Quarry of gor, p.28
Quarry of Gor, page 28
“I have been betrayed,” she whispered, furiously. “The fee giver has been betrayed! The wretched sleen, the faithless tarsk, Steele, Addison Steele, what a mercenary, irresponsible, greedy scoundrel he is. His orders were clear! He disobeyed! He was to take you to the height of the delta wall and cast you over the wall, to the tharlarion below! And then I find you here! Coins are coins, I suppose! Greed! Irresponsible, stupid, dangerous, petty greed! What did he get for you, five copper tarsks?”
The free woman was well robed and veiled, but there was no mistaking the voice, nor its menace. I had closed my knees and covered my breasts with my hands. I was on my knees before an irate Dorna of Tharna, a free woman beside herself with rage.
“What is going on here?” asked a slaver’s man.
“Nothing,” snapped Dorna. Free women can speak sharply and unpleasantly to free men. They are protected by their freedom, and, one supposes, often, a shared Home Stone.
The slaver’s man turned away, angrily.
I trembled. I felt futile and helpless. I could not cry out to the slaver’s man. I was on my chain, fastened to a ring in the cement. Tears ran down my cheeks.
“Of course, you cannot speak,” she snarled. “Sometimes consciousness is recovered too soon after the fumes. It would not do would it, to have you cry out, being borne away, or scream on the delta wall, before being cast down to tharlarion? What if you were to cry out secrets, or deeds, or mysteries, which are no concern of guardsmen? What if you were found on the delta wall, in the darkness, bound and gagged? Might you not be a stripped free woman? Might not murder be afoot? What was going on? What were you doing there? What if a gag had been removed? What if a collar were checked? What if a guardsman should inquire into matters? Would a report not be made? So you were made silent.”
I looked wildly about.
Most of the patrons had now left the shelf. Seven rings which had formerly been occupied were now empty. Things had apparently gone well for the Lesser Al-ka Market.
“You!” called the Lady Dorna, addressing the nearest slaver’s man, he to whom she had spoken earlier, shortly.
“Lady,” he said, approaching. He did not look anxious to deal with the Lady Dorna.
“This one!” she said.
I shook my head, negatively, piteously, wildly, tears in my eyes, and went to first obeisance position before him.
“Do not be upset,” he said. “Rejoice. You may be sold.”
I trembled before him, head down.
I kept shaking my head, piteously, negatively.
“She seems somewhat less than pleased,” he said to the Lady Dorna. “Are you acquainted with one another?”
“Not at all,” she said. “It is merely that she, as many kajirae, are insufficiently cognizant of the honor and privilege of belonging to a free woman.”
“I should warn you,” he said. “She is a barbarian. That is clear. She has the tiny slave-world brand high on her left arm.”
He was referring to the inoculation scar I had had on my arm since childhood. I had had no cavities, but barbarians may also be recognized, if one knows what to look for, by tiny bits of metal in the teeth. Language and knowledge, accents and information, may also mark a barbarian. There is so much we do not know about the world to which we find ourselves brought as two-legged beasts, cattle of a sort, bipedalian livestock. A dealer can be severely reprimanded if he does not make such sales data clear to a prospective buyer. A dealer’s house can be burned to the ground for as little as not making clear the natural hair color of a slave.
“Then she should be cheap,” said the Lady Dorna.
“Not necessarily,” said the slaver’s man, warily. “Barbarians often sell well. It seems they are starved for sex on their own world. At a master’s feet, owned and mastered, they thrive.”
“What do you want for her?” asked the Lady Dorna.
“I would be amiss,” said the slaver’s man, “were I not to call to your attention a grievous flaw in this item, one of which you may not be informed.”
“I know she cannot speak,” said the Lady Dorna. “What do you want for her?”
The slaver’s man seemed to think for a bit. I do not think he was much pleased with the Lady Dorna.
“Two silver tarsks,” he said.
“Done,” she said.
This response startled the slaver’s man. “But she cannot speak,” he said.
“Done,” she repeated. “Two silver tarsks, in the coinage of Ar.”
“The coinage of Ar is rare in Port Kar,” he said.
“I can access such coinage,” she said.
“She is yours,” he said. “Pay.”
“I do not have the money with me,” she said. “I will fetch it, shortly. Hold her for me.”
“What do you have, to pay on account?” he asked.
“I do not have money with me,” she said. “I will return shortly, money in hand. Hold her for me.”
“She is not yours,” said the slaver’s man, in an accent that suggested some subtle sense of satisfaction.
“I have bought her,” said the Lady Dorna.
“Not without money,” he said.
“I will be back within the Ahn,” she said. “Hold her for me.”
“We do not hold slaves,” he said. His response was firm. This was doubtless a matter of policy, but, I suspected, it was a matter of policy which he was more than content in this case to note and enforce.
“Dolt!” she said, and then spun about, and hurried down the steps to the street.
I watched her disappear down the street.
I pulled at the chain, jerking it against the ring.
There was much here that made me terribly afraid and much which I did not understand. Why would the Lady Dorna, a free woman, want to have an innocent slave cast to tharlarion? Was she angry that I had not revealed secrets to her, that Adraste was the former Lady Julia Leta, scion of a minor banking family, the Claudian Marcelliani, their house on Ar’s Street of Coins? And why was it that the Lady Dorna, if a free woman, was without money? And, interestingly, if she spoke the truth, the funds she had access to were in the coinage of Ar, a city far distant, and inland, from Port Kar. It seemed I owed my life to Addison Steele. Were it not for him I might have recovered consciousness, if at all, only in the cold, disturbed water by the delta wall, thrashing silently, gripped in the teeth of tharlarion. I was sure, from where I had recovered consciousness and how I was dressed, that he had not sold me. Why had he left me where he had, uncollared and clad in garments strange for Gor? Why had he not taken me back to the Golden Chain? Was he in danger, for having spared me? Why had he spared me? I was only a slave. But perhaps I had been spared because I was a slave. Might it not be only that. Gorean men were fond of slaves. They knew what to do with them. They often protected them from free women. What was he doing with the Lady Dorna and the individual who had concealed himself behind the ornate screen in the apartment, presumably the “fee giver”? In what strange, dark plots might Addison Steele be involved? Clearly he was a minion of dark forces. I thought honor could not be much involved in doings so surreptitious, so deceitful, secret, and cruel, dealings perhaps extending far beyond the apprehension and returning to justice of the former Lady Julia Leta, of Ar’s Street of Coins. I feared, and muchly, Addison Steele as a man, and master, but it seemed now I had misjudged him, as well, and grievously; it had never occurred to me that he might be dishonorable or a party to dealings both illicit and shameful. I remembered the pain of the tunic and the terror of the noxious fumes. How fortunate that I had revealed nothing of the secrets I knew! How disappointed I was in him. I had not seen his true self. Now I knew him. I could no longer respect him. Now, in my heart, I reviled him. Yet he had spared me.
Then I realized again, suddenly, the terrible danger in which I stood. I was naked and chained, tethered to a ring on a Gorean slave shelf. I was helpless. I could not escape. The Lady Dorna would shortly return, angry, coins in hand.
“This one,” said a harsh male voice.
I kept my head down, fearing to raise it. Hope flashed within me.
“A barbarian,” said the slaver’s man, “comely, but unable to speak.”
“She cannot speak?” asked the harsh voice.
“No,” said the slaver’s man. “The flaw is grievous. Let me show you others.”
“No,” I thought, “no!”
“Can she see, can she think, can she understand?” asked the man.
“Certainly,” said the slaver’s man.
“What do you want for her?” asked the harsh voice.
“Buy me,” I thought, “buy me!”
“A silver tarsk,” said the slaver’s man.
“Ten copper tarsks,” said the harsh voice.
“Forty,” said the slaver’s man.
“Of what use is a silent slave?” asked the harsh voice.
“Yet you seem interested in her,” said the slaver’s man.
“Ten copper tarsks,” said the harsh voice.
“Twenty,” said the slaver’s man.
“Fifteen,” said the harsh voice.
“Done,” said the slaver’s man.
I let my eye rove to the side. I saw a sturdy leg, booted. And near it, pressed down on the cement, a stout, postlike object, brown, probably of Tur wood, a heavy crutch.
Chapter Twenty-Five
What Occurred in the Apartment
of the One-Legged Man
There were two fierce snaps of metal. I could then barely part my ankles.
“Now,” he said, “you shall not run so lightly and fleetly away.”
He could now easily, as I was shackled, even as handicapped as he was, move far more swiftly than I.
I was afraid to belong to him, as there was something in his carriage and attitude which suggested cruelty and violence, purpose and menace. Too, I had sensed how men had feared him in Brundisium. He, though handicapped, had not even been attacked for that next silver stater, a valuable coin, due upon the delivery of a certain slave. Despite my uneasiness, my trepidation, and such, I was muchly pleased that I had been purchased, even by such a man, before the return of the seemingly murderously intent Dorna of Tharna. I had no desire to be cast to tharlarion.
I hoped to please him.
I had little doubt that failure to do so might mean my life.
I touched the tunic I wore, nodded, and smiled. I was grateful to have been clothed, as slaves need not be clothed. He had not even made me, by days or weeks of service, prove my worthiness to be accorded a garment, small and shameful as it might be. Yet, interestingly, it was generous for a Gorean slave tunic. It was high at the neck and, if I stood, it would fall almost to my knees.
He seemed to sense my gratitude, and, perhaps, my puzzlement.
“On the walkways and streets,” he said, “I do not want too many fellows turning about when you pass. Nor do I wish to be detained by officious free women who would choose to berate me should a tunic seem a bit too light or too short for their taste. I wish you to be no more conspicuous than is compatible with my designs.”
I pointed to my shackles, fastening my ankles so closely together. How, so shackled, could one accompany a master on the walkways or streets? One could hobble at best, even if one could gain one’s feet.
“Abroad,” he said, “you will not be shackled, but leashed and braceleted.”
I sat at his feet. I lifted my fingers to my collar.
“It reads,” he said, “‘I am owned by Bruno of Torcadino’.”
I did not think ‘Bruno of Torcadino’ was his real name or his customary name, but I would use it to refer to him. I knew no better name for him than that.
“You are curious as to why you were purchased?” he said.
I went to my knees before him and nodded.
“You would wish to ask permission to speak,” he said, “and I would allow you to do so, that you might ask questions, and such, but you cannot speak. Therefore, I will talk to you, a little, that I may find more profit in your possession than otherwise. I will get more good from you if you know certain things, and other things you need not know. First, you know me from Brundisium, do you not?”
I nodded, affirmatively.
“You are a barbarian,” he said.
I nodded, “Yes.”
“You know your collar, I trust,” he said.
I nodded, “Yes.”
I had, by now, well learned it.
“Good,” he said. “Sometimes it takes days before a barbarian learns her collar. Some are stupid, and others, given the seriousness with which they might take the pathological indoctrinations of their world, so inimical to biology, feel obliged to resist, until they learn their true needs, what they most deeply crave and desire, what they cannot be women without. Then comes the collapse of walls and artifices. Then comes the weepings and cryings out, the tears of abject surrender and gladness. The most intelligent and vital are the first to come to their knees and press their lips gratefully to the feet of masters.”
I thought of the radical sexual dimorphism of the human species, and the complementarities of nature.
“How foolish it would be to be ashamed of one’s needs and desires,” I thought. “It would be to be ashamed of oneself.”
“You are unusually well-figured, and exquisitely featured,” he said. “That would be more than enough for one to buy you. If you could speak, you would, I wager, have been taken off your ring before noon, perhaps on the first day you were offered. I do not know why you cannot speak, but I do not think that lack will much diminish your utility to my plans.”
I did not, of course, know what his plans were, other than, I supposed, the attempted acquisition of Adraste, the beautiful former Lady Julia Leta, of Ar.
“I seek the slave, Luta,” he said, “now named ‘Adraste’, once the noble, esteemed Lady Felitia Thaliana, of Besnit, she whom I have long sought, she whom I have followed even from the World’s End. I seek to find her to free her, to return her to the glorious station of the free citizeness. I wish to return her to her family, one incidentally of wealth and standing, that she be returned to the bosom of loved ones and sheltered within the protection of her Home Stone. What is wrong?”
Much I feared was wrong, but I struggled to maintain an attitude of attention and absorbing, unqualified credulity. I sensed that my life was now in much greater danger than I had hitherto suspected. Someone, clearly, was lying or drastically misinformed. I also sensed then why I, a barbarian, might have been chosen to figure in plans about which I knew nothing. A Gorean girl, informed and perceptive, alert and wary, might have soon penetrated such machinations. Who was this supposed Lady Felitia Thaliana, of Besnit? Did she exist? What of the Lady Julia Leta, of Ar? I was sure she existed, both from my interview in the alcove, when I was hooded, and from Adraste herself. In the kitchen, she had literally admitted, however reluctantly, that she was herself the Lady Julia Leta of Ar. For what more could one ask? Clearly Bruno of Torcadino did not want me to know that he was actually in search of the Lady Julia Leta of Ar. And, too, doubtless to enlist my aid, counting on the naivety of a barbarian, he was pretending to search for his quarry to free her and return her to station and family, perhaps even wealth. At one time I might have believed that, but I had learned in Brundisium, and after that, from a thousand other asides and remarks, in the tavern and elsewhere, that Gorean society did not easily ignore the shame and dishonor which would inevitably accrue to a family’s name and reputation should it be discovered that a daughter, sister, niece, or such, had been collared. The humiliating stain of slavery was not to be endured. Normally she would be kept as a slave, either in the family’s house, or estates, or, more likely, sold out of the city. At best, if freed, she would be sequestered in the house, kept from public view that her shame not be broadcast.
“I have enemies, and am known to some,” he said. “And it was desirable to keep secret the true identity of the slave, Luta, lest ambitious felons obtain her and not free her, but use her to extort riches from her family, threatening to otherwise make her shame publicly known. So, as you will understand, it was impractical that I, in the auction at the house of Anesidemus, should openly bid upon, or buy, Luta, even through an agent. Rather I arranged, through a brigand, Decius of Venna, to steal Luta after her purchase.”
“So,” I thought, “the name of the man with the scar is ‘Decius of Venna’. I recalled that I had been asked about this name during my interview in the alcove, when I had been hooded and chained. At that time it had meant nothing to me.
“I am no longer associated with Decius of Venna,” he said.
I did not doubt that.
“But,” continued Bruno of Torcadino, “matters moved more quickly than we had anticipated. Recall the night of the great dock fire. It was arranged, given the several Ahn of the dock fire, and its ferocity, and the imminent evacuation of the slaves from the house of Anesidemus, that a particular sheet, covertly marked, would identify Luta, now named ‘Adraste’, the former Lady Felitia Thaliana, of Besnit.”
I nodded.
“Sheets were exchanged, or confused,” he said. “You were brought to me, rather than Adraste.”
I nodded, again.
“It seemed that all my work, the planning and expense, and all my anxiety and suffering, and all my hopes and dreams of rescuing the former Lady Felitia Thaliana of Besnit and returning her to her waiting and loving family, had gone for naught. Adraste, as we may call her, had slipped away. You are doubtless distressed and sympathetic, but, frightened, and uncertain; you manage well to conceal your feelings.”
Bruno of Torcadino then hesitated, and looked to the side, as though troubled, recalling a difficult period in his life.
“Days passed,” he said. “I made inquiries. I attended to rumors. I was in despair. And then something occurred to me. What if it had not been a coincidence, as I had hitherto supposed, that you had been substituted for Adraste? What if it had been deliberate? What if there were some connection between you and Adraste, a connection that even you did not suspect? What if you were a barbarian, which it turned out you were, as I discovered, and were an unwitting tool, one useful to my enemies, a tool chosen for its naivety and ignorance, a tool which might be useful to them again and again, in a thousand ways, surveillance, spying, reporting, you a slave close to Adraste, and those about her, or interested in her, and so on? Not even Adraste would suspect you, a barbarian. And would not one barbarian be better for such purposes than a dozen barbarians, in turn, could they be obtained, which anomaly might attract unwanted attention? I did then, and shortly, learn you were indeed a barbarian, and then that you had been shipped to Port Kar, to be a paga girl in a tavern called the Golden Chain. Slender as was this reed of possibility, I took ship to Port Kar. Perhaps you can conceive of my delight when I, having followed you, learned that the elusive Adraste served in the same tavern. You led me to her, and you, in one way or another, will do it again. I see you are afraid. Do not be afraid. Surely you wish the beautiful Adraste to be returned to the happiness and security of her loved ones in Besnit? Do not fear. I do not ask you to recognize Adraste for me. I know her quite well, even from long ago in Besnit. Indeed, we are dear friends. All you need do is to glimpse her, apprising me of this fact, or report to me information or conjectures as to her whereabouts. Indeed, you might even be contacted by her captors, which incident might provide us with an invaluable clue, eventually leading to her rescue. Do you understand all this, kajira?”
