Barbarian of Gor Chapter Twenty Three

 

There were now five girls in our coffle line, each one with a Harl ring locked on her left ankle, each one secured to the other girls in line through a single light chain.

 

“You see our problem” said Adam as we stood to one side of the coffle.

 

I did see. Now that she was naked, Laetitia was clearly a Fire Crotch. “Someone should have thought to dye her pubic hair to match her head hair. This is how Miss Sally Reeve identified her.”

 

“It seemed so obvious that I never considered mentioning it back in Corcyrus,” said Adam. “Who was responsible for dyeing her hair?”

 

“Well obviously not me,” I said. “Whichever of the household kajirae that tended to her morning bathing and dressing, I suppose.”

 

“Whoever it was needs a whipping.”

 

Laetitia crouched in the grass, her arms still crossed against her small breasts, her hips turned away from us. She had been crying. Tears are common enough when a girl, new to her collar, is stripped and placed in coffle for the first time. How traumatic it must seem to her. She wore heavy slave makeup now, and her long hair had been trimmed and styled in a fashionable slave cut, beloved of masters from most regions of Gor. 

 

“We’ll have to shave her,” said Adam. “All of them, in fact.”

 

Pubic hair on Gor is another way that slaves differ from free women. In Turia and Ar it is not uncommon for a female slave to be depilated. Some masters prefer a smooth slave, and, in such a case, may have the slave depilated, or have her body hair shaved away. Sometimes the master attends to this himself, but this is not universal and often is more common in certain cities than in others. The noble free woman, however, does not depilate or shave herself. Why would she? Such a thing is done to slaves. Is she, herself, a slave? No, of course not. Besides which, the depilation of a female body suggests some form of preparation for sexual intercourse with a man. What free woman would conceive of such a thing? She does not desire sex. Only slaves desire sex. 

 

Having said that, despite the fact that no free women will ever demean herself by hair depilation, a surprising number of free women, when stripped, seem to have smooth legs. Slave smooth, as the saying goes. Interestingly, if left unattended in a slave kennel, with no means of sugaring or shaving, soft hairs begin to appear as the weeks go by. Perhaps soft leg hair growth is triggered by the presence of a collar around a woman’s throat? It certainly couldn’t be the more obvious case that the free woman had sugared her legs at all. Why would she do that? She would be making herself more appealing to men, who in any case were hardly likely to see her legs, unless she planned to strip herself brazenly before them. 

 

In any event, Laetitia and the four huntresses all had patches of public hair. To lose that between their legs would mark them as slaves. No free woman would go that far. 

 

I mixed up some soap and ordered the five girls to lie on their backs with their legs spread wide.

 

“We are huntresses!” cried Ana in protest. “You must not do this!” She looked apprehensive as I sharpened a straight razor on a belt of leather. “This is a mark of our freedom!”

 

“Please do not do this,” sobbed Laetitia. If anything, she was even more terrified than the huntresses, but when instructed to she parted her thighs while she continued to cover her modest breasts with her hands. 

 

“It will grow back,” I said. I applied cold soap with a brush and saw her flinch.

 

“I am a free woman,” she cried. “A free woman!”

 

No, you’re not, I thought to, myself. You’re my property, but you don’t know it. It is only your name, your birthright, your title, that keeps your thigh smooth and spares you the brand. I collared you, and that makes you a slave. And then with a straight razor in my hand, I began to very carefully shave her crotch. The huntresses didn’t cry when it was their turn, but I could see they were all greatly troubled by what was being done to them. 

 

Laetitia touched her new found smoothness with her left hand, but as she saw me gaze at her she quickly crossed both arms about her breasts again. I found it interesting that she had touched herself now that she was hairless. 

 

“We’re going to see you, Kayra, sooner or later. It would be easier in the long run for you to come to terms with your nudity now.”

 

“I don’t want to be called Kayra anymore,” she said. “That is a slave name. It is not me.”

 

I glanced at Adam and he sighed, torn between saying one thing and perhaps saying another. “Kayra is the name we chose for you,” he said. “It suits you. You are a Kayra.”

 

Kayra is a name that is more common on the steppes and grass lands of Turia. There you may often come across slaves named that way. The name commonly means ‘beloved’, ‘precious’ or ‘valuable’ and is commonly bestowed upon girls of formerly fine breeding. They tend to be slighter, less well-endowed than their bonded sisters. There is typically a delicacy about a Kayra, with her fine boned features and luscious lips. She is usually well-mannered from her former life, and especially needy amongst the furs. Often a Kayra is truly ignorant of her own neds until she is touched and aroused. Then her true potential comes to the fore, often much to the surprise of the girl, herself. Slavers claim that a Kayra adapts well to her collar and brand once she understand there is truly no going back for her. 

 

Other popular Turian slave names include Nikara, Keyuri, Shakara, and Kamina.

 

“Chose?” She gazed up at him, still posing herself in the grass so that her left hip was turned away, concealing her shaven sex from his view. “I didn’t choose it. I had no say in the matter.”

 

“No, you didn’t. Slaves do not choose their own name.” Adam knelt in the grass facing the girl. “I am sworn to get you safely to Torcadino, so that you can be the free companion of the Ubar’s son. What I have to do between here and the city gates to achieve that goal has already been discussed and agreed in advance with the Tatrix.”

 

“I can’t believe my mother agreed to these things!”

 

“You will have to take my word for it. The chances are you will never see your mother ever again, unless she makes a state visit to Torcadino.”

 

It was quite possible that Adam had confidential instructions and certain permissions agreed with the Tatrix in private. After all I had been given my own secret instructions pertaining to Laetitia’s potential responses when examined by caste physicians who would wish to confirm her chaste nature. The Tatrix had (rightly, in my opinion) feared that Laetitia’s body might betray herself during the course of the examination, which while respectful of her free status, might perhaps walk a very fine line during the course of the prescribed tests. The precise details of such an examination of a free woman remains a closely guarded secret of the caste, but one can speculate that there might be some degree of stimulation involved. The examination is always carried out by a female physician, of course. No male physician is permitted to be present at the time. 

 

I recalled what the Tatrix had said to me when I had asked why she feared such an outcome. I was simply told that Laetitia had red hair. There was no attempt to avoid he fact that the Tatrix, too, had red hair, and would presumably be only too aware of the secret feelings common amongst red heads.

 

I thought again of the seemingly captive Lady Tulia Fava of Isurium who had been sent to my chambers that night in the palace; a woman who, despite her delicate lace eye mask, had closely resembled the Tatrix herself. She was a natural fire crotch and responded quickly to my touch, as the fire crotch is prone to do. Adam had dismissed my suggestion that the Lady Tulia Fava might possibly have been the Tatrix herself. The Tatrix had no shortage of male slave sin the palace, should she wish one. Surely it was the height of vanity on my part to even suggest that I might consider myself so special that the Tatrix would feel compelled to meet me in secret in the guise of a free captive? I could see his point. And yet, I could see no other reason to send me a captive who resembled the Tatrix so closely. What would be the point? Was it some joke on the part of the Tatrix? Had she meant to tease me – to show me a taste of what I could never have? Again, it didn’t seem to make any sense. 

 

The Tatrix had understood what her daughter might feel. The Tatrix had understood that her daughter’s flame red hair – her fire crotch – might mean Laetitia was a natural slave. But if so, what did that say of the Tatrix  herself? There is a saying in Earth that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. 

 

We didn’t set off from Slaver’s Point as early as we might have done, and that turned out to be our big mistake. We wanted to wait until the slaver caravan gained enough of a head start that we were unlikely to meet them again. And, yes I know, that the original reason for not travelling with them was now null and void, but Adam feared a change of mood in Apollo and Julius. What if they chose to question us further? What if they sensed the potential value in a free woman who was being smuggled to Torcadino in the guise of a slave?

 

We sat together, drinking water from a bota, gazing out over the succession of rolling hills, their green slopes dotted with wildflowers that swayed gently in the morning breeze. Shadows cast by the stones shifted around us as soft white clouds drifted across the morning sky.

 

Adam was troubled by the fact Apollo now had Kayra’s tunic. “He has everything he needs to set sleen on us.”

 

“Except he doesn’t have any sleen,” I pointed out.

 

“Which is the main reason I didn’t push my objections further.” Adam gazed back at Kayra again. It occurred to me that I had begun to think of her as a Kayra, not just in speech, but in my quiet reflections. The name suited her. It suggested a slave of her slight build, a fire crotch perhaps, who was only now beginning to sense her biological programming. “And I’m troubled by all of this,” he admitted. “The keeping her as a coffle slave. I understand the necessity this close to the city walls, when we are about to make our last dash to safety, but in Torcadino she will be assessed by physicians. The stirring of slave responses inside her body before then might prove troubling when it comes to that examination.”

 

I thought back to my secret instructions from the Tatrix – instructions given only to me – and of the precious vial with the serum that would suppress any sexual responses in Kayra for at least 24 hours. Adam didn’t know of this.

 

“Kayra will pass the physician’s tests,” I said.

 

“You don’t know that.”

 

Oh but I do, I thought to myself.  

 

“And we cannot present her to the Ubar of Torcadino until her fire crotch has sprouted again. The Ubar’s physicians cannot see her smooth between her legs.”

 

“So we’ll wait a couple of weeks for her hair to regrow,” I said. “We’ll be safe enough in Torcadino.”

 

“Any delay bears additional risks,” said Adam.

 

“Leaving that hair in place bore risks,” I said. “do you regret me shaving it now?”

 

“No. We’ve had a run of good luck these past few days, but I don’t want to rely on it. We may meet patrols over the next few days and they may inspect our coffle.” He gazed back at Kayra as she knelt, hip turned away from us. “You and I both know the truth. She has collar potential.”

 

“She is the daughter of the Tatrix. The fate of Corcyrus depends on this companionship.”

 

“it doesn’t change who she is, Roland. If she was any ordinary fire crotch, I hazard a guess that she’d have a brand on her left thigh by now.”

 

I pictured Kayra with a kef brand. Strangely enough, it was an appealing thought. 

 

It was the 10^th ahn, just as we were about to take our leave of Slaver’s Point, when Felix spotted movement in the distance. 

 

“Men heading this way,” he said as he took a small optical device from his backpack. They were travelling the way we had originally come, perhaps also en-route to Torcadino’s gates. To me they were just small figures in the distance, barely distinguishable in any detail. Felix observed them carefully for an ehn or two before handing the optical glass to Adam.

 

“They’re warriors,” said Adam. Felix nodded his agreement. “Three in number.”

 

“May I see?” I reached my hand for the glass. I think I intuitively knew what I was going to see through the optical device. Fate wasn’t going to make this easy for me. Of course it wasn’t. When was anything ever easy for me? I adjusted the focus, trained the device on the small group and clearly made out the familiar faces of Rolfe, Rollo and Hergessvar. 

 

“Fuck.” I handed the optical glass back to Adam.

 

“Something we need to know?” he asked.

 

“Stannis Assante has found us.”

“Stannis Assante commands cavalry. Those men are on foot.”

 

“Yes, but I know them. They travelled with me when I encountered Livinnia and her huntresses. They are… or were… my sword brothers.”

 

“You’re just a hilarious party pack full of surprises, aren’t you?” said Adam. 

 

“They will have stayed with Stannis.” I glanced at Ana, she who had once been known as Svetlana. 

 

“And you know this, how?”

 

“Because Rolfe was smitten with my slave, Ana. This is not going to end well,” I sighed. 

 

“You’re telling me that the three warriors who are on their way to Slaver’s point know your slaves? That they cared for them when they were free women?”

 

“I’m afraid so.”

 

Adam regarded the band of warriors. They were walking in a brisk fashion, having seen us and our coffle in amongst the stones.

 

“Well, running is out of the question. They’ll overtake us eventually. Our chain coffle will slow us down. What’s your assessment of their combat ability?”

 

“They’re very good. Rolfe is a master of the blade. He has few equals.”

 

“And you’re now going to tell me that these men love you and will side with you no matter what?” asked Adam.

 

“No.”

 

“Does it get any worse?” he asked.