Secrets of Gor Chapter Eight

 

When Tacitus of Ar found himself trapped against the banks of the fast flowing Thassa Cartius, with enemies on all sides facing him, he did that most rare thing: he negotiated surrender terms. Such was his reputation that, even though he was trapped and outnumbered, his enemies feared the man might pull off some brilliant surprise manoeuvre and still save the day. He had no such plan in mind, but because they didn’t know that, they permitted him to withdraw from the field, surrendering his heavy weapons and swearing to return to Ar.

 

The lesson to be learned from this is that sometimes it is possible to bluff an enemy even if you cannot fight him.

 

Sadly I am not Tacitus of Ar.

 

I am a woman in a night gown and dressing robe, who doesn’t even have access to a knife. 

 

“If it is necessary for me to strip you, the experience will not be pleasant for you,” said Hersius of the House Of Andronicus. 

 

I sensed these men knew nothing of the arrangement I  had agreed with Donna. This wasn’t a game to them, and therefore I could not appeal to them to stop. 

 

“What is the paper?” I asked as I backed further into the side of the room that lacked doorways. 

 

“Certification that you are a slave, following inspection of your papers, those having been drawn up and accredited by my House, and a warrant for you to be brought to heel. Your name is Cassie, and your Master is Mikos of Argentum. The Lady Donna of Dover acts as his agent within Vonda and has ordered your acquisition.”

 

“Clearly you have made a mistake. You can tell that I’m not a slave.” I stood up straight. “Would a slave dress like this?” 

 

“Not if she didn’t want to be whipped, no, but perhaps you wish to be whipped,” snarled Hersius. “You are insolent and disrespectful, and if you do not strip yourself immediately, I will tie you to the nearest slave ring and whip you until you cannot stand.”

 

He meant it.

 

“I will strip,” I said.

 

“YOU CALL ME MASTER, GIRL!” He was losing patience with me.

 

“Master,” I said, as I eyed the other men warily. There was no point in antagonising them. When I saw Donna I would tell her that I had lost any desire to go along with this. I would abort the whole thing. It had obviously been a mistake. Simon would be appalled when he heard about this happening in our home.

 

I untied the sash about my waist and slipped off the dressing robe, casting it aside. I only wore the long night gown beneath it. First I kicked away my slippers. It bought me a few more precious seconds of modesty, but then I had nothing to divest but the night gown. When I did, I made sure I was standing with my left thigh facing them both. “You’ve made a mistake. As you can see I have no brand.”

 

I had not called Hersius ‘Master’. He strode forward and cuffed me hard, knocking me against the wall. As I struggled to remain standing, he seized me by the hair and threw me to the floor, where I landed close to the piece of paper. 

 

“She has a lot to learn,” said one of the other men.

 

“Why has she been permitted to dress like that?” asked the other.

 

“Her Master is soft. You saw in her papers she wasn’t even branded.”

 

“The man is of Argentum. A man of Vonda would have kept this slut differently.”

 

I tried to climb to my feet, but the combination of being struck like that, along with the residue of the sleeping draught in my body, rendered my limbs weak. Again I was seized by my hair, and this time I was thrown belly down onto a low table. I screamed as one of the other men picked up the slave bracelets and swiftly forced both my wrists behind the small of my back. With a double click my wrists were secured. 

 

“Can we whip her?” asked one of the men.

 

“No,” remarked Hersius. 

 

Of course they couldn’t whip me. Donna had no doubt forbidden such a thing. 

 

“She should be whipped,” said the man again.

 

“She should,” agreed Hersius. 

 

I lay there on my belly, feeling the cold table beneath my skin. I tried to clear my head from the dazed sensations I was feeling. And then I felt my head lifted, again by my hair, and the hair cleared from the back of my neck so that the steel collar could be placed around it. 

 

Donna had said my day and night of slavery would be realistic. I should have asked for details. 

 

“Collar her,” said Hersius in a bored sounding voice. The collar clicked locked shut around my throat.  

 

And then as I lay on my stomach, I felt my legs drawn apart by two sets of hands on my ankles.

 

“No,” said Hersius to the men, before I could scream or struggle. They released me and I quickly closed my thighs tightly together again. Donna had of course told them I was not to be raped. 

 

“Your name is Cassie,” said Hersius as he stood before me. “Tell me your name.”

 

“My name is Cassie, Master.”

 

He didn’t strike me. He was content with that response. 

 

“Have I made a mistake?” he asked me.

 

“No, Master,” I said. This would end when I was taken to Donna’s house. I would gain nothing now from angering these men. They may have been instructed not to harm or rape me, but if they were pushed too far, they might act irrationally. I consoled myself with thoughts of how I would have them killed in a couple of months’ time. Hersius, I would chain helplessly in a basement of a ruined building where hungry urts hunt for food. I would have his naked body smeared with fresh tarsk blood and leave him to be slowly eaten. The other two men I would personally blind with a heated knife blade, for looking upon my naked body, and then I would have them each set on fire. I gazed at them, knowing their days were numbered.  

 

A leash was snapped to my collar ring and I was motioned onto my feet. The only good thing about this was that none of my neighbours knew what Cassandra Assante looked like without a veil and robes, and so they might assume I was just some poorly performing house slave being sold from the property. To that end I would go quietly, not causing a scene that might prompt the neighbours to enquire who I was. I wanted to end this quickly, without any one knowing I had been stripped and braceleted by a slaver. 

 

“She seems more compliant now,” said one of the men who would, in a few weeks’ time, be burned alive. 

 

“Yes, Master,” I said softly. In truth, having been through this sort of thing once before, I didn’t feel the same sense of shock now as I did then. If anything, my primary feeling was a rising sense of anger and a thirst for revenge. I knew I would be back home again in a few hours once I had told Donna just what she could do with her ‘realistic example of slavery’. I wasn’t pleased with her. She had implied she was going to send for me, and I supposed I would turn up at her house at a reasonable time of day, to then step into a spare room, change into whatever degrading garment she had set out for me, and then I would do her simple house chores and that would be the end of it. 

 

Sending professional slavers to essentially abduct me from my own home in broad daylight was not what I had agreed to. For now I was giving her the benefit of the doubt that perhaps these men might be acting beyond the spirit of her instructions. Whatever, this was going to end as soon as they brought me to Donna’s house. I would expect an apology, and a very sincere one at that. 

 

But it would no doubt be an hour or two before I reached Donna’s house. Until then I would bear these indignities with the fortitude of an Assante. I know very little about the background of the barbarian slut, Emma, as I am really not that interested, but one of the few things I do know is that she was brought to Gor as a Free Woman. This means of course that at some point she was enslaved, and while I do not know the particulars, I suspect she faced the onset of slavery howling, crying and pleading, all to no avail. And that is why she remained a slave to this day, because she is incapable of acting calmly and efficiently in the face of peril. She has never read the works of Tacitus. She is not an Assante. I would remain calm and maintain my focus, as Tacitus would have done.   

 

It would be hypocritical of me not to recognise of course that the circumstances were a little different, as I myself was in no genuine peril. Emma faced a brand and months of training to please men in the slave pens of the Tahari. For her the prospect of slavery was genuine, while for me this had all been arranged by Donna, and would soon be over. It could be argued that it is easier for a woman to remain calm and focussed when she knows there is an end in sight. 

 

The men led me through my hallway and then, to my surprise, toward the rear of my property. But of course, Donna did not wish to humiliate me in front of my neighbours. Despite my predicament I smiled softly with my head lowered as I was marched on a leash through the gardens towards the rear gate that led out onto a quiet back street. She had planned this well, it seems, though I was still angry with the way she had chosen to abduct me. Still, she had instructed the men well, ensuring I would not be whipped, and that I would leave my property in an inconspicuous manner. No one was likely to object or ask what was going on if I was slipped out through the rear gate. I glanced back at my town house. I should be having breakfast now on a veranda overlooking the garden, ready to face a new day, and instead I was naked, collared, leashed. I flexed my wrists in the steel and gazed at Hersius, for it was he who held my leash.

 

It amused me to play along a little. Why not? This was supposed to be my ‘fantasy’. “You were right, Master. I am a slave,” I said, enjoying the pretence while it lasted. I felt a faint thrill in speaking such forbidden words. 

 

“Of course,’ he said. “I have seen your slave papers. There was no doubt. Why are you not branded?”

 

“My Master was undecided as to my brand.”

 

Hersius laughed at that. “Of course.” He seemed to accept the explanation easily enough. Again I flexed my wrist in the smooth slave steel and felt a slight tremor of excitement as I did so. It was actually quite interesting to be marched across my grounds with my wrists chained behind my back. I was truly helpless! I suddenly felt a longing to be touched like this by Mikos, but of course I said nothing. 

 

We reached the rear gate and Hersius instructed his men to pass through first. “See the wagon is ready,” he said.

 

I would ride to Donna’s house. Again that was a relief as she lived two pasangs away, and that would be a long time to have to walk, naked, collared, in front of the crowds of citizens going about their daily business. Donna had made things easier for me again, though I was beginning to wonder just how this day was supposed to act as a source of revulsion for me? The initial shock of being forced to strip was fading now, and with no one else about, my fear of humiliation receded. Yes, these men had acted inappropriately, but if I was being honest, my experiences some months ago had been far worse. And what was in store for me now? A day of scrubbing floors and cleaning pots and pans? A night in a girl pen in Donna’s house? She really thought I would be distressed by any of that? No doubt Emma would have been, or indeed had been, but I am not a stupid barbarian girl called Emma. I am Cassandra Assante. 

 

I saw a girl wagon as I exited into the back street. As I expected, the back street was quiet. It is a narrow thoroughfare, rarely used by traffic, that runs between the backs of the town houses that face one another. The girl wagon was the typical design used by slaver houses for the transport of girls – a simple affair with a flat bed and a central steel rail. Girls are sat either side along its length and their ankles are brought forward to the central bar. Ankle chains are looped around the bar and then locked on the girl. She is relatively free to move about as best she can, but she cannot move her ankles away from the central bar. If bad weather is expected, or if the wagon is travelling under the direct gaze of the sun, a striped tarpaulin is often set above the wagon, with canvas sides that can be rolled down if the girls are to be kept from prying eyes. This is often for security, as what men can’t see, they won’t try and steal. 

 

The wagon wasn’t empty, rather it had three naked girls seated, two one side and one on the other. They looked at me as I was led down the street to where another man waited, guarding the slaves. 

 

“Did she give you any difficulty?” asked the guard.

 

“She was insolent, but nothing more,” said Hersius. “We were warned she might be. For some reason her Master has permitted her to dress as a Free Woman inside his house. That gave her the idea other men might be similarly indifferent to her behaviour.”

 

His house? They assumed the house belonged to Mikos. Well, why not. It would explain things. 

 

“Did you put her to use?” asked the guard.

 

“No.” Hersius slid back two bolts and lowered the rear side of the wagon. “Get inside, Cassie.” 

 

A hand helped me up a set of steps that were fixed to the rear of the wagon. Once inside, I was made to sit down with my back to the left hand side, where there was currently only one girl. My ankles were drawn out to the central bar and locked in ankle chains around it. Then, and only then, were my wrists freed of the slave bracelets. 

 

The man produced a dry wax marker and marked one of my breasts with a number. He then marked my other breast with some meaningless squiggle. I noticed the other girls also had numbers. No doubt I was being collected during their daily tour through the city. Slavers will buy girls and collect them using a single wagon on a pre-determined route of the city. The rear panel of the wagon was raised and the two bolts slid back in place.

 

“I’m Alika,” said the red haired girl opposite me. I offered her an expression that made it clear I wasn’t particularly interested in knowing her name. 

 

“Anthea,” said the girl seated beside me.

 

“Leorah,” said the third girl, hesitantly. 

 

When I didn’t offer my own name, Alika frowned. “What should we call you?”

 

“Whatever you like,” I said. I glanced at the wall to the garden of my town house as Hersius and two of the slavers climbed onto the front of the tharlarion driven wagon. The fourth man began to walk ahead of us with a long stave in his right hand, presumably to clear the streets of foot traffic that might bar our way. Wagons can often grind to a halt when they reach a busy thoroughfare, if they don’t have a stave walker pacing to the front of the vehicle.  

 

“Rafiqa?” suggested Alika with a smile. It was a pleasant enough name, for a slave, I suppose, but I wasn’t going to be given a slave name by a slave. At least when I had been named Cassie, a man had put that name upon me. 

 

“No,” I gazed at her. “My name is Cassie.”

 

“You’re not branded.” She gazed at my bare thighs.

 

“My Master is indecisive when it comes to brands.”

 

Hersius laughed softly at the head of the wagon. No doubt he considered the idea of that amusing. 

 

I reached forward and traced my finger along the ankle cuffs that secured me to the central bar. For some reason I found the sensation of being chained in the flat bed wagon to be, if not pleasurable exactly, somehow fulfilling. It gave me the same feeling of anticipation as when I might be looking forward to eating in a good restaurant later that day. The ankle cuffs were smooth, rounded steel, fitted closely with a single lock on each ankle. The chain gave me perhaps six horts of length from the point it circled the bar.  

 

“We waited a long time for you,  Cassie,” said Leorah. “you must be sooo special.” There was a trace of sarcasm to her voice that I didn’t appreciate. 

 

“She is special,” said Alika, pointing to the wax squiggle that had dried on my right breast. “She’s already sold. That means she’s taken to order. Someone wanted her.”

 

“Someone who can only afford cheap girls,” laughed Anthea.

 

I regarded Anthea with a frown. She was an extraordinarily beautiful kajira. There was no denying her body was firmer, more rounded than mine, with better breasts and legs. I recognised, with a sinking feeling, that men might actually prefer her to me. I decided I didn’t like Anthea. “Is that what this means?” I touched the mark on my breast. The number on the other breast would obviously be some consignment number.

 

“Yes. You already have an owner.”

 

Of course. Mikos and Donna. I was being delivered to Donna. “Yes, I have an owner,” I said. 

 

“What did you sell for?” asked Alika. I noticed of the three girls, Alika and Anthea were both branded, but Leorah was not. I ignored Alika’s question and spoke to Leorah. 

 

“Are you a new capture?”

 

“I am,” she said. Her accent was Vondan. I suppose I could have enquired as to the circumstances, but I wasn’t really interested. She was a slave, or rather she would be when she was processed. It was possible she was so new to bondage that papers hadn’t even be drawn up and witnessed yet. 

 

The wagons rolled through the quiet street and onto another couple of quiet streets before it headed out into the main roads of the city. Now we were moving through heavy traffic, and the stave walker used his weapon to clear a path so that we wouldn’t stall. I shrank back as men passed by the sides of the wagon, all interested in what it contained. Hands reached out and touched my hair and my body, and so I moved towards the central bar, trying to avoid being touched. 

 

The stave walker saw this and moved back to the wagon, shouting for the men to keep back. He smacked the stave against the side of the wagon in warning and then brandished it with the air of a man who knew how to use it. It occurred to me that he might be a peasant, for they are skilled in the use of the quarterstaff. He had very broad shoulders, which also suggested he came originally from the grain fields. 

 

In time we came to the junction that in turning left would lead to the quarter of the city in which Donna lived. I sat up and gazed at the approaching road but, just as we reached it, we instead turned right. The wagon rolled away from the junction, and away from Donna’s house.

 

“Where are we going?” I said.

 

“Curiosity is not becoming in a kajira,” said Hersius, without turning to look at me.

 

I turned round to face the slaves. “Where are we going? I thought we were going to turn left.”

 

“Why would we turn left?” asked Alika. 

 

“That is where they are taking me,” I said.

 

Alika laughed. “They are taking us to the House of Andronicus, Cassie.”