Mariners of Gor (17 page)

One might also note the gratitude of the slave. She loves and serves, and is grateful to have been granted this privilege. It is not unknown for even free women to kneel before a man, press their lips to his boots, and beg him for his collar, that they may belong to him, as his slave. The depth of this need, of this desire, and the profundity of this love, the wholeness of it, the desire to give oneself, to surrender oneself, wholly, to another, is one of the mysterious recurrent songs of nature, its origins perhaps lost or obscure, but its strains familiar amongst her survivors. So she rejoices that she is owned, for she has now at last what she has long longed for, a master. She is a slave at his feet, doubtless stripped and collared, to be treated as he wills. To what less could she be so helplessly responsive?

He is male, and she female, he master, she slave.

How beautiful are women!

Only in the collar can they find themselves.

“You have a lovely slave,” I said to him.

“I call her ‘Cecily’,” he said.

“That is a strange name,” I said.

“She is a barbarian,” he said.

That, I supposed, explained her lack of agitation. She did not realize the import of being beyond the farther islands.

The girls of Gorean origin were being kept chained below decks, some hooded, and sedated. One could not blame a girl for being uneasy if she were being drawn, say, wrists bound behind her, naked, on a tether, into a larl’s den.

“Is she any good?” I asked.

She thrust her cheek against her master’s thigh. Clearly she was ready. It is pleasant, I thought, what men can do with slaves.

“A touch,” said Cabot, “and she juices and steams.”

“She is hot-thighed, then?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Cabot, “helplessly so.”

“Then she is broken in, nicely?”

“Yes,” said Cabot.

I thought of Alcinoë.

“I have heard,” I said, “that barbarians are good.”

“Any woman is good,” said Cabot, “once she is broken to the collar.”

Again I thought of Alcinoë. How pleasant it might be, she now a slave, to break her to the collar, to have crawling to my feet, begging a caress.

“Barbarians sell well,” I said. I wondered what Alcinoë might bring.

“Few are left long on the chain,” he granted me.

“It is said they lick the whip quickly,” I said.

“It has to do with their background,” he said. “Where they are from they are commonly denied their needs, to be owned and mastered. On Gor they find themselves at last in their place, at the feet of men. Many are astonished at the fulfillments attendant on the summoning forth, the commanding forth, of their deepest and most precious selves. They find happiness, and fulfillments, which they scarcely knew might exist, but had only dimly sensed, in their most secret dreams. On Gor, they find themselves choiceless, given no choice but to be what they truly are, and want to be, not pretend males, not sexless cogs in a societal mechanism, not pretenders and haters, but what they truly are, actually are, and want to be, most profoundly, women. Where they come from they are taught to repudiate nature, to replace her with conventions and principles alien to their deepest needs and feelings. They are taught to revere frigidity, like a free woman, to praise inertness as dignity, to fear the raptures of uncompromised submission. Denied themselves, denied masters, they writhe in frustration, and, hating themselves, and their imprisonment, they think they hate men. Taught to deny their sex, starved for sex, they find themselves then on Gor, in collars, at the feet of men who will have whatever they want from them, and what they want, too, in their hearts, to be had from them. Their exile from their own bodies and needs is at last over. It is as though, at last, starving and thirsting, they were permitted food, though from the hand of a man, and granted water, though from a pan at his feet. Often the happiest moment in the life of one of them, to that point, is when the auctioneer closes his hand, and they realize that, exposed and desired, exhibited and bid upon, they have been sold. No longer are they alone; at last they are possessed; at last they are owned. At last they have a reality and an identity. At last they belong. Indeed, they are now, literally, a belonging, a property of their master. And do they even know, out there in the darkness of the crowd, who has bought them?”

“What is this strange place from which these creatures derive,” I asked, “to what country might such pathetic, deprived creatures be indigenous?”

“It is called Earth,” he said.

“Why did you join me at the rail?” I asked.

“I thought,” said he, “you might be considering Thassa, that you might be thinking of reaching Chios.”

“The waters are cold,” I said. “I might die before I could reach her.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “But if you are a strong swimmer, I think you might have reached shore.”

“I think so, too,” I said.

“You were considering the matter,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“But you did not leave us,” he observed.

“No,” I said. “I thought I would stay.”

“Yesterday,” he said, “a galley was commandeered, seized and launched, and seventy men, pursued, beached on Thera, fleeing inland. Two other galleys followed, she was recovered, and brought back. Some others went over the rail, seeking Daphna.”

“Many desertions,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“It seems not everyone wishes to go beyond the farther islands,” I said.

“It seems not,” he said.

We stood there at the rail for a time, in the falling snow. Then we could no longer see the islands.

Before us was darkness and snow, and the surging of Thassa.

“You, however,” said he, “have remained with us.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Why?” he asked.

“I thought I might like to see what lies at the end of the world,” I said.

Chapter Seven

We Man the Pumps;

There is Unease Amongst the Men;

We are Spoken to by Tyrtaios

My ankles were in freezing water. My back and arms ached. Twelve of us, in this shift, manned the pumps.

Nine storms we had endured since I had been taken aboard.

Thassa grew more cruel each day. Few dared to go on deck. Some had been washed away. Men clung to ropes, crossing the deck, leaning into the wind. The tarns had not been flown in six days. Some had died. When the tarn cannot fly, it dies.

The unusual men, the Pani, spoke little, lest it be amongst themselves. But amongst ourselves, the others, there were murmurs of discontent, these subsiding in the presence of officers.

Occasionally, one heard the howling of a sleen, restless in its cage.

Too, off certain corridors, from behind heavy wooden doors, each with its tiny, sliding, rectangular viewing panel, one could hear the lamentations, the weepings, of female slaves. It had been clear to me, almost from the beginning, that there were female slaves on board. One, the slave girl, Alcinoë, once the high lady, Flavia of Ar, confidante even of the former Ubara, Talena, had been sent to me in my cell, barefoot and tunicked, to humbly serve me, to bring me, in her abject servitude, a free man, now unspeakably above her, she now less than the dust beneath his feet, a bowl of broth. Others, in groups, in good weather, had been exercised on the open deck, performing their movements in unison, to the cries of their keeper, sometimes, shuddering, to the snapping of his whip. From their reactions I gathered some had felt it. Certain slaves interestingly, were brought into public view only when hooded. I thought them to be perhaps high slaves, perhaps of such beauty that, should it be bared, men might be driven wild with the need to seize and possess them. Might they not have divided the crew into warring factions? Some slaves were private slaves, owned by one fellow or another. I envied them having such a soft, delicious object chained to their bunk, to be enjoyed as, and when, one pleased. One such was the lovely Cecily, girl of the commander, Cabot; another was called Jane, the slave of his friend, Pertinax. I did not understand the name ‘Jane’, a lovely but unusual name, which I took to be a barbarian name. Her accent was of Ar, and I did not inquire further. This Pertinax would often scrutinize the slaves being exercised, as though he might have an eye for one. But it seems he did not discern her. Perhaps she was one of the hooded slaves, or amongst those not brought to the open deck. The slaves, I gathered, had been, on the whole, purchased here and there by the Pani, over several months, perhaps for the contentment of themselves and others, perhaps as trading goods, perhaps as merchandise, to be eventually sold in one market or another. It is not unusual, on large ships, round ships, and longer voyages, for slave girls to be brought aboard. Gorean men relish slave meat and do not like to be long without it. By the time the women have learned their collar, of course, they, too, need men. It can be pleasant to torment a hot, begging slave. Free women, on the other hand, unless passengers on particular ships plying established routes, are seldom aboard Gorean vessels. Many Gorean mariners fear to travel with a free woman on board, regarding such as harbingers of ill fortune. Whereas this trepidation is often unwarranted, their reluctance cannot be dismissed as simple superstition. There have been many instances in which the presence of such a female, aloof and inaccessible, arrogant and troublesome, has produced dissension. Too many such women, too, on long voyages, perhaps in their boredom, are careless in their veiling, and enjoy exploiting the provocations, the tauntings, of their sex, casting an alluring eye here, dropping a piquant word there, amusing themselves with the igniting of fires they have no intention of extinguishing. Are they unaware of the turning of a hip, or the hithering sway manifested so subtly in their departure? Gorean men are no strangers to the secrets beneath those cumbersome robes, secrets which the free woman seems to be seeking to share. Is it so delightful, really, to encourage and then scorn, to invite and then rebuke, to tempt and then denounce? Is it in their best interest, really, to practice so petty a power? Surely they must understand the danger of proffering goods they have no intention of selling. Surely they must understand they tread a narrow bridge. Surely better to attend to the curfews and avoid the byways of darkness. What wise woman would let the door of a paga tavern close behind her, unless she wished to find herself within? Gorean men are not long-suffering, nor are they patient. It is not unusual for a lofty free woman, enrobed and veiled, to embark on a voyage, at the end of which she is led down the gangplank, stripped and shackled, on a chain, to be conducted to a convenient market. They now belong to the sex they professed to despise. They will now live to serve and satisfy men. But did they not court the collar? Do they not now find their fulfillment in the chains they wished to wear? But women, free or slave, are seldom allowed on the long ships, the ships of war. On such ships, such as the
Metioche
, duty is paramount and discipline is strict. On such a ship, women have no place; distraction is unacceptable; too, such women would be encumbrances, would be in the way, should an engagement ensue. Lastly, the female slave is property, and such ships seldom carry cargo. Too, such ships may enter battle, and the female slave, who surely has her value, such as it is, no more than other goods is to be put at risk. Needless to say, at the voyages’ end, such mariners, starved for the scent of perfume and the clasp of warm arms, are likely to lose little time in seeking the comforts of the taverns. Girls are often sent to the wharves, when ships are due, in camisks adorned with advertising, to solicit patronage for their masters’ establishments.

I heard, again, the howling of a sleen. I had not seen it, but, from the sound, I supposed it must be a large brute. It carried from deck to deck.

I did not understand how such a beast might be on board.

There were two major keeping areas, for female slaves, off two long corridors, one on the Venna deck, and one lower, on the Kasra deck, these two corridors, as others, apart from them, leading fore and aft, the length of the vessel. Lately, given the miseries of the weather, the constant rolling and pitching motion of the ship, the distance from shore, the uncertainty of the voyage, their terror at realizing themselves now being taken beyond the farther islands, and fearing perhaps to plunge any moment from the edge of the world, one might hear, as mentioned, from behind the thick doors, the lamentations, the weepings, of female slaves. One could listen, too, for the rustle of chains, as they might move about, or thrash on the straw in their misery. One may silence slaves by going amongst them with a whip, but, compassionately, it had not been done. They were not, after all, males, sturdy quarry slaves, hardened oar slaves, and such, but females, mere females, miserable and pathetic, soft and small, helpless in their collars and shackles, only frightened slave-block goods, so desirably and wonderfully different from men. How inordinately precious and desirable they are!

How inevitable it is to relish them, and strive to possess them!

How comprehensible that they should be sought and secured, roped and chained, that they should be bought and sold, that they should be branded and collared, that there be no mistaking them; how natural and perfect that they should be owned and mastered.