John Norman - Rogue of Gor

“I see that you have never forgotten him,” said one of the girls.

“No,” she said.

“Do you love him?” asked the red-haired girl.

“Yes,” she said. I was pleased that she had said this. To be sure, I had made her yield, as the slave she was.

“Perhaps sometime you will be his,” said one of the girls, softly.

“He did not try to buy me, nor did he ask Policrates to give me to him,” said Beverly. “To him I am only another female slave, a meaningless slut, doubtless already forgotten, with whom he pleasured himself one night in a strange holding.”

“It is sometimes hard to be a slave,” said one of the girls.

“We are all slaves,” said another girl.

“The masters are all, and we are nothing,” said another.

“Yes,” said another.

“I will take our fleet east on the river,” said Policrates to Kliomenes. “That will discourage interference from towns east on the river.”

“Yes, Captain,” said Kliomenes.

Policrates then turned about and regarded me. “Do not look for pretty slaves in the chamber of the windlass,” he said.

I was silent.

“Oh, Beverly,” said Policrates.

“Yes, Master,” said the girl, hurrying forward and falling to her knees before him.

“Earlier,” said he, “you hesitated, if only briefly, in carrying out a command.”

“Forgive me, Master,” she begged, turning white.

“Leading position,” he said.

Sobbing, she rose to her feet, and put her head down, at what would be the height of a man’s waist, her legs flexed. A guard walked over and fastened his hand in her hair. “Have her whipped,” said Policrates. “Yes, Captain,” said the man. He then left the chamber, pulling the girl, sobbing, at his side. I was pleased to see that Policrates was a strict master. The girl was, of course, guilty. She had clearly hesitated in carrying out a command. How can a girl expect such laxities to go unnoticed, or unpunished?

Policrates then nodded to the men who held me. “Take him away,” he said.

I was then dragged from the room.

“Cease your lying!” cried the pirate. “Put your back into it!”

“Yes, Captain,” I said to him, though surely he was not a captain.

The whip cracked across my back.

I, sweating, chained, pressed my bare feet against the flat, wooden slats nailed on the large, raised wooden disk, the treading platform, some five feet above the floor, encircling the windlass. I could hear the chain turning on its winding axle below the level of the platform. The gate is raised by muscle power, abetted by two heavy, drum-like weights which partially balance its weight, transmitted to the windlass by means of metal windlass poles, or bars, these being used to rotate the windlass. The gate, which is heavier than the drum-like weights, has a gravity descent. In lowering the gate the windlass, under the control of its workers, serves primarily as a brake, sufficing to regulate the speed of its descent. The principles and gearing of the windlass, which is an upright windlass, are analogous, of course, to those of the capstan.

I pressed against the heavy metal pole, or bar, almost five inches in diameter, fixed now, like a spoke, in the shaft of the windlass. My neck, in its collar, by a chain, was fastened to this pole. It was thus that I was kept in my place. My wrists and ankles were also chained. I had some eighteen inches of play for my feet. I had some twenty-four inches of play for my hands. These arrangements represent what is theoretically an optimum compromise between prisoner security and the degree of freedom essential to efficiently operate the windlass.

“Push!” cried the pirate.

Again the whip struck across my back. I thrust again against the bar. The whip, then, struck elsewhere, too, and there were cries of pain, and the sounds of men moving in chains. There were five large poles, or bars, set in the windlass. At each, five men, chained as I was, labored. These poles may be inserted into the windlass and, if one wishes, removed from it. When inserted into the windlass they are normally locked within it, as they were now, by a pin-and-lock device. The collars and neck chains keep men fastened to the pole, whether it is inserted within the windlass or not. When moving about, the pin-and-lock device opened, the men will carry the pole with them. When the pole is on the ground, and not lifted, one can rise no higher, of course, than on one’s knees, with one’s head deferentially lowered.

“Push, push! Move!” called the pirate.

The lash struck amongst us.

As the windlass turned slowly, creaking, we heard, too, overhead and to the side, the movement and swinging of the great drum-like counterweights on their chains. Without these counterweights we could not have moved the sea gate.

I again felt the lash, as did the others, too. The pirate walked about us.

It is dim, and musty, in the chamber of the windlass. It can be hot during the day. My hands slipped on the bar. Then I had it again. Too, at night, it can be extremely cold. There was a smell of wastes in the chamber. Perhaps it would have been less unpleasant if our captors had permitted us clothing.

“Work, work!” called the pirate. “Work!” But he did not strike us again. The weights were now in motion.

There is little to amuse one in the chamber of the windlass, save, I suppose, eating and drinking, and dreams. There is a shallow trough for water, cut in the stone, near one wall, where we would be chained when not working. This is filled twice daily. Too, at the wall, we would be thrown crusts of bread, and scraps of meat and fruit, usually the garbage of the feasts of pirates, our captors. Then, at night, chained, cold, when we would fall asleep, we would have our dreams. These dreams would usually be of slave girls, soft and warm, luscious, licking and kissing in our arms. Then we would awaken, to the straw, to the cold, to the stones, to the damp, cold, heavy iron of our chains.

There were no pretty slave girls in the chamber of the windlass, as Policrates had told me. But we had our dreams. One girl, more than any others, appeared in my own dreams, she who had once been Miss Beverly Henderson, though she now appeared generally in my dreams not as the lovely, free Earth girl, Miss Henderson, but, under a variety of names, as a Gorean slave girl. When, in my dreams I would encounter a slave girl, perhaps suddenly turning to greet me; perhaps in a market, imploring me to buy her; perhaps on a rounded slave block, I with a purse of gold in hand, having ready the means with which to buy her; perhaps an escaped slave, pilfering in my compartments, then turning, then knowing herself caught; perhaps being pulled from a slave sack I had bought on speculation; perhaps drawn by the hair from the tent of an enemy; perhaps chained in the darkness, and then illuminated; it would generally, almost always, suddenly, somehow, seem she.

“My Master!” she would say, knowing herself mine, acknowledging herself mine, kneeling before me. One dream I had had several times. We were having dinner in the restaurant, as we had had long ago. She was wearing the white, off-the-shoulder dress. She had the beaded purse. In the candlelight she was very beautiful. We finished the dinner, and our coffee, and I had paid the check.

“Now take off your clothes,” I told her. “I am going to make you a slave girl.”

“You cannot do that,” she told me. “You are mistaken,” I told her. “How can I be mistaken?” she asked. “It is very simple,” I said. “You do not know the nature of men.”

“This is a public place,” she said. “That is all right,” I told her. She turned to a man at a nearby table. “He intends to make me a slave,” she said to him. “That is all right,” said the man. “You are a slave.”