Mariners of Gor (77 page)

“She seems a passionate little thing,” I said. “Are you going to breed her?”

“Yes, breed me, breed me, Master,” she wept, kissing him.

“I do not think she understands,” I said to the stranger, Callias. “Are you going to put her out for breeding?”

“Put me out for breeding?” she said, startled.

“It is a way of increasing one’s stock of slaves,” I said. “To be sure, there would be a fee for the use of the male slave.”

“I could be bred?” she said.

“Of course,” I said, “you are slave stock.”

This sort of thing, on the whole, however, is usually done by fellows who have many female slaves and do not know them, often the proprietors of large farms. The slaves, then, are bred with the same attention to lines, and properties, as other domestic animals, tarsk, verr, hurt, kaiila, tharlarion, and such. This sort of thing is independent of the sort of thing practiced on the great slave farms. Some bred slaves have pedigrees going back several generations.

“Master, Master,” she wept, “do not breed me. Keep me for yourself!”

“He will do as he wishes, slave,” I informed her.

Usually, in slave breeding, both the male and female slave are chained in a breeding stall, and hooded, that neither may know the other. The breeding takes place under the supervision of masters, or their agents, and the slaves, of course, are forbidden to speak to one another. If the breeding is successful, the mother is hooded during labor, and never sees the child, which is taken from her, to be tended, and cared for, elsewhere.

“I am so a slave, so a slave!” she said.

I frankly doubted that Callias would put her out for breeding. Indeed, I was beginning to wonder if he would release her from his arms.

“It may be done with you,
kajira
,” I assured her.

“Yes, Master,” she whispered, frightened. It seemed I had suggested to her a new dimension of being a slave, to which she had hitherto devoted little thought.

“Keep me, keep me for yourself alone,” she begged Callias. “I would be yours alone!”

“Do you think you could be a good slave?” I asked her.

“Yes, yes,” she said, “Master!”

I supposed this was possible. Most private slaves, after a time, are hopelessly devoted to their masters. Doubtless this has to do with the collar.

It is hard to be in a man’s collar and, after a time, not come to be his slave, not merely in law, but in heart. And it is hard to have a woman in one’s collar without noticing, after a time, how well she looks on her knees before you.

“I fear, dear Callias,” I said to the stranger, “that you are weak.”

“I?” he said.

“Do not forget that this curvaceous little thing you have in your arms is not a free woman, nothing warranting respect and dignity, but a beast, a worthless slave, only that.”

“Is she not lovely,” said Callias.

“I have seen many better,” I said, “on the shelves, in the cages, on the block, even in secondary markets.”

“Surely she is the most beautiful woman in the world,” said Callias.

“Not to everyone, surely,” I said.

“Who better?” he asked, annoyed.

“Thousands,” I said.

“Do you have an example?” he asked.

“Certainly,” I said. “What of the barbarian in
The Sea Sleen
, the slender brunette, the exquisite paga girl, whom you had decamisk herself before you?”

“She cannot even speak Gorean properly,” said Callias.

“She can learn,” I said, now myself annoyed.

“Let her be whipped, regularly,” said Callias, “until her diction becomes passable.”

“Perhaps your Alcinoë could do with a bout with the whip,” I said.

“Master!” protested Alcinoë.

“Did I hear a slave speak without permission?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “she may speak as she will, until such permission might be revoked.”

“It does not seem to me that she has had the time to earn such a privilege,” I said.

“I grant it,” he said.

“Too quickly, too easily,” I suggested.

“Surely you see,” he said, “how lovely she is!”

“There are many better,” I said, “for example, the barbarian at
The Sea Sleen
, who heard your story.”

“She cannot even begin to compare with Alcinoë,” he said. “And she is not even Gorean.”

“I think she is Gorean now,” I said. “She is now no more than another collared Gorean slave girl.”

“You admit she is beautiful,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. From the tone of his voice I thought it well to concede this. Besides, I supposed she was beautiful.

“Very beautiful,” he said.

“Perhaps,” I said, “but now she is sweaty and heated, and her hair is wet, and there are still thong marks on her ankles and wrists.”

I noted, too, that her body was imbued with desire. To be sure, this adds to the appeal of a slave.

“Perhaps,” I said, “you are thinking of freeing her.”

“No,” cried the slave, frightened. “Do not free me, Master! Keep me! I am your slave! I belong to you! Your collar has been put on my neck! It is locked on me, and I cannot remove it! But I do not want to remove it! I want it there for all to see, that all may know that I am a slave, and that you are my master! I love my collar! I am proud of it! I want to be owned! I want to be possessed, utterly, and without qualification. I know myself, by beauty, by blood, by thought, by dreams, by needs, to be naturally the property of men, and it is your property I wish to be!”

He held her out, again, from him, both of them on their knees, on the planks of the dark, polished floor.

“What do you see?” she laughed.

“A slave,” he said.

“Yes, Master!” she laughed, and leaned forward, as she could, straining to reach him with her lips.

“I am not a fool,” he said.

“No, Master!” she said.

This was doubtless an allusion to the well-known proverb, that only a fool frees a slave girl.

“All my life,” he said, “I have waited for such a slave.”

“All my life,” she said, “I have waited for such a master.”

“So why, then, should I free you?” he asked.

“You should not,” she said.

“I will not,” he said.

“A girl is grateful,” she whispered.

“Some women are too beautiful, too desirable, to free,” he said.

“It is my hope,” she said, “that I am such a one.”

“The collar proclaims you such,” he said.

“The heart of an eager and willing, but choiceless, slave rejoices,” she said.

“You understand,” he said, “the meaning of your condition?”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Unquestioning and instantaneous obedience?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Subjectability to discipline, even to the whip and chain?”

“Yes, Master.”

“The slave is not a free woman,” he said.

“No, Master.”

“What, then, is the duty of a slave?”

“Master?”

“To be a dream of pleasure to her master.”

“I will strive to be pleasing to my master,” she said.

“And if you fail?”

“Then I trust that the master will better train me, will correct my behavior, and see to my improvement,” she said.

“It will be so,” he said.

“I will do my best,” she said.

“No one can ask more than that,” he said.

“Such words fall delightfully on the ears of a slave,” she said.

“But it will be I, and I alone,” he said, “who will decide whether or not you have done your best.”

“I understand, Master,” she said.

“Beware, my friend, dear Callias,” I said. “I suspect you are in danger.”

“How so?” said he.

“I do not claim, of course,” I said, “that you are subject to this danger.”

“What danger?” said he.

“Some men, doubtless fools and weaklings,” I said, “are particularly subject to this danger, the danger of becoming enamored of a slave. It is quite enough to lust for them, desire them, master them, and rule them, quite enough to rope and chain them, and pleasure yourself with them, as frequently and variously, and as inordinately, as you wish, and derive from their conquest, their helplessness, and submission the thousand satisfactions and delights, the triumphs, of the mastery, of owning and governing such a property, of enjoying such a vulnerable, shapely beast, but it is quite another to care for one.”

“Do you think,” he asked, “that I am a fool and weakling?”

“In general, no,” I said, “but men wiser and stronger than you, I am sure, and men perhaps wiser and stronger than I, have succumbed to eyes bright with tears, a strand of hair brushed piteously aside, a faltering syllable, a trembling lip.”

“But she is Alcinoë,” he said.

“And Tula is Tula, and Lana is Lana, and Iris is Iris, and Lita is Lita, and so on,” I said. “They are all soft, subtle, cunning, dangerous beasts.”

“You feel I am in danger?”

“That is my surmise,” I said.

“Surely I am not uniquely in danger?”

“Doubtless not,” I said. “But see that the stern resolution which takes the beast from the block does not melt when it lies at your slave ring. Deprive the she-sleen of her domination and she will become confused, and bitter, denied her coveted meaning as your beast. She will turn on you. She will scorn your weakness, and mock your frailty. Unmastered she is an angry leaf in the wind, without direction, no better than a free woman, flung about, tormented and unfulfilled. She longs to obey, to love and serve. Deny her this and you deny her to herself. She understands will, and the whip. See that she is never in doubt as to either. The slave is never content until she lies naked at the feet of a man.”

There was then a knocking at the jamb of the open portal, and Captain Nakamura appeared in the opening. He carried with him a small package.

The stranger rose to his feet.

Doubtless he was embarrassed to be found on his knees, a slave in his arms. Certainly I trusted so.

“Do you accept the gift?” asked Captain Nakamura.

“Yes,” said the stranger.

“I am sure I can find others, who will buy it from you, if you wish,” he said.

“No,” said the stranger.

“Lord Nishida and Tarl Cabot, the tarnsman,” he said, “have included some tokens with the gift, which, as you are accepting it, I may present to you.”

“My thanks,” said the stranger.

“One is a slave garment,” he said, “which seems more locally cultural than her current tunic, and the other is a coiling of chain and rings, which, I am told, is a sirik.”

The stranger accepted the small package, a slave tunic, within which was wrapped a sirik.

“Do you wish her current tunic back?” asked the stranger.

“No,” said the captain, smiling, “though we have purchased some local slaves, for transportation to the islands.”

I did not understand the smile of Captain Nakamura, as he seemed, on the whole, a rather undemonstrative, reserved fellow. To be sure, I am informed by the stranger that these fellows are much freer in emotion, teasing, joking, and such, when amongst one another.

The slave, who had her head down, I thought was smiling, as well.

I did not understand the meaning of this, either.

The first thing I would have done was discard the long, heavy, opaque Pani tunic, which seemed quite inappropriate for a slave, at least in good weather, given what a slave was.

Let it be cast away!

Captain Nakamura then bowed, excusing himself, but paused, at the door. “It is my understanding,” he said, “from a cripple at the castle, a man named Rutilius of Ar, that the slave, Alcinoë, may have value in Ar.”

“Oh?” said the stranger.

The slave, on her knees, turned white.

“It is his claim that she is the former Lady Flavia of Ar, a fugitive, one for whom a sizable bounty would be paid. I was to arrange for her delivery to Ar, collect the bounty, and divide it, on my return, with him.”

“Interesting,” said the stranger.

“In any event,” said the captain, “the slave is yours.”

“Yes,” said the stranger, “she is mine.”

The tone of his voice, I conjectured, would leave no doubt in the slave’s mind but what she was indeed his.

It would be up to him, whether or not she would be taken to Ar.

With another short, courteous bow, Captain Nakamura withdrew.

I was apprehensive.

The attitude of the stranger seemed to have changed.

Outside the tall window a cloud must have passed before
Tor-tu-Gor
, and the room seemed suddenly, ominously dark, and the slave little more than a shadow between us.

But the simple words of Captain Nakamura, I thought, even more than a darkening cloud, had engloomed the chamber. It was as though they had enkindled a mysterious lamp, a lamp of memory, which, when lit, emitted not light, but darkness, fear, and cold. Where there had been warmth, light, joy, touching, and love, there was now a dampness, as of the dungeon, a darkness as of caverns, a polar chill, the coldness of fearful order, of propriety, of a vision of justice, as unwelcome as the touch of a snake at night.