John Norman - Rogue of Gor

“Perhaps,” she said.

“You yourself wear a collar,” I said.

“But I am a free woman,” she said.

“For the time, perhaps,” I said.

“What do you mean?” she said.

“Get up,” I told her. We got up.

She faced me. “You are not going to help me get the collar off, are you?” she asked. She touched me about the shoulder with her finger.

“No,” I said.

“You fill me with strange feelings, Jason,” she said.

“Oh?” I asked.

“I am accustomed,” she said, “to having men do what I wish.”

“I suggest, Lady Tendite,” I said, “that you begin to accustom yourself to doing what men wish.”

“What are you doing?” she asked. I had heard men nearby, the sound of weapons. I dragged her toward the door of the inn. I slid back the panel and looked out. The street, as far as I could tell, was clear. I then shut the panel, and swung up the heavy bars on the door. I opened the door and looked out. The street was clear. I held the Lady Tendite firmly by her left upper arm. She was barefoot, in the torn Ta-Teera and collar. I then flung her down the wide, shallow steps and some fifteen feet into the street beyond. She fell to her hands and knees in the street, and suddenly scrambled up, wildly, looking about herself. I then shut the door, dropping the two heavy beams into place. She ran to the door and began to pound on it. “Let me in!” she cried. “Let me in!”

Within the inn I left the main room and went up to the second floor where, from one of the room’s windows, I might command a better view of the street. I could still hear her pounding on the door below. “Let me in, Jason!” she sobbed. “Let me in!” Again and again she struck with her small fists against the door. “I will be your slave, Master!” she cried. “Have mercy on me, Master! Please have mercy on me, Master!”

Then, from the window, I saw her run to the center of the street. She turned from the left to the right, uncertainly. She was sobbing.

“Hold, Slave!” I heard. Men had entered the street. I saw they wore, as I had thought, the uniforms of Ar.

The girl turned wildly in the street and started to run from the men. But she had gone only a step or two when she saw some five other men at the end of the street, also approaching her. She stopped, uncertainly, confused, in the street. The men, not hurrying, then surrounded her.

“I am not what I seem!” she cried. “I am not a slave!”

One of the men seized her by the hair and bent back her head. “Her name is ‘Darlene’,” he said.

“No!” she said. “I am the Lady Tendite, a free woman of Vonda!”

One of the men then was drawing her hands behind her back. He snapped her wrists in slave bracelets.

“I’m not a slave!” she said.

“‘Darlene’ is an excellent slave name,” said one of the men. “I am hot for her already.”

“Wait until we have her in the camp,” said their leader.

“A nice catch,” said another.

Another man was snapping a leash on her collar.

“Are you an Earth wench?” asked one of the men.

“No,” she said, “no!”

“Nonetheless I wager you will whip as well,” said another.

“I am not a slave!”

“See,” she cried, moving her hip to throw back the shreds of the ripped Ta-Teera, “I am not branded!”

“Only a slave would so expose her hip to free men,” said one of the men.

“She is not branded,” observed another.

“That technicality can be swiftly remedied by a metal worker,” said one of the men.

“Why are you not branded, Darlene?” asked a man.

“I am not a slave!” she said. “And my name is not ‘Darlene’!”

“You speak much, Darlene,” she was told.

“Bring her along,” said the leader. “We must finish our patrol.”

The Lady Tendite felt the leash grow taut at her collar. She hung back.

“I am not a slave,” she said. “My name is not ‘Darlene. I am the Lady Tendite of Vonda!”

“Do all the women of Vonda run about the streets half naked, clad in the rag of a slave, wearing collars?” asked the leader.

“No,” she said, “of course not. I was caught and abused, tied even upon a table and forced to give pleasure as a slave. Other things, too, were done to me. I was forced, even, to yield to my captor, as though I might have been a slave and he my master.”

“Splendid,” laughed one of the men.

She glared angrily at the fellow.

“I bet I, too, can make her yield,” said one of the men.

“Later, at the camp,” said the leader. Then he again turned his attention to the Lady Tendite. He bowed low before her, in mock courtesy. “I invite you, if you wish, Lady Tendite, to accompany us,” he said. “We shall be returning to our loot camp shortly, which is east of Vonda. There you will discover that the women of Vonda are not entirely unknown to us. Many of them have already kindly consented to give us their thighs for branding, their throats for collaring. We trust you will be no less generous.”

“She will look well on the slave block,” said one of the men.

“True,” said another.

“And, Lady Tendite,” said the leader, “until you are properly and legally enslaved you will be known by the capture name of ‘Darlene’. Say It!” he snapped.

“Darlene!” she cried. “My capture name is Darlene.”

“And,” said the leader, “in virtue of your collar, and in anticipation of your impending enslavement, you will address us and behave towards us as a slave towards free men.”

“Yes,” she said.

Then she was struck across the back with the haft of a spear, cruelly.

“Yes, Master!” she cried.

The patrol then continued on its way. I watched the Lady Tendite, her hands braceleted behind her, on her leash, dragged behind the men. She turned once, after about twenty yards, to look back. She saw me. Then she was turned about by the leash and was again dragged, stumbling, down the street.

The proprietor of the tavern took the red-haired dancing girl by the arm, she crying out, and thrust her in her costume, ten slender silver chains, five before and five behind, depending from her collar, from the sand. She fell at the side of the sand and, crouching, turned about, looking back.

“This is Jason!” called the proprietor, indicating me. “He wagers ten copper tarsks he can best any man in the house!”

“It is true,” I called, stepping to the sand, pulling off the tunic.

“I wager he cannot!” called a large fellow, a peasant, from north of the river.

The proprietor’s man, an attendant in the tavern, held the coins.

Bets were taken by the fellows in the tavern.

Men crowded about. Among them, naked, in collars, were paga slaves, with their bronze vessels on leather straps.

The big fellow lunged toward me. I let him strike me. Yet I drew back with his punch in such a way that its impact was largely dissipated. I reacted, however, as though I might have been sorely struck. The men cried out with pleasure. Jabbing, moving, I kept him away from me.

“He fights well,” said one of the men.

I then, recovering myself, seized the fellow, that he might not have the free use of his hands. It was not appropriate that I appear too accustomed to this form of sport. I had made that mistake once before, in Tancred’s Landing, and there had then been no more eager respondents to my raucous challenge. Rather guardsmen had encouraged me to leave the town with alacrity. I had, as a consequence, picked up only ten copper tarsks at Tancred’s Landing.

“Fight!” cried more than one man.

“Clumsy,” cried another.