John Norman - Tribesmen of Gor

I would not forget pretty Vella. Now I owned her. She had begged me to forgive her, as though a word from me would make all things right. When she had been flung to the feet of Hakim of Tor, she had looked up, in terror, then joy, seeing then who was Hakim of Tor, the master to whom I had consigned her, myself.

“Do not rise, Slave Girl,” I told her.

“Am I forgiven, Tarl?” she bad begged. “Am I forgiven?”

“Fetch the whip,” I told her.

I saw T`Zshal, who was riding past, leading his thousand lances. He reined in, and his men behind him.

“We are returning, to Klima,” he said.

“But you have kaiila,” I said.

“We are slaves of the salt, slaves of the desert,” he said. “We return to Klima.”

“The Salt Ubar is gone,” I said.

“We will negotiate with local pashas and regulate the desert, and discuss the prices of the varieties of salt,” said T`Zshal.

“The price of salt will soon rise,” I suggested.

“It is not impossible,” said T`Zshal.

I wondered if it were wise to have armed the men of Klima and put them in the saddles of kaiila. They were not typical men. There was none there who had not survived the march to Klima.

“Should you ever need aid,” said T`Zshal, “send word to Klima. The slaves of the salt will ride.”

“My thanks,” I said. They would be fierce allies. They were desperate and mighty men. Each there had made the march to Klima.

“Things now,” I said, “I conjecture, will change at Klima.” I recalled that Hassan had warned me against taking a bit of silk, perfumed, into Klima. I had hidden it in the crusts. “Men would kill you for it,” he said.

T`Zshal looked about himself. Slave girls, in coffle, shrank back.

“We will need taverns, cafes, at Klima,” he said. “The men have been too long without recreation.”

“With control of much salt,” I said, “you may have much what you wish.”

“We shall confederate the salt districts,” said T`Zshal.

“You are indeed ambitious,” I said. T’Zshal, I saw, was a leader.

Haroun, sitting in court, in what had been the audience room of the kasbah of Ibn Saran, had invited T’Zshal, and his lances, to join his service. T`Zshal and the others had refused. “We will return to Klima, said he, “Master.” T’Zshal, I knew, would serve under no man. “I would rather be first at Klima than second in Tor,” he had said. He was a slave, true, but of no man, only of the salt, and the desert.

“I wish you well,” said T`Zshal.

“I wish you well,” I said.

His kaiila, with a scattering of sand, sped from me. He was followed by a thousand riders.

I rode, slowly, toward the head of the columns, across the desert between the two kasbahs.

Some two hundred yards from the head of the, column, I passed the small Abdul, who had been a water carrier in Tor, and an agent of Ibn Saran. It was not impossible, through his work with Ibn Saran, that he knew matters of importance pertaining to the wars of Priest-Kings and Kurii. Two chains ran to his metal collar, on opposite sides, leading, respectively, to the stirrup of a mounted rider on each side of him. His hands were manacled to a loop of chain about his waist. He did not raise his head. He feared to look me in the face. “Let him be sent to Tor,” I had suggested. “I will have agents of Samos, of Port Kar, sent to that city.” It will be done,” had said Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars. The agents of Samos have interesting techniques of interrogation. I had no doubt that they would learn all that small Abdul had to tell them. After that, no longer of use to the agents of Priest-Kings, he could be sold south, into the Tahari.

Some hundred yards from the bead of the column, I passed a large white kurdah, on a large, black kaiila. I did not brush aside the curtain. It did not contain a girl I owned. It contained a slave girl, an exquisitely feminine girl, blond-haired and blue-eyed; she was richly veiled and bejeweled; it was said she was the preferred slave of the great Haroun himself, high Pasha of the Kavars; it was said her name was Alyena; she was of high station; she wore silks, and veils, and jewels; but the collar on her throat was of steel.

In what had been the kasbah of Ibn Saran she had been thrown naked to the foot of the dais on which, cross-legged, sat the great Haroun himself. She had not dared to raise her head. “I will keep this slave,” he had said. She had been dragged away, weeping. “I am the slave of Hassan,” she had wept. “I love only him!” That night, sent to his quarters; she had knelt before her veiled master.

“Do you love another, Girl?” he had asked, sternly.

“Yes,” she said, “Master. Forgive me. Slay me, if you must.”

“And who is he?” asked her veiled master.

“Hassan,” she wept. “Hassan, the bandit.”

“A most splendid fellow,” said her master.

The girl looked up, startled. His veil was about his shoulders.

“Hassan!” she wept. “Hassan!” She threw herself to his feet, covering them with kisses as a slave girl.

When she looked up, he commanded her to the couch. She ran eagerly to it, tearing the slave silks with which she had been adorned from her body, and knelt upon it, small, her head down, awaiting her master. He joined her, discarding his robes. Then he seized her by the hair and pulled her head up and flung her on her back to the depth of the luscious silk, and then, with the cruel exploitativeness of the Tahari master, he claimed her as his own.

Toward morning he reminded her that she must be whipped three times. First, she had called out his name at Red Rock, among the flames, during the raid of Tarna’s men; secondly, she had fled from his riders, to return to Red Rock, to seek him out, when she had been captured; third, she had, that very evening, upon discovering who might be her master, cried out his name, “Hassan! Hassan!”

“Whip me, Master,” she said, lying in his arms. “I love you.

“Am I forgiven, Tarl?” Vella had begged. “Am I forgiven?”

“Fetch the whip,” I had told her.

She looked at me, dumbfounded. Women of Earth are always forgiven. They are never punished, no matter what they do. They, of course, are not slave girls.

They lack the legalities, and the collar.

“You cannot be serious,” she said.

“Did I not speak of this to you when I first bound you as a slave girl?” I asked. I referred to our conversation in the room of preparation, when I had first surprised and captured her, making her mine.

“I asked when you would whip me,” she said, numbly. “You responded, when it was to your convenience.” She looked at me, miserably.

“It is now convenient,” I told her.

She sprang wildly to her feet. “I hate you!” she cried. “I hate you!”

Her small fists were clenched. She was, wild with rage, quite beautiful in the brief, stained rag I had given her to wear.

“I hate you!” she cried. “I hate all of you!’’ she cried, turning to look at the many warriors in the great room. “I hate men!” she cried. She was barefoot on the tiles. She was the only woman in the room, and she was slave. “I hate all men!” she cried. “I hate them! I hate them!” She spun to face me. “And I hate Priest-Kings, too!” she cried. “I hate you all!”

No one responded to her, but gazed impassively upon her.

“I betrayed Priest-Kings!” she cried. “Yes! I served Kurii! Yes! And I am glad I did, glad! Yes, glad! Glad! Glad!” Her eyes blazed. “Punish me!” she demanded.

“You are not to be punished because you betrayed Priest-Kings,” I told her.

“You left me in a paga tavern in Lydius,” she cried out, “a chained paga slave!”

“You chose to flee the Sardar,” I told her. “It was a brave act. It did not turn out well for you. You fell slave. On Gor, as not on Earth, a girl bears the consequences of her actions.”