John Norman - Nomads of Gor

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, “better than Aphris.”

“Get up, Little She-Sleen,” said Kamchak, amused, “or to preserve my honour I must have you impaled.”

Elizabeth looked up at me.

“She’s drunk,” I told Kamchak.

“Some men might like a barbarian girl,” Elizabeth said.

I hoisted Elizabeth back up on her knees. “No one will buy me,” she wailed.

There were immediate offers from three or four of the Tuchuks gathered about, and I was afraid that Kamchak might, if the bids improved, part with Miss Cardwell on the spot.

“Sell her,” advised Aphris.

“Be quiet, Slave,” said Elizabeth.

Kamchak was roaring with laughter.

The Paga had apparently hit Miss Cardwell swiftly and hard. She seemed barely able to kneel and, at last, I permitted her to lean against me, and she did, her chin on my right shoulder.

“You know,” said Kamchak, “the Little Barbarian wears your chain well.”

“Nonsense,” I said.

“I saw,” said Kamchak, “how at the games when you thought the men of Turia charging you were prepared to rescue the wench.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted your property Kamchak,” I said.

“You like her,” announced Kamchak.

“Nonsense,” I said to him.

“Nonsense,” said Elizabeth, sleepily.

“Sell her to him,” recommended Aphris, hiccupping.

“You only want to be First Girl,” said Elizabeth.

“I’d give her away myself,” said Aphris. “She is only a barbarian.”

Elizabeth lifted her head from my shoulder and regarded me. She spoke in English. “My name is Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, Mr. Cabot,” she said, “would you like to buy me?”

“No,” I said, in English.

“I didn’t think so,” she said, again in English, and put her head back on my shoulder.

“Did you not observe,” asked Kamchak, “how she moved and breathed when you locked the steel on her?”

I hadn’t thought much about it. “I guess not,” I said.

“Why do you think I let you chain her?” asked Kamchak.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“To see,” he said. “And it is as I thought your steel kindles her.”

“Nonsense,” I said.

“Nonsense.” said Elizabeth.

“I suppose,” said Elizabeth, “I could hop all the way on one foot.”

I myself doubted that this would be feasible, particularly In her condition.

“You probably could,” said Aphris, “you have muscular legs”

I did not regard Miss Cardwell’s legs as muscular. She was, however, a good runner.

Miss Cardwell lifted her chin from my shoulder. “Slave,” she said.

“Barbarian,” retorted Aphris.

“Release her,” said Kamchak.

I reached into the pouch at my belt to secure the key to the hobble.

“No,” said Elizabeth, “I will stay.”

“If Master permits,” added Aphris.

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, glowering, “if Master permits.”

“All right,” said Kamchak.

“Thank you, Master,” said Elizabeth politely, and once more put her head on my shoulder.

“You should buy her” said Kamchak.

“No,” I said.

“I will give you a good price,” he said.

Oh, yes, I said to myself, a good price, and ho, ho, ho.

“No,” I said.

“Very well,” said Kamchak.

I breathed more easily.

About that time the black-clad figure of a woman appeared on the steps of the slave wagon. I heard Kamchak hush up Aphris of Turia and he gave Elizabeth a poke in the ribs that she might bestir herself. “Watch, you miserable cooking-pot wenches,” he said, “and learn a thing or two!”

A silence came over the crowd. Almost without meaning to, I noticed, over to one side, a hooded member of the Clan of Torturers. I was confident it was he who had often followed me about the camp.

But this matter was dismissed from my mind by the performance which was about to begin. Aphris was watching intently, her lips parted. Kamchak’s eyes were gleaming.

Even Elizabeth had lifted her head now from my shoulder and was rising on her knees a bit for a clearer view.

The figure of the woman, swathed in black, heavily veiled, descended the steps of the slave wagon. Once at the foot of the stairs she stopped and stood for a long moment. Then the musicians began, the hand-drums first, a rhythm of heartbeat and flight.

To the music, beautifully, it seemed the frightened figure ran first here and then there, occasionally avoiding imaginary objects or throwing up her arms, ran as though through the crowds of a burning city alone, yet somehow suggesting the presence about her of hunted others. Now, in the background, scarcely to be seen, was the figure of a warrior in scarlet cape. He, too, in his way, though hardly seeming to move, approached, and it seemed that wherever the girl might flee there was found the warrior. And then at last his hand was upon her shoulder and she threw hack her and lifted her hands and it seemed her entire hotly was wretchedness and despair. He turned the figure to hen and, with both hands, brushed away hood and veil.

There was a cry of delight from the crowd.

The girl’s face was fixed in the dancer’s stylized moan of terror, but she was beautiful. I had seen her before, of course, as had Kamchak, but it was startling still to see her thus in the firelight her hair was long and silken black, her eyes dark, the colour of her skin tarnish.

She seemed to plead with the warrior but he did not move.

She seemed to writhe in misery and try to escape his grip but she did not.

Then he removed his hands from her shoulders and, as the crowd cried out, she sank in abject misery at his feet and performed the ceremony of submission, kneeling, lowering the head and lifting and extending the arms, wrists crossed.

The warrior then turned from her and held out one hand.

Someone from the darkness threw him, coiled, the chain and collar.

He gestured for the woman to rise and she did so and stood before him, head lowered.

He pushed up her head and then, with a click that could be heard throughout the enclosure, closed the collar a Turian collar about her throat. The chain to which the collar was attached was a good deal longer than that of the Sirik, containing perhaps twenty feet of length.

Then, to the music, the girl seemed to twist and turn and move away from him, as he played out the chain, until she stood wretched some twenty feet from him at the chain’s length. She did not move then for a moment, but stood crouched down, her hands on the chain.

I saw that Aphris and Elizabeth were watching fascinated.

Kamchak, too, would not take his eyes from the woman.

The music had stopped.

Then with a suddenness that almost made me jump and the crowd cry out with delight-the music began again but this time as a barbaric cry of rebellion and rage and the wench from Port Kar was suddenly a chained she-larl biting and tearing at the chain and she had cast her black robes from her and stood savage revealed in diaphanous, swirling yellow Pleasure Silk. There was now a frenzy and hatred in the dance, a fury even to the baring of teeth and snarling. She turned within the collar, as the Turian collar is designed to permit. She circled the warrior like a captive moon to his imprisoning scarlet sun, always at the length of the chain.

Then he would take up a fist of chain, drawing her each time inches closer. At times he would permit her to draw back again, but never to the full length of the chain, and each time he permitted her to withdraw, it was less than the last.

The dance consists of several phases, depending on the general orbit allowed the girl by the chain. Certain of these phases are very slow, in which there is almost no movement, save perhaps the turning of a head or the movement of a hand; others ate defiant and swift; some are graceful and pleading; some stately, some simple; some proud, some piteous; but each time, as the common thread, she is drawn closer to the caped warrior. At last his fist was within the Turian collar itself and he drew the girl, piteous and exhausted, to his lips, subduing her with his kiss, and then her arms were about his neck and unresisting, obedient, her head to his chest, she was lifted lightly in his arms and carried from the firelight.