Outcast of Gor Chapter Twenty One

 

“Come back, beloved,” said Kulai, anxiously, as I stumbled through the dark wood, calling out Kelsee’s name. “She is gone. It isn’t safe to look for her in the dark.”

 

“I can’t let her get away,” I said. “She doesn’t understand what she’s doing.”

 

“You are making too much noise,” said Kulai as she fast paced to keep up with me. She had her short bow in her hands and an arrow notched to the string.

 

“She’s afraid. She’ll realise running away is a terrible mistake. She wears a collar. There is nowhere for her to run to.” I cupped my hands to my mouth and called out loudly, “KELSEE!”

 

“We need to return to our camp. We can’t be here,” said Kulai. She turned her head to the left and the right, trying to discern any movement that might be a wild animal or an outlaw.

 

“KELSEE!” I cried again. “Come back, Kelsee! Please come back!”

 

I blundered on in roughly the direction I thought she might have taken. It was far too dark to track her, even if I knew how to. She could be anywhere. She might be hiding close by, terrified, confused, or she might still be running, fleeing what she supposed might be her branding tomorrow. “KELSEE!”

 

There was no reply.

 

“I should have chained her at night,” I said. 

 

That much was obvious, and Kulai was good enough not to say anything. Possibly, she wasn’t too upset that Kelsee had fled, and perhaps she had secretly hoped the girl might eventually do so, which is why Kulai had never pressed me on the matter of chaining. 

 

I called out for another fifteen ehn, before I finally accepted Kulai’s warnings and returned through the dark woods, back to our camp.

 

“She may find her way back,” said Kulai as we saw the glowing wood of our camp fire at last. “As you say, beloved, she acted rashly. She will soon regret what she did. She may try to find us again.”

 

“Fuck.”

 

I placed some fresh wood on our fire as Kulai paced about our camp site, bow still strung, arrow still notched. She was cautious. A Free Woman on Gor quickly learns to be cautious if she isn’t surrounded by the comforting safety of her walls and narrow barred windows, too small for a man to crawl through. Gor is a dangerous place for Free Women who might be rash enough to leave the security of their four walls.  

 

“Please never do that again, beloved,” she said, as she completed two circuits of our camp. She looked uneasy. 

 

“The risk was mine to take.”

 

“You have to think of your Free Companion,” said Kulai. “The risk is mine, too, not simply yours.”

 

“I would defend you. I have a sword.”

 

She smiled and pressed her nose to mine. “I appreciate your courage, but it is not matched by the skill of your sword arm.” She stepped away and gazed about the clearing once again. “We should take it in turns to stay awake, beloved. You made a lot of noise.”

 

She was right, of course. “I’ll take first watch. You get some sleep.”

 

“Beloved, let me take first watch. I am already awake, and I am more used to the night sounds of the woodlands than you are. The first watch is when there is the greatest chance of men sneaking up on us. Let me sit with my bow ready, while you get some rest.”

 

“I love you,” I said carelessly.

 

She looked up, surprised. “What?” She un-notched her arrow, released the tension of the bow string, and placed her weapons on the ground. Quickly, she moved forward and took my hands in hers. “What did you just say?”

 

“I think I’m beginning to love you. I don’t know. I…” I glanced to the side, confused, “I’m not good at this sort of thing.”

 

She kissed me, passionately, with such joy. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” she kept saying. “Even if your love for me is only a fraction of mine for you, then I am happier than I can possibly say.”

 

“Do you want children, Kulai?” I asked her, by the light of the campfire. 

 

She nodded her head furiously. “Yes! Children! Many children! I love you.” She began kissing me again.

 

“My feelings for you have changed, evolved, quicker than I thought. But they are there.”

 

“Let me watch my man while he sleeps. Rest, beloved. We have much to talk about in the morning.”

 

I nodded and lay down in our bedding, beside the camp fire. Kulai was right – her ears and eyes would be better attuned, and the first few hours would be when we would know whether outlaws had heard us or not. I trusted Kulai to detect their approach and warn me if danger was near. I trusted her, even, to kill the first man who showed himself, with an arrow to his body. 

 

Kulai knelt beside my head, gazing down at me. She wrapped a blanket about her shoulders, placed her bow in her lap and embedded three arrows into the soil, close to her right hand. And then she remained very still and simply listened to the natural night sounds of woodland. 

 

I thought I would be too tense to actually fall asleep, but at some point I must have done so. The next thing I knew was waking at dawn with Kulai’s hand gently stroking my hair.

 

“Good morning, beloved,” she said, softly. She was the first thing I saw as I opened my eyes. She looked beautiful. 

 

“You… didn’t wake me?”

 

“No.” She simply smiled.

 

“I was supposed to take second watch.”

 

“You needed a good night’s sleep. You will be fresh now, and you will be able to protect your woman during the day. I will sleep well this coming night.”

 

“I love you,” I said, looking up at her.

 

“My heart is filled with happiness,” she said, stroking my forehead again. “You are my man. I am your woman. I will stand by you to the end, if you let me.”

 

I didn’t deserve this woman. 

 

Kulai had seen no sign of Kelsee returning to the camp last night. She was gone. I paced restlessly around the clearing again as Kulai prepared tea for us to drink. I called out Kelsee’s name repeatedly and listened attentively for any sound that be a distant reply. She was gone. My slave girl was gone. I cursed myself for not reassuring her more. I cursed myself for not doing the sensible thing and chaining her at night. 

 

Her escape was stupid. There was nowhere for her to run to. She wore a steel collar about her throat. She couldn’t remove that collar. She wore a slave tunic. She was barefoot. She had no weapons, no food, no shelter. Where did she think she might go? She would have to avoid men. Any man who saw her would see the collar, and her lack of robes and veils. She would be seized and treated as an escaped slave, which is what she was. No one would free her. There was nowhere she might run to.  

 

I called her name again, at the top of my voice, for another ten ehn. 

 

And then I returned to Kulai. She gave me a cup of tea to drink. 

 

“Does her collar have an inscription?” asked Kulai. “Your name, perhaps?”

 

“No.” I cradled the steaming cup between my hands. “It was a plain, unadorned collar. There was no inscription.” I didn’t tell her that Kelsee had bought it for herself to wear in secret. It had simply been intended for her occasional dress up games when she went to meet with her slave friends.

 

“A pity. If it had your name on it as her master, well, even so, men would not know where to find you.” 

 

“I know. Why did she run?! I wasn’t going to brand her.”

 

Kulai said nothing, but silently sipped her own tea. 

 

“She’ll be hungry, cold, scared.”

 

“She may already be caught,” said Kulai. “Or she may simply be hiding, and will continue to hide until hunger and thirst force her to break cover.”

 

“Why doesn’t she come back to me?”

 

“She may not know where we are. She may have run a long distance without any sense of direction. She may no longer even be able to hear you.”

 

Fuck.

 

“I know what you are thinking, beloved,” said Kulai, as she sipped her morning tea. “You are thinking of staying here for several days in the hope she will come back.”

 

I gazed at Kulai. She knew me well, it seemed.

 

“We cannot do that. A stationary camp is eventually found. There will be outlaws in the region. A wise man keeps moving.”

 

“She will come back if she can find us, I know she will,” I said. “It was just stupid, blind, panic. I know she regrets running, even now. She would come back if she could.”

 

“We can’t stay here,” said Kulai, softly. “I understand your pain, your loss.”

 

“You never liked her,” I said. “From the moment you saw her.”

 

“No, I did not like her. But I do not want to see you hurt, beloved. A Free Woman understands that her man may own slaves. All I ever asked was that she be branded, and that she be respectful and obedient towards me, and that I do not have to see her in your arms. But I have always accepted your right to own a slave and put her to use. It is the Gorean way, and I want you to be Gorean, my love.”

 

“You wouldn’t object to me putting Kelsee to use in Corcyrus?”

 

“I wouldn’t like it, and I wouldn’t want to see it, but I know it is your right. You are a man. I want you to be a man. I would not attempt to strip away the very masculinity that I love. I only ask you respect my feelings, and you do not put a slave to use in front of me, and you do not put a slave to use on our couch. Can you promise me those things, beloved?”

 

“Of course. You will never have to see it, and our couch will be sacrosanct.”

 

“You see,” she smiled at me, “how well a free man and a free woman support one another. Free Companionship as a Gorean institution has many benefits for both our sexes.”

 

I nodded. “I can see why Goreans speak so highly of it.”

 

“And of course, you are only mated with me for a year. You may walk away after that, if you so choose.”

 

“I don’t think I will walk away from you, Kulai. I will have good reason not to.”

 

“Oh?” she looked at me with hope and longing.

 

“You will be carrying my son inside of you by then.”

 

“And possibly a daughter,” she said, smiling with total love in her face. “I may give you a daughter, too. I will teach her to respect her father and be demure and chaste and obedient in all things. She will wear ribbons in her hair and be so proud of you and will curtsey and call you papa.”

 

“I love you,” I said. There was a time, not so long ago that I had rejected her love and stood by as she was led in shame to be sheared, because of my cruel rejection. How foolish I was. 

 

And then we embraced and kissed for an ehn or three. 

 

“You are wearing your thick, woollen leggings,” I said, as I ran my hand along the wool.

 

“I am,” she said.

 

“They are in my way. Remove them. Do so now. You are my woman and I want you. It is my right.”

 

She laughed softly, with growing excitement, as she began to unlace her ankle boots with trembling fingers. “Yes, beloved, as you command.”

 

It was half an ahn well spent, for we were both rather more relaxed and at ease when we finally separated to begin taking apart our small camp. Kulai’s face was flushed and perspiring lightly when she rose from the bedding to locate her discarded leggings and ankle boots. 

 

“You are a beast when you take me,” said Kulai. I think she meant it as a compliment. “Is that how they treat Free Women in Newark?” She laced her ankle boots, one at a time. 

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“A man customarily enters a Free Woman with gentleness and kind strokes. He certainly does not raise and cross her ankles above his back and drive into her as if she wears a collar.”

 

“You seemed to enjoy it.”

 

Kulai blushed. “I never said that.”

 

“You didn’t need to. Your body told me everything I needed to know.”

 

I lifted our three packs, handed the lightest one to Kulai, and shouldered the other two myself. We didn’t have Kelsee on hand to carry anything. “Continue my education,” I said as we walked out from the woodland, across the short meadow grass and back onto the paved road. “How significant is the slave population on Gor?”

 

“It varies,” she said. “You are asking about female slaves?”

 

“I am, yes.”

 

“Tharna’s population of women is almost exclusively comprised of slaves now, but that is an anomaly specific to the city’s culture. Ar has a large population of slaves, for historical reasons, as does Argentum. In the case of Argentum it is doubtlessly due to their victory against Corcyrus, over forty years ago. Many women were taken as spoils, and still are, every year, from various levies.”

 

“The ratio?”

 

“In Argentum, perhaps one in twenty five women wear collars. Perhaps even more. They will be foreign slaves, of course.”

 

“How does a slaver camp operate?” I asked, motioning ahead of us. We would be passing Darian Athuk’s camp in less than an ahn of walking. The billowing tents of blue and yellow could be seen on the horizon. “You mentioned before that they don’t generally hunt and capture women.”

 

“No, they don’t. They are essentially a specialised caste of the Merchants. Other men will commonly raid and capture women, and those captives are usually sold to slavers. During times of war, or perhaps at large fairs, slavers will set up encampments and compete with one another to offer the best prices for acquiring new stock. Darian Athuk is of Talmont, so a stranger to this area, but he will have been granted a licence to buy and sell girls from Corcyrus. His encampment will follow in the wake of the Argentum army. Warriors, tarnsmen and outlaws will capture pretty girls, will bind them, and will deliver them to the waiting chains of Darian Athuk. He will buy low and sell high. Who else can a spearman sell a girl to? He can’t easily travel to a city with his precious cargo and set up shop himself. One needs to be licenced to sell women in a city.”

“I didn’t know that.”

 

“Oh, I’m sure it is the caste of Slavers who first insisted upon the licencing arrangements. It is in their interests that only their caste can do so. There are exceptions, of course.  A man may approach an auction house to display and sell his slave, but that is a personal sale. What that man can’t do is set up shop and compete with the caste of slavers as an established business. They would not stand for that. I talk about the central cities, of course. It may be different in the desert, or on the black coast. It is not so very different in Turia.” 

 

“Where is Talmont?”

 

“I believe it lies in the foothills of the Voltai mountains. Somewhere south east of Torcadino, and south west of Tarnburg. It is a mining town. Darian Athuk is a famous slaver. Even I have heard of him.”

 

“Slavery seems very entrenched across Gor. What are your feelings?”

 

“Relating to slavery?” She seemed puzzled.

 

“Yes.”

 

“What is there to say? You may as well ask me my opinion of grass, or the sky, or rivers, or the Thassa. It is a natural part of our world.”

 

“You approve of slavery? Female slavery in particular?”

 

“Of course.” She looked at me as if I were stupid. She laughed. “You ask funny questions, beloved. Why would I not approve of female slavery?”

 

“Well, there is the obvious consideration that you are female?”

 

“But I am not a slave. Yes, I share my sex with slaves, but then, I share my sex with sleen. There are female sleen. There are male sleen. Do you suppose I think I am a sleen, because of it? Do you think you are a sleen, because some sleen are male?”

 

“I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

 

“Slaves are not Free Women,” she said. “There is really no comparison.”

 

“But many must have been Free Women at one time or another?”

 

“Perhaps.” She shrugged. “What of it?”

 

“So a Free Woman might become a slave?”

 

“I suppose.” Kulai thought nothing of the remark. This seemed to be a common train of thought amongst Free Women. It was always someone else who might be a slave – never them. “But slavers are in the market of enslaving women suitable for slavery. There are many Free Women who, if stripped, would probably be rejected by a slaver as not worth the cost of their slave gruel, or the cost of their binding fibre. They would be sent on their way, their bottoms whipped, to run naked from the camp, perhaps to fall ultimately into the hands of a man more desperate for female flesh; a man less discriminating.”

 

“And beautiful women?”

 

“Well, they would be swiftly collared, I suppose. But there is more to a slave than simply her beauty. There is her slave belly. Such a woman doesn’t fight her slavery, or if she does, the struggle is brief and half hearted, once the shock of capture, and branding wears off. Such a woman has needs and comes to love her collar. She comes to love her brand. She learns to writhe and squeal in the furs. She eagerly crawls to the feet of a man, licking and kissing them, begging to be put to use. Such a woman is a natural slave slut.” Kulai shrugged again. “Such women should be in collars. It is a mercy, I suppose, when their thighs are kissed by the hot iron and they can at last stop pretending to be otherwise.”

 

“Kulai…” I brought her to a stop and pointed across the meadow lands to our left. There, perhaps half a mile away, I could see three figures crossing the wild grass. Two were men, but one was a woman. The woman was naked, her head down in leading position, her wrists braceleted behind her back, and I think her neck was in a collar. The figures were distant, but I somehow sensed that was Kelsee being led on a leash across the meadow grass towards the distant slaver camp.

 

“It’s two outlaws with a slave girl,” said Kulai, a tinge of concern to her voice. “It could be anyone.”

 

“I think they have Kelsee. I think that’s Kelsee.”

 

They were headed now to the slaver camp. The distances involved meant they would reach the camp a good quarter of an ahn before we might.

 

“They’re taking Kelsee in to Darian Athuk’s camp.”