John Norman - Rouge of Gor

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 in this pole. It was thus that I was kept in my place. My wrists and ankles were also chained. I had some 18 inches of play for my feet.

I had some 24 inches of play for my hands. These arrangements represent what is theoretically an optimum compromise between prisoner secuity and the degress of freedom essential to efficiently operate the windlass.

"Push!" cried the pirate. Again the whip struck across my back, I thurst again against the bar. The chip, then, struck elsewhere, too, and thre 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. There poles may be inserted into the windlass and if one wishes, removed from it. The collars and neck chains keep men fastened to the pole, whether it is inserved 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, then on one's knees with one's hands deferentially lowered.

"Push, push! Move!" called the pirate. The last struck amongst us. As the windlass turned slowly, creaking, we heard, too, overhead and to the side, the movement and swining of the great drumlike sounterweights 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 gain. Too, at night, it can be extremely cold. There was a smell of wastes in the chamber. Perhaps it would have been less unplesasant if our captors had permitted us clothing.

"Work, work!" called the pirate. "Work!" But he did not strike us again. The weights were no 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 well, 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, lucious, 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, Beverly Henderson, though she now appeared generallly inmy dreams not as the lovely, free Earth girl, Miss Henderson, but under a variety of names, as a Gorean 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 compartment, 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 tend 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. We finished the dinner and our coffee and 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 tomake me a slave," she said to him. "That is all right," said the man. "You are a slave." "Strip now, and do not daily longer, Woman," I told her. Then, in my dream, slowly and gracefully, the clothing put aside, seeming to float from her, Miss Henderson standing beside the stable on the carpet of the restaurant, stripped herself. I then unbound her hair, so that it fell loosely, almost floating, about her shoulders. No one in the restaurant paid the least attention. I then removed a black leather cord from my pocket and bound her small wrists behind her back.

The ends of the cord were long, and fell to the level of the back of her knees. "Precede me now from the restaurant," I told her. "I wish to see how you move." She made her way between the tables. On the way out we passed the two women whom we had seen long ago in the restaurant. "My Master has tied me," she said to them. "Yes," said the larger of the two women. As we approached the door of the restaurnat, we passed on our left the hat-check counter. "Excellent slave meat," said the blond hat-check girl, Peggy, behind the counter. "You, too," I told her, "are excellent slave meat." "My Master has not yet claimed me," she said. "Be patient," I told her. "Yes, Master," she said. At the door to the restaurant we stopped. "On the other side of this door at this moment," I told her, "is another world. It is quite different from your old world. If you cross this threshold now, you wil be in the world. Do you understand?" "Yes, Jason," she said. "And in that world," I told her, "you will be, legally and completely a slave." "Yes, Jason," she said. I then opened the door. Beyod that door lay not the bricks, the gutters, the dingy air, the hurrying of traffic, the triviality and misery, which had previously lain outside it, but now, as the door opened, we saw open fields, vast and green, and a sky that was gloriously blue, studded with scudding clouds. The air was gloriously fresh, pure and clean. She stepped across the dark, stained, flat board that marked the threshold of the restaurant, out onto the grass, into the sunlight and wind. "You have crossed the threshold into the world of Gor," I told her. She turned to face me. "Yes, Master," she said. I turned ad closed the door, the dark, heavy door, with the rectangular panes of glass set in it, with the curtains behind the glass. As the door closed, it, and the restaurant and tits world vanished. I turned to face the girl. We were alone in the field in the sunlight. "It is time to begin to accustom you to your slavery," I told her. "Yes, my Master," she said.

"Do not slave, you Sleen!" said the pirate, snapping his whip. "Work, work!"

We had in the last few days, many times raised and lowered the sea gate. I speculated that these activities were largely connected with the coming and going of scout ships, and supply shipes and fitting vessels.

Then yesterday, the gate had been open for some four Ahn. I speculated that the fleet of Policrates, was not abroad. In his own hall, when his girls had finished with me, making me yield in his presence, his enemy, for the amusement of himself and his men, I had heard him as he had spoken to Kliomes, declare an intention to move his fleet east. Now I gathered, he had done so. Doubtless this was to discourage the formation of an alliance among the eastern towns, and to prevent ships being sent to stop or delay Ragnar Voskjard at the chain west of Port Cos.

"Keep moing," called the pirate. Again the whip cracked. As I made my way about the windlass, treading the slatted circular platform, with my bellow prisoners, thrusting against the metal pole, I saw cained to the wall and at one side, behind the water trough cut in the stonre, their necks still fastened to their own polkes, two other sets of prisoners. There are those in reserve, additional chained crews for the work of the windlass. Too, as was clear, no one at the windlass was indispensable. This comprehension doubless played its role in keeping order amongst us. We knew that any one of us could be cut from his chains at the merest whim of our jailer.