you," she said earnestly.
"Very well," I said, "please me."
I recalled keenly how she had sported with me earlier and I thought there might be some point in giving the young American a taste of her own medicine.
She looked at me startled.
Then she smiled. "I will teach you that I well know the meaning of my collar, master," she said.
Suddenly she kissed me, a deep kiss, moist, rich, too soon ended.
"There" she laughed. "The kiss of a Tuchuk slave girl!"
Then she laughed and turned away, looking over her shoulder. "You see," she said, "I can do it quite well."
I did not speak.
She was facing the other way. "But," she said, teasingly, "I think one will be enough for master."
I was a bit angry, and not a little aroused. "The girls in the public slave wagon," I said, "know how to kiss."
"Oh?" she said, turning about.
"They are not little secretaries," I said, "pretending to be slave girls."
Her eyes flashed. "Try this!" she said, approaching me, and this time, my head in her small hands, she lingered with her lips upon my mouth, warm, wet, breaths meeting and mingling in the savouring touch. My hands held her slender waist. When she had finished, I remarked, "Not bad."
"Not bad!" she cried. Then fully and for much time, she kissed me, with increasing determination, yet attempted subtlety, thennoxlety , then woodenly, and then she dropped her head. lifted her chin with my finger. She looked at me angrily.
"I should have told you, I suppose," I remarked, "that a woman kisses well only when fully aroused, after at least half an Ahn, after she is helpless and yielding."
She looked at me angrily and turned away.
Then she spun about laughing. "You are a beast, Tarl," she cried.
"And you, too," I laughed, "are a beast a beautiful little collared beast."
"I love you," she said, "Tarl Cabot."
"Array yourself in Pleasure Silk, Little Beast," I said, "and enter my arms."
The blaze of a challenge flared suddenly in her eyes. She transfused with excitement. "Though I am of Earth," she said, "try to use me as slave."
I smiled. "If you wish," I said.
"I will prove to you," she said, "that your theories are false." I shrugged.
"I will prove to you," she said, "that a woman cannot be conquered."
"You tempt me," I said.
"I love you," she said, "but even so, you will not be able to conquer me, for I shall not permit myself to be conquered, not even though I love your"
"If you love me," I said, "perhaps I would not wish to conquer you."
"But Kamchak, generous fellow, gave me to you, did he," she asked, "that you should teach me as slave to be female?"
"I think so," I admitted.;
"And in his opinion, and perhaps yours, would that not be In my best interests?"
"Perhaps," I said. "I do not really know. These are complicated matters."
"Well," said she, laughing, "I shall prove you both wrong"
"All right," I said, "we shall see,"
"But you must promise to try to make me truly a slave if only for a moment."
"All right," I said.
"The stakes," she pronounced, "will be my freedom against."
"Yes?" I asked.
"Against yours?" she laughed.
"I do not understand," I said.
"For one week," she said, "in the secrecy of the wagon where no one can see you will be my slave you will wear collar and serve me and do whatever I wish."
"I do not care much for your terms," I said.
"You seem to find little fault in men owning female slaves," she said. "Why should you object to being a slave owned by a female?"
"I see," I said.
She smiled slyly. "I think it might be rather pleasant to eve a male slave." She laughed. "I will teach you the bearing of a collar, Tarl Cabot," she said.
"Do not count your slaves until you have won them," I cautioned.
"Is it a wager?" she asked.
I gazed on her. How every bit of her seemed alive with allege! Her eyes, her stance, the sound of her voice I saw e tiny nose ring, barbaric, glinting in the light of the fire bowl. I saw the place on her thigh where not many days before the fiery iron had been so cruelly pressed, leaving hind it, smoking for the instant, deep and clean, the tiny arc of the four bosk horns. I saw on her lovely throat the ring of Turian steel, gleaming and locked, so contrast g with, so barbarically accentuating the incredible softness her beauty, the tormenting vulnerability of it. The collar, I knew, bore my name, proclaiming her, should I wish, my slave. And yet this beautiful, soft, proud thing stood there, trough ringed and branded, though collared, bold and brazen staring at me, eyes bright, her challenge, the eternal challenge of the unconquered female, that of the untamed woman daring the male to touch her, to try, she resisting, to reduce her to yielding prize, to force from her the unconditional surrender,-the total and utter submission of the woman who has no choice but to acknowledge herself his, the help less, capitulated slave of him in whose arms she finds herself prisoner.
As the Goreans have it, there is in this a war in which the woman can respect only that man who can reduce her to utter defeat.
But it seemed to me there was little in the eyes or stance of Miss Cardwell which suggested the plausibility of the Gorean interpretation. She seemed to me clearly out to win, to enjoy herself perhaps, but to win, and then exact from me something in the way of vengeance for all the months and days in which she, proud, independent wench, had been only slave. I recalled she had told me that she would teach me well the meaning of a collar. If she were successful, I had little doubt that she would carry out her threat.
"Well," she challenged, "Master?"
I gazed at her, the tormenting vixen. I had no wish to be her slave. I resolved, if one of us must be slave, it would be she, the lovely Miss Cardwell, who would wear the collar.
"Well," she again challenged, "Master?"
I smiled. "It is a wager," said I, "Slave Girl."
She laughed happily and turned, and standing on her tiptoes, lowered the tharlarion oil lamps. Then she bent to find for herself among the riches of the wagon yellow Pleasure Silks.
At last she stood before me, and was beautiful.
"Are you prepared to be a slave?" she asked.
"Until you have won," I said, "it is you who wear the collar."
She dropped her head in mock humility. "Yes, Master," she said. Then she looked up at me, her eyes mischievous.
I motioned for her to approach, and she did so.
I indicated that she should enter my arms, and she did so.
In my arms she looked up at me.
"You’re sure you’re quite ready to be a slave?" she asked.
"Be quiet," I said gently.
"I shall be pleased to own you," she said. "I have always wanted a handsome male slave."
"Be quiet," I whispered.
"Yes, Master," she said, obediently.
My hands parted the Pleasure Silk and cast it aside.
"Really, Master!" she said.
"Now," I said, "I will taste the kiss of my slave girl."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Now," I instructed her, "with more passion."
"Yes, Master," she said obediently, and kissed me with feigned passion.
I, hand in her collar, turned her about and put her on her back on the rug, her shoulders pressed against the thick pile.
She looked at me, a sly smile on her face.
I took the nose ring between my thumb and forefinger and gave it a little pull.
"Oh!" she cried, eyes smarting. Then she looked up. "That is no way to treat a lady," she remarked.
"You are only a slave girl," I reminded her.
"True," she said forlornly, turning her head to one side.
I was a bit irritated.
She looked up at me and laughed with amusement.
I began to kiss her throat and body and my hands were behind her back, lifting her and arching her, so that her head was back and down.
"I know what you’re trying to do," she said.
"What is that?" I mumbled.
"You are trying to make me feel owned," she said.
"Oh," I said.
"You will not succeed," she informed me.
I myself was beginning to grow sceptical.
She wiggled about on her side, looking at me. My hands were still clasped behind the small of her back.
"It is said by Goreans," remarked the girl, very seriously, "that every woman, whether she knows it or not, longs to be a slave the utter slave of a man if but for an hour."
"Please be quiet," I said.
"Every woman," she said emphatically. "Every woman."
I looked at her. "You are a woman," I observed.
She laughed. "I find myself naked in the arms of a man and wearing the collar of a slave. I think there is little doubt at I am a woman!"
"And at the moment." I suggested, "little more."
She looked at me irritably for a moment. Then she smiled.
"It is said by Goreans," she remarked, with very great r seriousness, with mock bitterness, "that in a collar a woman can be only a woman."
"The theory you mention," I said, grumbling, "about women longing to be slaves, if only for an hour, is doubtless false."
She shrugged in her collar and put her head to one side, her hair falling to the rug. "Perhaps," she said, much as she had before, "Vella does not know."
"Perhaps Vella will find out," I said.
"Perhaps," she said, laughing.
Then, perhaps not pleasantly, my hand closed on her ankle.
"Oh!" she said.
She tried to move her leg, but could not.
I then bent her leg, that I might, as I wished, display for my pleasure, she willing or not, the marvellous curves of her calf.
She tried to pull her leg away, but she could not. It would move only as I pleased.
"Please, Tarl," she said.
"You are going to be mine," I said.
"Please," she said, "let me go." My grip on her ankle was not cruel but in all her womanness she knew herself held.
"Please," she said again, "let me go."
I smiled to myself. "Be silent, Slave," said I.
Elizabeth Cardwell gasped.
I smiled.
"So you are stronger than me," she scoffed. "It means nothing!"
I then began to kiss her foot and the inside of her Achilles, beneath the bone, and she trembled momentarily.
"Let me go!" she cried.
But I only kissed her, holding her, my lips moving to the back of her leg, low where it joins the foot, where an ankle ring would be locked.
"A true man," she cried out suddenly, "would not behave so! No! A true man is gentle, kind, tender, respectful, at all times, sweet and solicitous! That is a true man!"
I smiled at her defences, so classical, so typical of the modern, unhappy, civilized female, desperately frightened of being truly a woman in a man’s arms, trying to decide and determine manhood not by the nature of man and his desire, and her nature as the object of that desire, but by her own fears, trying to make man what she could find acceptable, trying to remake him in her own image.
"You are a female," I said casually. "I do not accept your definition of man."
She made an angry noise.
"Argue," I suggested, "explain speak names."
She moaned.
"It is," I said, "that when the full blood of a man is upon him, and he sees his female, and will have her, that it should be then that he is not a true man."
She cried out in misery.
Then, as I had expected, she suddenly wept, and doubtless with great sincerity. I supposed at this time many men of Earth, properly conditioned, would have been shaken, and would have fallen promptly to this keen weapon, shamed, retreating stricken with guilt, with misgivings, as the female wished. But, smiling to myself, I knew that on this night her weeping, the little vixen, would gain her no respite.
I smiled at her.
She looked at me, horrified, frightened, tears ire her eyes.
"You are a pretty little slave," I said.
She struggled furiously, but could not escape.
When her struggles had subsided I began, half biting, half kissing, to move up her calf to the delights of the sensitive areas behind her knees.
"Please" she wept.
"Be quiet, pretty little Slave Girl," I mumbled. ,
Then, kissing, but letting her feel the teeth which could, if I chose, tear at her flesh, I moved to the interior of her thigh. Slowly, with my mouth, by inches, I began to claim her.
"Please," she said.
"What is wrong?" I asked.
"I find I want to yield to you," she whispered.
"Do not be frightened," I told her.
"No," she said. "You do not understand."
I was puzzled.
"I want to yield to you," she whispered, "as a slave girl!"
"You will so yield to me," I told her.
"No!" she cried. "No!"
"You will yield to me," I told her, "as a slave girl to her master."
"No!" she cried. "No! No!"
I continued to kiss her, to touch her.
"Please stop," she wept.
"Why?" I asked.
"You are making me a slave," she whispered.
"I will not stop," I told her.
"Please," she wept. "Please!"
"Perhaps," I said to her, "the Goreans were right?"
"No!" she cried. "No!"
"Perhaps that is what you desire," I said, "to yield with the utterness of a female slave."
"Never!" she cried, weeping in fury. "Leave me!"
"Not until you have become a slave," I told her.
She cried out in misery. "I do not want to be a slave!"
But when I had touched the most intimate beauties of her she became uncontrollable, writhing, and in my arms I knew the feeling of a slave girl and such, for the moment, was the beautiful Elizabeth Cardwell, helpless and mine, female and slave.
Now her lips and arms and body, now those only of an enamoured wench in bondage, sought mine, acknowledging utterly and unreservedly, shamelessly and hopelessly, with helpless abandon, their master.
I was astonished at her for even the touch of the whip, her involuntary response to the Slaver’s Caress, had not seemed to promise so much.
She cried out suddenly as she found herself fully mine.
Then she scarcely dared to move.
"You are claimed, Slave Girl," I whispered to her.
"I am not a slave girl," she whispered intensely. "I am not a slave girl."
I could feel her nails in my arm. In her kiss I tasted blood, suddenly realizing that she had bitten me. Her head was back, her eyes closed, her lips open.
"I am not a slave girl," she said.
I whispered in her ear, "Pretty little slave girl."
"I am not a slave girl!" she cried.
"You will be soon," I told her.
"Please, Tarl," she said, "do not make me a slave."
"You sense that it can be done?" I asked.
"Please," she said, "do not make me a slave."
"Do we not have a wager?" I asked.
She tried to laugh. "Let us forget the wager," said she. "Please, Tarl, it was foolishness. Let us forget the wager?"
"Do you acknowledge yourself my slave?" I inquired.
"Never!" she hissed.
"Then," said I, "lovely wench, the wager is not yet done."
She struggled to escape me, but could not. Then, suddenly, as though startled, she would not move.
She looked at me.
"It soon begins," I told her.
"I sense it," she said, "I sense it."
She did not move but I felt the cut of her nails in my arms.
"Can there be more?" she wept.
"It soon begins," I told her.
"I’m frightened," she wept.
"Do not be frightened," I told her.
"I feel owned," she whispered.
"You are," I said.
"No," she said. "No."
"Do not be frightened," I told her.
"You must let me go," she said.
"It soon begins," I told her.
"Please let me go," she whispered. "Please"
"On Gor," I said, "it is said that a woman who wears a collar can be only a woman."
She looked at me angrily.
"And you, lovely Elizabeth," said I, "wear a collar."
She turned her head to one side, helpless, angry, tears in her eyes. ~
She did not move, and then suddenly I felt the cut of her nails deep in my arms, and though her lips were open, her teeth were clenched, her head was back, the eyes closed, her hair tangled under her and over her body, and then her eyes seemed surprised, startled, and her shoulders lifted a bit from the rug, and she looked at me, and I could feel the beginning n her, the breathing of it and the blood of it, hers, in my own flesh swift and like fire in her beauty, mine, and knowing it was then the time, meeting her eyes fiercely, I said to her, with sudden contempt and savagery, following the common Gorean Rites of Submission, "Slave!" and she looked at me with horror and cried out "Nor" and half reared from the rug, wild, helpless, fierce as I intended, wanting to fight me, as I knew she would, wanting to slay me if it lay within her power, as I knew she would, and I permitted her to struggle and to bite and scratch and cry out and then I silenced her with the kiss of the master, and accepted the exquisite surrender which she had no choice but to give. "Slave," she wept, "slave, slave, slave I am a slave"
It was more than an Ahn later that she lay in my arms on the rug and looked up at me, tears in her eyes. "I know now," she said, "what it is to be the slave girl of a Master."
I said nothing.
"Though I am slave," she said, "yet for the first tinge in my life I am free."
"For the first time in your life," I said, "you are a woman."
"I love being a woman," she said. "I am happy I am a woman, Tarl Cabot, I am happy."
"Do not forget," I said, "you are only a slave."
She smiled and fingered her collar. "I am Tarl Cabot’s girl," she said.
"My slave," I said.
"Yes," she said, "your slave."
I smiled.
"You will not beat me too often will you, Master?" she asked.
"We will see," I said.
"I will strive to please you," she said.
"I am pleased to hear it," I said.
She lay on her back, her eyes open, looking at the top of, the wagon, at the hangings, the shadows thrown on the scarlet hides by the light of the fire bowl.
"I am free," she said.
I looked at her.
She rolled over on her elbows. "It is strange," she said. "I am a slave girl. But I am free. I am free."
"I must sleep," I said, rolling over.
She kissed me on the shoulder. "Thank you," she said, "Tarl Cabot, for freeing me."
I rolled over and seized her by the shoulders and pressed her back to the rug and she looked up laughing.
"Enough of this nonsense about freedom," I said. "Do not forget that you are a slave." I took her nose ring between my thumb and forefinger.
"Oh" she said.
I lifted her head from the rug by the ring and her eyes smarted.
"This is scarcely the way to show respect for a lady," said the girl.
I tweaked the nose ring, and tears sprang into her eyes.
"But then," she said, "I am only a slave girl."
"And do not forget it," I admonished her.
"No, no, Master," she said, smiling.
"You do not sound to me sufficiently sincere," I said.
"But I arm" she laughed.
"I think in the morning," I said, "I will throw you to kaiila."
"But where then will you find another slave as delectable as I?" she laughed.
"Insolent wench!" I cried.
"Oh" she cried, as I gave the ring a playful tug. "Please!"
With my left hand I jerked the collar against the back of her neck.
"Do not forget," I said, "that on your throat you wear a collar of steel."
"Your collar!" she said promptly.
I slapped her thigh. "And," I said, "on your thigh you wear the brand of the four bosk horns"
"I’m yours," she said, "like a bosk!"
"Oh," she cried, as I dropped her back to the rug.
She looked up at me, her eyes mischievous. "I’m free," she said.
"Apparently," I said, "you have not learned the lesson of the collar."
She laughed merrily. Then she lifted her arms and put them about my neck, and lifted her lips to mine, tenderly, delicately. "This slave girl," she said, "has well learned the lesson of her collar."
I laughed.
She kissed me again. "Vella of Gor," said she, "loves master."
"And what of Miss Elizabeth Cardwell?" I inquired.
"That pretty little slave" said Elizabeth, scornfully.
"Yes," I said, "the secretary."
"She is not a secretary," said Elizabeth, "she is only a little Gorean slave."
"Well," said I, "what of her?"
"As you may have heard," whispered the girl, "Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, the nasty little wench, was forced to yield herself as a slave girl to a master."
"I had heard as much," I said.
"What a cruel beast he was," said the girl.
"What of her now?" I asked.
"The little slave girl," said the girl scornfully, "is now madly in love with the beast."
"What is his name?" I asked.
"The same who won the surrender of proud Vella of Gor," said she.
"And his name?" I asked.
"Tarl Cabot," she said.
"He is a fortunate fellow," I remarked, "to have two such women."
"They are jealous of one another," confided the girl.
"Oh?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "each will try to please her master more than the other, that she will be his favourite."
I kissed her.
"I wonder who will be his favourite?" she asked.
"Let them both try to please him," I suggested, "each more than the other."
She looked at me reproachfully. "He is a cruel, cruel master," she said.
"Doubtless," I admitted.
For a long time we kissed and touched. And from time to time, during the night, each of the girls, Vella of Gor and the little barbarian, Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, begged, and were permitted, to serve the pleasure of their master. Yet he, unprecipitate and weighing matters carefully, still could not decide between them.
It was well toward morning, and he was nearly asleep, when he felt them against him, their cheek pressed against his thigh. "Girls," mumbled he, "do not forget you wear my steel."
"We will not forget," they said.
And he felt their kiss.
"We love you," said they, "Master."
He decided, falling asleep, that he would keep them both slave for a few days, if only to teach them a lesson. Also, he reminded himself, it is only a fool who frees a slave girl.