Slaver of Gor - Chapter Seventeen

 

 

A sense of abiding terror now consumed me. It was the habitual not knowing; the not knowing where we were going, why we were going there, and whether or not I would be returned to Argentum for ransom. Logic dictated I would be, but we were heading east. Argentum lay to the west. We were going in the wrong direction! I grew more and more anxious as the days rolled by. I was a naked girl chained in a flatbed slave wagon! Julian seemed not to care that I had offered him so much money, or, if he did, he was keeping an expressionless kaissa face for me to see. I clung to the belief that our journey east was only a temporary necessity to avoid the war bands that lay between us and Argentum, and that when it was safe to do so, Julian would travel there with all due haste. 

 

I pleaded with Beth to be able to speak to him about what was happening, but Beth told me slaves should rein in their curiosity.

 

I tried reminding her that I was a free woman, but she in turn simply said I was subject to complete slave discipline. 

 

“I dislike repetition from needy slaves, 293. I will switch you if you continue to whine about where we are going.” 

 

Each day was the same – exercises before a simple breakfast of slave gruel, followed by laborious manual labour for the ‘kettle girls’. There was now one less ‘kettle girl’, for another of the slaves had proclaimed to Beth that she desired the touch of a master. Beth had taken her aside, and now she too sat with the girl, 115, practising with makeup and learning pleasure slave techniques from Beth, as the rest of us sweated and groaned with the heavy sacks of soil that we were forced to carry from one place to the other. 

 

On the fourth day another girl broke and begged for the touch of a man. There were now three ‘silk girls’ as Beth called them, and four ‘pot and kettle girls’. The silk girls were expected to keep themselves looking pretty, and they trained exclusively with Beth. They received treats, and soon enough new rules were instituted in our coffle.

 

“Silk girls are of course higher slaves than common pot and kettle girls,” explained Beth on the fifth day as she paced from left to right in front of us. “You should all know that. Look upon your pretty chain sisters and see how beautiful they are. Not like you miserable sows. From now on the pot and kettle girls will refer to silk girls as ‘mistress’.” 

 

The four of us cried out in misery as we heard that. I of course understood perfectly well the psychology of what Beth was doing. “Furthermore,” continued Beth, “silk girls may now discipline pot and kettle girls with the switch for minor infringements of discipline or lack of respect. No more than two swipes of the switch at any one time, and only striking on buttocks and thighs. Understood, girls?”

 

The silk girls nodded eagerly, their eyes watching the rest of us. They seemed to welcome this new pecking order. 

 

“I will not abide cruelty for cruelty’s sake. Pot and kettle girls are stupid and should be pitied rather than persecuted. They are not in touch with their femininity the way silk girls are. Silk girls are special. They are prizes that men will value. Do not abuse this position of authority.”

 

The silk girls all nodded and assured Beth they would be fair minded. 

 

“I will be the final judge,” said Beth. “Firm discipline, yes, but cruelty, no.” 

 

I fumed silently. This was all so obvious! Why did the other girls not recognise this technique for what it was?

 

And Beth was clumsy in the way she conducted this technique. There was no subtlety. Her approach was unrefined, amateurish, and yet, it seemed to work. By the end of that day a fourth girl begged to be taught to please men. She crawled to Julian’s feet and kissed them tenderly. There were now four silk girls learning how to be pleasing in the furs. 

 

They were all sluts and deserved to be in collars! I hated them! 

 

Our progress through the countryside was slow, for Julian erred on the side of caution. Once or twice we had seen tarns in flight again, with men mounted on their backs, carrying spears and shields. We had no idea which city they belonged to, but they were obviously scouting the land. We passed people on the road, but no one seemed to have any news that might inform us what was happening on the banks of the Issus river, where the Argentum and Corcyrian forces were concentrated. I desperately wanted to know whether Cornelius Piu had managed to trap the four cohorts of Argentum against the river bank, and, if so, whether another battle had taken place, and , if so, the outcome. I began to fear greatly for my city. 

 

I knew that if we kept travelling east, the most likely destination as far as cities were concerned, was the city of Torcadino. But Julian still wouldn’t be drawn on the subject, no matter how hard I tried. 

 

“I am familiar with all these techniques,” I said to Julian on the fifth day as I finished my work for the day. I was hot, tired, sore, sweaty. My hair was damp and matted. My face was flush from the hard work. I felt weary, but I was determined to speak to the man who owned me now. 

 

“Oh?” he regarded me with a smile.

 

“I am not going to beg to be a silk girl!”

 

“Of course,” he said. “You were Amicia Katares.”

 

“I still am Amicia Katares. I was your mistress!”

 

“Shall I send for the whip?”

 

“I am sorry! I didn’t mean that!” I shrank back. I had never felt the whip, but I had seen the effect it had on women, many times before. 

 

“I think it would probably do you good to feel the whip, at least once, 293. You don’t seem to understand your new reality.”

 

“No! I will obey. I will do what you want.”

 

“I doubt it, but we shall see. How are the nights in the girl wagon?”

 

“Uncomfortable,” I said with a sniff.

 

“You would rather warm my furs and please me?”

 

“No, of course not. I am not a slave. Why are we going east? Are we going to Torcadino?”

 

“Are you interested in Torcadino? In its slave markets, perhaps? You wish to see their auction blocks?”

 

“I want to go home to Argentum!”

 

“We are heading east. Argentum doesn’t lie in that direction. That is all you need to know.”

 

I did not want to enter Torcadino naked, chained to a flatbed girl wagon. It didn’t bode well. Again, I begged Beth for some crumbs of information. I began to plead, and she sensed I was now no longer quite as confident as I had once been. 

 

“Surely you know you will be ransomed?” she said. “You told me as much.”

 

“I am no longer so sure of that, mistress.” I now had to call her mistress. I had to kneel in nadu before her while I spoke. The discipline had grown ever stricter. “Why are we travelling east?”

 

“Curiosity is not becoming in a kajira,” is all she would say on that score. That was when she told me not to ask those questions again. 

 

I began to gnaw at my fingernails with anxiety, until Beth switched me twice on the thighs and ordered me to cease.

 

“Do not disfigure your master’s property in any way,” she snarled. I shrank back, scared of her. Not only did she have a switch, but she was bigger than me. “Forgive me, mistress,” I said, and that plea saved me from a third stroke of the switch.

 

But when Julian heard what I had done, he ordered that I sleep that night with my wrists in slave bracelets behind my back, so that I couldn’t bite or chew my nails if I wanted to. 

 

Sleeping like that was nigh on impossible and I moaned and turned constantly during the night, until the silk girls switched me and ordered me to lie still and be quiet, for I was spoiling their sleep. In the morning I begged Beth not to chain me like that again, and promised I wouldn’t damage my fingernails in any way. She agreed to give me a chance, but promised a worse punishment if I betrayed her trust.

 

The silk girls were enjoying their new found power and petitioned Beth not to allow any of the three remaining girls to join them. 

 

“Keep them as pot and kettle girls,” said 115. “They are too ugly to be silk girls like us. Look at that one.” She pointed at me. “Ugly. Clumsy. Frigid. No man would want her.”

 

Beth nodded and told us that the silk girls felt we weren’t good enough to please men. This was a shock to one of the kettle girls who I felt was on the verge of breaking and begging to be allowed to please men. Now she was being told she couldn’t do that. The girl began wailing and crying.

 

“From now on,” said Beth, “should any kettle girl wish to join her sisters, she must beg those sisters to grant her permission.”

 

I couldn’t believe this! I understood only too well the division strategy of setting one girl against another, but this was going too far! The goal surely was to make each girl want to please men, not to make it harder for them to do so! Of course it made no difference to me, because I would never beg to please a man, but even so, I would at least have liked the security of knowing I had a choice.

 

The girl who had been close to breaking crawled and began to beg at the feet of the silk girls. They mocked her and beat her back with their switches.

 

“You were not pleasing enough,” said the vicious little 115. “Ask us again tomorrow, and this time show us how truly submissive you can be before a mistress.”

 

229 looked at me with an uneasy expression on her face. We were now the only other two girls who had held out so far. Neither of us liked the vicious little sluts that comprised the silk girl group. 

 

“Do you plan on crawling to their feet?” I asked 229, later that day, as we licked food from our bowls.

 

“Do you?” She didn’t want to be the first to commit herself.

 

“I asked you first,” I said. 

 

“I’m sure my answer will be the same as yours,” said 229.

 

That night the silk sluts danced for Julian. They had no training, but Beth made them display themselves one at a time as she beat out a simple rhythm on a hand tambourine. They were dancing naked, save for a wisp of red silk tied about the hips, with one free end tailing down past the left knee, and so they were dancing intuitively, tapping into their natural femininity. There is a dancer in every woman, my caste often says. The collar and brand brings those soft feminine skills to the fore. 

 

I was not impressed by the dancing, but then I had seen dancers in our slave pens after months of training. For girls with no particular knowledge of sensual movements, I suppose they did well enough. Certainly Julian seemed pleased. 

 

I, and the other two kettle girls, served the silk girls as they reclined on the grass, waiting their turn. We had bowls of ka-la-na wine, from which the silk girls were permitted to take occasional sips. They found it very amusing to summon us, make us kneel before them, and serve them in nadu. 

 

“You branded me,” hissed a silk girl as she watched me hold the bowl of ka-la-na towards her with my head lowered. She had a switch in her right hand. 

 

“Yes, mistress,” I said, softly. 

 

“You whipped me.”

 

“Yes, mistress.”

 

“We will never let you be anything other than a pot and kettle girl, no matter how much you might soon begin to beg.”

 

“Yes, mistress,” I said.

 

“The master is going to have you branded. We all know it. We’re just waiting. It will be soon, I think. What fun we shall have then.”

 

I wept tears as I hurried back to my place, beside 229. Did the silk girl speak with some private knowledge, or was it just unfounded speculation on her part? Had Julian or Beth said something to her? I wiped the tears with my forearm and felt helpless. Why wouldn’t anyone tell me what was going to be done with me?

 

And then, floods of tears came. I knelt there crying, unable to stop. 229 looked at me with no sign of sympathy.

 

“None of us cares what happens to you,” she said. “You had us branded and whipped.”

 

“I hate you all!” I screamed. “You’re all slaves! Cheap, slutty little slaves!”

 

It was all the silk girls needed to hear.

 

I realised the mistake I had made, but too late. 

 

My wrists were tied to a high branch of a tree and the tether tightened until I was standing on tip toe. I began pleading, apologising, telling everyone I hadn’t meant those words. I twisted wildly in my bonds. This couldn’t be happening to me! The silk girls drew lots, using long pieces of straw, and 115 won the privilege of wielding the switch. I screamed, begging her to stop as she switched me three times on each buttock, and twice on each thigh. 

 

Tears and snot dribbled down my face as I hung there.

 

“Enough!” cried Beth after the tenth stroke. The girl, 115, would, I think, have continued indefinitely. 

 

That night I slept again with slave bracelets locking my wrists behind my back. I couldn’t sleep, but I was terrified to moan or roll around on the wagon bed for fear that one of the silk girls would claim I was disturbing her, and that would be reason enough to switch me again. They only needed an excuse. 

 

On the tenth day we met the north bank of the Thassa Cartius river. I saw river barges floating past in either direction, piled high with trade goods. Some of these trade goods were girls. I saw them chained to steel bars similar to the bar in our flatbed girl wagon. Everyone felt safer now that we drove alongside the river. This was a busy highway for transportation, and raiding parties and war bands were unlikely to venture this far from the war zone. No city likes trade to be disrupted, and this vast waterway was home to merchants of every Home Stone. Attacking one merchant would be the same as attacking them all.

 

The wagon rolled past a number of trading posts built on and around jetties on the river bank. Here Julian bought supplies with some of my money, and we were allowed off the wagon in twos and threes to wash ourselves in the river. I waded into the water up to my waist and submerged myself completely for an ehn before surfacing again. I wore loose ankle chains, which meant I wouldn’t be able to swim, and I wouldn’t be able to flee at anything more than a swift walk. Despite not being a real slaver, Julian was taking sensible precautions. He had obviously learnt from me in the time he was my silk slave. 

 

As we bathed and splashed water at one another, we saw three tarns and riders flying in formation from the east.

 

“They must be from Torcadino,” said one of the silk girls.   

 

“Perhaps Torcadino will join the war?” suggested another. 

 

“I think we are headed there,” said the first.

 

My blood chilled again. I did not want to go to Torcadino! I clung futilely to the hope we were simply avoiding the massed armies and the bands of looting soldiers that would be swarming in the region south of Lake Ias. There were slave markets in Torcadino, and Julian would no doubt be tempted to sell his slaves there. The question was, did he consider me a saleable slave girl?

 

No slaver in Torcadino would object to selling me, even if I identified myself as a woman from Argentum. Not even if I tried to claim caste sanctuary. Because slaves did not have a caste. They lost their caste the moment they were enslaved. I recalled 15’s words: the master is going to have you branded. 

 

The horror wouldn’t leave me. I couldn’t stop thinking of the possibility that I might soon be genuinely enslaved. It wouldn’t take much – just a hot brand against my thigh, and Julian was a metal worker – he had the skill to brand a girl. 

 

But it was madness! I couldn’t be a slave! Not me! 

 

I was born to swing the whip, not feel it! 

 

On the twelfth day we met a war party of heavy tharlarion riders, travelling in military formation. They flew banners with a snarling larl emblazoned on the fabric. 

 

“I know that banner,” said the girl who had begged the silk girls these last few days, to no avail. “That is the war banner of Stannis Assante. He is said to command the finest cavalry in all of central Gor.”

 

I gazed at the man at the head of the column. He wore black leather leggings, heavy boots, a red long-sleeved tunic and a crested war helm. He rode with a stiff back, with the pride of a man who knew his own reputation and the effect it would have on his enemies. Arrayed behind him were eighty tharlarion riders with long cavalry spears and shields.  

 

“He rides to fight,” said one of the silk girls. “He is riding north-west.”

 

“Who do you fight for?” cried Julian, from the front of his wagon.

 

“Our spears are for Argentum,” said Stannis Assante as he glanced at us in challenge. 

 

“Glory to Argentum!” cried Julian. 

 

I felt like cheering to, for I was a woman of Argentum. We had allies! Men were riding to support us from the east! Hope still remained. 

 

We would turn the tide against the Corcyrus’s treachery. 

 

And then, to my surprise, I saw that a lone woman rode with these men, on her own light saddle tharlarion. She rode beside Stannis, and she was dressed as a huntress, that is to say, dressed in a short, hooded green tunic, with the hood drawn back, and long, brown hose, her feet shod in black, spurred, leather riding boots that folded just above her knees. Her outfit was set off by a short scarlet cape, fastened by a large silver broach on her left shoulder. On one side of her tharlarion was a short, yellow bow, of ka-la-na wood, while a quiver of arrows hung within easy reach on the other side. Like Stannis, there was considerable dignity in the way she rode with these men, who dwarfed her in size, but deferred to her as she passed them by.

 

“That must be his free companion,” said the kettle girl. “It is said she rides with her man, when he goes to battle.”

 

As she rode past our wagon, she turned her head slightly and gazed at us for a moment, her eyes seeing us as cheap coffle slaves, and little else. I gripped the side of the wagons and briefly met her eyes. They were dark, like her hair. For a moment it seemed we assessed one another, and then, just as suddenly, the moment was gone and she, whoever she was, rode past, following Stannis and his long column of heavy cavalry, on towards the battlegrounds of Argentum.