John Norman - Mariners of Gor

I swirled the bit of broth remaining in the metal bowl.

“Then, perhaps near midnight, in the darkness, for clouds obscured the two moons then in the sky, when I thought I could go no further, to my joy, I glimpsed a small light, in the distance. It was, I took it, a small camp. Gratefully, unsteadily, I stumbled toward it. ‘Masters!’ I called out. The light then disappeared. Surely I had more than enough to hire men, to buy protection, a safe conduct, to Brundisium. ‘Masters!’ I called out, again. I stumbled in darkness, lamely, toward the point at which I had seen the point of light. ‘Masters,’ I cried, ‘I am a poor starving slave, separated from her master. He will want me returned to him! I am not a runaway! Please be kind to a poor slave. Please help her!’ Then I thought myself close to the point at which I had seen the bit of light, but it was dark. It had been here somewhere, surely. Then a powerful hand, from behind, closed itself over my mouth, and my head was pulled back, and I felt the razor’s edge of a blade at my throat. ‘Make no sound, kajira ,’ I heard, a fierce whisper at my ear, ‘and do not struggle.’ I could not speak in any event, my mouth held tightly shut, nor would I have dared to resist, or struggle, with the blade at my throat. One swift motion of that blade and my neck would have been half cut through. I sensed two or more men moving about me and he in whose grasp I was. The hand was then slipped from my mouth to my hair, and my head was then held back by the hair, painfully. I winced. The blade was still at my throat. ‘Where are the others?’ he asked. ‘How many are there?’ ‘I am alone,’ I whispered, scarcely daring to speak. He held me thusly for several Ehn. I scarcely dared to breathe, for fear I might cut my own throat. After a time, seven or eight fellows were about. ‘We found no one,’ said one of them. I almost fainted, as the blade was removed from my throat. ‘On all fours, kajira ,’ said the fellow who had held me.”

A slave is sometimes put to all fours, that she may move thusly, accompanying masters. In this posture she cannot suddenly run, or dart away. In the situation described the posture was doubtless imposed as a security measure, on an unknown slave, mysteriously arrived from the darkness. In other situations the posture may be imposed upon her as a discipline, to position her for animal usage, to remind her that she is a slave, and so on.

“I resented being on all fours amongst men,” she said, “forced to look up at them from such a position, and such. ‘Come along, kajira ,’ he said, moving away. I followed him, on all fours. In a few moments the small fire had been rekindled, and I was permitted to kneel, where the firelight played upon me, the men, eleven as I now counted, sitting back from the fire. I could see some small tents, and some paraphernalia of the camp, to my left. I also saw six women, stripped, their hands tied behind them, on a single neck rope, stretched between two stakes, to which each end was fastened. ‘I am the slave Publia,’ I said, ‘separated from my master, Flavius of Brundisium, in the troubles at Ar, seeking to be returned to him.’”

The name Flavius is a common name in the middle latitudes of Gor, at Ar, and elsewhere. I supposed the name had come to her mind, given her name, Flavia, which name, as would be expected, is similarly well known in such areas. It is not unknown, of course, that a slave might strive desperately to be returned to her master. A love unknown to a free woman, in its helplessness, its need, its depth, profundity, beauty, and passion, is often felt by a woman for the man whose collar she wears. Owned, she is his, wholly.

“‘What troubles in Ar?’ asked a fellow. I was sure the question was not candid, but a test of sorts. The catastrophes in Ar had begun some days ago, hundreds of fugitives from Ar had scattered from the city, presumably most to seek the coast, and eventual security in the islands; and the six women in the camp might well have been from Ar, perhaps proscribed women, begging passage from Ar, even at the cost of the collar. Indeed these fellows in the camp, I supposed, might well have been amongst those who fled from Ar. Who would not know, truly, of the miseries and changes in Ar? But I responded, innocently, as though granting that the question had been asked, as well, in all innocence. ‘The uprising,’ I said, ‘the rebellion, the ending of the occupation, the expulsion of foreign troops from Ar.’ ‘Who is this Flavius?’ asked another. ‘A minor Merchant of Brundisium,’ I said. I did not wish to claim status for him, as some about the fire might be familiar with the merchantry of the great port.’ I knelt with my knees together. Also, it occurred to me that I had not requested permission to speak. Perhaps, I thought, they are permissive with slaves here. But I glanced at the stripped, bound women beyond the firelight and that did not then seem to me likely. ‘May I inquire,’ I asked, ‘what Home Stone Masters revere?’ This could, of course, make a great deal of difference in what might then ensue. They looked at one another, and more than one laughed. Although this made me somewhat uneasy, it also reassured me that I was not amongst those who favored either Ar or the island Ubarates. If they were of Ar I might fear being returned to the city with the likelihood of impalement. If they were of the island Ubarates, they would have come, over the time of the occupation and the looting of the city, to think of the women of Ar as suitable only for slaves. ‘It seems,’ I said, ‘that you are independent of fee, and thus open to prospects of considerable gain.’ ‘Certainly,’ said he whom I took to be their leader, he whose knife had been at my throat. ‘We may speak freely then,’ I said, ‘but first, as I have been in the wild for two days, and am weak from hunger, and am exhausted and thirsty, I need food, and drink, bolstering ka-la-na, and rest.’ ‘Of course,’ said the leader, kindly. He nodded to one of his men. He went to the rope of women and put she on the rope nearest to the stake to my right in rope shackles. She would barely be able to stand and move. He then loosened the neck rope from the stake to my right and freed her of its collar-like restraint, after which he refastened it to the stake. He then unbound her hands. She rubbed her wrists, regarding me. The fellow then pointed to me, and said, ‘Feed and water her.’ I did not care for this way of putting it, as it sounded as though I might be an animal. But I was thirsting and starving. ‘Why should I, who was a free woman, wait on a common slave?’ demanded the woman. Her hair was then held and she was cuffed brutally, four times. She then, weeping, scarcely able to move for the closely tied rope shackles, hobbled about, to find me food and drink. I took the provender and drink, including ka-la-na, which I doubt she was permitted, from her with the hauteur and disdain of a free woman for the garbages that are slaves. Afterwards I fainted, or fell asleep.

“I awakened several hours later, toward noon, as though I might be in my own compartments, waiting for my girls to open the draperies and bring me steaming black wine and fresh, honeyed pastries, but then, suddenly, flooding back to me were the horrors of the past two days, the roof of the Central Cylinder, my humiliating disguise, the escape, the fields, the sleen, the strike of the leech plant, the knife at my throat, and I opened my eyes on the small camp into which I had stumbled last night, weary, footsore, hungry, thirsting, and miserable. I touched my neck, and felt the collar there, the slave collar. Then I feared the tunic, ample as it might be, might in my sleep have crept up my thighs, and I reached to draw it down, but, even as I thought of this, I became aware of a weight on my left ankle. I sat up, suddenly. I jerked the tunic down, that I might benefit from whatever concession to modesty might be afforded by a slave’s garment. Too, I drew my legs back, closely together. There was a rattle of chain. I considered my left ankle. It was clasped by a heavy band of black iron, to the ring of which a chain was attached. This chain ran behind me, where it was padlocked about a tree. I was chained! I, a free woman of Ar, was chained, as might have been a female slave!