Quarry of gor, p.17
Quarry of Gor, page 17
I enjoyed my occasional walks alone, on one walkway or another. My favorite was the “Thieves’ Way,” whose walkways bordered the “Thieves’ Canal.” I would usually walk east on one side, the “Thieves’ Way South,” and then cross the “Thieves’ Bridge,” and return to the Golden Chain, walking west on the “Thieves’ Way North.”
One of the pleasures of this particular walk was the number and variety of shops and offices one passed, particularly on the Thieves’ Way South. There were shops for clothing and footwear for the free; the robings and veilings for free women were particularly rich, abundant, luxurious, and colorful; I suspect that there are fewer free women in Port Kar than in most cities; this doubtless has something to do with the history of the city; I am told, incidentally, that there is one city on Gor, Tharna, noted for its silver mines, in which there is but one free woman, Lara, its Tatrix; doubtless this also has something to do with the history of that city; men of Tharna are commonly recognized by the two yellow cords, each some eighteen inches long, that they wear at their belt; such cords are convenient for the binding of a woman, hand and foot; visiting free women in Tharna must be in the custody of a male, and must be licensed and tagged; the custodial male must see that his charge spends no more than four days in the city or she will be seized and collared; some men bring unsuspecting free women to the city, sometimes arrogant free women interested in seeing such a city, to scorn it and its customs, willing even to endure the humiliation of tagging and licensing for such a pleasure, but somehow, doubtless inadvertently, fail to inform them of the law; the woman then, on the fifth day, is seized and reduced to bondage; she finds herself then become no more than another Tharnan slave; there were also shops for manufactured or crafted goods such as cups, goblets, vessels, pans, pitchers, dishes, and utensils; care and art commonly characterize even such simple objects on this world; there was a leather worker’s shop and a cloth worker’s shop, some weavers in view, at their looms, and two metal worker’s shops. Outside the cloth worker’s shop was a bin for irregular cloths, discarded patches, strips, shreds, and such; some masters, doubtless of a thrifty sort, avail themselves of such a trove to outfit their slaves; patches, even small patches, may be sewn together, to repair, or even form, a garment, say, a tunic; to the girls, of course, any clothing is precious, even a motley, scanty rag; do not we beg for even so little, and hope that it will be granted to us by the masters; in any event, for the most part, little money is wasted on slaves; we are kept nude as the animals we are, or are inexpensively clad, muchly bared, as with tunics, camisks, ta-teeras, and such. Outside one of these metal worker’s shops, on racks and poles, hung a number of slave collars, slave bracelets, manacles, shackles, siriks, mixed chains, and various slave-holding devices, such as racks and spreaders. Toward the rear some slave cages were strewn about, in one of which, perhaps for purposes of display, there was, curled within its tiny confines, a nude slave. Sometimes stairs led up to a second floor where coins might be weighed and changed, or loans made; there is no designated “Street of Coins” in Port Kar; one could ascend stairs, too, to visit one or more physicians, or, if one wished, to solicit the services of a scribe, perhaps to have a letter read or written; many Goreans, particularly outside the cities, are illiterate; these stairwells, or some alleyways, leading from the walkway, bore signs; such things are helpful for those who cannot read; a green auscultation tube commonly signifies a physician; a set of wooden coins, painted white and gold, or white and yellow, hanging from a rod, usually signifies a handler of money, one who might furnish loans, accept pawnings, effect exchanges, and such; and a dangling blue scroll, or a dangling tablet with a stylus or pen, commonly stands for a scribe, and so on. Vegetables, cereals, fish, meat, and such are most often found in the open markets, some roofed, not in the stores or shops. One shop dealt with weapons of various sorts, swords, daggers, balanced throwing knives, spears, darts, javelins, and such. There were crossbows, as well, with cases of quarrels. I did not see any examples of the peasant bow, or quivers of long shafts. Perhaps such might be purchased near one of the smaller sea gates leading to the marshes. One could also have edges ground or honed at that shop; sometimes I could see sparks flying from the spinning sharpening stone. Some such stones are pedaled, others are turned with a handle or crank. Another shop specialized in grades of tharlarion oil, and another in perfumes, and another in flowers. I hurried quickly past a shop featuring binding straps, switches, and whips, many of the latter items colorfully beaded. A free woman was bargaining with the shopkeeper. There are few fixed prices on this world. Free women often carry a switch. Slaves note such things. One dealer had set up a stall on the walkway, to sell brightly plumaged birds. Happily, on my route, there were no slave shelves or slave cells. I do not think I would have liked to walk past such premises, for I am sure I would have been idly assessed by the chained slaves on the shelves or those incarcerated in the cells, just as I might assess them, each wondering what price we might bring, what men would pay for us. I now passed a small pottery shop. I also passed two stalls, in one of which a fellow was exhibiting drawings, paintings, carvings, and small pieces of metal artwork, while in the other a man was offering kaissa sets, cards, and dice for sale, displayed on a table, while, behind him, arranged on hooks and shelves, oddly enough, were flutes, tabors, and kalikas.
I would tend to move well to the side, my head lowered, if passing a free woman, while, if passing a free male, I would tend to keep my eyes straight ahead.
One is wary about meeting the eyes of a free person.
One is a slave.
Sometimes it struck me, given my former life, how strange it was to be a slave, to be now owned, as any other domestic beast is owned, to have a master. And yet I knew I had always longed for it, to be a man’s animal, his possession, his vulnerable, helpless slave. There is an incredible, precious freedom in the collar. In it one has no choice but to be what one is, and wants to be. How glad one is to put aside artifices, disguises, pretenses, conventions, disguises, and lies, and be oneself!
What greater freedom is there, but to be oneself?
My tunic was tiny, thin, clinging, and short. It had no nether closure. It was all I wore, save my collar.
I would walk well when I passed a free male. What slave, or what woman, would not? I could sense his eyes upon me. I was vain, doubtless, but I enjoyed his appraisal.
I was, was I not, a commodity, and, hopefully, one of some value?
Surely slaves are entitled to their vanity. A woman does not cease being a woman when she is collared. It is then she most becomes a woman.
Sometimes the men made a small, sucking, clicking sound as they passed. That is a sound even a free woman could understand.
Might they not then faint in the street for dismay?
They, after all, are high, precious, priceless, exalted, and free.
I did not dare to turn, to see if the men had paused, to look after me.
I had seen them do that with other girls.
But I was pleased.
What woman does not wish to be attractive to men? And who can be more attractive than the slave? On Earth I had noted that even women who claimed to hate men wished, nonetheless, to be attractive to them. Such women lacked only being stripped, put to their knees, and collared.
I thought they would make excellent slaves. If necessary, the whip would see to it.
I glanced to the side, to my left, to the canal, and stopped, frightened.
I had seen, briefly, a coarse gray back and dorsal fin rise from the water, glide for a moment, and then sink from sight. Sharks are rare in the canals, but they occasionally slip through the sea gates, either from the marshes or from the Tamber itself. Usually, after a few days, they find their way back to the open waters from whence they came. I inadvertently put my fingers to the collar I wore.
I loved my collar.
Yet how vulnerable and helpless one is when collared!
Can you conceive of yourself, collared?
Try to do so, for moment. Can you sense it on your neck? What then are you?
One looks up, frightened and awed, at the high walls, reached by narrow, open, ascending stairs. One is under the scrutiny of the free, particularly that of hostile free women. One notes vigilant guardsmen. Who is courageous enough to swim the canals, or dive to the marshes, and perhaps into the jaws of tharlarion? We must be able to give an accounting of our actions and locations to any free person who might inquire. We require the permission of the free to leave the house, and must furnish the rationale for our departure, and the time of our expected return. Indeed, the time of our return is often specified by the master. We are not allowed out alone after dark. And who, in any event, can escape the confines of a house, or the chains which fasten us to the foot of a master’s couch? We are seldom allowed outside the walls of a city, if not in the company of our master, or in some comparable custody.
I looked down, to my left, into the canal. I recalled the movement in the waters, the brief appearance, softly gliding, that movement, so silent, and smooth, of the gray spine, and high fin.
I shuddered.
As a slave I was unable to alter my condition, no matter how much I might wish to do so; I was utterly helpless; my will was nothing. I well knew that my bondage, as that of others like myself, was perfect, and complete. There is no escape for the Gorean slave girl, as is well known, as is clear to all. We are distinctly garmented, if garmented; we are collared and branded. There is nowhere for us to run, nowhere to which we might escape. We are goods. The culture wants us as slaves, and will keep us as slaves. Who wishes to be returned to a former master for condign punishment, as is almost invariably the case; and who would wish to fall into the hands of a new, apprehending master, who, recognizing us as a fugitive, would doubtless plunge us into a slavery far more confining and cruel than that from which we fled? Woe to the woman who is kept, or clandestinely sold, as a runaway!
How far I was from my former life. How helpless I was!
“Ho, Zia!” I heard.
I smelled fresh bread. Almost all bread on Gor is fresh, as it is frequently baked. There is very little in the way of packaging, transportation, storage, shelving, and such. Indeed, it is frequently eaten shortly after emerging from the oven. On my former world I had never eaten fresh bread. Only on Gor had I learned how marvelous is the taste of fresh bread. The common Gorean loaf is flat and circular, and is divided, if divided, into either four or eight slices.
I turned. “Master!” I said, happily, instantly kneeling.
It was Leander, the Baker.
As I passed this way every day or two, or every two or three days, I knew some of the shopkeepers by appearance and name. I was sometimes called to their feet and questioned with respect to what was current in the city. The taverns, in their way, rather like the markets, provide a clearing house for reports and rumors, for facts and lies, for information and misinformation, and the paga girls, by default, so to speak, are likely to be amongst the best informed sources of information and misinformation in the city. They are curious and hear much; and they frequently chat amongst themselves, and share what they have heard, and, I suspect, often more than they have heard. Goreans, bond and free, are eager for news, but the channels of its conveyance, for the populace at large, it lacking post riders and hired informants, tend to be unreliable and haphazard. It can take months for the news of some event of importance in Schendi or remote Turia to reach Kassau or Hunjer, or Port Kar, or even Cos, or Tyros. And even then what reaches the taverns and markets is likely to be only incomplete and garbled accounts, passed from to hand to hand, so to speak, and often founded, ultimately, I fear, on the ramblings of merchants and mariners, perhaps enunciated through the fumes of paga. Access to local news, of course, is likely to be more prompt, if not more accurate.
So I knelt before Leander, hoping for a roll or bit of bread, and told him the latest gossip and rumors, the freshest scandals and stories, which had circulated amongst the patrons of the Golden Chain. As a slave, one grows extremely sensitive to the moods, the expressions, the subtle attitudes, the little things, about the free, and, accordingly, I paid close attention to items which I sensed pleased Master Leander, and those in which, from my memory, I suspected he might be especially interested, and then I elaborated on them, and embellished them shamelessly.
I thought I did it quite nicely.
It would be nice to be rewarded.
“You prattle well,” he said.
“Thank you, Master,” I said, not wholly pleased.
He then asked me, as he always did, if there was news of Talena of Ar.
“Very little that is definite, Master,” I said. “I have heard that she has been seen in Tabor and Anango, and in Bazi, and in the valley of the Ua, and in far Skjern, and that she has been apprehended by a dozen bounty hunters who scheme to keep her capture secret, lest she be stolen from them, before she can be brought to Ar. And I have heard that four bounty hunters have already brought women to Ar, claiming them to be Talena. But I have heard, too, that she is protected, and safe, in Cos, received as a refugee by the glorious Lurius of Jad.”
“That is possible,” said Leander. “She much abetted the policies of Cos and Tyros during the Woes of Ar.”
I knew little of the politics of Gor, and less of the mysterious, notorious Talena of Ar. She had apparently betrayed her Home Stone, conspiring with others to bring about the downfall of Ar, a large city in the middle latitudes of Gor’s northern hemisphere, far to the south and east of Port Kar. This took place during the absence of Marlenus, the city’s Ubar. For a time she had ruled harshly and arrogantly, as a puppet Ubara, under the supervision of Cos and Tyros. It was a time of tyranny, exploitation, misery, uncertainty, fear, deprivation, treachery, and profiteering. Then, somehow, the figure of Marlenus had reappeared, and the city rose, violent and savage, eager and vengeful. The occupying forces, in days of terror and blood, overwhelmed by a massive revolt of a swarming populace, armed sometimes with no more than pointed sticks, staves, clubs, torches, and fragments of pavement, fled. Then began the seeking of blood, the publication of the proscription lists, and the search for profiteers, traitors, and collaborators. During the confusion and chaos of the restoration of Marlenus, Talena, and certain others high amongst the betrayers of the city, disappeared. It was said that the reward for her capture was ten thousand tarns of gold, tarn disks of double weight. With such a sum, I understood, one might buy cities. I knew little or nothing of Talena, and I suspected that most Goreans knew little more than I. She was allegedly the daughter of Marlenus, the Ubar, himself, which status had doubtless facilitated her ascent to the throne in his absence. She was also said to be the most beautiful woman on Gor, but I am sure this appellation is one shared by dozens of daughters of Ubars and Administrators in dozens of cities throughout Gor. Are not the daughters of Ubars and Administrators always the most beautiful women on Gor? How could it be otherwise, and who is bold enough, or stupid enough, to challenge such an asseveration, particularly in the presence of the Ubar or Administrator, or even within the walls of the polity in question? Might not such a surmise eventually reach the corridors of the palace? To be sure, I was quite willing to suppose that this Talena might be an extraordinarily beautiful woman. I had always thought myself extremely attractive on my former world, but, on Gor, I had discovered that my beauty was not unusual, particularly amongst slaves. Free women, in their unwonted arrogance, in their unwarranted, unconscionable, preposterous vanity, in their well-recognized stupidity, commonly take themselves to be far more beautiful than slaves, but it is difficult to assess this claim, even if one were to take it seriously, given the common impediments to vision supplied by the robes of concealment, the layers of veils, and such. It might be noted, too, that the great majority of slaves were once free women. How then could there be such a difference? Too, it is obvious that the collar much enhances the beauty of a woman. Even a plainer woman, collared, becomes exciting and attractive, probably, at least in part, because of what the collar says about her, and what may be done with her. Too, the more beautiful a woman is the more likely it is that she will be noticed, and seized for the brand and collar. In any event, it seemed clear that Talena of Ar, she in whom such interest was evinced, doubtless primarily because of the reward offered for her capture and return to Ar, was well hidden. She could be in a hundred cities, or remote villas or strongholds, incognito, well secure within the robes of concealment and multitudinous veils befitting her lofty station, as a free woman.
“Well, pretty Zia,” said Master Leander, “you may now spring up, and hasten on your way.”
He then turned away, back toward one of the shop’s ovens.
“Master?” I said, plaintively.
But he was busied, his back toward me.
I rose to my feet, miserable, and turned back toward the Thieves’ Way. I had gone only a step or two, when I heard him call, “Zia.”
I turned back.
“Master?” I said.
I saw him cast a roll to the walkway.
It rolled several feet, toward me.
I was muchly elated.
I looked about, quickly, wildly, to the west and east. There was no other slave in sight. The prize was mine! I hurried to the object.
“As what you are, you nicely curved, worthless slut!” he said, smiling.
“Yes, Master,” I said, dropping to all fours, head down.
On all fours, it is easy to remember that one is an animal, and, of course, on all fours, it is clear that one is not to use one’s hands.
We are seldom permitted to forget we are a slave. Masters will have it so.
In a moment, I had reached the gift.
“Not yet,” he said.
