Outcast of Gor Chapter Forty (Final Chapter)

 

Destiny is all. Those words would come to haunt and shape my life over the days, weeks and months that followed. I would be dragged into the Argentum/Corcyrus war as an unwitting participant, and I would see it through to the end, and all because a young girl looked at me in awe and respect, as if I was her saviour. 

 

Destiny is all. 

 

She spoke the words and meant them. 

 

“Lady, you have an overly inflated opinion of me. I was simply in the right place at the right time, and I was lucky.”

 

“Destiny is all,” she said again. “Please walk with me, Sir.”

 

And so I did. I should have turned round, said my farewells, and gone back to the market to reclaim my slaves. I should have enjoyed my life in Corcyrus, and had nothing more to do with war, politics, or the innocent young daughter of the Tatrix. 

 

You will probably think me a fool for what follows.

 

We walked through the orange trees, with the Lady’s handmaids following at a discrete distance. 

 

“They are here for my propriety,” she explained with a soft blush beneath her veils.

 

I thought that a bit ironic, considering I could easily have claimed Laetitia as my slave.  I could have had her stripped, branded, collared and enslaved within these palace walls and no one could legally have stopped me. But now, a day later, my proximity to the girl had to be watched and guarded by two handmaids. Gor will never cease to confuse me.

 

Tall cypress trees stood sentinel-like around us, while rose bushes and wisteria climbed gracefully up the garden walls. The manicured hedges and topiary artfully arranged in intricate patterns and shapes evoked a sense of artistic elegance and screened us from the outer garden. Lady Laetitia walked slowly, as Gorean Free Women tend to do, as she led me towards a central fountain surrounded by a pond, where the serene sound of water lapping against the sides provided a relaxing backdrop to the bustling life of the outer garden. A number of vibrant butterflies fluttered between the blooming flowers, while honeybees gathered nectar from their enticing petals.

 

“I love this garden,” she said as she indicated a low stone surround on which men and women might sit. “I come here most days to be alone with my thoughts and to pray to the Priest Kings.”

 

The Gods of Gor. Goreans are by nature religious and terribly superstitious. They believe in magic. They interpret signs and natural phenomena as the will of their mysterious Gods in the Sardar. They believe these Gods govern their lives with stringent laws that must not be disobeyed for fear of the sacred Flame Death from the sky. 

 

I do not believe in Priest Kings, but that’s because I’m a rational individual with no faith in the supernatural. 

 

“I should by now have made a pilgrimage to the Sardar to honour the Gods, to stand upon its platforms, garbed in white robes, lifting laurel wreaths, while singing the glories of the Priest Kings, but the war has made that impossible for now.”

 

She referred of course to the requirement that every young person of Gor is expected, before their twenty-fifth birthday, to make such a pilgrimage, usually by slow moving caravan. Most arrive safely, but these caravans make tempting targets for bandits.  

 

“You are young, still. You have many years before your twenty fifth birthday, Lady.”

 

“That is true.” She turned to regard me. “You should understand that my life these past years has been one of duty. I am the only daughter of the Tatrix of Corcyrus. I do not enjoy freedoms as you do.”

 

I shrugged. I was familiar enough with such arrangements. Our British Royal Family was required from birth to follow strict traditions and surrender the right to personal opinions and free will. 

 

“My mother has told me of my duty. I am to travel to Torcadino for the good of Corcyrus. I am to be offered in courtship to a man I have never seen before.”

 

Such has always been the lot of daughters born to powerful dynasties. They become the wax seals appended to treaties and alliances. “Sellius Gavia,” I said, recalling the name. “The second eldest son of the Ubar of Toracdino. Your mother told me.”

 

“And why did my mother tell you?”

 

“You know why. She asked me to be part of your personal guard. Lady, I’m not a warrior.”

 

“No,” she smiled, “you are a hero. What you did in the market place, you did knowing you were not a warrior. The risk to yourself was considerable.”

 

“I told your mother I cannot help her. I wish you well, Lady, I truly do, but I wish a quiet life now.”

 

“I do not fear Sellius Gavia,” she said, as she smoothed her skirts and sat down on the stone surround. “I do not fear what I will be expected to do. I have known this day would come. I am not a frightened little girl in pigtails. Please be clear of that.”

 

I nodded. “I am sure in time he will grow to love you,” I said.

 

“Perhaps.” She gazed wistfully at the fountain. “But there is something I do fear.”

 

“The journey? All journeys are dangerous. The risks you take are no greater than the risks you would take travelling to the Sardar on pilgrimage. You share the same risks every woman takes when she leaves the safety of her city walls.”

 

“You misunderstand.  I have no fear for myself. I know what I must do. I fear only that I will fail. I fear I will fail my city in its hour of need. Corcyrus must have its alliance with Torcadino. My mother has made that clear to me. We will lose this war without the alliance. I know this, and you know this. You want a simple, quiet life, but it will be fleeting. The time will come, Sir, when this city finds itself surrounded by the legions of Argentum and Ar, and we find ourselves besieged. First we will starve, as food runs out, and then we will be stormed by ten thousand swords and spears. Men will be killed, women and children will be enslaved. You will not have your quiet life.”

 

“Perhaps. But your mother will appoint good men to guard you. They will take you to Torcadino. Your safety couldn’t be any more guaranteed if I were there.”

 

“I believe otherwise. The Priest Kings have bound me to you. My destiny is bound to yours.”

 

“Lady, with due respect, that is nonsense. There is no destiny or fate.”

 

“I believe otherwise. I believe you are here for a reason. I believe you are my champion. I know you will not fail me. Sometimes one good man can make all the difference between life and death, victory or defeat. Corcyrus has many fine warriors, but no one else was there to save me that day in the market place. Only you. I will do whatever I have to do, so that our city has its alliance. All I ask is you give me that chance.”

 

It is difficult to face a woman who truly believes in her heart that you are a much finer person than you secretly know you are. I looked into her eyes and could tell she truly believed what she said. When she looked at me, she saw a hero, not some flawed and foolish man of Earth who had made so many mistakes in his pathetic life to date. 

 

“Lady, please, I am not this man you talk of…”  

 

“You could have had me enslaved. There is no more noble a man on Gor than yourself, Roland of Corcyrus. You took up a weapon when my life was at risk. Please. Please. I beg you to take up a weapon once more, when the risk is both to myself and your city. YOUR city. This is your Home Stone, now. You may be a barbarian by birth, but you live on Gor, and you have a Home Stone. You understand the sacred importance of Home Stone?”

 

I shifted, uneasily. “I do, Lady. Men I loved as brothers – men better than myself - made that abundantly clear to me. And in my shame I once mocked them for it.”

 

“Home Stone is all, Sir Roland. Men will die for their Home Stone. Women will surrender all for their Home Stone. I beg you. I beg you now.” She rose and then knelt before me. As her hand maidens gasped and protested, she slipped her right hand to the restraining pins of her veils and slowly unveiled herself before me. “I am bound to you by the fate of the Priest Kings. I will do my duty to my Home Stone. I will risk all to save Corcyrus. My life has no value compared to that of the city and its people. But I am just a young girl, weak, powerless, and I am so scared at the responsibility that has been placed on my shoulders, and you are so strong. Please, I beg you. Lend me your strength so that I may do what I must do.”

 

Fuck.

 

Destiny is all. 

 

I made my promise to that brave young girl in that softly scented garden, and then she rose on tiptoe and kissed me softly on my cheek, before repinning her veils and returning the way she came, along a winding flagstone path. 

 

I am a fool, and I will probably die a fool. 

 

The Tatrix was waiting for me, of course, outside the garden.

 

“Well,” she said. She stood there alone, with no guards and no servants.

 

“You have spoken to your daughter?”

 

“No. Is there something I should know?”

 

“You have a brave girl.”

 

“I know,” said Aliyyah with pride. “And I love her deeply, as only a mother can.”

 

“She is paying a high price for your alliance, for your war.”

 

“She is my daughter. She has always known what is expected of her.”

 

“Did you send her to me?”

 

“She chose to speak to you of her own accord.”

 

“This is still a mistake. I don’t know what you expect from me.”

 

“I expect you to be a man.”

 

“Well, that’s not exactly an attribute that is in short supply, your Grace.”

 

“Walk with me, Roland.” 

And so, for the second time that day, I followed a woman through the scented courtyard garden of the palace. 

 

“Tell me the truth,” I said. “You came to me last night in the guise of the captive, Lady Tulia Fava?”

 

“I did not.” She paused by the same fountain where I had spoken to her daughter. 

 

“If I am to serve you, you dishonour yourself by lying to me.”

 

“I do not lie to you, Roland of Corcyrus.”

 

“Show me the Lady Tulia Fava, then. Stand beside her. Prove you both exist.”

 

“That is not possible.”

 

“Give her to me.”

 

“I cannot give her to you.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Do not demand answers of a Tatrix.” She regarded me without blinking. “You forget your place.”

 

“You forget what I have done. You forget what you want me to do.”

 

“What you do now, you do for my daughter, not for me. You refused me, remember? You swore yourself, instead, to Laetitia. You are her man, not mine.”

 

“Oh, you’re very good, your Grace. I can see how you became the Tatrix. You have a way with men.”

 

“I understand men.”

 

“Of course you do.” I folded my arms. “What are the details? What do I need to know?”

 

“The Captain of my personal guard, Adamus, will command. I trust him as I trust myself. It will be a small group of just three men, including yourself. The other man is a trusted warrior called Felix. You will travel in secret, while the forces of Argentum seek the cohort that supposedly guards Laetitia.”

 

“A woman will travel with this cohort?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“She is almost certainly going to be seized and enslaved. Argentum will expend considerable effort to kill your cohort before it can reach Torcadino. And if Stannis Assante himself hunts this cohort…”

 

“The men are almost certainly doomed. They do this for their Home Stone. They will fight to the death for the girl they believe to be my daughter.”

 

“And who is this girl? Presumably she must know the truth? She is prepared to face death or the collar, posing as Laetitia?”

 

“She is. For her Home Stone. She is Lady Kalya, the daughter of the former Lady Farzenah of Corcyrus – a former friend of mine from before I rose to the throne, who was subsequently enslaved by Argentum and returned to me as an insult, bearing a message written on a ribbon tied in her hair from the Governor of Isurium. The daughter desires revenge for her mother. In turn I allowed her to decide the fate of the former Governor of Isurium. I believe she spent seven hours watching him die at the hands of my First Minister’s torturer. You understand the power of blood?”

 

“I do. You send a lot of people to their deaths, your Grace.”

 

“I do what I have to do. Corcyrus must win. Corcyrus WILL win.”

 

“Where is your friend, the former Lady Farzenah, now?”

 

“In a slave pen, I suppose. Unless she has already been sold on a city auction block. If so, then she may possibly wear a man’s personal collar.”

 

“You haven’t freed her?”

 

“Of course not.”

 

“Why ever not?”

“She is a slave.” Aliyyah’s response was calm, measured and spoken as if I should surely understand this. “She has a brand and a collar.”

 

“Has Kalya not asked for her mother to be freed?”

 

“Of course not. She would not shame her family, so. It would be unthinkable.”

 

I will never understand Goreans in a million years. 

 

“Who are we supposed to be when we travel?”

 

“Refugees escaping from a plundered town. Adamus and Felix will be your cousins. You will be travelling with your modest Free Companion, Elissa.”

 

“Wait, what?”

 

“You will be travelling with your modest Free Companion, Elissa.”

“Laetitia? She will be posing as my Free Companion?”

 

“Yes. A single woman, lacking in companionship, would be perceived with interest by men on the road. A woman companioned to a capable man, with dangerous looking cousins, not so much.”

 

“Why me? Why is she my companion?”

 

“She will be safer with you. You could have enslaved her. You didn’t. You will respect her modesty.” She smiled, and then added, “And you are an Earthman.”

 

“You think I won’t touch your daughter because I’m from Earth?”

 

“Perhaps. Do you have intentions on my daughter?”

 

“No.”

 

“So there you are. You answer your own question.”

 

“This will be awkward.”

 

“Perhaps. Have you ever been companioned before?”

 

I thought briefly of my believed Kulai – a woman who had trusted me to protect her - and I felt a lump in my throat. “Yes,” I said, through gritted teeth. “Once. A lifetime ago.”

 

“Then you know how to act in public. I am sure you will do well.”

 

I wasn’t quite so sure. This latest revelation was unsettling, to say the least. 

 

“And now…” Aliyyah seemed suddenly reluctant to say whatever was next on her mind, “we come to a rather delicate duty.”

 

I said nothing. I could see from the way Aliyyah looked to the side that this was something she had been holding back until now.

 

“My daughter must not compromise herself.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“There is no easy way of saying this, so I will speak plainly, and when we are finished you are never to speak of it again to me.”

 

Okay. I was now very much paying attention.

 

“Torcadino is a city that applies the test to women with red hair.”

 

I suddenly recalled what I had been told some time ago; how women with smouldering red hair were considered natural slaves on Gor, and how they were, in some cities, tested by female physicians for their sexual responses. Their continued freedom hinged on them proving to be frigid when touched intimately.

 

“They would do this to Laetitia? She is the daughter of a Tatrix?!”

 

“The Ubar of Torcadino could not companion his second son to a woman who responded in a certain fashion.” Aliyyah’s eyes now grew narrow as she regarded me.

 

“Slave responses.”

 

“Do not say that. She is my daughter.”

 

I nodded.

 

“Laetitia of course believes there is nothing to fear. She knows she is frigid. And she will be.” The Tatrix produced a small vial of a colourless liquid that she placed now in my hand. “Before the test is to be conducted you will administer this serum to Laetitia without her knowing. Once she has drunk it, she will show no responses of any kind for at least twenty four hours.”

 

I held the small vial in my hand, between my fingers. “This is why you want me to travel with her? You could never say this to the Captain of your Guard, or Felix? They must think of Laetitia as unsullied, chaste and frigid.”

 

“She will be frigid. You will make sure of that. If she displays responses unsuitable for a Free Woman, there will be no companionship, and there will be no alliance. Is that clear?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“She will be frigid when she is examined by the physicians of Torcadino.”

 

“If you are giving me this you must have reason to believe there is a risk, otherwise?” I said.

 

“My daughter has red hair,” said the Tatrix simply. And for the first time she couldn’t look at me. 

 

I gazed at her own red hair and remembered the eager slave like responses of the red headed so-called Lady Tulia Fava of Isurium when I chained her to a slave ring on the tiles.

 

The Fire Crotch is a natural slave, or so many Goreans believe. 

 

“I understand, and we shall not speak of this again, your Grace.”

 

“No, we shall not.”

 

“It must be hard being both a mother and a Tatrix.”

 

Our eyes met with mutual understanding as she said, “Never mistake the weakness of a woman’s limbs for weakness of her resolve. And now that our secret business is dealt with, I shall introduce you to Adamus, the Captain of my Guard. You will find you both have something in common. He, too, is a barbarian.”

 

I must have looked surprised as she then led me back along the winding garden path towards an inner hall, where this Adamus was waiting for me.

 

“Captain, allow me to introduce Roland of Corcyrus, the third man in your group.”

 

As she spoke those words I looked up and tried to retain an impassive expression on my face, for standing before me now, dressed in the regalia of a palace Captain, was none other than the man who had tried to burgle Felicity’s house in New York on Earth, in what now seemed a lifetime ago. The man in black I had fought and only scared away when I had shouted for the Alexa device to sound a siren. 

 

It was him.

 

It was unmistakably him. I had last seen him wandering the streets of Argentum, when I was still a collared kajirus. This was a man, supposedly of Argentum, once of Earth, now serving as a Captain of the palace in Corcyrus. 

 

He looked up, regarded me without any sign of recognition, and, in the English language, said, “the Tatrix tells me you’re English, too. Quite the coincidence. I look forward to hearing your story on the road to Torcadino, Roland. Welcome to the gang.”

 

Destiny, it seems, is all.

 

 

The end of Outcast of Gor, but the Roland Martell trilogy will continue and conclude in the third and final volume: Barbarian of Gor