Outcast of Gor Chapter Twenty Seven

 

“Name and Home Stone?” asked the bored scribe, seated behind the desk, close to the main gates. He had a stack of temporary residency permits to hand, beside an ink pot and quill.

 

“Roland of Newark,” I said. He scribbled this down on a sheet of paper.

 

“Caste?” he asked.

 

“I am a slaver,” I replied. “Obviously,” I added with a smile, indicating the ankle chain coffle of five pretty girls who stood, in various states of distress, to one side of me.

 

“Another slaver,” remarked the scribe with a smile. “You’re like bees round a honey pot these days.”

 

“What can I say,” I remarked, pleasantly. “Business is always good during times of war. Hai Corcyrus!” I raised my right fist into the air. 

 

“Very well.” With his right hand he stamped a heavy seal on a pad of ink and then stamped that ink mark on the document in front of him. “You are granted licence to reside within the city for the period of ten days and ten nights. This permit may be renewed at our discretion. Hai Corcyrus,” he said in a bored sounding voice.

 

“Hai Corcyrus,” I said again, as I received the paper that offered me a temporary home behind these stout city walls.

 

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What I had expected to see on the final stretch of road leading to the city was a long refugee train of mostly women and children trying to flee to the safety of Corcyrus’s high walls, ahead of the advancing Argentum army. I had, after all, seen frightened refugees fleeing towards Argentum, so I expected to see many more such refugees fleeing towards Corcyrus, now that I was behind Corcyrian military lines. And, yes, there were refugees with hand carts full of belongings winding their way to the Corcyrian city walls, but not nearly as many as I might have assumed.

 

What I did see plenty of were coffle chains of slave girls being taken to the camps of slavers by Corcyrian soldiers. Barefoot, naked, marching in ten girl chains, there seemed to be no shortage of women taken captive by the forces of Corcyrus. 

 

“Tal friend,” I said to a number of soldiers who walked along the road, herding a chain of collared girls before them, in search of a slaver camp. “Are these recent acquisitions?”

 

“They are,” said a dark haired soldier. “They were Free Women just three days ago.” 

 

“Free Women of Argentum?” I asked. By this I meant the lands subject to Argentum’s laws. A city state is based around the city itself, but it extends its power over a number of peripheral towns and villages within its sphere of influence. 

 

“Yes,” replied the soldier. “We sacked the town of Isurium when Cato Marius withdrew his cohorts to the south of the Agosta river. They had found themselves in danger of being encircled and cut off from their supply lines. That left the town of Isurium largely undefended, save for its citizens, but most of the able menfolk were already bearing spears for Cato Marius.” He regarded me. “Your accent is strange.”

 

“My Home Stone is Newark,” I said. Luckily I did not sound in the least bit a citizen of Argentum. 

 

“I do not know it.”

 

“It’s far from here.” I gazed at the women. Some of them were still in shock from being taken, stripped, and branded. None of them wore collars, though. “Why aren’t your slaves collared?”

 

The soldier laughed. “We’ve run out of collars. There were so many Free Women worth branding, but we didn’t have enough collars. The metal smiths in Corcyrus will be working overtime soon.”

 

I had heard of Cato Marius. He was a senior commander of Argentum and came from a very fine family. Like most of the commanders in Argentum, he enjoyed his position of authority as a right of his noble blood, rather than through merit. “I thought Cato Marius commands over 5,000 battle hardened men?”

 

“Perhaps. We had a third of his strength. And he ran from us!”

 

“He claims to be manoeuvring,” said another soldier with a laugh. 

 

“Is that what they call it in Argentum?” The first soldier chuckled. “Hai, Corcyrus!” He raised his right fist in the air. “Hai, Aliyyah Mercator!” he added with a second thrust of his arm. He pronounced the name uh-lee-yuh.

 

“That is your Tatrix?” I said. I knew her name. The Ubar of Argentum had said she would soon be seized and stripped in her own throne room, rudely collared and dragged out onto the marble steps of her palace to be paraded naked and whipped again, and then made to proclaim herself a slave girl before her cowed populace.

 

“She is our Tatrix,” said the soldier with pride. 

 

I was curious as to the prices of slaves in war time. “If I was to buy one of your slaves, what would she cost?” I asked.

 

“Which one?”

 

“That one?” I pointed to a pretty red head who looked startled as I pointed her out. I had only picked her out at random, but she was probably the third best looking girl in the coffle.

 

“Ten copper tarsks?” suggested the solider.

 

So little? My silver tarsk was worth one hundred such copper tarsks.  

 

“And her?” I pointed at a girl with long brown hair and wide hips. 

 

“I could let you have her for eight copper tarsks,” suggested the solider. When I said nothing, he smiled and added, “I would go as low as six?”

 

Six copper tarsks would buy me a pretty girl who would keep me warm at night, opening her thighs to my use of her. It was tempting. Very tempting.

 

“And your cheapest girl?”

 

The soldier gazed at the line of cowering females. He picked out a girl who seemed about eighteen or nineteen – the same age as Kelsee had been stabilised at. She had small but well-shaped breasts, and light brown hair with light natural curls. “She is too young. You could have her for four copper tarsks.”

 

Four?!

 

The nineteen year old girl shrank back from me in fear as I approached her. I saw her cover her small breasts with her right hand, and her sex with her left. “What is your name?” I asked her.

 

“Whatever Master wishes,” she said, speaking the words that are expected of slaves.

 

“What was your name a few days ago?”

 

“Lady Sabina Bellona of Isurium, Master.” 

 

I touched her flanks and heard her cry out. I could actually own this pretty slave for four copper tarsks! The thought was incredible. 

 

“Please, no,” she cried as I ran my hands objectively over her lower body. “I have not known the touch of a man! I am profalarina, still!”

 

The girl with the long brown hair and wide hips, who had been priced at a more than reasonable six copper tarsks, cried out in despair as I touched the nineteen year old girl, priced at four copper tarsks.

 

“What is wrong?” I asked the six tarsk girl.

 

“I am her mother,” she sobbed. “Please do not hurt my child. Please, Master, I beg you.” 

 

I withdrew my hands and held them, palms open, before the girl’s mother, to show I meant no harm or disrespect. 

 

“Sabina,” she sobbed. “My baby, Sabina.”

 

“Mama,” cried Sabina. Tears ran down her cheeks. They were separated, chained well apart on the coffle, and could not embrace one another.

 

“You can have them both for nine copper tarsks?” suggested the soldier. “Mother and daughter?”

 

I felt a sense of pity as I gazed at the mother, begging me to spare her child. Suddenly it brought home to me the enormity of what happens to women during times of war. They are simply spoils to the victor. “I’m sorry,” I said to the mother. “I’m sorry.”

 

I made my excuses and left. 

 

There are a number of observations I want to make from this encounter. Firstly, I draw your attention to the low prices of slave girls during war time, when presumably supply is plentiful, but also when you are in a position to buy directly from the men who obtain the slaves to begin with. The prices you might pay in a market place in a large city would have to factor in a profit margin from the girls changing hands once or twice in order to reach those markets. Four copper tarsks for a girl as vibrant and pretty as the former Sabina Bellona of Isurium is quite the bargain. I can see how slavers make a handsome profit on their wares.

 

The second thing I’d like to mention is the fact you wouldn’t know that the wide hipped girl was Sabina’s mother. While there was obviously a visible age difference, it was perhaps only a matter of five or six years. The mother could easily pass as twenty five years old. This is because most women on Gor have their ages stabilised in their mid-twenties, usually within a range of 24 to 26 years old. 

 

Which brings me to my third point: Sabina was priced cheaply because the soldiers felt she looked too young. On Earth of course, a nineteen year old girl would be highly prized for her youth and appearance, but this highlights the different tastes you might find on Gor. As well as preferring more curvaceous women – particularly the classic hourglass shape – Goreans have a preference for women with an apparent age in their mid-twenties. A nineteen year old girl is considered immature on Gor. I bring this to your attention because of course the former Miss Chelsea Savannah Frick had her apparent age stabilised at a point where she routinely passed for eighteen or nineteen, and always had to show ID in order to purchase alcohol. Despite being in her chronological thirties now, Kelsee appeared to be much younger. You may recall when Rolfe and the other men had first put Kelsee to use in exchange for food, they had seemed rather dismissive of her value as a slave. At the time I had thought it might be a factor of her inexperience in being put to use, but I learned later they simply regarded her as immature in her appearance – simply a slip of a girl - and in fact they assumed she hadn’t yet been stabilised, and wouldn’t be stabilised for perhaps another seven years.

 

“No one will ever take her seriously,” Rolfe had said, assuming her stabilisation serum had been the permanent one commonly found on Gor, and not the weaker one available to the agents of the Kurii on Earth, which required booster shots once a year, in order to keep those agents loyal. “She will always be considered little more than a child – immature in the ways of life.”

 

The presence of the mother and child together had been a shock to me. I had looked upon each of them with interest, and had imagined how lovely it might be to own either one, to have either one in my collar and chains, and for such a small price. But then my Earth sensibilities had been awakened as I’d heard the emotive response of a mother begging to spare her daughter from my touch.

 

Of course there was no sparing the young girl. If I didn’t touch her, Gorean men certainly would. Very soon now she would be exhibited on a market shelf in Corcyrus, stripped and chained, her neck locked in a common platform collar. She would be made to exhibit herself, her responses, and in time some man would buy her. She was simply too pretty not to be bought eventually. 

 

I hadn’t spared her, I had simply passed the opportunity on to another man, further down the road.

 

I have not known the touch of a man, she had said. I am profalarina, still, she had said.

 

Profalarina is a Gorean term that corresponds closely to the Earth term of virgin. The correct terms are profalarina, meaning the state preceding falarina, which is the state a female finds herself in once she has been penetrated by a man. Goreans have another couple of terms for this: glana and metaglana. Glana is roughly equivalent in meaning to profalarina.

 

These terms only apply to Free Women, of course. As Sabina was now a branded slave girl, the correct response would have been for her to claim she was white silk, as opposed to the non-virginal state of red silk. These are extremely vulgar descriptions for a Free Woman, and must never be used, for a Free Woman would be greatly offended by what are essentially slave terms. But Sabina was no longer a Free Woman. The kef brand on her left thigh was testament to that. She was white silk, until a man chose to open her. Then she would become, in an instant, red silk. 

 

And then it occurred to me that when I reached the gates of Corcyrus, I would almost certainly be questioned. Strangers are not trusted on Gor, and although men and women may come and go, the cities of central Gor are at pains to discourage vagabonds, beggars, and undesirables from entering their territory. I would be asked what my caste was, and perhaps required to provide some evidence of it. I had no caste to speak of, principally due to the low technological state of the Gorean continent. Many of the skills required to pass as a member of one caste or another were alien to a man brought up and educated in the twenty first century on Earth. 

 

It occurred to me that I would need to demonstrate some profession that would permit me to be granted residency papers. If I simply turned up as a vagabond outlaw with a silver tarsk clutched in his hand, they might send me away. 

 

I gazed back at the coffle of lovely slave girls being herded along the road towards the city. From what I had been told, I would reach the walls of Corcyrus sometime tomorrow.

 

The girls were extremely good value. Inside Corcyrus a man might sell them from a market shelf for considerably more. If I bought some of them, I might be able to pass myself off as a foreign slaver from far off Newark, and make some money in the process.

 

I returned to the soldiers who regarded me with a smile.

 

“What sort of discount can you offer if I was to buy three or more girls?” I asked. 

 

I spent a pleasant ahn, examining the ten beauties. I say beauties, because they all were, to one degree or another. Not all women from Isurium were enslaved. The soldiers had cast aside the ones who were plain looking, and had fastened their chains and, later, branding irons, on the ones worth enslaving. 

 

For the purpose of entering Corcyrus, I would be a slaver. I would arrive at the gates with a small coffle of chained women. It seemed the easiest way to gain entry – selling women of course requires little in the way of advanced skills that might take a lifetime to master. One simply needs to have pretty girls on a linked ankle coffle. 

 

I felt sure I could fake being a member of the caste, as I had practical first-hand experience of how slave houses operated. I had, after all, been a slave in one for over a month and was familiar with even the smallest of details. 

 

I would buy the mother and daughter for nine copper tarsks. It would be an act of mercy, for they would be treated better by me. And, if truth be told, I found the mother of interest. Her curves from her waist and hips and thighs were very pronounced and I was beginning to appreciate the Gorean interest in well curved women. Plus, I felt she was seriously under-priced for what she was. 

 

And so I examined each girl in turn, brushing aside their cries, their pleas and their tearful protests. If I was going to spend my money, I wanted to ensure I was buying with profit in mind, and that meant looking for any defects that might lower their price. I picked out the red head, for the soldiers had offered her to me for ten copper tarsks. I’ve always liked red heads, and it thrilled me to think I might have her on my coffle chain. 

 

I then selected a black girl with very plump breasts and the largest pigmented areola I’d ever seen on a girl. Her areola immediately drew the eye to those lovely breasts, and I felt sure that would be a selling point. She was seven copper tarsks. 

 

Finally, I had to have a blonde. She looked Scandinavian, with a far slimmer body than the others – far less curved – but her features were delicate and aristocratic. I felt sure she would drive a man wild with wanting to master her. She only cost me five copper tarsks, on account of her slim body. 

 

I settled on a total of twenty-eight copper tarsks, with my additional bulk discount, and could barely conceal my excitement at suddenly owning five beautiful girls for so little. With this purchase I was suddenly a slaver. A slaver of Gor. I had to buy an ankle coffle chain with five ankle rings, which cost me a further three copper tarsks and I was given some binding fibre for free. 

 

I had spoken to a merchant the day before and he had exchanged my silver tarsk for a bag of ninety-two copper tarsks, essentially charging me a fee of eight copper tarsks for doing so. I had to accept those terms as no one was likely to give me change from a silver tarsk. 

 

I told myself that these five girls were all Gorean. I wasn’t enslaving women from my own world. My owning them made no difference to their fate. Someone else would own them if I didn’t. If anything, they would be treated better while in my ownership. 

 

I stroked the flanks and derriere of the mother, and saw her alarmed expression.

 

“Please, no, Master,” she cried.

 

“I own you now,” I said, as money changed hands. “You and your daughter.”

 

She blushed.

 

“What was your name in Isurium when you wore robes of concealment?”

 

“Lady Clarana Prisca Bellona, Master.”

 

I nodded. It was incredible. I owned her. I now actually owned five pretty girls. They were all my property. “I will call you Sally,” I said to her. And your daughter will be Cathy.”

 

“No, Master, please, no! Those are Earth girl names! Please, Master! No!” 

 

I hadn’t expected this reaction. “What is wrong with an Earth girl name?” I asked her.

 

“They are the lowest of slaves, Master. The very lowest. They are just barbarian sluts! We all despise Earth girls. Please… if I have such a name, other slaves will assume I am a barbarian. Please, Master, do not do this to me.”

 

I hadn’t realised Earth girls were held in such contempt by their sisters in bondage. “Very well, you will be Clara. And your daughter will be Bina.”

 

They both gratefully knelt and kissed my feet. Perhaps it was the first time they had done so, unbidden by the whip. The prospect of being given Earth girl names had terrified them. I had learned something new about Gorean women, it seems.