Companions of Gor: Chapter Twelve

 

 

I lurked around the corner, anxiously, waiting for Mikos to create a distraction that would give me time to reach the staircase unobserved.

 

To be honest I hadn’t see any need for us to sneak around like this. “I have a better idea,” I had said to him earlier that evening when he had outlined his plan to me.

 

“Oh?” he replied. His hands had reached under the short skirt of my slave tunic, which was very distracting. How was I supposed to think clearly when he did that?

 

“Stop that. This is serious. I have something to say.” 

 

He withdrew his hand and allowed me to settle down from being flustered. “I suppose I should permit you to speak then, Cassie.”

 

“My idea is this – you simply return me to my estate and I come back here with armed men. We can then make far more efficient investigations at the point of some sharp swords.”

 

“I would rather we didn’t take that approach,” Mikos said. “This could all be a gross misunderstanding, and as I know at least one of the people concerned, and I like the café, I would rather you didn’t have your men butcher everyone. I mean to come here again as the food is first rate.”

 

“I’m not a psychopath.”

 

“I would hope not, but you are likely to take a rather hard line with the questioning.”

 

“Of course. Particularly with that monster of a woman. The questioning will begin with her hanging upside down, naked, from a hook, tied by her ankles. There will then be a degree of whipping involved.”

 

“Yes, well, let’s give her the benefit of the doubt for the moment.”

 

“You know her, don’t you? That bitch whipped me! You can’t be friends with both her AND me!”

 

“I’m hoping it’s all a misunderstanding and we can rectify matters without bloodshed. She’s not as bad as you might think. She’s a woman on Gor. She has to be strong to survive. I know this is a rough area, but even so, you can’t go around slaughtering people in a café.”

 

“That’s very naïve of you, Mikos,” I said with a shrug. “It’s the sort of thing my family does from time to time.”

 

“Well, not today.” 

 

 

 

And so instead I waited behind the door, waiting for Mikos to call the attention of the kajirae (an easy thing to do) and offer to buy a round of drinks for Bartok and the Lady Taspina (again, easy enough). He would position himself so that from where he stood, anyone looking at him would not have a view of the staircase, nor the door to the yard. I would have ten ihn or so to slip quickly past.

 

“And what do I say if I’m caught upstairs?” I had asked.

 

“Say nothing, simply scream. I’ll come to your assistance. I’ll probably have to take a hard line with you for straying where you shouldn’t be, and I may have to whip your thighs, but that will be an end to it.”

 

“Oh, I’m so relieved that you will be able to sort things out by merely whipping my thighs in order to rescue me from this stupid plan!” 

 

“The blows will be light.”

 

I huffed and turned away from him with my arms folded. 

 

I only had to wait a couple of ehn before Mikos attracted the attention of the men and women in the room. I ran from my hiding place across the small stretch of floor that lay between the yard door and the wooden staircase. Within a few ihn I was climbing the steps, taking care not to move too quickly for fear of the wood creaking. But I reached the landing upstairs with no problem. Once there I took in the sight of the two doors and moved towards the one that led to my bedroom from the night before. The door opened easily enough and so I stepped inside. It was just as remembered it, with the great bed, the various chains, whips and gags hanging from hooks, the large alcove space with a couch for chaining slaves, the wall space wardrobe and the tapestry. There was also the mirror against one wall. I stopped beside the mirror and regarded my reflection fully for the first time since I had found myself in the stables. Mikos had provided a small hand mirror there while I did my makeup, but now I could see myself in full view. My reflection was breath-taking. There was no mistaking the fact that my reflection was clearly that of a pleasure slave in red silk. No mistaking that whatsoever. 

 

“I would whip you from my estate, girl,” I said to myself as I ran my hands down the sheer silk that the girl in the mirror wore. “Look at you!” I touched my collar and felt the steel ring hanging from the front. And my hair! I turned to the left and then the right. The slave flame cut was unmistakable. Everything about me now screamed slave. I paced about to and from the mirror, remembering that Mikos had said I walked differently now, and I suppose I did. There was a subtle sway to my hips and my bottom was more pronounced as I walked. I shook my head angrily. I would correct that once I was back in my robes and veils. 

 

I turned my attention instead to the slave alcove and began examining the dark interior for any sign of a false door, secret panel or hidden switch, but found nothing. But as I did so I heard a click from the other side of the room. The tapestry was moving! I ducked to the side of the alcove opening and crouched down as I saw one side of the tapestry lift to reveal an open passageway behind it. A figure stepped out, and I saw clearly that it was the monstrous woman who had so intimidated me the night before. So there was a secret passage in this room, and it was located behind the tapestry. A couple of ehn earlier and she would have seen me pacing about the room! 

 

I watched from my hiding place as she brushed the tapestry back in place and walked towards the far door, paying no particular attention to the deep alcove. 

 

I’d like to see you hanging from your ankles, I thought to myself. I’d have the strongest man on my estate whipping you. I heard the woman go out onto the landing and presumably stop there as I heard no further footsteps or creaking of timbers. I was surprisingly calm now. Perhaps it was my blood, my heritage, my lineage, or perhaps it was a conviction that Mikos meant what he said, and he would be watching out for me. Yes, the woman was strong, but Mikos was a man. 

 

I left the safety of the darkened alcove and walked towards the door where I pressed my ear to the wood. I heard nothing, but some feminine instinct told me the woman was still on the landing, waiting. I just knew she was. I could feel her presence lurking there like some dark shadow.

 

I moved to the tapestry and brushed it open, revealing a hidden doorway that was now open. There was a flight of stairs leading down into what felt like a basement, as the temperature was different. 

 

I am not a kajira.

 

A kajira would be scared to descend into the unknown, but I am affiliated to the warriors. 

 

I took the steps carefully, holding onto the side wall with the palm of my left hand as I went to investigate.

 

Tacitus of Ar says that ‘knowledge is born of risk’ and that there is 'a price to be paid for intelligence on the enemy'.

 

I felt like I had descended past the ground floor and was venturing deeper now into the basement level of the building. I recalled seeing a set of steps in the kitchen leading down, and guessed this was another access point. It was indeed a cellar, and immediately I could tell it saw frequent use. One side of the cellar contained the usual crates and boxes you might expect of an underground storage area belonging to a business establishment, but the other side of the space was clear and beyond it was a stone framed passage that led off into the darkness. A hooded lamp rested on a pedestal close to the opening. If the woman had come through from the passageway, she had used that lamp to light her way.

 

Never mind the lamp. Find a weapon.

 

I picked up what seemed to be a pick axe handle and I hefted it in my right hand. It felt heavy, solid and would make an excellent weapon. Now I was armed. Let men beware. I picked up the lamp with my left hand and ventured deep into the tunnel.

 

I fully expected the passage to lead to another room, possibly a basement under an adjoining building and was therefore surprised when it turned a corner and proceeded for some length before it came to a sewer tunnel. There was shallow water in the curved floor below, but a flat ledge above the water conduit ran along the side, wide enough for a man or woman to walk along. The smell wasn’t too bad, and I think this is down to the high quality of the sewage system underneath Vonda. Water sluices keep up a steady flow ensuring stagnant water with all its accumulated filth doesn’t settle. I was pleased to witness the good condition of the tunnels and the waterways. Only last year I had contributed money to a city wide project to repair the sluice gates leading to the river after Vonda had suffered an interminable summer of blocked drains that made the central market unbearable on really hot days. It was heart-warming to see the effect my sizeable donation had made. Apparently in one of the tunnels there is a brass plaque thanking Lady Cassandra Assante and other significant donors. I wasn’t going to go looking for it of course. 

 

The ledge only seemed to head in one direction and so I followed it, hugging the wall closely as I made my way with the lamp held before me.

 

It occurred to me that if that monstrous woman returned to the basement, she would find her lamp missing, and suspect someone was down here but I had to hope she had come up to the café for a reason and would remain there a while. And if not, I had a stout piece of wood in my hand. I knew where to strike on her body, and I would do so from hiding. The bitch wouldn’t be quite so mouthy with a broken knee cap.

 

The sewer wall seemed to curve gently and then it straightened out again. I had no idea where I was in the city. At regular intervals there were round hatches above my head which I presumed were drain covers. Small holes in the covers allowed a little starlight through. I didn’t think I could reach any of the covers without something to stand on, but that wasn’t a concern right now. I felt sure that wherever I ended up, there would be another accessible stair case.

 

I paced further on, speculating just how far this tunnel system was going to stretch. Occasionally I saw a number of urts that scurried away at the first sign of my lamp. They were filthy rodents, and dangerous when gathered in large packs, but the professional urt catchers of Vonda put down poison regularly to control their numbers. Vonda is proud to be a very clean city. 

 

Eventually my journey took me to another flight of steps, these ones stone in construction. I followed the steps up until I came to a large door. Guessing this wouldn’t be locked, as the woman would need to return at some point, I turned the handle and found myself in a damp chamber with stone walls and a rusted metal grille to one side. The grille led into a series of miserable cells that would be freezing cold to live in. I shivered and passed by, noting that the cells hadn’t seemed to be in use for a long time. The basement had an overpowering smell of mould and rising damp, and I could hear the sound of dripping water. Further ahead, the chamber branched off to another set of steps that took me to a higher level above the first one, though still underground. Here there were more cells with iron barred grilles in place. These were not quite as miserable looking as the ones on the lowest level, but still repugnant by my standards. I began to feel uneasy about this. A large number of cells in an underground area with multiple levels tended to suggest I was now in the basement levels of some sort of slaver house. Slaves compete to be penned in the upper levels of such a house, as life in the lower levels is horrible and beyond anything you may comprehend. I could see precisely why that was as I turned my lamp in various directions. But if it was a slaver house, the lower levels had been mothballed some years ago. Either the slaver house wasn’t doing very well these days, or they had considered the basements to be unhealthy and detrimental to the quality of their stock. 

 

Were I penned down here, I would certainly be begging to be moved upstairs in a matter of a few ahn. In the pitch darkness, in the bitter cold, with rough stone flagstones to lie on, and urts scuttling around… even I, Cassandra Assante, would have her will broken quickly enough. They would find me pressed against the iron bars, reaching out my wrists towards the men, pleading to be moved, promising anything in order to be moved to a better cell.

 

I am being honest here. You would feel that way too. Deny it if you will, but you haven’t seen what I saw in that deep basement. 

 

I shivered, imagining what it might be like to wake in one of those things with an iron kennel collar around your neck. It didn’t bear thinking about. 

 

There was another flight of steps, and after I took that staircase, I was surprised to find I was STILL underground. Either the sewer tunnels had gently sloped downwards during the time I had walked the ledge, or I was now in a part of the city where the ground was higher than the district with the café. Here I found more cells, but the all-pervading smell of damp and mould was barely a lingering trace from deep below. There was however still the smell of corroded iron, straw and stale urine. These too were cells, though not as horrifying as the ones I had already encountered. I saw kennel pens now with occasional girls in them. The girls stared at me in disbelief as they saw me walk freely around with a lamp in my left hand. Only one in five kennels was occupied, but I knew if I ventured further, the occupancy rate would increase. As is often the case, the kennels were high enough to permit a girl to kneel with her back straight, but not high enough that she might stand. Although each kennel had a large door, set inside the barred door was a smaller hatch like opening through which a girl was typically made to crawl into the kennel. The full size door was imply there to enable men to access the interior easily if they wishes. By forcing a girl to crawl rather than make a more dignified entrance, she is conditioned to see herself as different from free women.

 

I had gone far enough. I would be insane to go any further. I saw a girl press her face to the iron bars, reach hands through the spaces and cry out to me.

 

“My name is Miss Julia Cranston of Boston,” she cried. I understood enough of her barbarian tongue to recognise the words, if not all of their meanings. “Please, I woke up here three days ago! Please help me!”

 

I turned away, not wishing to involve myself. She was beyond my help, as were the others. They were slaves now. Some of them understood it, while some still clung to a vain hope that they would be freed. 

 

This had now become dangerous. I would retrace my steps and speak to Mikos. I had no idea whether the passage between my bedroom and this slaver house meant anything, but answers could come through a more conventional route. Mikos might be reluctant to allow me to deploy armed men, but even he, now, would understand that further exploration was reckless in the extreme.  

 

And then I heard the echoing voices. Two of the voices were women, but it was not the whimpering cries of slaves in despair that I heard, but rather commanding voices of dominant women. And they were talking to a man who answered back, and that man was, I think, Simon. 

 

I stood there for a moment, lowering my lamp from my face, for the slaves close by (there were three of them in tight narrow kennels with but a blanket each) were staring at me in an anxious manner. I tried to focus on the voices but the words were muted. I could however tell that they came from a side passage, to my left.

 

I considered my options for the moment. Venturing further was insane. But I had followed the breadcrumb trail to find Simon. Was I really going to leave, after having come so far, when answers were close to hand?

 

What would my brother do now? He would advance, sword in hand, fearless as an Assante should. He would be bold and would never falter. 

 

But then on reflection, my brother does get captured quite a lot. He can be quite stupid at times. He’s not necessarily a good role model.

 

I would come back later with professional armed men. I was a pragmatist, unlike my brother. My brother after all had once got himself captured by panther girls. Simon was a man. He could endure in the meantime.

 

I passed by the kennel containing the girl, Miss Julia Cranston of Boston, who presumably pleaded with me again, promising to behave, promising to do as she was told, if only I would send a guard to her.

 

“I will let him kiss me,” she cried. “I am pretty. I know he wants to. I will kiss him if he will just let me out of here. I promise to do whatever he says.”

 

“Be quiet,” I said as I paused at the cage bars. “Do you understand who you are? What you are, rather?”

 

“I am Miss Julia Cranston of….”

 

“You are a slave girl. You have a brand on your thigh. Men have registered papers of slavery for you. You probably don’t even have your own name any more.”

 

I left her there, crying. She had to know at some point. It was better that she didn’t cling to some vain hope. 

 

I had taken possibly seven more steps when a loud scream echoed from the side passage. Something had made Simon scream – I recognised his voice, if not necessarily the reason for the terror. The scream was followed by female voices, and again I wasn’t able to make out the actual words. Could I leave him there? Could I really do so and still call myself an Assante? He was my free companion.

 

I think I love him.

 

I don’t know. The last day and night has left me confused. Mikos is in my thoughts too much. I hate him, of course! The things he did to me! The things he made me do! But he is devilishly handsome, and that charming smile of his when he inspected me in nadu. I felt frustrated thinking about him. All he really cares for are his slave sluts. He sees me as an amusing diversion, nothing more. And yet… I feel a warmth when I remember that long night and day, lying in the straw, and Mikos thrusting my tight thighs apart. 

 

Is it possible for a free woman to find such pleasure with a man? Truly?

 

I had been taught by my mother that I wouldn’t enjoy sex, that true females did not enjoy sex, but rather endured it for the good of their man, and to produce children. I had been told it was my duty in companionship to open my legs and allow my man to put me to use. That I was expected to give him children, which I wanted anyway, and to then care for them. There was never any mention of my pleasure. It wouldn’t exist. And yet, I now knew I was capable of pleasure, and the possibility scared me. 

 

I had to assume that other free women were capable of feeling similar things, because the alternative, if they didn’t, was too horrifying to even consider. If free women weren’t capable of feeling what I had felt, then that left only one other kind of woman who could. 

 

And I was NOT a natural slave. 

 

I think that is obvious enough.

 

But Simon had screamed. I had to choose now. The honourable thing would be to locate Simon and help him, no matter the risk to myself. Could I live with myself if I did not risk everything to go to the aid of my man now?

Actually, yes. I think I could. Tacitus of Ar once wrote, ‘there is no place for sentimentality in war. The victorious General is the man who plans for long term victory, not short term success.’ The risk in acting now vastly outweighed the probability of success if I returned with armed men. 

 

I looked about the cages with the iron bars. This is where slaves belonged. Where natural slaves belonged, once they were identified by slavers. I suppose all these women had once been free, had once thought of themselves as free. Perhaps some of them had suspected the truth about themselves, and in secret had dreamed of a master and a collar without really understanding the concepts. Yes, they belonged in cages. 

 

“You’re all slaves,” I said to them. “Men know that, and I think you know that now.” 

 

There was more crying. I think the women were all new to their collars, new to their brands. They would learn. Men would ensure that. It was time to go. 

 

“You are a slave, too.”

 

I turned to the sound of the voice. A woman crouched in a kennel to the right of me. She was lithe, sweetly hipped, with long, dark hair, longer than my flame cut. Unlike the other girls, she wasn’t crying.

 

“I am not a slave,” I said. I held the pick axe handle for her to see.

 

“You wear a slave collar,” she said.

 

“A slave collar can be locked about the throat of any woman.”

 

“That is true,” said the dark haired slave. “And what does that then make her?”

 

“I have not been branded.”

 

“Yet,” said the girl with the curl of a smile on her lips. “There are men in this house who correct such things professionally and quickly. What is your name?”

 

“Cassie.” I had no desire for her to know my true name. “What is yours?”

 

“The men call me Lisivia. It was my former name too when I was a free woman.”

 

I smiled. “You are not crying like the others.”

 

“No. I am somewhat more fatalistic than them, and I understand the nature of what has happened to me. I am a slave. I will be trained to serve men.” She smiled again. “As will you, I suspect.”

 

“I am not in a kennel, with a brand on my thigh.”

 

“Yet,” she said. “Why do you pace about these chambers? Crawl into a kennel and close the door behind yourself and wait for a man to attend to you.”

 

“Why would I want to do that?”

 

“Because it is in your nature. It is what you secretly yearn for.”

 

“You know nothing about me. You have no idea what I want.”

 

“We are the same sex, Cassie. You cannot hide your feelings from me. We share the same biology and natural genetics. You are too pretty to be free, Cassie,” she said. “Men will come to the same conclusion. It is a matter of simple inevitability. You cannot outrun your hidden fantasies, your need to submit, no matter how far your feet may carry you. Run and hide, but know a white hot brand stands ready for you wherever you turn.”

 

Perhaps she thought she was capable of provoking an angry hysterical response from me. If so, she was sorely mistaken. Tacitus of Ar once wrote, ‘a general cannot allow himself the luxury of anger, for anger distracts him from his correct course of action’. I would remain focussed. 

 

“What is this house?” I asked.

 

“The House of Andronicus. Women become slaves here.”

 

I knew of it. It was a famous slaver house within Vonda. Many slaves pass through its doors. I now knew roughly where, within the sprawling geography of Vonda, I was. I guessed that on the street above, it would take me fifteen ehn to reach the café, as it would prove impossible to travel in a straight line the way I had more or less done underground. I would retrace my steps now, inform Mikos of what I had discovered, and make arrangements to return with warriors of the Serpent Banner at my side.

 

“How many levels are there above this one?”

 

“Two. The one closest to the surface is reasonably comfortable. Women are taken up there when they have learned to be pleasing.”

 

The vulnerable point of access to the house would of course be the secret passageway through the tunnels from the café. But I would simultaneously create a diversion at the front of the slaver house. I would also, the day before, bribe various city guards officers to ensure that their patrolmen were busy at another city quarter at the time of my attack. I would not wish to have to cross swords with the guardsmen of Vonda. Many of them are good men, simply doing their duty to keep women and respectable business men safe. The lower tunnels would be easy to secure and hold with a surprise assault. I knew just the men to use to secure passageways. They were brutes, savage in battle, capable of wielding short swords, and they would cleave heads from necks if any slaver tried to retake these chambers. 

 

I stood there with my left hand resting on my silk clad hip, considering options. 

 

“Are you white silk?” asked the slave girl.

 

“I don’t see it’s any of your business.”

 

“You aren’t white silk,” she said after a while. “I can see that now. It’s obvious from the way you stand and move. You have known what it is to be used by a man, and used fully.”

 

Yes, she was trying to provoke me. I didn’t need to listen to any of this. I had seen and heard what I needed. It was time to go.

 

“Have you come to terms yet with the way you feel when your wrists are tied to the slave ring?” she asked, as I turned to leave. I paused for a moment, again, and regarded her. She smiled, sensing she had been right. “I can see the vivid marks on your wrists. It felt good, didn’t it? Exciting? Your muscles were tense, you were helpless, and the more your struggled, the better it felt? Did those feelings scare you?”

 

“Yes.” I said softly. “They did.”

 

“Of course they did.” The girl moved slightly inside her kennel. “I felt the same way at first. But you were wildly excited.” It was a statement, not a question. I nodded in reply. “You can talk to me, Cassie. The way you can’t talk to anyone else. We are the same, you and I. You can ask me things you dare not speak of to anyone else.”

 

“We are not the same.” I gazed down at her in her kennel.  

 

“What do you want to know, Cassie? Tell me? I can help.”

 

“Are you a natural slave?” I asked her.

 

She smiled. “Yes, I think I am.”

 

“How do you know?”

She knelt down very close to the kennel bars now and motioned for me to come closer, which I did. “Because of the way I felt when I was tied to a slave ring. That feeling, like a tidal wave, that swept through my body. You know the feeling?”

 

I nodded. 

 

“And there was the need to struggle, not because I thought I might free myself. That was a foolish notion. You knew you couldn’t free yourself, didn’t you, Cassie?”

“Yes,” I said, softly, for it was the truth.

 

“No, we are woman, we cannot free ourselves from a man’s capture knots. But we struggled, Cassie, because it felt so good. Tell me how good it felt?”

 

“Very good,” I said, quietly. 

 

“What is the name of your Master?”

 

“I don’t have a Master,” I said.

 

“Every woman has a natural Master. She knows his name but dares not speak it. She knows it when she tries to look into his eyes. The man may not even know he is the girl’s natural Master, of course, and the girl dares not tell him, but he is her Master nonetheless.” She reached her left hand through the bars and I met her finger tips with mine. “We are both women who know the truth about ourselves, Cassie. Speak your truth to me. Who is your Master?”

 

“I have no Master.” I stood up. “I have nothing to learn from you or any girl. And I have wasted too much time here.”

 

“Yes, Cassie, you have.”

 

Something in her voice made me turn quickly, but not quickly enough. Hands suddenly grasped my arms from behind. I screamed and tried to raise the pick axe handle, but it was taken from my grip and I was thrown suddenly to the floor. There were men here now, guardsmen employed by the House of Andronicus, doing their rounds. I tried to rise but I was slapped back down to the flagstone floor. 

 

“Bind her, Master,” said Lisivia. “She is an escaped runaway from the upper levels, I think” There was commotion now from all the other girls in their kennel pens, hissing and slapping their open palms against the iron bars in their cells. They were delighted to see the escaped pleasure slave seized by men. 

 

I screamed as my wrists were drawn behind my back and bound in tight binding fibre.

 

“Welcome home, Cassie,” said Lisivia, softly as she clutched the iron bars of her kennel. “Welcome home.”