John Norman - Rouge of Gor

"Raise the gate," called the man, turning about. Slowly, creakingk foot by foot, I saw the heavy latticwork of the sea gate lifting ot of the water, dripping, shiny in its wet blackness, in the light of the three moons.

"It is too easy," said Callimachus. "Let us withdraw while we can."Surprise is with us," I told him. "It is the one hope we have. On it all depends."

"Enter, Friends!" called down the man.

I, standing on the prow, motioned with my right arm to the oar master, and he in turn not on the stern deck, but among the benches, spoke softly to the men. He was from Port Cos. I looked upward at the high gate, now hung almost above us. We began to move slowly through the opening.

"Now!" cried a voice above us on the wall.I suddenly heart a gigantic, rapid, rattling sound.

"Back oars!" cried the oar matser, the fellow from Por Cos, "Back oars!"

But there was no time. A few feet behind me, hurtling downward, crashing through the fordeck of the galley, fell the great gate of iron.

I was pitched upward, the prow of the galley, the forward gunnels seeming to leapupward. There had been a horrendous sound of splintering as the heavy gate had cut through the strakes of the galley like an ax through twigs. In that moment I had seen, through the closely set latticework of the gate, the chopped galley leaping upward. I saw Callimachus thrown into the water, and the men, suddenly, lifted up with the galley, some clinging to benches, thers rolling on the deck.Almost at the same time the walls, on the inside, seemed alive with archers, who much have been hidden behind the parapets. The prow to which I clung, then fell back towards the water, and I leaped from it. In a moment I rose to the surface gasphing, trying to see. The debris of the forequarters of the galley was floating about me. Outside the gate I saw the rest of the galley subsiding into the water. From the walls arrows were raining down upon its settling timbers. The men were not in the water, swimming from the scattered wood, darting arrows piercing the water about them, then bobbing upward. I swam underwater to the base of the sea gate. I could not push through the closely set latticework. There was no passage under or about the iron. Its iron posts were received by rounded holes, six inches in width, drilled in a flat, horizontal sill. At last, lungs bursting, shaking water from my eyes, I rose the the surface and clutched at the iron latticework. It was dark outside the gate. I could see some shattered wood, floating in the moonlight.Too, there were numerous arrows, like sticks, floating about. Doubtless they would later be collected and dried. The three galleys we had towed were now adrift, aimlessly, almost lost in the shadows. I heard laughter on the wall. I was aware then of a lanters, and a smlal boat, behind me. I felt as I clung to the iron a rope put upon my neck.

"Taunt him," said Policrates.

The red-haired beauty, nude, began to press herself against me, in the long, sensuous, full-body caresses of the female slave. I struggled in the chains. My hair was still wet from the dark waters of the lakelike couryard othe the holding of Policrastes. There were rope burns on my neck, from the coarse tether, now removed, on which I had been dragged, bound into his presence. My clothes had been cut from me. I had then been chained, hand and foot, on my back to four iron rings set int the tiles before the dias on which reposed his curule chair. Policrates, indolent in the chair, lifted a finger and another girl, one whom I recalled was called Tais, from the feast, dark-haired, nude, knelt beside me and began to kiss and lick at my right foot and leg.

"For whom are you an operative?" inquired Policrates."For no one," I said, angrily.

Again Policrates signaled and this time Lita, who had once been a free woman of Victoria, pausing only to discard the bit of silk she wore on the marble steps, hurried to kneel beside me.

I noticed how the bit of yellow silk lay on the steps. She had been humiliatingly and pblicly stripped and knelt on the boards of the wharf at Victoria, before large numbers of her fellow citizens, inactive and frightened. She, nude, kneeling, the blade of the pirate at her throat, had tied the know of bondage in her own hair. She had been ordered then to the galley, to be bound there as an exposed slave, to be taken to the stronghold of her masters. The bit of yellow silk lay partly on one stair and descending gracefully, partly on another. It took the edge of the stair beautifully, for such silk is very fine. It reveals even the subtlest lineaments of that to which it clings. It is slave silk. I could see the graining of the marble through the silk. The girl now began to kiss at my left foot and leg. She kissed well. I saw that she belonged in a collar. It was too bad, I thought, that that discovery had first been made by pirates and not by strong free men, before whom pirates might quail. But free men, I knew, were often too simple or ignorant to gather up the unclaimed booty which might lie about them, even though such booty might beg piteously to serve, and to be taken into their homes to be treasured.It is not easy always, of course, to recognize a slave who wears the robes and veils of concealment; the identification bcomes simple, of course, once she has been put in a collar and slave tunic. It is said on Gor that the garments of a free women are designed to conceal a woman's slavery, whereas the accouterments and garments of a slave, such as the brand and collar, the tunic or Ta-Teera, are made to reveal it.

"You are Jason of Victoria are you not?" inquired Policrates. "Yes," I said. He was smiling. Four or five of Policrates' cutthroats stood about, with their arms folded. About the curule chair of Polirates, nestled about his eet, and on the stairs about the chair, were serveral of his girls. Most were nude, but some were silked or clad otherwise revealingly, as befitted the wenches of pirates. Some wore threads of leather, another a bit of rope, another only her chains. Some of these wenches I remembered from the fesat. There were darkh-haired Relia and blond Tela, who was still kept in white silk, as a joke, though she must have serve the pleasure of pirates a thousand times and the blond sisters from Cos, Mira and Tala; short, dark-haired Bikkie; and the girls who had danced at the feast, and had been throawn to the aroused men at the conclusion of their performances; and certain others. Men such as Policrates are rich in women, as well as in gold.

"You are involved in the conspiracy of Tasdron, taverner of Victoria, who is in league with Glyco of Port Cos," said Policrates. "No," I said.

"We will deal with these fools soon," said Policrates. "And we will wreak a vengeance on Victoria of which men will dare not speak for a hundred years." "There is no conspiracy," I said, "It was I alone, with some few men, who thought to take and fire the holding." "And what of the beacon that was to be set." asked Policarates, "and of the ships waiting fruitlessly now upon the river?"

I was silent. Policrates obviously knew much.

"Relia, Tela, to him," said Policrates. These two girls, Relia discaring her red silk and Tela operning her white silk and throwing it back, hurried to kneel near me. Relia beagn to kiss and bite at the palm of my right hand, and at my right arm and shoulder, and Tela addressed herself similarly to my left hand and arm. I strugged in the chains, but could not resist.

"Did you truly think to gain access to our stronhold with so simple a ruse?" asked Policrates. "Yes," I said. I gasped in the chains. I could not pull away from the taunting caresses of the slave girls. "It was the plan of a fool," said Policrates. "It was an excellent plan," I said, "How did you iknow that we were ot the scout ships of Ragnar Voskjard?"