Barbarian of Gor Chapter Nineteen

 

“The landing zone erupted into an intense fire fight as soon as the women were being loaded as livestock onboard the slave ship. The very last words I spoke to Caitlin are forever imprinted in my head,” said Adam. “She had a favourite film, you see: the Last of the Mohicans. And there’s this scene when everything seems doomed, and Daniel Day Lewis says something like, ‘No! You stay alive! If they don't kill you, they'll take you north up to the Huron lands. Submit, do you hear? You're strong! You survive! You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you! No matter how long it takes, no matter how far. I will find you!’ It was the last time I ever saw her face. I promised her I would move heaven and earth to bring her back, and believe me, I will. Everything I have done since then has been with that goal in mind.”

 

He was telling the truth. There was no mistaking the pained look in his eyes now.

 

“You know where she is?”

 

“No. I would have found her by now if I did.”

 

“Hope is a great thing, but realistically, Adam, what chance do you have? She’ll have been unloaded in a slave market in any one of the many Gorean cities. She will have been sold, possibly several times, and she won’t have the same name any more. How are you going to find her?”

 

“She wasn’t alone when the slave ship took off. My sword brother, Mark, had made it on board. I just have to find Mark and he will know what happened to Caitlin.”

 

“And again, how are you going to find Mark? He could be anywhere on Gor. It’s not as if he has a postal address you can look up.”

 

“Actually, he does. Mark is Gorean. He has family on Gor. He was trapped on Earth for many years and his great desire was to return to his home world. If he remained alive long enough to reach Gor – and I have to believe he did – then he will have reunited with his family. I only have to find them and then I find Mark. It’s that simple.”

 

“And where are his family?”

 

“Torcadino.” Adam smiled. “They live in Torcadino.”

 

And suddenly it all became clear.

 

“Torcadino? So… all of this… Corcyrus… the Tatrix… you’re only going to Torcadino because…”

 

“I will see the mission through,” said Adam. “You can trust me on that. I will deliver Laetitia to Torcadino, and see her free companioned, but after that I am done. My duty to Corcyrus will be over. I’ll find Mark, and then I’ll reclaim my slave girl.”

 

“But, why even bother with the mission? Why didn’t you just go to Torcadino to begin with?”

 

“I didn’t know Mark was in Torcadino when I first reached Gor. I followed a trail of breadcrumbs which took me from city to city. Mark’s family had moved over the intervening years, and city records are only any use for local information. By the time I gained that knowledge the war had begun and this seemed a convenient way of reaching the city whilst repaying a debt of honour to the Tatrix.”

 

“A debt of honour?”

 

“She is a remarkable woman. It’s fair to say I owe her a debt of honour, though I suspect she saw me as a potential investment for the future, just like you were.”  

 

“She has an eye for talent, it seems.”

 

“It’s the secret of her success. She surrounds herself with capable men and charms them.” Adam smiled.

 

“There was…” I smiled at the recollection, “on my first night in the palace, I was visited by a red haired slave. Well, a captive woman. There was no brand or collar, which I thought curious at the time. Her eyes were hidden behind a strip of black lace. That was curious, too.”

 

Adam said nothing.

 

“The lighting was dim, but her resemblance to the Tatrix was uncanny. She claimed to be the Lady Tulia Fava of the conquered town of Isurium.”

 

Adam still said nothing.

 

“Were you ever visited by a red-haired girl, Adam? Possibly by that name, or even some other?”

 

“Your imagination is obviously a vivid one, Roland. There are many red-haired women on Gor. Gorean men value that hair colour for its passion and suitability to the collar. I can assure you the Tatrix owns many handsome male slaves. There is no lack of them, should she wish to enjoy a man in the privacy of her bed chambers. But if you want to think the Tatrix of Corcyrus visited you in the dark in the guise of a free captive because you’re somehow special, well, you’re overlooking the obvious; that she keeps slaves around who vaguely resemble her for just that reason. I suppose you said yes to her request soon after bedding this hot little slut?”

 

“No, actually, I didn’t. It was the intervention of Laetitia herself that won me over. I turned the Tatrix down.”

 

“Hmm. You’re a strange man, Roland.” He seemed thoughtful for a moment and then he reached into a pouch at his belt and produced a folded photograph. It was of a young woman of mixed race with corkscrew dark hair. “This is Caitlin. This is my slave. It’s all I have left of her now.”

 

The girl was beautiful. It was a photo of her upper body and head as she looked pensively to one side, conscious of the camera, as she ran her right hand through her hair. She wore a loose, black sleeveless blouse with white lettering and patterns on it.  

 

“She’s lovely,” I said, as I returned the photo to him.

 

“I should have taken more photos. But you never think at the time, do you?”

 

“I guess not. You own her?”

 

“I do.”

 

“Legally? Back on Earth?”

 

“You’d be surprised what goes on in the shadows of our world.”

 

****************

 

In the end I had to compromise on the matter of the huntresses.

 

“We’re painting a target on our backs if we take them with us the way they are,” said Adamus. “They will attract too much attention dressed in their hunting costumes.”

 

It was a fair point and one that I couldn’t argue with. It would make more sense to bring them with us as stripped captives. We could conceal Laetitia in amongst the huntresses if they seemed to be a coffle of slaves. 

 

Mishka, Svetlana, and Livinnia glared sullenly at me as I broke the news.

 

“Remove your clothing. All of it.”

 

“No,” said Svetlana. She balled her fists and remained stoic.

 

“We are not slaves,” said Mishka. “Do not think to treat us as such.”

 

Livinnia said nothing, and she had said nothing since I had overpowered and made her helpless. She acted as if I was beneath her and worthy only of her contempt. She steadfastly refused to speak to me or answer anything I might say to her. 

 

“You will be marched naked in a simple wrist coffle,” I said. “You will attract less attention that way. Laetitia will act as the coffle’s first girl, which excuses her brief tunic. In times of war you will seem to be just one more coffle of newly acquired girls being led to market.”

 

The women made no attempt to undress.

 

“Shall I strip you myself with the edge of my knife?” I suggested.

 

“You can try,” said Svetlana. “And I will claw your eyes out, male.”

 

Okay. I wasn’t going to put up with that. Not in front of the other men. Svetlana only had herself to blame for this.

 

I stepped forward to strip Svetlana first. As soon as I did, she lashed out with her nails at my face, but of course she underestimated how quick I could be under Gor’s slightly lower gravity. I caught her wrist and turned it round, forcing it high against her back. She cried out in pain as I forced her to her knees, pulling her arm harder, more painfully, against her upper back when she foolishly tried to resist.

 

For a moment Mishka looked like she wanted to intervene and perhaps jump me from behind, but Felix’s close presence put stop to any such thoughts. Felix looked even more intimidating than I did. She took a step back and left me to handle Svetlana as I saw fit. 

 

I put my body weight on Svetlana once more and held her face down in the grass as she struggled and screamed.

 

“Lie still or I will break your arm,” I said. “Lie still, damn you!”

 

She struggled some more and then screamed even louder as I twisted her arm as high as it might safely go. A little more and it would break.

 

“I hate you!” she sobbed.

 

“This is your last warning, Svetlana. I will break your arm.”

 

She lay still.

 

“Part your ankles” I said as I drew my knife.

 

“No! I will strip myself,” she sobbed. “Do not do it to me.” A free woman is foolish to provoke a man to strip her at knife point. His blood will be up and once the girl is naked and wriggling beneath him with her legs parted, he may well be in the mood to put her to use. This is why most sensible free women will undress themselves if they are given the option.

 

“Part your legs, Svetlana.”

 

“There is no need! I will obey my captor!”

 

I thrust her legs apart. I wasn’t gentle with her. “If you move or resist I will cut off your long hair. Do you understand?” That is a considerable threat to any woman, slave or free. 

 

She whimpered but then lay there with her legs wide apart, face pressed against the grass as I worked to cut her clothing away from her supple body with my knife. I was not in a particularly good mood. She had tried to blind me with her nails. Once she was naked, lying in the grass, I put my hand to the trailing ends of her hair ribbon.

 

“Please not my ribbon. Please, Roland. You know what it means to us.”

 

In her culture the loss of the ribbon said more about her than her nakedness. With the ribbon she might still be proud and defiant, even if marched naked in a wrist coffle. Only slaves have unbound hair. 

 

I pulled the ribbon free and discarded it to one side. I then stared directly at Mishka. “Undress yourself.”

 

She of course did so without further argument. She had seen what had happened to Svetlana. 

 

Livinnia said nothing when it was her turn. She held my gaze with her own, and it was like the cold gaze of a reptile. Garment by garment, she divested herself of everything, save her hair ribbon, and stood proudly before me as a naked girl.

 

“We have obeyed you,” said Mishka, a tad nervously, perhaps. “Do not take our ribbons.”

 

I took Mishka’s ribbon and discarded it beside that of Svetlana. Her long hair fell about her shoulders and she choked back a sob. This was a serious matter for her. Only slaves wear their hair unbound. It was difficult for her to stand proudly with her hair worn loose. 

 

Livinnia surprised me. Before I could unbind her ribbon, she calmly slipped it from her head and combed her hair loose about her shoulders. She continued to regard me with that unflinching reptile gaze as she threw her ribbon down beside the others as if it meant nothing to her. She still refused to speak, but if looks could kill…

 

A wrist coffle is a very simple method of herding women in a single line. All you require is a length of rope cut into equal lengths, one for each girl. A rope end is tied to the leading girl’s wrist and taken back to where the second girl stands. It is then tied to her right wrist. A second rope is knotted to her wrist tie and trailed back to the third girl, and so on. They can now march in line, secured to one another, with relative freedom of movement, though it is impossible for any single girl to try and escape, and if all of them tried they would simply slow one another down. Pursuit would be swift and punishment swifter still. 

 

“Do you wish to be the leading girl?” I asked Livinnia. It is a position of importance in a coffle line, and I was offering it to her in respect of her authority over the other huntresses. Of course she didn’t reply. “Very well, you can be last in the line.”

 

I placed Mishka in front, then Svetlana, then Danata, and then Livinnia. I had given the injured Danata one of the Gorean Benzedrine tablets and within twenty minutes she was able to stand and walk with little difficulty, despite her injuries. I didn’t know how long the Benzedrine would last but I had plenty more tablets. This was obviously good stuff, far superior to anything you might obtain on Earth. I could probably make a killing if I could somehow ship the tablets back to England or the USA. The right wrist of each girl was roped to the one behind, with a slack between my captives of approximately five feet. With their hair now unbound, and with the hunting leathers and hose stripped away, you’d be hard pressed to know these women had ever ridden tharlarions and hunted men. They could be any free women taken as prizes from a sacked and plundered town.

 

It wouldn’t do to leave any tell-tale signs that the huntresses had been enslaved, so I soaked the discarded garments in lamp oil and set them alight. The girls watched anxiously as their precious hunting garb burned before them. The hair ribbons were then added to the fire, one at a time until all the evidence was destroyed.

 

Felix and Adam released the tethers of the tharlarion mounts and sent them on their way. 

 

“Laetitia,” I said. The girl skipped happily towards me. 

 

“Yes?” she asked. 

 

“You will be first girl.” I hand her a switch that I had carved from a supple tree branch. “You will have discipline rights over the captives. But do not abuse those rights.”

 

She grinned and turned a sly glance at the former huntresses.  

 

“We may meet other travellers on the road. They will see what they think they see. You are all slaves.”

 

“I think I will enjoy this deception,” she said. She swished the switch through the air, once, twice and then a third time for good measure.

 

“Who collared you?” asked Mishka of Laetitia. 

 

“Roland,” said Laetitia, without thinking. 

 

The huntress smiled, perhaps knowing something that Laetitia could only suspect. “Do you call him Master?”

 

“No,” said the girl.

 

“No? That is a serious offence. You might be whipped.”

 

“I am not a slave,” said Laetitia. She held the slave switch in her right hand as befits a first girl. “This is just a deception.”

 

“Is it?” Mishka gazed about the clearing. Felix had finished clearing our camp and she could see we would set out soon, marching our coffle across the wilderness towards the theoretical safety of the Torcadino border. Once we crossed that perimeter we would be subject to Torcadino law. “Foolish girl. You permitted a man to collar you.”

 

“Enough,” I said, in warning. “No more talk.” I approached Mishka and took hold of her hair, drawing her head back. “She is a free woman.”

“But you and I know differently, don’t we?” whispered Mishka, quietly enough so that Laetitia might not hear her words. “She doesn’t know, does she? She doesn’t know she actually is a slave? She doesn’t understand what it means to be collared by a slaver in the wilderness, where no city law exists to protect her? How delightful. You should of course brand the little red-haired slut.”

 

“Speak of this again, Mishka, and I will shave your head.” Women are inordinately proud of their long hair that they have typically spent a lifetime growing Its loss to them would be devastating. 

 

“As you wish, captor.” Mishka sniffed and tried to stand proud, but it is difficult for a woman to do so when she is naked before a man. “What are you going to do with us?’

 

“That depends.”

 

“How close is the Torcadino border?” she asked.

 

“Close. We may reach it by the end of the day, provided you don’t slow us down.”

 

“Oh, but my feet already hurt,” said Mishka. “There are stones and I am not used to walking barefoot.”

 

“If you slow us down, whether intentionally or not, I will use a whip on your flanks.”

 

There was a moment of fear in the girl’s eyes. I think she knew only too well how slaves reacted to being whipped by a man. “I do not fear the whip.” She tried to sound convincing.

 

“You should. A woman who does not fear the whip in the hands of a man is a fool. Are you a fool, Mishka?”

 

“No, I am not a fool.”

 

“Then bear my warning in mind. You will not get a second warning.”

 

I stroked her bottom, feeling her soft curves and I saw her body react, flinching from my touch.

 

“Don’t touch me!” she snapped.

 

“I will touch you as and when I wish, Mishka. You are fast trying my patience.”

 

Laetitia approached me as I returned to where Adam and Felix readied themselves for the march.

 

“What did she mean?” asked the young girl.

 

“Nothing, She is trying to sow division and she does that by insulting you.”

 

“She thinks I am a slave.”

 

“No she doesn’t. She is just trying to upset you. If she speaks again, whip her with the switch. She’ll learn.”

 

“Why does it matter who collared me?” The girl seemed anxious.

 

“It doesn’t.” I took Laetitia gently by her upper arms and gazed down into that softly freckled face. “She is just trying to get a reaction from you.”

 

“I am free, aren’t I?” 

 

“Of course.” I touched her nose with my finger. “The daughter of a Tatrix.”

 

“You would tell me?”

 

“You are not a slave, Laetitia. Don’t even think it,” I lied.

 

“Last night when I boldly kissed you…” she blushed, wanting to say something but not daring to do so.

 

“It was just a kiss. An innocent girl’s spontaneous action. You are young and you seek vicarious thrills that are forbidden to you. It meant nothing to you beyond the novelty of the moment.”

 

“But…”

“You felt nothing, save a momentary excitement for breaking social taboos. Young girls do that. Do not confuse your feelings for anything else.”

 

We set off, ten ehn later. I confess it is pleasant to march a coffle of naked women through the beautiful Gorean wilderness, knowing you own them. This is how it is to be a man on Gor. What man would ever wish to return to his previous life on Earth, having sampled the abundance of riches that Gor has to offer him? And what woman of Earth would truly wish to return to her stifling, depressing life, lacking in fulfilment and happiness, after she has experienced what her biological sex has conditioned her to need? Here on this world women can at last be women. Here they can actually have what they truly desire – a collar and a brand. 

 

My captives seemed sullen, anxious even, as time wore on. Occasionally they attempted to slow their pace, hoping perhaps to delay that moment when we might reach the safety of Torcadino’s border, hoping perhaps that their men might ride us down with lances and rescue them. But the crack of my whip swiftly put paid to such notions. I didn’t even have to whip their flanks. As soon as they heard the crack of the whip in the air they redoubled their pace and made swift time under our watchful gaze.

 

We paused for a rest at lunch time and ate some more of their excellent provisions. By now the women were hungry, having msised breakfast. I said nothing as we ate. If they wanted food, they could beg for it.

 

None of them chose to beg, so they remained hungry. 

 

There is always a price to be paid for a woman’s pride. 

 

Danata was beginning to slow her pace, limping along as best she could. It wasn’t her fault, of course. I gave her a second Benzedrine tablet and within ten to fifteen ehn she was striding alongside the other three girls at a brisk pace, once again. 

 

It was the fourteenth ahn when Adam paused the march and pointed out a low sloping hill in the distance. We were close enough that I could make out what looked like a stone circle high on its summit. 

 

“That’s Slaver’s Point,” said Adam. “It marks the border of Torcadino. Once we reach it, we’re in Torcadino’s sphere of influence and subject to its laws.”

 

“That’s hardly going to stop Stannis Assante, though,” I suggested.

 

“True enough, but once we reach Slaver’s Point he’ll be acting outside his authority. Torcadino will consider any deployment of Argentum’s mercenaries in their land as a hostile act.”

 

“Assuming they even notice. I can see women chained to the stones…”

 

“The stones were erected over a thousand years ago,” said Adam. “Each stone has slave rings hammered into the surface for the securing of kajirae. Slavers routinely camp there overnight before pushing on to the city itself. It can sometimes be an informal market place of sorts, where slavers meet and make last minute deals between themselves before they reach the slave markets in Torcadino, for in Torcadino they will be subject to all manner of municipal taxes. I suspect we will not be alone up there tonight, if the women chained to the stones are anything to go by.”