John Norman - Rouge of Gor

We had after all, known the signs and countersigns and, presumably, those of the holding of Policrates would not be familiar with all of the men or ships of Ragnar Voskjard."Would not it have been clear to anyone?" smiled Policrates. "We were betrayed," I said. "It would not have been necessary, of course," smiled Policrates, "but to be sure you were betrayed."

"You knew it would be I and others?" I asked.

"Certainly," said Policrates. What fools he had made of us. How thunderously had the great sea gate descended, destroying our first galley."Who was the traitor?" I asked. "Perhaps Tasdron himself," said Policrates, "perhaps even Glyco, posing as of your party. Perhaps your dear friend, Callimachus, secretly in our pay. Perhaps even a lowly slave, privy to yourmachinations."It could, too, be a soldier, one even with our galleys," I said. "To be sure," agreed Policrates.I struggled in the chains.

"Oh, do not struggle so, Master," whispered the red-haired girl at my side, soothingly, chidingly. "You cannot escape, you know. You are helpless. Be content to feel my hands and lips and my body against yours." I cried out with rage. I wondered if it had been Peggy, the Earth-girl slve, who had betrayed us. She could have overheard our doings, and well suspected our intentions. It would have been easy for her in the paga tvern to have informed on us. It could hve been done with simplicity in the privacy inthe secrecy of an alcove, her head to a pirate's feet. "Oh Master," reproved the red-haired girl, kissing me as the slave she was. I tried to pull loose the chains, but they were of Gorean iron. It seemed to me then as if it must have been Peggy who had betrayed us. She might well have known or suspected all. Too, she was a slave and a woman! Who else could it have been? She indeed must be the traitress, so lovely in her collar! It could have been surely none other than she, the branded Earth girl! I strugged and cried out with rage. I did not envy the lovely blonde if she were caught. I wondered if she knew the fire with which she played. The vengeances taken by Gorean men on traitorous female slaves are not gentle.

"Was it you, Jason, he of Victoria," inquired Policrates, "whom we previously entertained in our holding as the courier of Ragnar Voskjard?" Of course," I said angrily. "Liar!" said Kliomenes. It surprised me that he had said this. Surely they must know that it had been I. Their informant must have known this.

"I do not think so Jason," said Policrates, "though to be sure you wore tonight the same mask as he who posed as the courier."

"It was I," I said boldy,"none other." "Do you maintain this mockery?" asked POlicrates. "Can you not recognize my frame," I asked, "my voice?"

"There are surely strong similarities," mused Policarates. "It was I," I said puzzled. "You would have been chosen precisely for these similarities," said Policrates. "Why do you think it was not I?" I asked. "Did your informant not make it clear to you that I it ws who brought you the topaz?" The topaz," said Policrates, "was delivered to us by the courier of Ragnar Voskjard."Oh?" I asked. "The true courier," said Policrtes. "Oh," I said. "What have you done with him?"‹inquired Policrates.

I was silent.

"I trust that you have not slain him," said Policrates, "for doubtless Ragnar Voskjard would not be pleased to hear that." "I do not understand," I said. I was genuinely puzzled.

"You intercepted the courier, somehow, on his way back to Ragnar Voskjard," said Policrates. "It was from him, or perhaps from papers on his person, that you learned the signs and countersigns for admittance to the holding." "No," I said, "it ws you yourself who gave to me the signs and countersigns, when I posed as the courier of Ragnar Voskjard." "That is false," said Policrates. "It is true!" I cried. "True!" I moaned. I tried to move in the chains. Why would he not call off his slaves?Tow of the men of Policrates laughed.

"Bikkie, to him," said Policrates. I saw Kliomenes smile.

"Yes, my Master," said the short, dark-haired girl, and she smiling, barefoot, descended the marble stairs of the dias and taking her place on my left, lowered herself gracefully to lie on her side beside me. She began to kiss and lick at me and caress me. "I am pleaseing him," said the red-haired girl on my right. "I can please him more," said the dark-haired girl. I did not cry out to Policrates for mercy.

I knew he would grant me none. I suppressed a moan. Bikkie was excellent. I had little doubt but what she was a valuable slave and would bring a high price. Bikkie wore, like one or two of the other girls on the dias, only threads of leather, some dozen or so, depending from a leather sheathing encasing the locked steel collar on her throat. On the front of the leather sheathing, which opened only at the back, to admit the key to the collar lock, there was sewn a red leather patch, small in the shape of a heart. The heart to Goreans, as to certain of those on Earth is understood, too, as a symbol of love. The life of a slave girl, of course, is understood, too, as a life of love. She is given no alternative. The leather threads depending from the collar are stout enough to bind the hands of a girl, perhaps at her collar, that she may not interfere with what is done to her body, but they are not stout enough to bind a man. They may be used, of coures, in leasing a Master, not only in setting off the girl's ill-concealed beauty, but in touching him, brushing him, stimulating him, twining about him, and so on. The girl knows that the same strands which can bind her helplessly as a slave, are strong enought only to delight and please her Master. This helps her to understand that he is a man, and that she is a woman.

I turned my head to the side.

"Do you still insist that it ws you who entered my holding, posing as the courier of Ragnar Voskjard?" inquired Policrates. "Yes," I said. "Yes!" We know that is not true," said Policrates. "How can you know that?" I asked. Certainly I was prepared to corrobrate my claim, if need be, with descriptions of the holding, and accounts of the feast and of our conversations, descriptions and accounts much to detailed to have been likely to have been extracted from a captive. "There are many reasons," said Policrates. "One is that you are a man of Earth, and no man from that dismal, terrorized world, where men are mean and small, could have dared to enter this holding."How do you know I am from Earth?" I asked.

"We know that from Beverly, a slave in this holding," said Policrates."Nonetheless," I said, "it was I who entered this holding and deceived you, in the guise of the courier of Ragnar Voskjard."

"Impossible," said Policrates. "It is true," I averred.

It angered me that Policrates and Kliomenes, and the others, could not even accept this possibility. Surely not every man of Earth was as meaningless, as trivial, as obedient, as unquestioning, as well trained, as emasculated and effete as their various policital imprisonments demanded. I had little doubt but that somewhere on Earth, in spite of censorship, media control, manipulated education and outright policical supression, and almost nonexistent channels for expressing alternative viewpoints, some males remained men. Not every man can forget he is a man, even when he is instructed to do so. Why, he might ask, should I forget it? Indeed, why should I not be a man? It is after all, what I really am. You may not like it, but that does not make it wrong. Do you truly know better than nature? There seems no guarantee that the perversion of nature is more likely to lead to general human happiness then its recognition and celebration. Only in remaining true to nature can we remain true to ourselves. All else must be falsehood and pathology.

"I crossed swords with the courier of Ragnar Voskjard in the great hall," said Kliomenes. "He was not unskilled. Jason of Victoria on the other hand does not know the sword. "Accordingly, it could not have been I?" I asked. "Certainly not," said Kliomenes. "We have information," said Policrates, "that it was the true courier of Ragnar Voskjard who came to the holding, independently of the evidence that it was he who gave us the topaz, which stone presumably could have been only in the possession of the true courier."Information?" I asked.