Barbarian of Gor Chapter Ten

 

How could I explain the intervention of the sleen?

 

Frankly, I couldn’t. By all rights it should have seen me as available prey. I should now be dead, but instead it had sniffed at the ropes and chewed through them. 

 

Were I the kind of man who believed even slightly in divine intervention I would think my wild prayer had been answered, but I am rational and I know there are no gods lording themselves over Gor or anywhere else for that matter. Prayers, sadly, are never answered. 

 

It took me half an ahn to free my bound wrists and then it was simple enough to address myself to the ankle ties. I worked carefully and I had to wait until feeling returned to my fingers, but eventually I was free of the restraints.

 

I had been gone a whole day and most of the night. It would be dawn soon. Time was not on my side, for Miss Sally Reeve would be trying to get a message to Stannis Assante. Once she did, Stannis’s soldiers would head this way and we would not be able to hide from them for long. Our only hope had been that the forces of Argentum would have to spread their resources far and wide, being ignorant of the direction Laetitia might take to reach Torcadino. Once the search area was narrowed, Stannis could concentrate all his cavalry and find us. 

 

I feared that Adamus and Felix would have remained at the Inn while I was missing. And even if Adamus had the sense to move on, I feared Laetitia would have objected. She seemed uncommonly fond of me, and that might well spell her doom. 

 

So I ran through the woodland, guiding myself by instinct until I reached the road that I knew would lead me back to the Travel Inn.

 

The problem now was I would not be able to gain entrance until the gates were unlocked in the morning. Gates are well secured in the Gorean wilderness and for good reason. No amount of shouting or banging on the heavy wood would persuade anyone to open them early. That meant the loss of a few more ahn. Time was precious and we had to get out of here. For all I knew Sally Reeve had found a line of refugees and they had escorted her safely to a location along the road where Stannis’s cavalry maintained regular patrols. 

 

I reached the high walls surrounding the Travel Inn and I came to a halt outside the stout gates. The walls were lined with tarn wire, so even if I could scale them in the dark I would cut myself trying to get to the courtyard. 

 

I called out Felix’s name, then Adamus’s name, and finally Laetitia’s alias. There was no reply. Shutters covered the barred windows. I paced about the walls feeling angry and frustrated. And then I sat down in the wet grass to wait until morning. 

 

I passed the few ahn thinking of what we could now do. I had to assume Sally would find Stannis and Stannis would find us. We were a small party on foot, and now easily identifiable from Sally’s description of us. Laetitia’s dyed brown hair would no longer hide her true identity. They would be looking for a peasant girl travelling with a handful of men on this road.

 

Plunging deep into the wilderness was an option, but we didn’t know this land and we had no suitable maps of the wilderness. Besides which, Stannis would hunt us with sleen. Laetitia’s scent would be on her bed and mattress and the sheets she slept in. We could burn them, I suppose, though the Innkeeper would probably object. He had some men who might oppose such a thing. 

 

And I thought again of Miss Sally Reeve of Brighton, and I had to concede she was a resourceful and intelligent woman. If there wasn’t the small issue of her being my enemy I might even respect her audacity at surviving so long as a Free Woman on Gor. That was no mean feat. And she had turned the tables on me. There was no denying that.   

 

I thought back to her supple body as she had mounted me in the wooded meadow. I thought back to my view of her firm breasts as she had rode me, gasping, crying out with whatever passed as a precious orgasm for a Free Woman. Little did she know that the erotic sensations she felt were a pale shadow of what she might feel as a slave.

 

Poor Sally.

 

She had probably never actually experienced a true female orgasm. 

 

She had no idea what was missing from her life.

 

But she had writhed and gasped well. 

 

For a Free Woman at least.

 

I imagined how good it might be to find her again, to put her to her knees and lock another collar about her throat. I had taken the discarded collar from where it lay in the grass, from where she had casually dismissed it after freeing herself. I would keep this collar and return it to that precious throat one day. It was going to be her collar. One day she would wear it again.  

 

Finally after a period of endless self-reflection and rising anxiety, I heard the bars being drawn back from the courtyard gates. Slowly they began to open, revealing the courtyard inside. I rose from my seated position and walked quickly past the men who fixed the gates in their open position. 

 

“Tal,” I said.

 

“Tal,” one of them replied.

 

I hurried across the courtyard and on into the main building. I made straight for the communal sleeping areas where I hoped beyond hope to find Adamus and Felix.

 

Half an hour later we sat at a table nursing cups of steaming black wine as I came to the end of my story.

 

“Now’s the part when you tell me how stupid I was,” I said with bitter regret.

 

“That would make you feel better, wouldn’t it?” asked Adamus. “To be told off?”

 

Felix gazed at me and it was hard to guess what he was thinking.

 

“I was careless. She was just a woman. I had no idea what she was capable of.”

 

“And now you have learnt a valuable lesson,” said Adamus. 

 

“I guess I have.” I looked to the set of stairs that ran up to the landing above us where the private bedrooms were located in this travel Inn. “Is Laetitia safe?”

 

“She remains in her room. You left her without clothing after all.”

 

Fuck.

 

I had forgotten that Miss Sally Reeve now wore Laetitia’s only garments. It had only mean to be temporary, just long enough to walk Sally through the courtyard gates and out into the wooded meadow lands. I was to have returned the garments to Laetitia soon after.

 

“And we haven’t any spare clothes for her.”

 

“We’re supposed to be destitute refugees,” Adamus reminded me. “And we wanted to travel light.”

 

“She has nothing to wear.”

 

“Just the discarded slave tunic. I believe she wears that in place of being naked in her small room. We have given her privacy while we took it in turns searching for you yesterday.”

 

“We need to move out,” I said. “Sally may already have found Stannis’s advance scouts.”

 

“That’s likely,” agreed Adamus, “or in any case we have to assume it is likely.”

 

 “I should speak to Laetitia. This was my mistake. I need to be frank with her.”

 

Adamus regarded me with his usual implacable expression. “The girl trusts you, Roland. I can only hazard a guess why. And she protested that we shouldn’t leave here until your body had been found.”

 

“I feared as much,” I said. “It would have been better if you had left yesterday and put more distance between yourselves and Stannis.”

 

“But then we wouldn’t have been forewarned, and Stannis would have overtaken us eventually in our ignorance. Now we know he is coming. Intelligence is always valuable.”

 

“Only if it gives us an advantage.”

 

“It will.” Adamus rose and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Go to the girl. Reassure her. I want to speak with Felix.”

 

I rose from the table and went upstairs, dreading the conversation I was about to have. 

 

“Lady.” I knocked softly on the door to her room, having unlocked it from this side. There was no reply. “Laetitia,” I said as I knocked again. I sensed or maybe heard a slight movement in the room and felt sure she was standing at the other side of the door, waiting and listening. But she did not slide back the restraining bolt inside the room. 

 

I sighed, suspecting I knew what the magic word was supposed to be. “Beloved,” I said, softly.

 

I heard the bolt being slid back and then the semblance of motion as she moved back away from the door. I gave her time to hide herself in the bed and cover her body with the sheets before I opened the door. 

 

Only she wasn’t hiding in the bed. She stood proudly to one side of the window where she might not be seen from the courtyards grounds, and where I might only see her once I stepped through the doorway. 

 

She wore the slave tunic left behind by Miss Sally Reeve.

 

It was brief and snug about her body, even though her body was slighter than Sally’s. A Rep cloth garment for a slave is really quite small. The fabric stretches to accommodate a range of body sizes. 

 

“I didn’t meant to…” I looked away and moved back a step. It would not do to gaze at the daughter of the Tatrix while she was so shamed. 

 

“Come inside, Roland. Close the door.”

 

Her voice sound nervous. Of course she would feel nervous.

 

I looked at her sideways from a sort of peripheral vision. I didn’t want to see her like this. It didn’t seem right.

 

“I’m pleased you’re safe, beloved.” She moved forward and touched my wrists where they were raw and bloody from my ordeal. 

 

In faltering words I told her what had happened after I had left the grounds of the Inn. I felt ashamed that I had failed her in this way, but she merely listened and refrained from interrupting until my tale was done.

 

“We are a duplicitous sex,” she said. “And often very resourceful.”

 

“Yes, you are.” Women are to be feared as well as protected and desired. 

 

“So what are we to do now?” she asked me.

 

“I… I don’t know my Lady. Adamus is consulting with Felix, and…”

 

“We can’t travel as we have done. They will be looking for a peasant woman, and in any event, my simple gowns are stolen.”

 

“They are, Lady. I failed you.”

 

“Hush, bold warrior.” I felt her light hand on my arm. “I live, still. You have not failed me yet.”

 

We had to keep travelling to Torcadino. Even setting aside the importance of the mission, there could be no turning back because we would simply encounter Stannis’s light cavalry sooner rather than later. 

 

“You should look at me, beloved.” Laetitia’s voice was soft and nervous.

 

“You are dressed in a…”

 

“Slave tunic. Yes. It is all I have to wear. You can’t look away indefinitely, beloved. It isn’t practical.”

 

I looked up at and stared at her directly for the first time. I knew she was Laetitia, the daughter of the Tatrix, but it is impossible to view a girl dressed in the tunic of a slave and not see something altogether different.

 

A man can only see a slave when he sees a girl dressed that way.

 

“Say it,” she said.

 

“I can’t.”

 

“Say it. Roland. Say what you see.”

 

I looked away again. 

 

“I will find you garments. The Innkeeper may still have the robes of the Free Woman if he hasn’t burned them already.”

 

“They will be looking for a Free Woman. Tell me what you see.”

 

“Why must I say it? I swore an oath to your mother.”

 

“An oath to protect me, but more importantly to deliver me to Torcadino where I will do my duty for our city. OUR city, Roland. Ours. Yours as well as mine.” She touched my arm again. “There is nothing I will not do for my city, for my people, and… for you.”

 

“Me?”

 

“If they find me, then you will die. You know that. So they must not find me.” Laetitia placed a hand on her slim hip. Her body was not richly rounded like the body of Miss Sally Reeve, but it was abundantly female, dressed like that. 

 

It was agonisingly difficult not to think of her as a slave.

 

I had to fixate on the fact that her throat was bare. She did not wear a collar. That would have made a difference. 

 

“Say it, beloved.”

 

I closed my eyes. “You look like a slave girl.” There, I had spoken the words.

 

There was silence in the room. Laetitia said nothing. After some moments I opened my eyes again.

 

“This will have to be my new disguise,” she said. “Adamus knows it. He is telling Felix. He will tell you next.”

 

“You are the daughter of the Tatrix of Corcyrus!”

 

“And I have a duty to perform. I will save my city. But you must help me. This is all I have to wear. So now I travel as your slave. A Free Woman of my status would never permit such a thing. It is unthinkable to the Gorean mind. So, I will be concealed in plain sight.”

 

I squeezed my hands into fists in frustration. 

 

“You can’t pose as a slave, my Lady. You just can’t. Your mother would not want this.”

 

“My mother…” Laetitia laughed softly. “You have no idea what my mother can and will do in furtherance of her own ends. She would sacrifice far more than me to retain power in Corcyrus.”

 

“A thing like this never ends well for women,” I said. 

 

Laetitia laughed. “I won’t be a real slave. The disguise won’t go that far.”

 

“I don’t think you understand what I mean.”

 

“It will just be a pretence,” she said, dismissing my concerns with a wave of her hand. “A role I will play to a superficial level. It is just a garment.” She stood there before me in a slave tunic, and I do not think she understood its significance. “I will remain a Free Woman under this rep cloth.”

 

It was so brief on her. Like any girl who wore a rep cloth slave tunic, it emphasised and accentuated the length of her legs. A woman’s legs always seem longer in a slave tunic. Her breasts were smaller than those of Miss Sally Reeve, but her nipples showed clearly through the thin fabric. The shape of her breasts were contoured deliciously, and the deeply cut neckline produced a valley between the breasts that drew a man’s gaze. Her long straight hair was unbound and hung past her shoulders, now worn in the simple fashion of a kajira. 

 

“A slave tunic is never just a garment, Lady.”

 

She laughed again. “It will be a deceit to fool the men who seek me.”

 

“I can’t allow you to do this.”

 

“Oh?” Again she touched me with her fingers. “And what of Captain Adamus? He has already told me this is what I must do.”

 

“What?” I felt angry that Adamus had planted this idea I the head of the Tatrix’s daughter. 

 

“He has already spoken to me. He has assured me the pretence is our best option going forwards. And so I will be your slave girl.”

 

“Lady…” I shook my head.

 

“I suppose…” she seemed tense now, pensive even, “I shall have to call you master as part of the disguise?”

 

“Do not do that.”

 

I did not want the young daughter of the Tatrix to call me master. Only slaves should do that. 

 

“Do you have it?” asked Laetitia.

 

“Do I have what?”

 

But I knew what she referred to. Did I have the collar. The collar that had been locked about the slender throat of Miss Sally Reeve of Brighton.

 

“I would rather not speak of it,” said Laetitia. “But it will be necessary for my disguise. Surely we both know that? I would rather it was you. Not Captain Adamus or Felix.”

 

Me.

 

She would rather it was me who placed and locked a slave collar around her throat. 

 

Me. 

 

“Free Women should not wear slave collars. Not for a girlish lark, and not even for a disguise. You do not understand.”

 

“There are many things I do not understand, Roland of Corcyrus. I do not understand why you will not look at me. Am I that ugly?”

 

“You are not ugly, Lady. But you are young. And you are the daughter of the Tatrix.”

 

“I am old enough for Free Companionship. And my mother has given me into your keeping. You are effectively my guardian. You have the right to gaze at me.”

 

“Stop this. You are white silk.”

 

“Yes, I am white silk. Precious white silk. Unsullied. Until a man has me.”

 

“And that first man will be the Ubar’s son.”

 

“I will never love him,” said Laetitia, stubbornly. “I will do my duty, of course, but I will never love him.” 

 

“I’m sorry.” A loveless relationship is a cruel thing to consider. 

 

“He will take some semblance of pleasure from my body, and I will bear him children, but he will never have my love.” She paused. “So, If you are going to do it, you should do it now.” She lifted her chin, revealing more of her soft throat.

 

“I… can’t.”

 

“You are a slaver, Roland of Corcyrus. This is second nature to you. This is difficult enough for me. Please do not prolong my discomfort.”

 

I produced the collar that had recently been worn by Miss Sally Reeve of Brighton. It was smooth, featureless, for all practical purposes it was a cheap mass produced steel band, made for the most common of slaves. It was the sort of collar locked on the throats of newly acquired girls as they are driven in coffle to a city for processing and bondage.   

 

“Do you wish to see it?”

 

“Yes.” She had the curiosity of a city girl who had no doubt observed such bands about the throat of so many slaves. Gorean women are frighteningly curious about certain aspects of slavery. I permitted Laetitia to examine and touch the collar. I watched as her small fingers traced the locking mechanism that would lie at the base of the neck. And then she handed it back to me. “It is just a collar.”

 

“It is far more than that, Lady.” I produced the key, inserted it into the lock and opened the collar. There was a soft but audible intake of breath from Laetitia. 

 

“I do not do this through choice.” I lifted the open collar to the curve of her throat. It would fit well, I thought. There are broadly three collar sizes common to Gor, and although Laetitia’s body was far slimmer and less rounded than Sally’s, their necks would fit the same collar band. 

 

I could tell she was holding her breath as I moved the collar round so that it now encircled her. I think she wanted to say something, but she seemed unable to speak.

 

It must be a moving experience in so many ways for a girl to receive a collar for the first time. I looked deep into her eyes and I saw her eyelashes flutter in a way she couldn’t control. “Do not move,” I said. 

 

She still seemed speechless. And so I closed the metal band and felt the locking mechanism slide into place. There was a click and then the inflexible collar was securely locked. 

 

“You wear a collar,” I said.

 

There was a soft gasp from the girl. She could feel the band of steel about her throat. Was it how she imagined it might feel in her coming of age fantasies? For most women the reality is a cold shock. 

 

“Don’t,” I said, as I saw her fingers about to reach up to touch the steel. I arranged her hair so it fell about the back of the collar, adjusting it in places where it had first snagged under the band. 

 

“It is only for public appearances,” she said. Her voice quavered. She felt different now. Women usually do. “At night I will remove the collar. I will of course not sleep in it.”

 

It would not do for a Free Woman to sleep in a slave collar. Can you imagine what dreams she might have?

 

“It is locked,” I explained. “You will not be able to remove it, yourself.”

 

“I will have the key,” she said.

 

“There is only one key and I cannot risk it being lost.”

 

“But…” her hands rose to touch the steel. “I need the key.”

 

“There is only one key and I cannot risk it being lost.”

 

There was a moment of doubt then. A sudden look of fear as she realised she wore a collar that would remain on her throat until a man chose to remove it. And then she seemed to regain her earlier composure. “Then I will tell you when it needs to be removed,” she said. She smiled at me.

 

“I see.” I was not pleased by any of this. I do not like women playing at being a slave. “I will leave you alone, Lady, to compose yourself before we take our leave. You may wish to take some time to come to terms with the weight of the steel and the way it feels upon your throat.”

 

Laetitia’s breathing seemed shallow and not quite under her control. She fidgeted and glanced at herself in a wall mirror. She gasped and put a hand to her mouth when she saw her reflection. I had noticed it, too. She was standing a little differently now. She had straightened her back, and her small but voluptuous breasts pushed against the thin fabric of the tunic. I pretended not to notice that her nipples now seemed stiffer, more prominent within the garment. 

 

“Under Corcyrian law a collar on the throat of a woman means nothing,” she informed me.

 

“I believe so,” I replied.

 

Laetitia turned and placed a hand on her left hip as she regarded the slave in the mirror. She seemed a little nervous now. “Under Corcyrian law a woman who has not submitted is not a slave. Or, rather, a woman who has not been legally reduced to bondage by a magistrate is not a slave. The collar alone is meaningless.”

 

“Under Corcyrian law,” I said.

 

“Yes, and I am Corcyrian,” she said. She seemed stunned by what she saw now in the mirror. Who was this slave looking back at her?

 

“So you are. But think on this, Lady. We are not in Corcyrus. This is the wilderness between city walls. No city law applies here. All cities acknowledge that a woman can be collared in the wilderness with impunity. Common Gorean Capture Laws permit a man to enslave a woman in the wild without regard for submission or magistrates. You are not within the law of your city walls now. Think on that if you will.”