Slaver of Gor - Chapter Eleven

 

 

It had rained heavily last night and so our wagons were bogged down in thick, cloying, mud as we began to break camp. I watched from the mouth of my tent as several burly men strained to free the heavy wheels at the back as the draft tharlarion was goaded to pull forward with all its strength.

 

I drank some hot black wine and watched the rain continue to beat its steady rhythm on the tent tarpaulin. 

 

It was the fourth day after having found the Army of Argentum and joined its baggage train, and I felt free at last. For the time being I was well away from the talons and claws of the masked women of the concilio. Their reach didn’t extend very far outside of the main gates of the city, and whatever they thought of my true motives for leaving, I had a cast iron reason for doing so. 

 

Of course I was only delaying the inevitable, but given time I now felt confident I could summon or charm allies into helping me. Men in particular tended to like me. I would make it my mission now to embark on a charm offensive with powerful and influential men. 

 

“Mistress looks happy,” said Beth as she joined me to stand at the mouth of the tent. 

 

“Mistress is very happy, you wonderful slave,” I said as I stroked her hair. “This was an inspired idea of yours.”

 

“I’m happy that mistress thinks so,” she said. I wore flat slippers this morning, and so Beth looked down at me with her height advantage, which is always an unsettling experience for a dominant woman. “You’ve been sleeping well. That’s a very good sign.”

 

“I’ve been sleeping wonderfully! Such vivid dreams and such deep sleep. It’s a clear sign that my stress and anxiety is fading away.”

 

“Mistress has plenty of time now to prepare her defence.” Beth gazed out as the wagon finally lurched free from the mud with a deep sucking sound. 

 

Beth shared my tent each night, curled up at the foot of my wooden frame bed, while Julian slept under the wagon, chained to one of the wheel spokes. I hadn’t yet put Julian to use since we had left the city, because I feared being overheard by men in the camp. Tents are thin, with little in the way of sound proofing. 

 

“Has Julian been fed?” I asked Beth.

 

“He has been, Mistress, and he is up and helping out in the camp.”

 

During the day Julian was permitted a good degree of freedom, though I kept him in ankle chains that permitted walking but not running. He was in the middle of a baggage train, but slavers are renowned for their cautious approach. 

 

The army was camped 180 pasangs south-east of Argentum, with one flank secured by the Issus river. I say camp, but in actual fact it was multiple camps. Three cohorts of regular Argentum infantry formed the main camp, and it was near them that I hitched my wagon and tents. Blucher of Tarnburg maintained his own camp for the men of the free companies, and a third, much smaller camp, was set out for our tarn scouts. And as if that wasn’t enough, we had been joined yesterday by a troop of eighty tharlarion cavalry who insisted on pitching separately from the infantry. Infantry and cavalry don’t really mix on a social level, though when it comes to battle they will of course risk their lives for one another as they share a Home Stone. 

 

To die for your Home Stone is a noble way to die. ‘Death before shame to your Home Stone’, warriors often say. 

 

I had travelled with three wagons in all. One was obviously mine, one belonged to the slaver, Tywin, who had chosen to accompany me, and the third was a large girl wagon with a central bar running through the middle of the flat bed, to which kajirae might be shackled, that we shared between us. All told, we were equipped to carry forty girls between the wagons, with twenty four of them secured to the large flat bed. 

 

I was looking forward to the work of acquiring and assessing new stock. Of course we weren’t the only slavers forming part of the baggage train. I had already seen representatives of three other slaver houses, and I knew that competition would be fierce for the best girls. I of course had the advantage of being a free woman in an army camp, and I took the time to flirt a little innocently with some of the officers, handing out my business cards and reminding them to bring me any slaves they captured for first appraisal. All female slavers use their womanly wiles to gain an advantage in business, and I suppose the same is true of other castes. 

 

Three men of my house accompanied the wagons. They were tasked with providing security for our slaves and dealing with any heavy manual tasks that might be required. I could see them now laying down long planks of wood between my tent and my wagon so that when the time came, I could hurry to the waterproof covering of the wagon without setting my precious slippers in the thick, cloying mud that had been churned up over the last twenty four hours since the rain began. I gazed down at my slippers. They were so pretty. Sadly they were also totally inappropriate now. Never mind, the wagon had some boots that were sized for me, and I would change into those as soon as I was onboard.

 

When the time came for me to leave the tent, so that it could be dismantled and stowed away, I hurried out along the wide planks, squealing as I swayed precariously, for the planks were laid on uneven ground and once or twice they moved as I fast walked towards the waiting wagon. Luckily, Beth was there by my side to steady me. She was barefoot, so had no shoes to spoil. 

 

 

 

Tywin Diamandis is a family member of the House of Diamandis to which I am affiliated as one of their principle slavers. Tywin took an interest in my work some time ago and acted as a mentor of sorts which assisted me in my career. When it became clear he had some feelings for me, I confess I took advantage of them and flirted a little, in an acceptable fashion of course. Such things as blushing prettily when he complimented me, gazing at him in a shy manner, and laughing at his jokes. Recently he has begun to court me in an obvious fashion, escorting me in the evenings, sometimes on the pretext of discussing work with me. I have at all times walked a careful line between being pleasing and receptive, without committing to his advances. 

 

I don’t know how long I can maintain that careful balance. Like Bryssius, he is beginning to be more persistent in the things he suggests. He sees me, and I should be flattered, I suppose, as a suitable woman for companionship. We share the same caste, and he understands the trade-off whereby I gain in status and he gains a pretty companion.

 

Oh yes, he knows I am pretty. He has seen me unveiled. He has, not unreasonably, as he mentors me, asked me frequently to lower my veils as we discuss matters pertaining to the slaver house. He says this makes communication more open and instinctive, but I see his eyes watching me and I can sense he likes what he sees. 

 

I would make a good companion for him, as we share the same caste and I am able to conduct his personal affairs as well as his business affairs. And I would look good on his arm. He would bask in the accomplishment of having Amicia Katares submissive to him in a formal relationship. 

 

It is worth stating that, aside from some introductions to various army officers, I did not venture out into the military camp. The cohort encampment contained one and a half thousand men who would be living without the benefit of women for some considerable time. Yes, there were camp kajirae, but they were carefully rationed and available only by lots in the evening. We had, I suppose, one kajira for every forty warriors, but when you took into account the various men who accompanied the army to assist with non-military matters, that number rose to one kajira for every sixty men. 

 

Many of these men would either have a kajira back in Argentum, or if not, they would be in the habit of visiting paga taverns. The testosterone levels were high and a woman would be insane to show herself outside the safety of her own palisade compound. Occasionally, when I walked close to the fences that segregated our area – poles hammered into the ground with razor sharp tarn wire threaded between them – I saw men staring at me, hungrily it seemed. They would call out, offering me wine if I would perhaps sit with them for a while. Some men offered coins, thinking I might be a prostitute. With such a scarcity of women at hand, men will offer high prices for an evening of use. 

 

It was not unheard of for women to be seized and taken from the villages and settlements that we passed. Sometimes these women would be released in the morning to gather their torn garments and run crying back to their families, and sometimes, if they were very pretty, too pretty to go free, they would be kept as camp whores, passed around with the paga. They were not slaves, they were still free women, but they were put to use as if they might be slaves.

 

Officers tried to discourage such kidnapping as we travelled through territory that recognised the authority of the walls of Argentum, but the further we travelled, the less likely that was. There is always neutral ground between city states, where the settlements are simply too far from any city walls to be worth offering protection to. Such peasants tread a careful line to not antagonise their powerful neighbours, but in times of war, when armies march past them, they suffer deprivations. If they have any sense they hide their women as soon as our tarn scouts are seen. But our tarnsmen often work in league with the infantry to spy out the land and communicate where bands of fleeing women might be found. The tharlarion cavalry usually find them first, and keep the pettiest women for their own use, but they hand over other women to the infantry.

 

No man in the camp has the right to enslave a woman of course. There had to be military discipline. They are entitled however to bring a woman to slavers such as myself. Out here, far beyond the walls of mighty Argentum, I can enslave women who do not share my Home Stone. In the four days I had been with the military, I had enslaved seven women out of twenty nine that had been presented to me. I had paid the officers for each one, with prices ranging from seven copper tarsks to seventeen. The other women I sent away. There was a mixture of relief and humiliation in their faces as they understood themselves to not even be worthy of a coffle chain. If a slaver didn’t want them, who would? Several of the rejected women had to be whipped out from the camp in the morning, weeping, for their worst fears had been confirmed. Men considered them plain, too plain for the brand. 

 

There is no point in enslaving every woman, you see. If the cost of doing so, and the upkeep while she squats in your kennel pens outweighs what you might sell them for, then really, what is the point?

 

Men in an army camp will still put them to use, of course. A plain looking woman can still give pleasure in the furs when better options are unavailable.

 

Yesterday a small delegation of three peasants had asked permission to speak to me. I had permitted them to enter the slaver compound. Perhaps they had women to sell? Every social encounter is a possible business deal.

 

But no. The leader of the peasants was a grief stricken father called Otho. His daughter had been seized by tarnsmen and he was going from camp to camp hoping to find and buy back his daughter. He had brought money. I paraded my seven girls in front of him, and he wept for joy when he saw his daughter, Olivia, who was now number 533 in my register. It was a tender moment as father and daughter looked upon each other, and the daughter fell to her knees, crying. I pointed out that she was now a slave. She had been branded only hours before the arrival of the father, and so I assumed Otho would no longer wish to buy her back, but I was wrong. He said he loved his daughter and he would have her back regardless. I explained I had paid a tarnsman nine copper tarsks for the girl, and that in Argentum I could easily hope to sell her for eighty-five. 

 

I could tell straight away from the anguished look on Otho’s face that such a sum was beyond him.

 

“What do you have?” I asked, thinking perhaps a small discount might be in order if I didn’t have to feed and house the girl, and if it freed up a space in the wagon for some other girl. But Otho showed me he only had seven copper tarsks. That didn’t even cover my costs! 

 

It was embarrassing the way Otho dropped to his knees and began to kiss my muddy slippers, begging me for mercy, telling me how much his daughter meant to him, for I could never sell her for such a trivial sum. Did he not realise that? He told me he would pray to the Priest Kings every night in my name, pleading to the Priest Kings to bless and favour me, if I only spared him his daughter. 

 

“Every night, mistress,” he said, “before the altar in my home, your name will be praised. It will be my life’s duty.”

 

I gathered the other two men were his sons, and they knelt and wept before me, telling me how much they loved Olivia. One son offered me his right eye if I would sell her to her family. 

 

The other son then said I could take his sword hand from him. 

 

“Take her,” I said. It was a moment of foolishness on my part. Tywin would have laughed at me. “Take her before I change my mind.” The girl ran to the arms of her father and they departed, weeping. 

 

I now only had six girls. 

 

I am a slaver. I should not have done that. 

 

Tyssus is our principle metal worker in the camp and he was the man who had skilfully branded each of the seven women I purchased. I like to brand women sooner rather than later. Aside from the legal requirement, it is better the woman understands quickly what she now is. Property.

 

The brand is psychologically very powerful in breaking down resistance. Only a truly foolish and stupid girl might still cling to the misguided belief that she will be freed, once there is a brand on her left thigh.

 

Though the experience with Otho proves there is an exception to every rule.   

 

I usually wait two days after the initial branding before I have the girls whipped for the first time. An introductory whipping forms part of their abrupt transition from freedom to slavery. If a girl has co-operated and not annoyed me, I will whip her myself. If she has annoyed me in some way, I will have Tyssus swing the whip. Either way she has learned what the whip feels like and will be keen to ensure it is not used again.

 

A valuable lesson has been taught.

 

We do not routinely pierce the ears of our girls. We leave that to the judgement and tastes of their eventual master. 

 

That morning I inspected the six remaining girls as they lined up before the flat bed wagon. One or two still looked defiantly at me, which amused me, but the others looked down at the muddy grass, at their bare feet. I inspected each thigh to ensure the healing creams had dealt with any risk of infection and that the marks remained clean. I had marked the left breast of each girl with a three digit number so that I could keep track of them, because to a woman in my trade the little sluts begin to look the same after a while. Obviously there are differences in hair colour and body shape, but when you have seen as many crying, naked women as I have in my time, the details begin to blur. 

 

“Number 237,” I said, examining a brunette who was two inches taller than me when I didn’t wear my four inch block heels. “I am told you refused to eat this morning.”

 

“I am not hungry, Mistress.” There was still some resistance in this girl.

 

“Whipping position,” I said as I drew the crop from the clip on my belt. She suddenly looked scared as I let the whip blades unravel.

 

“Please, no... I’ll eat,” she said.

 

“Whipping position,” I simply repeated.

 

She seemed numb with shock, and so I had Tyssus throw her to her knees and force her into position. I then whipped the girl five times. I was merciful in doing it myself. 

 

Afterwards her face was pushed nose first into a bowl of leftover gruel. I watched as she licked and slurped every scrap in the bowl before she was permitted to rejoin the other girls who now sat with their backs to the side of the wagon, their ankles extended to the central bat where they were shackled in place.

 

She walked stiffly, in great pain, crying. 

 

If there is one piece of advice I give to men buying their first slave, it is that they must resist the urge to be gentle with the girl in the first crucial days. The girl has to understand from the outset that you will be an uncompromising master who will keep her subject to perfect discipline. If you take a softer approach and then, only later, punish her when you finally lose patience for things you previously overlooked, the girl will not understand the sudden change in her master. She is, after all, only behaving in the way she previously thought acceptable. 

 

The whip should be applied in the first couple of days, and then it should be hung on a wall where the girl can always see it. It may never need to be used again after that. 

 

Never forget that a girl will try to manipulate you if she deems you weak. Women will be only too happy to seize any advantage they can, and those sulky pouts and sudden outpourings of tears are part of her strategy. Never forget that my sex despises weakness in men.

 

But in fairness, few men on Gor seem weak. 

 

The army marched throughout the day as the rain continued to fall, making the going harder for my wagons. The baggage train was to the rear of the army and so we were rolling through mud churned up by thousands of stamping feet. The men of Argentum aimed to travel at least thirty pasangs a day. Somewhere up ahead the Corcyrians were manoeuvring, and talk was rife as to whether or not they were likely to make a stand and face us, or whether they might make a slow staggered retreat back to their pontoon bridges across the Issus. 

 

That evening, my silk slave had an opinion on the matter. He was constructing my tent under the watchful eye of Beth who began laying out the soft cushions and drapes inside. 

 

“Corcyrus knows what it is doing, Mistress.”

 

“Oh?” I was interested in his opinion.

 

“It didn’t build three pontoon bridges and march three cohorts across the Issus just to play games. It has a strategy in mind.”

 

“I suppose.” The possibility was obvious enough. It did seem a waste of time to do all of that and then simply retreat when conflict loomed. And yet, it was obvious to anyone that the advantage lay with Argentum. Our soldiers, man for man, were more highly regarded by other cities than the Coryrian army that was still handicapped by the deprivations of their previous defeat, decades ago. And we outnumbered them five cohorts to three. I couldn’t see any sense to their strategy.

 

“Does anyone know where the rest of the Corcyrian army is?” asked Julian.

 

Did he think Argentum was stupid? Of course we knew where they were! That’s what tarnsmen are for, among other things.

 

“Of course. They are camped on the other side of the river, far further than their pontoon bridges which were built close to Corcyrus. They occupy ground where the Issus becomes Lake Ias in the south-east, before the river flows out again, north-west, towards the mighty Vosk. Five cohorts at least – four regular, and one mercenary - but a river crossing on the Issus is hardly going to surprise us. We have our own cohorts ready on our side of the Issus. Tarn scouts watch the warriors of Corcyrus and they in turn watch us. Whoever attempts a river crossing will lose the advantage to the side contesting that river crossing. The Issus is deep and fast flowing in this region at this time of year.”

 

“Interesting,” said Julian. “And we ourselves are slightly south of lake Ias?”

 

“You think you know what they are planning?”

 

“No, Mistress, I do not. But it is interesting to speculate. Where is the advance force of three cohorts, presently?” 

 

“Our scouts believe they are camping eighty pasangs south west of us, south-west of Lake Ias. They stand between us and the Thassa Cartius river.”

 

“So we stand between the advance force and the other soldiers of Argentum that occupy the river bank, watching the five Corcyrian cohorts on the opposite side?”

 

“Yes. Is there a point to this?”

 

“Perhaps.”

 

I smiled. “You were a metal worker.”

 

“I was, Mistress.” 

 

“Hardly an expert on military strategy, then.”

 

“No, Mistress,” he said with a smile as he wiped his brow. “I am not.”

 

Julian had finished hammering in the last of the stakes securing my tent for the night. He tested some of the guy ropes as the sun finally began to set on the horizon. I had not put him to use now for ten days. As I gazed at his sweaty, heavily muscled body, I felt a certain familiar hunger in my loins. 

 

We gazed at one another for a while. His eyes narrowed a little as he recognised the meaning of my gaze. “Mistress perhaps has some things she wishes me to deal with in her tent?”

 

“Perhaps.” He was a brute, but such a strong, savage brute. I felt a craving as I gazed at the man I owned. He wore my collar. He was mine. I stood back as he entered the tent and closed the flap behind him. Outside the rain was loud as it increased in intensity.

 

Julian surprised me by walking to the side of the tent and pouring a goblet of wine that stood on an ornate side table. I hadn’t asked him to do that. He brought me the wine and presented it to me in the fashion of a silk slave.

 

“Thank you, Julian.” 

 

He watched me drink my wine. 

 

“I will never get used to how beautiful my Mistress is,” said Julian as he reached his hand to my veils. I didn’t say anything as I permitted him to unclasp the pins at the side and remove them. Then he brushed back my hood and removed the pins from my hair, letting the hair tumble down past my shoulders.

 

“Did I say I wanted you?” I asked, in warning.

 

“Not in words, but I know what you want, and what you need.” He touched my chin, lifted it slightly with his fingers and then kissed my lips.

 

I gasped as he finished the kiss.

 

“Never kiss me like that again!” I said. THAT had not been the soft, respectful kiss of a silk slave! 

 

“Mistress did not like it?” he asked.

 

I turned away and walked quickly to where my whip lay. I touched it with my hand and then paused. My fingers curled and then uncoiled from the hilt. I sought to control my now rapid breathing from the intensity of that… kiss.

 

“That is NOT how you kiss me.”

 

“But did Mistress like it?” he asked.

 

I felt a burning desire to be kissed like that again, but I forced the feeling away. It was NOT appropriate! 

 

“Leave me!” I said, sharply. “Find Beth and tell her to chain you under the wagon!”

 

Julian left, closing the tent flap behind him. I breathed out now from the tension. 

 

That had been the best kiss I had ever tasted. 

 

But I must never taste its like again. 

 

 

 

APPENDIX: The current dispositions of the Argentum-Corcyrus conflict:

 

Commander of Argentum forces: General Marcu Numitor

 

Commander of Corcyrus forces: General Traian Decimus

 

 

(1) The spearhead Corcyrian force of three cohorts – one regular city troops, and two free companies led by Dominic of Venna.

 

(2) The Argentum response of five cohorts – three regular, and two free companies led by Blucher of Tarnburg. The Lady Amicia Katares is with this army. 

 

(3) A main Corcyrian force camped on the bank of the Issus river: five cohorts – four regular and one free company.

 

(4) The Argentum response, camped on the other side of the Issus river. Four regular cohorts. No free companies.

 

(5) One cohort of Argentum infantry, spread out in a number of encampments along the western frontier.

 

(6) Two cohorts of Argentum infantry, spread out in a number of encampments along the northern frontier.

 

(7) Unaccounted for Coryrian forces – unknown strength and size.

 

(8) Argentum Reserve – three cohorts, regular troops, within Argentum itself. Technically ‘on leave’ but now on ‘standby’.