Barbarian of Gor Chapter One

 

Book Three of the Roland Martell trilogy

 

If I had to make a list of things that turned me on, then the sound of ankle bells locked on the left ankle of a kajira would be somewhere in the top twenty. Part of the appeal, other than the deliciously erotic sound as she moves, is knowing that she cannot remove the bells. They are locked on her. She is a slave, and she doesn’t have the key.

 

The girl in question was quite modestly dressed for a dancing slave, and this was on account of the fact that there were free women present. We sat in the main room of a travel Inn, somewhere south of Corcyrus. Walled Inns can be routinely found at conveniently spaced intervals along the main roads between cities. The distance between Inns is always slightly less than the average distance a man might travel on foot in a single day. Ergo, you are always likely to find shelter, for a price, and on a world where you really shouldn’t camp in the wild, unless you carry a sword and you know how to use it, the presence of the Inns makes travel feasible for most people.

 

“I apologise for the dancing slave,” I said to the young Lady Laetitia, who sat, rather stiffly, I thought, with her back to the sand pit in which the slave danced. As I observed, the slave wore a reasonably modest tunic, rather than slave silks, and her dance was far less sexual than you might find in a paga tavern in a city. 

 

There were free women present, after all.

 

I had ensured the Lady Laetitia might sit with her back to the sand pit, for I understood only too well how the sensibilities of a free woman are easily offended by such things as slave dance.

 

“It is nothing,” she said, with the tone of voice women use when they tell you nothing is wrong, but obviously something is very wrong.

 

“Most of the travellers are of course men, and the Inn needs to cater for them,” I suggested.

 

“Of course.” Laetitia reached with her gloved fingers for her glass. She touched the stem of the glass and looked straight ahead. She had not turned her gaze round since being seated.

 

“Once we have eaten, I will escort you back to your room, so that you might not endure this any longer.”

“I said it is nothing.”

 

“Of course.” I thought the dancer might be a northern girl. There was something about her bearing, her demeanour, as she danced in the sand, that put me in mind of proud Scandinavian beauties. Once or twice she caught my eye and smiled in a manner that was very suggestive. I had been told that the dancers owned by the Inn were available for a nominal fee. 

 

“How is your evening dinner?” I asked the Lady Laetitia. She had barely touched it. Food in Inns varies, particularly from season to season, but today, here in this Inn, the choice of menu had been sorely limited. War interrupts trade, and the options in the kitchen were affected as a result. We had been served a basic stew, mostly consisting of root vegetables, and some coarse bread.

 

“Adequate.”

 

“You should eat, my Lady. You need strength for the journey ahead.”

 

I counted three other free women dining in the main room, and all of them were accompanied by men, as Laetitia was. Women rarely, if ever, travelled the wilderness between cities, alone. The roads are not safe for lone women. Even in groups, they simply become more tempting targets for slavers and outlaws. Gor can be a dangerous world for free women. 

 

Laetitia and I were not alone, of course. Seated with us was Adamus, the Captain of the Tatrix’s personal guard, and with him was a Corcyrian warrior called Felix. We had been on the road now for three days, heading to the city of Torcadino, where the Lady Laetitia would be free companioned to the Ubar’s son, in return for a military alliance against Argentum. The Tatrix had confided in me that, despite the early successes Corcyrus had enjoyed on the battlefield, she could not prevail against Argentum indefinitely without an ally. The price of the alliance was the hand and unsullied virtue of the Tatrix’s young daughter. 

 

Felix, I trusted. Adamus, I did not. I had seen Adamus twice before. Once on Earth, at a townhouse in London, when he had broken into Felicity’s home, and once in the walled city of Argentum, when I had observed him walking the streets as an apparent citizen of that city. As far as I knew, the Tatrix knew nothing of his varied past.

 

Why didn’t I tell her? I considered it, but I wasn’t sure she would take my word over his. I had seen enough TV shows to know she might, at best, question Adamus, be persuaded by his rhetoric, and then, forewarned, Adamus would know he had to deal with me. No, better to keep my cards close to my chest, give him no indication I knew any of this, and then perhaps I could ensure that Laetitia came to no harm.

 

“Roland is right, Lady,” said Adamus. “You should eat.”

 

“I am not hungry,” she said. 

 

“This is a time of war, Lady,” added Adamus. “There is no guarantee meals will be forthcoming every night.”

 

“I am the daughter of the Tatrix, and I have decided I am not hungry,” she said, with a stubbornness to her voice.

 

“Of course,” conceded Adamus. “Such is your right.”

 

I watched as Laetitia drank a little of the wine. I would ensure she didn’t drink too much, not on an empty stomach, anyway. Women on Gor are strongly advised not to drink heavily. They must always be in control of their feelings and maintain a dignified manner. Alcohol loosens inhibitions and can affect a free woman’s judgement. 

 

“Some water, perhaps?” I suggested to Laetitia.

 

“I am drinking wine,” she said. She continued to look straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge the musicians close to the sandpit, or the slave who danced on bare feet for the pleasure of the men. 

 

I should note that free women of high status are adept at eating and drinking in public spaces while veiled. No free woman would dream of baring her delicate features in a room full of men she didn’t know. Instead, they lift the fabrics slightly to enable eating small portions of food and sipping from a goblet. This, as you might imagine, can be time consuming which is why free women linger over dinners and rarely eat much in public spaces. In private, of course, they can gorge to their heart’s content. 

 

Stew isn’t an ideal type of food to eat while veiled. Free women tend to prefer tasting menus where there are a variety of small finger delicacies that can be picked up and eaten discretely, one bite at a time. Lady Laetitia’s reluctance to eat much of the stew was therefore understandable. 

 

“Perhaps you might prefer eating in your room?” I suggested.

 

“My room is small, and the hour is early. Too early to be confined to such a small cubicle.”

 

She knew, I think, that once she was escorted to her room, she would not be able to leave it until morning. This was a public Inn, and so we would ensure the door was securely locked. None of us particularly wished to spend the early part of the night standing guard outside her stout door, not when we could relax in the main room below, drink, and enjoy the dancing slaves. And so we would keep the keys to her door, ensuring there was no possibility of the Lady being foolish enough to open it in answer to perhaps a knock from outside. 

 

And, yes, the room was small. Private rooms in a roadside Inn are something of a luxury, and they command high prices, compared to the cheaper option of sleeping in a common room. To maximise profits, the private rooms in an Inn tend to be small, that way making more of them available to rent out. Laetitia’s room wasn’t much larger than her simple cot bed. It would be a boring evening, indeed, if she found herself confined inside it from the supper hour. 

 

There was a single window, narrow, and barred. In many ways it resembled a cell. 

 

Underneath the cot there would be a porcelain chamber pot, in case the Lady felt it necessary to relieve herself during the night. I felt sure that Laetitia would not wish to squat down on a chamber pot in the dark, and so I had advised her to moderate her liquid intake before retiring for the night.   

 

“I suppose the entertainment pleases you, Roland?” she asked.

 

She could tell I was watching the dancer, as were Felix and Adamus. I smiled, nodded, and said, “I’m a man, Lady.”

 

“Of course. And she is a dancing slave. Is she any good?” Laetitia refused to turn her head.

 

“Not bad, though her dance is rather more polite than if she was dancing in a paga tavern.”

 

“Is she available?” The Lady’s question surprised me.

 

“Yes, she is, Lady.” I regarded Laetitia. “For a price.”

 

“Will you have her tonight?” asked Laetitia.

 

I said nothing. It was an unusual question for a free woman to ask. 

 

“I take your silence as a yes,” she said. 

 

“With respect, Lady, you do not know me well enough to make such assumptions.”

 

“You are a man,” she observed. “What else do I need to know?”

 

“I am a barbarian,” I reminded her. 

 

“As am I,” said Adamus, with a chuckle. “Though I rarely think of myself in that way anymore. Gor will get to you, Roland. When in Rome…” he broke off some bread and wiped some of the remaining stew onto it. 

 

“I do not believe men of Earth are really that different than Gorean men,” said Laetitia. “I see your eyes.”

 

“Oh?” I regarded her, curious.

 

“I know that look. I have seen that look before.”

 

“Oh?” 

 

“When I have been in the market. And a guard has looked at a pretty slave. For a moment I see that look, before he snaps back to attention and considers his duty to me.”

 

“Perhaps.” I shrugged.

 

“So do not presume I do not know you, Roland of Corcyrus. You are a man, and I have been warned about men.” Her eyes crinkled slightly, suggesting a charming smile behind her veils.

 

“You are knowledgeable for your age, Lady.”

 

The dancing slave looked at me again as she turned and raised her arms and wrists gracefully above her head. Her gaze lingered for a few seconds before she turned and pirouetted through the sand. Slaves have no choice in who they serve within the furs, but clever slaves know how to entice a particular man that, all things considered, they might prefer to serve in the furs. 

 

I shifted, uncomfortably, where I sat. The slave was giving me an unwanted erection, and it wouldn’t do for the Lady Laetitia to notice. She would be embarrassed, and rightly so. 

 

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We had left Corcyrus on foot, through the south gate, three days ago. 

 

“Wouldn’t we get to Torcadino a lot quicker if we rode, rather than walked?” I had asked Adamus.

 

“I agree. But it was the Lady’s idea that we go on foot. She thinks we’ll attract less attention that way. She wants to sacrifice speed for anonymity.”

 

“Her idea?”

 

“Yes. She would have been more comfortable in a well-sprung wagon, but she has the sense to understand that would make her stand out. On foot we look like just another group of refugees.”

 

“I see.” 

 

“Argentum knows what we’re doing,” said Adamus as he secured his travel pack, tightening the straps across his shoulders. “Their spies are very good. They will be looking for us.”

 

I bet their spies are good, I thought to myself. But are you, perhaps, one of them? 

 

“Do you mind me asking you how you got to Gor?” said Adamus.

 

“Yes.” 

 

“Fair enough.”

 

“Do you want to tell me how you found your way to Gor?” I asked. 

 

“I’m very well connected,” he replied. “I know people who know people.”

 

“That’s as ambiguous as me not telling you anything.”

 

“The difference is, I’m in charge of this mission, Roland. And I don’t know you. The Tatrix has entrusted her only daughter to my care.”

 

The Tatrix seems to trust me, too,” I said.

 

“I don’t care if the Tatrix trusts you. I only care whether I trust you. And I don’t know you.”

 

“Do you want me to swear an oath? I’ll swear an oath that I won’t do anything to risk Laetitia’s safety. On my life.”

 

“I don’t think an oath means much to you, Roland.”

 

“And it does to you?”

 

“Yes. I’m Gorean.”

 

“ No you’re not. You’re an Earthman like me.”

 

“I’m Gorean here.” He tapped his right temple. “I’m Gorean where it counts. I have a Home Stone.”

 

“So do I.”

 

“Yeah, right.”

 

“What about Felix? Do you trust him?”

 

“With my life.”

 

“And Laetitia’s life?”

 

We didn’t get any further with the conversation, for Laetitia emerged from a discrete doorway in a non-descript shop front, long ago boarded up, that was situated very close to the South gate of the city. Laetitia had dressed herself in peasant clothes, the garments worn by a low caste girl. Her layers of brushed silks were replaced by simple home spun wool and rep cloth gowns. Her cheap slippers were already mud splattered, as were the frayed hems of her robes that touched the ground. 

 

“Your Free Companion is here,” said Adamus, with a nod. He referred to the part I was supposed to play as cover for our journey together.

 

“Lady,” I said, as she approached, and I must have looked surprised as she took my hands in her own gloved hands. 

 

“Beloved,” she said, playing her part. There was a tinge of amusement in her voice. 

 

“Beloved…” I said, rather more unconvincingly. 

 

“You’ll need to do better than that,” she said, through a light laugh. “You’re supposed to love me, remember. I am precious to you.”

 

This role I was supposed to play made me feel uncomfortable. Laetitia was college age, no more than that, and while of a legal age in Britain, she was still too damn young for my liking. 

 

“Beloved,” I tried the word again.

 

“Better,” she said. “A little better. You just need a little practice.”

 

When Felix arrived, we shouldered our packs and set off through the city gates and down the straight road that stretched as far as the horizon. 

 

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There was a tension at our table that night. Laetitia knew that her presence was preventing us from relaxing and enjoying the evening’s entertainment, the way men on Gor wish to enjoy themselves. The fact is, men don’t want free women at their table when slaves are dancing in the sand pit. It’s awkward.

 

“You want me to go to my room, don’t you?” she said, glancing first at Adamus, and then, knowingly, I think, at me.

 

“You are welcome here, Lady,” said Adamus, but his words didn’t really ring sincere.

 

“You are too polite, Captain. But I think your courtesy does little to conceal your discomfort.”

 

Adamus smiled. “This isn’t a holiday for us, Lady. We have a job to do. We won’t be distracted.”

 

“I didn’t say you would be distracted, Captain. I trust you. I trust your sword. It is sworn to my mother.”

 

“That it is,” said Adamus.

 

But you haven’t told her who you are, have you? I thought to myself.

 

“I want you to know I have great respect for the men who guard my life, and what is even more precious to me – my freedom.”

 

Adamus inclined his head in a grateful nod.

 

“I… I have no way of repaying your loyalty. You know that, Captain.”

 

“You owe us nothing, Lady,” said Adamus. “I serve the Tatrix. I serve Corcyrus. And so I serve you.”

“As do I,” said Felix. 

 

“And yet, it would be churlish of me, spiteful even, to frustrate some simple pleasures that you might enjoy on the road.”

 

No one said anything. The Lady seemed uncomfortable, but she continued. “I know what men want. I am not stupid. I am not a foolish little girl.”

 

“Lady, there is no need to say any of this.”

 

“You would have a better evening tonight, if I were not here. There. I have said it.” There was a faint blush from the little of her face I could see. “If I were in my room.”

 

“You would be safer in your room, yes,” agreed, Adamus, perhaps hoping she would leave us be, tonight. “The door is stout wood. The locks are good ones, and the window is far too narrow for any intruder.”

 

“Yes, I would be safe.” She thought, perhaps, of the narrow, cramped confines of that cell-like cubicle. Safe and bored. 

 

“Your safety is paramount,” suggested Adamus. He was thinking now, perhaps, of the Scandinavian dancer, and what she might change into, in place of the modest tunic she currently wore, when the last of the free women had been persuaded to leave the main room. Then the true entertainments for the night would really begin. 

 

We waited, saying nothing more, as the Lady pondered what she might now do.

 

We saw one of the two remaining ladies rising from her own table and, without looking at the dancer in the sand pit, she was escorted by a man out of the main room of the Inn, to the staircase that would lead to her own cell-like cubicle for the night. Only one other free woman remained at a table, other than Laetitia, and no doubt the men she was with would be kindly suggesting she might be tired now. 

 

“I can escort you to your room, if you wish, Lady,” I said.

 

“Call me beloved,” she whispered.

 

“Are you tired, beloved?” I asked, kindly. 

 

“Perhaps.” She looked deeply at me. This was pretence. We were not really companions. She was the young, virgin, daughter of the Tatrix. She would do well to remember that. 

 

The free woman walked past our table with her male escort gently touching her elbow and guiding her. She walked stiffly, apparently unhappy that she had been pressured to leave. She did not like the idea of her travel escort remaining downstairs tonight. I had no idea who he was to her. A sell sword, perhaps? If so, he would most certainly share her Home Stone. No free woman would entrust her safety to a man who didn’t swear an oath to her city. To do otherwise would be dangerous. The man glanced at my table and winked at us as he passed. No doubt he was hoping we might persuade our own free woman to retire for the night.  

 

“We depart early tomorrow, beloved,” I said, offering her an excuse to leave.

 

“Yes. Early.” She rose and I rose beside her. There was a palpable feeling of relief emanating from many of the men in the main room tonight. Now they need only rid themselves of the remaining free woman, and the fun might begin in earnest.

 

Laetitia offered me her arm, and I took it gently, and guided her past the low table and out towards the staircase. We were only a short distance behind the other free woman and her armed escort. 

 

“I hope the cot bed will be a little softer than the one I slept on last night,” said Laetitia, making small talk.

 

“I hope so too, beloved.” We reached the landing and I waited a moment as the man in front of us unlocked a door and watched as his woman entered through it. He spoke a few words before closing the door, locking her inside for the night, then, with a grin on his face he sped past me and Laetitia and headed back downstairs.

 

Now it was my turn. I produced the keys to the two locks and opened the door to Laetitia’s own cramped cubicle. It was as I remembered it – just a little bigger than the cot bed itself. 

 

“I will wish you a good night, Lady,” I said.

 

“Beloved, you mean,” she said, as she stood in the doorway.

 

“There is no one to hear us, on this landing.”

 

“Even so, I like how the word sounds from your lips.”

 

I gave her a stern look and she giggled. “It’s so easy to tease you, Roland.”

 

“Perhaps.”

 

“So very easy.” She reached with her left hand and touched me lightly on the arm. “Do you wish to search under my cot bed for assassins?”

 

I had no intention of entering her bed chamber. “An assassin wouldn’t fit there. It’s a very narrow space. Even a child would have difficulty.”

 

“Oh. You already looked?”

 

“Adamus did. He’s very thorough.” 

 

She seemed in no hurry to step inside. 

 

“Good night then, Roland of Corcyrus.” She gazed wistfully at me.

 

“Good night, Lady.”

 

And then I closed the door on her, and with the two keys, locked our precious cargo inside.