Outcast of Gor Chapter Thirty

 

“Uh-lee-yuh! Uh-lee-yuh!” 

 

The crowd was shouting her name, now – the name of their Tatrix: Aliyyah Mercator. We had arrived early, and as the plaza quickly filled up, I could understand why. She was attracting a huge crowd. As the sun set overhead, a thousand long pole torches were lit around the square, bathing the palace plaza in flickering light. It seemed to me like some ancient Roman take on the Nuremburg Rally.

 

A line of warriors with shields and spears stood at the foot of the one hundred and one steps that led up to the front of the palace. At intervals of twenty five steps, there was a flat platform where a man or woman might stand and address the milling throng, choosing just how high above the crowd he wished to be. I could see the large double doors to the palace courtyard were swung wide open. There was a sense of anticipation as the crowd watch closely for any sign of movement that might be the Tatrix emerging to address her people.

 

I stood beside the Lady Herminia. I was her escort tonight, and it was my duty, for I supposedly shared caste with her, to ensure her safety. I doubt she could see much. Like most Gorean women, she was far shorter than a man. If you’ve ever been to a festival or a stadium Rock gig with a girlfriend, you will understand the frustration of your girlfriend as she complains bitterly that all she can see are the backs of the men standing in front of her. 

 

“Uh-lee-yuh! Uh-lee-yuh!” 

 

The Tatrix seemed popular. There was no doubting that. 

 

The lovely slave girl, Clara, was with me. By the time I’d fed and chained my other four girls in the basement, there wasn’t really any point in heading home, just to turn about and head back out to the palace plaza, and so I had strolled through one of the parks instead, walking my lovely slave at the end of a leash.

 

If you have never walked a girl at the end of a leash before, trust me, it’s an exhilarating feeling.

 

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“I feel your eyes upon me,” she said as she walked a few paces ahead of me, through the park grounds. We had an ahn or so before we needed to call on the Lady Herminia.

 

“They are,” I said. “Your curves are remarkable.”

 

She tossed her head through a mixture of vanity and irritation. “I suppose, dressed as I am, they are made abundantly clear.”

 

“When you wore robes of concealment, as a Free Woman, did you ever wear a belt?”

 

“Sometimes,” she replied.

 

“You wished to show off your natural curves to men?”

 

She blushed and seemed embarrassed. “I can’t help the figure I have.”

 

“And you displayed it, to the best of your ability, as a Free Woman?”

 

“It was my prerogative.”

 

“And now you display those delicious curves far more appropriately.”

 

“Men made offers on me today, didn’t they?” There was a trace of anxiety in the tone of her voice.

 

“They did.”

 

“What did they offer?”

 

“You are curious as to what value men put on your body? You have a slave’s vanity regarding your block price?”

 

“No! Of course not.” She shook her head again. “I was just asking.”

 

“So you don’t want to know?”

 

“I do want to know.”

 

“So you are a slave, with a slave’s vanity?”

 

“I hate you!” she sobbed. “The things you make me do!”

 

“I don’t care if you hate me. You are just a slave, and my property. Your feelings are immaterial.”

 

“I was a Free Woman of Isurium! Isurium! It is not right that I should wear a collar! I am not a slut like the women of Corcyrus.”

 

“And yet you do wear a collar. And you have a brand on your thigh, which is far more permanent. The brand does not have a lock into which a key can be fitted.”

 

“I can deduce one thing, of course,” she said.

 

“And what is that my lovely little vulo?”

 

“Whatever price was offered by those men – you obviously value me more highly then they do?” She turned on the balls of her feet and regarded me, perhaps arrogantly. “You turned down their offers. So, you prize me more than they did?”

 

“Perhaps.”

 

“You would not sell me for whatever they offered. Perhaps you recalled the pleasure I gave you last night?”

 

“Perhaps.”

 

“Perhaps you began to imagine the pleasure I could give you tonight, and every night, if you didn’t sell me?”

 

“What are you saying?”

 

She tossed her head again.  “I think you like me. I think I mean something to you.” She looked at me with a certain satisfaction, as if she now understood that she had more power than the average slave girl might. “I think you want me. I have seen the way you kept looking at me on the plinth.” She wore her tight, clinging, scandalously brief rep cloth tunic, slit at both sides. “Let us not pretend otherwise. Let us not fool one another that you do not have a growing interest in me as a woman.”

 

“As a slave,” I said.

 

“A slave is still a woman.” She tossed her head again, considering the matter. “Perhaps we can come to an arrangement?”

 

“An arrangement?” It occurred to me she was either incredibly over confident or incredibly stupid. She wore a steel collar. She was a slave girl.

 

“I will grudgingly bestow upon you my favours, my charms; grace you with my body, and in return you will dispense with this nonsense that I am a slave.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“I know you want me to like you,” she said. “Perhaps in time I will grow to like you. But before then changes must be made in our relationship.”

 

I smiled. “You have given me much to think about, lovely Clara. But for now you are under gag discipline. You will not speak further until I lift that discipline. You may respond to questions of course with one whimper for yes, and two whimpers for no. But other than that, you will be silent, for we are going to meet with the Lady Herminia, and she will not wish to listen to your prattling. Do you understand?”

 

She looked startled. How could I do that to her?

 

“Do you understand?” I put my hand on the coiled whip at my side, and then I heard her whimper once. Yes, she understood.

 

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“Uh-lee-yuh! Uh-lee-yuh!” 

 

The crowd went wild as a single, slight figure appeared at the top of the steps, emerging from the courtyard of the walled palace grounds. She was a woman, dressed in her rich robes of office, modestly garbed, but, surprisingly unveiled. Lady Herminia had warned me in advance that I would see the Tatrix of Corcyrus’s face, for she had removed her veils the very first time she had addressed her people, and it had now become the custom for her to speak to the city with her face bared.

 

“That is very daring,” I had said to Herminia. I had been on Gor long enough now to feel something of the shock and surprise that Gorean men felt if a Free Woman unveiled herself in public. I now expected women to veil themselves. Indeed, I didn’t approve of them not doing so. 

 

“It was meant to shock, at first,” said Herminia. “And then our Tatrix feigned surprise on her steps, and she called out to us and said: 

 

But why are you so shocked? Can a woman not unveil herself before her brothers? Before her sisters? Before her father? Before her mother? Before her close friends?

 

And then she gestured to us all. 

 

Surely you know what you all mean to me? You ARE my brothers, my sisters, my parents, my family. You are all dear to me. You are not strangers. Not one of you is a stranger. Not one of you! Would you have me insult you then, by veiling myself before you? I am the Tatrix of the city. I serve you. I do not rule. I serve you, each and every one of you. Priscus… 

 

And then she gestured into the crowd and a man called out in surprise, hearing his name on the lips of his Tatrix. And she said to him:

 

You bake the finest loaves in the city, Priscus. That is common knowledge, isn’t it? I know you well, for I have bought from you when I walk the streets to be with my people. Cassius…

 

And then she indicated another man in the crowd. 

 

You have the finest fish I have ever tasted. How can I not know you, you kind and generous man? So many of our bellies have reason to thank you, day and night. I am humble before you.

 

She smiled softly, acknowledging the fishmonger directly, clasping her hands together before him as if in supplication. And then she turned to regard the vast crowd. 

 

So you see, I know you all. I love you all. None of you are strangers to me. And so, gaze upon my face, for I am your family and it is your right to do so. I am no cruel, despotic Ubar. I am merely a woman who devotes herself to each and every one of you. I kneel humbly before you, and seek your blessing. 

 

And so the crowd went wild as the Tatrix of Corcyrus knelt before them, lowering her head to her people in humble deference.” 

 

“I see,” I said. “Very theatrical. Very stage managed. She knows what she is doing.”

 

The figure now paused at the top of the marble steps. She held her hands out theatrically to either side, palms raised as the crowd cheered and called her name. She waited there as the screams became a cacophony. And then she rotated her palms down and slowly, very slowly, lowered them, and as she did so, the cries of the crowd grew quieter and quieter, until finally they ceased altogether. 

 

I gazed on the Tatrix from a considerable distance. She had a wild shock of flaming red hair, and she was unveiled.

 

“Brave Corcyrus,” she said, and her voice projected clearly across the distance. She knew how to cast her voice well, without the aid of amplification. And yet, it did not seem like she was shouting. It is that skill that theatrical actors have on stage. “My people! My kin! MY HOME STONE!” she raised her left fist high into the air and there was suddenly a roar again from the crowd. Men stamped their feet and ladies applauded gently by striking their left shoulder with the flat of their right hand. 

 

And then she began to descend the marble steps, one step at a time.  

 

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I had arrived with Clara at the insula in which the Lady Herminia lived. What followed next came as something of a shock.

 

“Remember, you will be in the presence of a Free Woman,” I said to Clara as I waited outside the Insula. “Do not anger her. If she speaks to you, you have permission to answer her, but otherwise the gag discipline remains in place.”

 

Clara whimpered once and lowered her head. She knew only too well, I think, what Free Women thought of slave girls. That this was now her abject reality was rather ironic. 

 

“I apologise for the simplicity of my dwelling,” said the Lady Herminia as she undid the strong latches to her front door and welcomed me into her home. It was smaller than my own, which surprised me, but was elegantly furnished with good quality couches and tables and well-chosen sculptures and rugs. A tapestry hung from one wall of her main room. 

 

But what surprised me most was the presence of a man, kneeling beside one of the low tables. I looked down upon a male silk slave.

 

“This is Acteaon,” she said, gesturing to the man. He was dressed in a simple silk tunic and an enamelled collar. He was handsome, muscular, and subservient before me. A chill ran down my spine as I suddenly remembered the months I had spent as a Lady’s silk slave, first to Kelapina in the training pens of the House of Diamandis, and then as the personal collared property of Chelsea Savannah Frick. When I gazed down at Acteaon, I saw myself reflected in his bondage.

 

“You have a silk slave?” I said, trying my best to keep my voice level. 

 

“I do, yes. A little luxury that I have permitted myself while my companion fights in the war. I suppose I shall have to sell him when my companion returns.” She gazed round at the man, and, reaching idly with her left hand, stroked his hair. I felt very uncomfortable. This was a vivid reminder of my own time in bondage. Who was he, this Acteaon? I suppose he had once been a proud free man, and now he was the sexual plaything of a Gorean free woman. “You seem uncomfortable, Roland?” said Herminia.

 

She was already dressed appropriately for the streets, outside, clad in full robes of concealment, with a full complement of veils and the hood of her outer robe pulled forward over her hair. Her hands were sheathed in soft, white gloves. 

 

“You know we find silk slaves… difficult to stomach,” I said, selecting the correct Gorean response.

 

“And yet you expect us to put up with the presence of slave girls,” said Herminia as she gazed at herself in a wall length mirror, ensuring she appeared perfectly modest before accompanying me to the palace plaza. “Those are double standards, surely?”

 

“It is different for men. Slavery is not our natural state.”

 

“And yet so many men do find themselves subject to the collar, especially in war time.”

 

“For the most part they toil in mines or steel mills or chained to the oars of a galley. This is different.” I indicated Acteaon. He didn’t dare to meet my gaze.

 

“He delights in serving me,” said the Lady. “Isn’t that right, Actaeon?”

 

“Yes, Mistress,” said the man. I suppose he didn’t dare say anything else.

 

I felt angry all of a sudden. By what right did women enslave men and subject them to such degradation at their feet? It went against the natural order of things. Women belonged in collars at the feet of men, not the other way around. I felt sure that the writer, Trakkar, would have harsh words to say on the subject. It was a Gorean response and as it came unbidden into my head, I realised with a start how much I had changed since I had been abducted from Earth. I was no longer affronted by the sight of women in collars, but the sight of this man enslaved to a woman just seemed wrong to me. And it brought back painful memories of my own training. I recalled the abject humiliation and pain. 

 

“You don’t need me to remind you of the perils involved in a woman keeping a strong man in bondage,” I remarked. “A silk slave is never truly tame.”

 

“This one is,” said Herminia. “Aren’t you, Actaeon?”

 

“Yes, Mistress. I am tame,” he said. 

 

Herminia then regarded Clara. “I see you and your slave girl are inseparable.”

 

“There wasn’t really time to return her to my insula and chain her there. I thought I would simply walk her through the parks on the way to your insula. It’s a warm and pleasant evening.”

 

“So it is.” If she objected to Clara’s presence, she didn’t say so. “Shall we go then?” She reached down, picked up a length of chain that was padlocked to a slave ring on the floor, and, with another padlock, secured that chain to Actaeon’s collar ring. He would be secured for the night while his mistress was out with me and Clara.

 

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“She has red hair,” I said, commenting on the obvious, as I gazed up at the figure of the Tatrix, slowly descending the marble steps towards the expectant crowd. 

 

“Yes, she has,” said Lady Herminia.

 

“I think we both know what that means about her. I am surprised she was ever permitted to become a Tatrix.”

 

Beside me, Lady Herminia seemed to bristle slightly at my remark. “It is a common misconception that redheaded girls are somehow hotter, more vital, more natural slaves, than blondes or brunettes.”

 

I found her rebuttal of a commonly held belief quite interesting. I could not of course see anything other than the Lady’s eyes, owing to her robes of concealment, her many veils, and the deep hood that she wore over her hair. I had no idea what she looked like outside of those garments. “But in Trakkar’s writings, he devotes an entire chapter to the subject of redheads. You yourself consider him a master in the subject of handling and understanding women?”

 

“Even the great Trakkar can be wrong about some things,” she said. She looked straight ahead, towards the one hundred and one steps that rose to the summit of the palace. 

 

“And he is wrong about redheads?”

 

“Evidently,” she said. I could tell she didn’t wish to prolong the conversation. It was interesting, her vociferous defence of redheads. Very interesting. 

 

“Have you sold many redheads?” I enquired.

 

“No, not many. They are few and far between, and cost more to purchase. Also, I do not want customers returning, disappointed, when they find that their redhead is no more vital than any other girl they may have enjoyed in a paga tavern.”

 

“Trakkar suggests, in his scrolls, that redheads – that is, Free Women with red hair - should be routinely assessed by the caste of physicians for slave bellies. He recommends once a year. Furthermore, he warns against the common practice of such women taking sedatives at the time of their appointment, to numb their bodies and responses. He suggests such assessments are done at random, without warning – the redheaded woman suddenly being summoned to be taken under polite guard to a waiting physician – female, of course – to be assessed swiftly before any such drug might take effect. I feel he is probably right to suggest this precaution. The assessment should always be taken on a woman who is fresh and responsive, otherwise the findings are meaninglessness.” I had learned of these things when I had overheard slavers talking during my time as a silk slave in training in the House of Diamandis. Trakker was highly respected for his opinions in that House. Even the Lady Kelapina felt he was correct on the subject of redheads, though I should note that Kelapina is certainly not a redhead. Perhaps if she were, her views might be more circumspect, and perhaps she might conceal her hair, for fear of what men might think.

 

“As I said, the great Trakkar is not right about everything.”

 

I smiled. 

 

“I know what you are thinking,” remarked Lady Herminia. “I do not have red hair.”

 

“Of course not. I had not even considered the possibility.”

 

“If you must know, I have dark hair.”

 

“A lovely shade,” I suggested.

 

“You thought I might have red hair. I can tell.”

 

“Not at all. I could tell by your chaste and modest demeanour that you could hardly be a natural redhead.” I suspected her hair was gathered up and tied about her head to assist in its concealment. This is common among modest Free Women. As an aside, I might mention that it is possible to purchase hair dyes on Gor, though they are generally dark shades. 

 

“Thank you.”

 

“Uh-lee-yuh! Uh-lee-yuh!” The crowd began to call out to their Tatrix again. And then she raised the flat palm of her right hand for silence. You could suddenly hear a pin drop.

 

“Beloved citizens of Corcyrus,” she said. She was standing now on the twentieth step, close enough that many of her people could see her smiling, benevolent face, close up. Only a thin red line of warriors of Corcyrus stood between her and her people. “I am your sister, your mother, your daughter. And tonight there are great things I wish to share with you all.”