Barbarian of Gor Chapter Twenty

 

Blue and yellow, the colours of my adopted caste, were flying from a pole at the summit of Slaver’s Point, denoting that at least one Slaver House was in residence tonight and open for business within the confines of the ancient, monolithic stone circle.

 

Being a Brit with Welsh ancestry, I was no stranger to a land riddled with cairns, barrow mounds, and mysterious stone circles; all part of our wider, ancient pagan history that the Romans did their very best to stamp out. But unlike the megalithic structures of Earth, these stones were well maintained. None were missing, and none had fallen over, or, if they had, they had been righted. The summit of the low hill was surrounded by an outer ring of vertical sandstone blocks, each one over twenty feet high, maybe ten or so feet wide, and, like similar circles in England, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. 

 

A second, smaller circle of trilithon stones stood within the interior of the outer circle, and within this second hollow was an open space of grass land in which slavers might camp on their way, to and from Torcadino.   

 

“Can I assume this is considered peaceful territory?” I asked Adam. 

 

“Pretty much, yes. Aside from the obvious point of Torcadino sovereignty, the slavers who pitch camp at Slaver’s Point observe caste discipline, regardless of which Home Stones they belong to. No one will try and steal our slaves, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

 

“Captives,” I said, correcting him.

 

“Captives usually become slaves, and if you wish to continue your pretence that you belong to this caste you had better mind how you speak in the presence of your caste brothers. It wouldn’t do for you to seem weak.”

 

“Pretence?” I turned to regard Adam as we walked up the gentle slope.

 

“You’re no more a slaver than I’m a skittish free woman looking for a collar. I’m surprised your deception hasn’t been uncovered yet. I can only assume the slavers in the market where you operate didn’t pay much attention to you.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“The Tatrix had me make enquiries when she took a passing interest in you. This was after you saved Laetitia from the tarnsman.”

 

“I have never claimed to be born to the caste, but I have adopted it as my own. I wasn’t aware it was a closed club.”

 

I referred of course to the fact that there is no central regulatory authority to the caste. This much should be obvious due to the fact that Gorean cities tend to mistrust one another at best, and actively despise each other as a more common norm. A slaver in the city of Tor probably has very little in common in his caste practices with a slaver from Vonda. That they share any traditions and customs at all, beyond adopting a common caste colour, is remarkable.   

 

“I need to know now, Roland, can you convincingly act the part of a slaver, or should we turn away and camp in a muddy ditch somewhere east of here? Because if these men conclude you’re not actually a slaver, they may be offended by your deception. Goreans take their castes very seriously.”

 

“I can be Gorean. And I am of their caste now.” I was mildly offended that Adam felt I couldn’t embrace this caste as my own. While it was certainly true that initially my pretence at being a slaver had been a useful deception in order to enter Corcyrus without objections from the city guards, since setting up in the main market square with my coffle of girls I had found a home of sorts. I had been welcomed by the kindness of the Lady Herminia, and I had come to understand the brotherhood that exists within the caste structure of Gor. I may not have actually sold a single girl yet, but if I’m being honest, I found the life of a slaver in Corcyrus a pleasurable one. More and more I began to consider that maybe this was the life for me. Yes, I still had a lot to learn, but the Lady Herminia seemed happy to take me under her wing and teach me. She understood, I think, that I was new to the profession. The thought had even occurred to me that in time I might plant roots in my adopted city and perhaps free companion the Lady, though I still didn’t know what she looked like beneath those concealing veils, hoods and robes. Was she pretty, or did she resemble a sand sleen? Free companionship on Gor opens many doors and establishes your name amongst your peers. It is not to be confused with sexual needs, for men have slaves to satisfy those. No, free companionship offers political and social advantages, not to mention it brings a man and a woman together to complement one another’s talents. From what I understood of Gorean courtship, the relationship I currently enjoyed with Lady Herminia was exactly the way that free men and women interact, get to know one another, and then perhaps in time, consider a union of their houses. Such unions usually take place within shared castes, though mixed caste relationships have become more common in the last hundred years or so.  

 

My decision would be easier of course if I knew what the Lady looked like. Just a small hint of her features would be a start. But such things are rarely glimpsed until a relationship turns more serious. Some Goreans resolve such concerns by asking a third party – usually another woman – to meet with their prospective match and obtain a glimpse of the Lady in more private quarters. The details of her appearance are then communicated, though usually exaggerated for the benefit of the Lady in question. 

 

“Good. But if you fuck up, Roland, I’m not going to be happy,” said Adam. 

 

A girl stood with her back to one of the outer stones. Both her arms were raised and her wrists were shackled together to a single ring hammered into the stone above her head. She was naked and obviously on display. She stood proudly, which I thought interesting for a display slave. Perhaps she had been hand-picked for her obvious beauty. But it wasn’t simply a display position. She also, in a sense, stood watch, facing the direction from which we’d come. Up here on the summit of the shallow hill it was possible to see from many pasangs in all directions. The kajirae were being used, it seems, as an early warning system to alert the slavers of strangers. Presumably, she would cry out in alarm if she saw a band of armed outlaws approaching.  

 

I walked beside my coffle of slaves, for that is how I would describe them now – fresh captures to be herded to market. Other girls stood with their backs to other stones, and their wrists were also shackled above their heads. The effect lifted their breasts and kept their bodies posed in a gentle bow curve. The effect of seeing the slaves bound to the standing stones wasn’t lost on my girls. This was obviously a slaver camp, and a sense of sudden unease came over Mishka and Svetlana’s expressions. Danata of course was too juiced with Benzedrine to really feel any alarm, and Livinnia continued to regard everyone with cold disdain, like the reptile she was. 

 

“You don’t seem quite so dismissive, now,” I said to Mishka.

 

“This is a slaver camp. This is Slaver’s Point.” There was a quaver to her voice. She gazed to her left where a portable branding rack was set up. It wasn’t in current use, but close by it knelt three girls who I suspected were recent captures with clean, smooth thighs. A hot brazier of coals smouldered near the racks, with two branding irons thrust deep within the coals. 

 

“So it is.”

“Surely you do not mean to camp here? We must press on for Torcadino,” she suggested. I was touched by this sudden sense of urgency she felt for my mission. 

 

“We are in Torcadino territory now. For all I know these men here are citizens of Torcadino. They may be able to offer us news at how the war is progressing. At the very least we shall receive a warm welcome, for I share their caste.”

 

Mishka was struggling to control her breathing. “You will tell them we are simply captives?”

 

“I will tell them that you are being herded to the slave markets of Torcadino, there to be formally enslaved and exhibited on the auction block.”

 

“Another pretence?” said Mishka, hopefully. “Like the pretence with the Tatrix’s daughter?”

 

“Pretence?” My voice was low, and Laetitia was well out of earshot anyway. “Didn’t you tell me that Laetitia is an actual slave? So, then, what does that make you?”

 

Mishka looked about her. We had reached the summit now and we were being observed by various men who wore the caste colours of blue and yellow. I counted seven in total, four of whom were visibly the security guarding the coffle, obvious enough because of their hefty size and the abundance of weapons hanging from their belts. The men took a keen interest in my line of lovely girls as we passed by the outer rings of standing stones. 

 

“But we are not slaves, Roland,” urged Mishka. “You know that. Kulai was my sister. You cannot enslave us. You know that. Look at me, Roland.”

 

“You will call me ‘master’ while we are here. You will not use my name. If you do, you will be whipped.” 

 

“You must tell them that we are simply captives. You must!”

 

The slavers and their stock barely took up a fifth of the area of the stone circle, which left plenty of room for Adam, Felix and myself. I nodded in the direction of the temporary slaver encampment as I directed my coffle to an area opposite. As Felix and Adam dumped our baggage beside one of the standing stones, and as Adam then took Laetitia aside, I ordered my rope coffle to kneel.

 

“Nadu.”

 

At first the huntresses couldn’t quite believe I had said that. They were to kneel as slaves do before men? Unthinkable! It meant nothing to Danata, who was still flushed with Benzedrine, but Svetlana and Mishka looked furious at the grave insult to their dignity. I raised my whip and that was enough for them to kneel in a clumsy approximation of nadu. When I turned to regard Livinnia, she stood there staring coldly into my eyes.

 

“You will regret this,” she said, as she spoke the first words since I had captured her. “I swear that by all the Gods of Gor.”

 

“Nadu, pretty little kajira.” I was not going to make this at all easy for Livinnia. “Spread those lovely thighs wide, and smile at any man who approaches you.”

 

For a moment I thought she was going to attack me, even bound by her right wrist as she was. I think she truly considered it. 

 

“There is nowhere on Gor you will be able to hide. Not in the coldest glacier to the north, nor the remotest sand dune in the south.” And then she knelt and spread her thighs. Livinnia Assante actually knelt before men, naked, in nadu. How splendid! She even forced a smile on her face that wasn’t half bad. 

 

“Palms facing up,” I said, pleasantly. “You are a needy slave. You should let men know that.”

 

Livinnia continued to smile as she turned her palms over, where they rested on her thighs. It would tell the slavers that she was in slave heat and wished to be put to use, not that I could actually allow her to be taken, of course. Adam had said we had to keep her unsullied in case Stannis found us.

 

“You are named Nia,” I said to Livinnia. She flinched, hearing her new name. 

 

I then turned to Mishka and said, “you answer to the name, Misa, my pretty little slave,” and then to Svetlana, “and you are the hot and needy Ana.”

 

I made them repeat their names to me. They knew of course the penalties that would be inflicted on them if they dared refer to their old names in any way from this point on. Their old names were now gone. “And you are Dana,” I said, finally, to Danata, but I could tell the effects of the second Benzedrine tablet was beginning to fade so I told the girl to simply lie down and get some rest. She lay down on the grass and curled her body into a ball. “Sleep, lovely Dana.” I kissed her softly on her forehead. “Let the medicine run its course.”

 

As I straightened up, a shadow fell over me. I looked up and saw two men in the colours of my caste.

 

“Tal,” said one of them. He gazed down at Dana. “Your slave is injured?”

 

“Regrettably so, caste brother. These are dangerous time. You hardly need me to tell you that.” I rose to my feet and struck my shoulder in greeting. 

 

“Do you require medicine?” We shared caste, so I knew the offer was genuine. These men would offer me medicine for my slave if I needed it.

 

“We are well supplied in that respect, but I thank you brother. My name is Roland, and I have travelled from Corcyrus.”

 

“I am Apollo of Torcadino, and this is Julius, of the same city.” He regarded my girls, Misa and Ana, and gazed at the Harl rings locked to their left ankles. “If you don’t mind me saying, your coffle arrangement utilising simple wrist ties is far from secure. You have Harl rings on each of your girls. Did you lack a length of chain to connect them?”

 

“We wished to move quickly. There were outlaws nearby.”

 

“I see. Nevertheless, I would advise against such poor security arrangements in future. A girl might gnaw at her wrist tie when you are distracted.”

“I am rarely distracted with such beauties in my coffle,” I said with a smile.  

 

“May I assess your stock?” enquired Apollo. I could hardly say no to a caste brother, and so I nodded. “Stand,” I said to the girls. With the exception of Dana they all stood for inspection. 

 

“Ohhh!” Misa gasped as the slaver ran his hands expertly over her body. And then she cried out, louder, a second time, as he parted her thighs and subjected her to what is referred to as the Slaver Caress. 

 

“Vital signs. Good.”

 

“Please, no,” said Ana as the slaver next turned to her. She too was touched in an expert fashion, and she too gasped out loud as the examination concluded with a hand caressing her sex. 

 

“Also vital. Both girls oil easily.”

 

“How interesting,” I said with a smile. Neither Misa nor Ana could look me in the eye as the slaver said that. 

 

Nia stood defiant as the slaver approached her. This would be even more interesting, I thought to myself. Was Nia really the cold reptile that she seemed to be?

 

“You are a proud one, aren’t you?” said Apollo of Torcadino as he placed his hands on Nia’s hips.

 

“I am a free woman,” she said. “Your hands mean nothing to me.”

 

“That can easily be remedied,” said the slaver. “There are branding irons in the camp, and vices for locking a thigh in position.”

 

“Do not touch me,” said Nia. The slaver took no notice of her order. As he began to touch her he gazed deep into her eyes. It is difficult for a proud free woman to hold a slaver’s gaze as he caresses her intimately. She wishes to show him that she is different, that she is cold, aloof, frigid, but he does such things to her, and she is suddenly afraid that he might see the truth in her eyes and so she looks away. Apollo took his time with Nia, sensing she was the one who truly wished to resist. When she looked away from his eyes, he ordered her to look back. Then when Nia did so, her gaze was no longer quite so defiant. Again, as the man’s caresses continued, moving around her breasts, gently caressing her engorged nipples, she had to look away again, and again he ordered her to meet his eyes once more. So it was that each time Nia was forced to look upon the slaver, her steely defiance grew pitiful. 

 

And then she gasped. Her body quivered.

 

“No,” she said softly. 

 

The slaver continued, but slowly still.

 

“No, I am a free woman.” There was now a rose blush to her cheeks. 

 

I have not yet mastered the art of the slaver’s caress, so it was interesting to see the slaver in action. There is a sequence to how a slave or free woman can be helplessly aroused by touch alone. Nia’s breathing became exited. Her nipples swelled and her body trembled. And still the slaver played with her.

 

“Please, no…” she gasped.

 

Misa and Ana seemed astonished as they watched the vital signs on display from the mighty Livinnia Assante. Surely this couldn’t be happening? Not to Livinnia Assante?

 

Nia squeezed her eyes shut and was commanded to open them again. Her eyes were moist. Her hips trembled, and still the slaver continued to play with her. He hadn’t yet touched her between the thighs. 

 

Nia’s lips parted slightly. Her eyelids fluttered. Her body moved just a little towards the slaver’s touch, and then recoiled in fear as she understood how her body was betraying her.

 

The slaver took hold of Nia’s hair and pulled her head back, lifting her lips to his view. “Look at me, kajira. Do not look anywhere else, or you will be whipped.” His eyes seemed to master her. She trembled with need and then the slaver simply touched her labia gently with a finger. Nothing more. Nia’s body shook. She cried out. The slaver smiled and released her.

 

“I need go no further. This one thinks she is different. This one now begins to suspect that may not truly be the case.”

 

“Excellent,” I said. I, myself, was rock hard and in need of a woman. The slaver hadn’t just aroused Nia with that potent display. 

 

I ordered the three girls back into nadu, and noted that they seemed more graceful, more feminine in the way they posed. This had come as quite the shock to all three of them, it seems.

 

“Do you have news of the war?” I asked. 

 

“Reports are conflicting, though they all agree that an army has marched from Ar to support Argentum.”

 

That wasn’t good news. Ar’s power was diminished since the days of the Ar/Cos war, but it was still a formidable military presence in central Gor. This was exactly what the Tatrix had feared. A military intervention by Ar, no matter how slight, would inevitably tip the balance of the conflict in Argentum’s favour.

 

“There was a recent battle close to the town of Teos,” said Apollo. “Maybe three thousand men of Argentum versus less than two thousand men of Corcyrus.”

 

I tried to recall where Teos was, whether it was in Corcyrian territory or that of Argentum, but my knowledge of geography was poor. 

 

“The Corcyrians were driven back, though they fought hard. Teos is now in Argentum control. Its women are in chains.”

 

“We will run out of collars at this rate,” I joked.

 

“I fear the market may be glutted for a while,” agreed Apollo. “Already livestock prices have fallen. But these things always level out in the long term. The demand for slaves always outstrips the supply.”

 

“If I may, I am always interested in a second opinion to my own. How would you rank my three slaves?”

 

Apollo considered this for a moment. “This one,” he stroked Ana’s flanks, “will be the first to submit.” Ana flushed angrily at the suggestion. “She has the deepest desire for a collar and she will train well once she understands who she is. If I may hazard a guess, you had to strip this one yourself? She disobeyed a command to undress?”

 

“Correct.” I recalled her defiance earlier today.

 

Apollo nodded, pleased to see that he was right. “She may not have understood what she was doing, but she felt compelled to challenge you to lay your hands on her. Most free women are surprised to find how quickly they oil when a slaver strips them by hand, garment by garment. Some women, like Ana, desire to be mastered that way from the outset.”

 

I saw Ana blush and look quickly away. 

 

“Now, this one” he now stroked Nia’s hair, “will be superb in the furs once her defiant pride is set aside. She will be highly competitive in a kennel pen and will strive to gain the personal attention of a master.” Nia, too, did not seem to like how she had been described. “Unlike the first slave who has secret fantasies she dares not confess, this one is ignorant of her suitability to the collar. You will find her surprised at every turn as you force her to submit. Why does her body betray her each time? Why does she have such powerful emotions and responses? She will cry at night when no one is around. She will tell herself that this cannot be happening. She has told herself a lie all her life, but this afternoon she has had her first glimpse of the truth.”

 

“But this one,” he now stroked Misa, “will fetch you the best price. She will be a superb slave in all respects.”

“My thoughts, too,” I said. it was Misa who, most of all, I would love to see dancing before me, kneeling before me, and then crying out with need in my furs.

 

“She will demonstrate a fire that will set her apart from many other slaves. It is the sort of fire one commonly only expects to see in fire crotch girls. The danger is, she will be so hot and desirable once her submission sets in, that you will be tempted to keep her for yourself.”

 

“That responsive?”

 

“I believe so. But it was a simple and brief assessment. I offer no guarantees.” 

 

None of the girls could now look at one another. They were afraid of what the others might see in them. 

 

This changed matters considerably, I thought to myself. I had been treating them as free captives, but what I had seen just now suggested that all three women were potentially natural slaves, highly suitable for the collar. I would need to dwell on this some more, tonight.