Outcast of Gor Chapter Thirty Seven

I was permitted, within certain limits, to explore the inner palace at my leisure. Occasionally I might roam too far and find myself confronted by guardsmen who, having been appraised of the circumstances of my residency, would politely direct me away from the doors that presumably led to the outer palace and the streets beyond the plazas and surrounding stone walls that were forbidden to me. 

 

The architecture both inside and outside the palace walls resembled certain features of the classical Renaissance. Crow-stepped gables, porticoes and architectural decorations were carved in stone. Oak and dark woods, coffered ceilings and wooden panelling with divisions, facets and panels were found in abundance. These sometimes had painted or inlaid motifs of elaborate painterly detail and exquisite brushwork rendering. What furniture there was (Gorean interiors can be very minimalist in that regard) appeared in freestanding form, with chests often featuring rich pictorial carvings, heavier tables with baluster legs, and easily movable furniture of a simpler nature such as trestle tables and benches. The furnishing, on the whole tended towards a rectangular profile.

 

My feet brought me to a grand library with recessed alcoves and wooden frames designed to hold tens of thousands of scrolls. Being largely illiterate, I could only gaze at this vast literary marvel and shake my head with regret. Scribes busied themselves between the heavy racks, filing, cataloguing and archiving various papers. They spared me little attention, except if I found myself standing in their way, which might prompt some sounds of indignation and a degree of ill-mannered tutting. 

 

I walked on and found myself climbing stone steps to a higher level, which brought me to a balcony overlooking a closed courtyard garden below, walled off on all four sides, with tarn wire stretching across the grounds. I was on the second floor, as we measure things in England, where the first floor (as Americans refer to it) is our ground floor, and therefore the second floor is technically an American’s third. The tarn wire stretched between the walls just below my feet, meaning the garden was not only screened from tarns, but also from men like me who might be walking along the squared balcony. I could see no way down to the walled courtyard garden, save for a single door set on the ground floor on the opposite side to where I now stood. 

 

I heard the high, laughing voices of young women, and gazing down I saw four such young women occupying the walled garden. They wore the lighter house gowns, lacking the stiff brocades of the street gowns that would be worn over the other layers if venturing out from the property, and their veils too were suitable for wearing indoors. Two of the young women sat on a stone bench, while another two ran, laughing, along an ornate path, their small hands lifting the hems of their gowns up about their ankles, to permit a certain fleetness of foot that might otherwise serve to trip them up. 

 

None of the girls wore hoods, for such hoods are a feature of the heavy street gowns. I could clearly see then that one of the seated young girls had vibrant red hair, and I could easily surmise she was possibly the daughter of the Tatrix. The other girls were presumably friends of a similar age. 

 

For a time I gazed at them, stepping back into the shadows off the raised balcony. It was a moment of innocence, tranquillity and a place for the young women to relax in their own company, away from the stern rebukes of men who might find their gaiety disrespectful of social conventions. 

 

She didn’t yet know, of course. 

 

Laetitia remained ignorant of her future, the future that had been decided for her in the best interests of Corcyrus. She would be the wax seal on a formal alliance between cities. She would soon leave her home, perhaps never to see it again, and come into the care and protection of a son of a foreign Ubar. Her life would no longer be her own. She would have to submit, as Free Women do when they enter into companionship, to a man she had never met before. 

 

Perhaps this Ubar’s son would learn to love her. Or perhaps not. In the grand scheme of things love was largely irrelevant. Laetitia would submit to him regardless, and she would do her duty. 

 

There would be a grand ceremony and she would be paraded before the citizens of Torcadino in her finest gowns, robes and veils. There would be feasting before and after the Free Companionship ritual, and she would swear loyalty, not to Corcyrus, but to Torcadino, for she was now the companion-property of a son of Torcadino. 

 

She would know her companion’s touch sufficiently to produce children. No more, no less. She would be used to breed sons and daughters. 

 

Her life would then be confined to the walls of the palace. Days might go by without her even seeing her companion. She would be surrounded by serving slaves who would wait on her hand and foot. She would be dressed in the morning in fabulous gowns and veils. And she would know that some of those slaves might on occasion be put to use by her companion. How she would hate those slaves – knowing that they, not her, would be the objects of affection from her companion. 

 

She would be expected to be dutiful, obedient, servile and meek towards the state of Torcadino, through submission to the person of her Free Companion. 

 

It would be a relationship in which she must never ask for the intimate touch of her man. Rather, she must appear aloof, cold, frigid, uninterested in sex. Even if her companion chose one night to take her on his couch, as some sort of novelty, she must not seem to derive heated excitement from the intercourse. She must not be passionate, needy, responsive. 

 

These feelings are not appropriate for a Free Woman. 

 

They are only appropriate for slaves.

 

She would be told later today. Her mother would send for her and break the news. I had no idea how she might take it. Perhaps then, this was one last afternoon of innocence and freedom from responsibility. Within hours her life would change irrevocably. 

 

But again, none of this was any of my business. 

 

I am not a hero. 

 

I am just a man from another world who has to find a life for himself on this alien planet. 

 

There was no one to talk to in the palace. The staff all had their jobs to do, and the slave girls were kept busy with their chores. I asked one man where I might find food, and he informed me that food would be brought to me in due course, and that I might choose anything I wished. I sat at a table in a great hall, seated alone, and I was served a variety of delicacies and some of the best roast beef I’d ever eaten. The wine was excellent, and I wanted for nothing. 

 

And tonight I had been promised a woman.

 

Possibly a red-haired woman, if one might be found within the pens where the captive Free Women of Isurium were held. I recalled my comments to the Tatrix, and winced at how provocative they might have seemed at the time, and yet she had regarded me without a trace of embarrassment. 

 

“I will see what I can find in the pens,” she had said. 

 

I was her guest, after all. 

 

I saw no sign of the Tatrix or her First Minister during the day. The palace is huge and there were many parts of it that I wasn’t permitted to access. And I felt like I was being watched. The guards certainly watched my comings and goings as I paced about the labyrinth of halls and corridors, growing restless and bored. 

 

As the sun began to set outside, I asked where I would be staying tonight, and I was then escorted by a blonde slave girl to a suite of rooms at a far side of the palace. The rooms were large, spacious, and situated on the second floor. There was a single heavy wooden door giving access to the suite, and not surprisingly I found that the windows were narrow and barred. While technically not a prison by any stretch of the imagination, it was certainly secure. Small windows are commonplace in rooms designated for Free Women, so in all likelihood I was simply being housed in a suite of rooms set aside for visiting women. 

 

One wall in my bedroom was decorated with a series of recessed alcoves – five in total. Four of them had decorative plinths on which marble busts stood. The middle alcove was currently empty.

 

I examined the large couch bed – large enough for three people to sleep comfortably. There were slave rings set on all four sides at standard chaining positions. There were also slave rings set into the heavy wooden headboard. 

 

Another slave ring was set into the flagstone floor, some short distance from the foot of the bed. Coiled there, and locked to the slave ring, was a length of chain. 

 

From a series of wall hooks there hung various chains and manacles, with padlocks and keys set on a nearby shelf. All this was standard for a Gorean bedroom. 

 

And there was another hook – a prominent one – the hook from which a five bladed slave whip might be hung. But strangely this hook was empty. There was no whip in sight.

 

“Shouldn’t there be a slave whip?” I asked.

 

“Yes, Master,” said the girl, as surprised as I was.

 

“Why is it missing?”

 

“I do not know, Master. Perhaps it was used by the previous guest and is lying on a table somewhere, or beside the couch bed?”

 

I glanced about the bedroom. It was sparsely furnished, in typical minimalist Gorean style. I could see no sign of a discarded whip. No doubt it was an oversight. 

 

“Does Master require a whip?” asked the slave girl. She was on her knees and now looked scared. “If a girl has displeased him, she begs forgiveness.” She lowered her head to the tiles as she said that.

 

“You have not been displeasing, girl. I do not wish to whip you.” She had feared I was looking for a whip because she had offended me somehow. 

 

“A girl, then, does not understand, Master?”

 

“A girl will be sent to my rooms tonight. I had assumed the room would have a whip in case I needed to discipline her.”

 

“Yes, Master.”

 

“It will be one of the women of Isurium. They are kept in pens in the palace?’

 

“Oh, yes, Master. I have seen them. They are housed in secure pens in the basement. But they are Free Women, still. Free Women are rarely, if ever, whipped, Master. They are free.”

 

“Of course,’ I said. Perhaps that was the reason for the absence of the whip. It surprised me though that the women of Isurium were still free. It had been more than a full Gorean week since I had seen them fastened to the pleasure racks in the market square. If they had served in such a capacity the whole week, I could imagine they were now ruined as Free Women. It would be a mercy to collar them. But perhaps that was the point – they would be shown no such mercy – they would not have a collar that might absolve them of the shame of responding to a man’s thrusts, the way they now possibly did. They could not blame a brand on their thighs for the way they bucked and writhed on the racks. They were still Free Women and their actions would shame their city each time they were put to use.

 

“None of them have been enslaved?” I asked.

 

“Oh, some, Master. Some, I believe. But not all.”

 

“I see. What were the criteria for deciding which women would be enslaved?”

 

“I do not truly know, Master. Please forgive a girl’s ignorance. The men tell me little.”

 

“And curiosity is not becoming in a kajira?” I suggested.

 

“So men say, Master. But in truth we are incredibly curious, hence the saying.”

 

I smiled and stroked her hair. “That you are. It seems to be a common trait amongst kajirae.”

 

“Oh, yes, Master! We have that in common. That and a terrible fear of the whip.”

 

I dismissed the girl and sat for a while in my rooms as the sun continued to set on the horizon, visible through the narrow barred windows. Perhaps the lack of a whip on the wall hook inferred that I was not to punish the Free Woman captive that would be sent to my rooms tonight. I did not know. A slave has to be fully pleasing, and is subject to the lash if she fails in that respect, but I wasn’t sure if that was acceptable in respect of a captive Free Woman. Certainly, on the pleasure racks they had been shown little mercy, but I had not seen any whips hanging from hooks on the timber beams. I supposed I might ask a guard for guidance on the matter. 

 

But then it occurred to me I had no wish to whip a woman, anyway. I was not that kind of man. I wouldn’t expect slave perfection from a Free Woman, She would be naturally clumsy, cold, inert, frightened, though perhaps she might have learned some things from her days on the Pleasure Racks. She would no longer be quite so cold and inert as she might have been on her first day there. And she would know that if she failed to please me, I might make a complaint, and her kennel master might then have some punishments assigned to her.

 

I glanced again at the missing whip. It did seem strange that it was gone from the hook, almost as if it had been deliberately taken away. 

 

I left my suite of rooms to enjoy an evening meal. Again, I dined alone in a well-furnished hall, eating at a long table that could easily accommodate twenty or so men and women. I was served by another palace slave who brought far more dishes than I could possibly manage. In the end I had to ask her to stop bringing more food out to me. The wine was again excellent.  

 

As I ate, alone, I began to grow excited at the prospect of the beautiful red haired girl who would be sent to my chambers. I would take my time with her, enjoying her as a man might enjoy a rich meal. But I would not be cruel. Perhaps even now she was being prepared for my pleasure, being taken from her pen to be bathed and scented with erotic perfumes. She would perhaps be dressed in silks, with bells locked about her ankles or wrists. She would be terribly nervous, not understanding what was going to happen to her. 

 

I dabbed my lips with a napkin and signalled to the slave that I was finished eating. I felt a different kind of hunger now. 

 

There was a guard in my corridor tonight. He nodded as I approached but made no attempt to engage me in conversation. 

 

“Are you here to protect my room, or to make sure I don’t leave it?” I asked, with a smile.

 

“Both,” he said. 

 

“A girl will be brought to my rooms tonight,” I said.

 

“I do not know anything of that.”

 

“Well, don’t be surprised when one is brought.”

 

I entered my rooms, heard the door close behind me, and then heard the turn of a key in the lock. They really weren’t taking any chances with me. I was being locked in my rooms until daybreak. No doubt this was a precaution on the part of the First Minister. 

 

A small oil lamp had been lit while I was out, eating, but it was the only source of light inside my suite, meaning the rooms were now quite dark. I picked up the small lamp, returned to the heavy wooden door and thumped my fist against it. “I could do with more lamps,” I called out through the portal. “It’s quite dark in here.”

 

There was no reply.

 

Great. Just great.

 

Well, it’s not as if I planned on doing any reading. I was illiterate, after all. 

 

There was wine and a single glass, so I poured myself some, sat down beside one of the barred windows, and simply waited, gazing towards the heavy wooden door.

 

I was surprised then when I heard a gentle sliding sound from the other side of the room. I glanced to where there were five decorative alcoves – four of which contained ornamental plinths. The fifth space, in the centre, was now open, by which I mean the alcove had in fact been a recessed and hidden door that slid, rather than swung open. A dark, singular, narrow passageway was revealed and through it stepped a girl. She carried a single candle on an iron stand. 

 

I rose from my place by the window and regarded her. She had long red hair, unbound, like the hair of a slave might be. She wore red lipstick and a long sleeveless translucent lace garment that was fully open to the front, revealing her naked breasts, belly and sex. A matching strip of black lace was tied about her eyes, adding an air of mystery to her.

 

Locked about her left ankle was a ring of steel, but she wore no collar, and she had no brand that I could see in the candle lit gloom. She was apparently a Free Woman. 

 

I smiled to myself, for her build and body shape was not dissimilar to that of the Tatrix, Aliyyah Mercator. 

 

No, it couldn’t be.

 

I watched as she slid the hidden door closed in the alcove space and turned to face me again. 

 

She was very beautiful. Her hair, I thought, reminded me of the hair of the Tatrix. As did her bearing and poise.

 

“I am the Lady Tullia Fava of Isurium.” When she spoke, her accent was different than that of the Tatrix. “I am a helpless captive of the city of Corcyrus, and I have been sent to your chamber to please you tonight. But bear in mind, Sir, that I am still a Free Woman.”

 

And then she placed the candle stick down on a side table and awaited my response.