Swordsmen of Gor

“It is dark,” said Tajima to the officer with the men. “In the morning you may search for the body of a scoundrel, in the forest, nearby.”

They would not be likely, of course, to find it.

The officer looked to the prostrate slave.

“Wait, a bit,” I said.

Saru struggled to her knees, before Pertinax.

“I have failed to please you,” she said.

He looked down on her, angrily. “Are you a slave, truly?” he asked.

I smiled to myself. There was clearly no question about the legalities of the matter. His question, I gathered, went far beyond legalities.

“Yes, Master,” she said, not looking up at him.

“Truly?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “A slave may not lie.”

“I find you disgusting,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “Thank you, Master.”

“You are covered with dirt,” he said, “and sweat dampens and streaks the dirt. Tears stain your cheeks. Your body is soiled and foul. You stink.”

“She smells of the stable,” I said.

“I no longer respect you,” he said to her.

“I do not want to be respected,” she whispered. “I am a slave. I am not to be respected, no more than a tarsk. But I do want to be owned, and mastered.”

“You will be,” said Tajima.

I gestured to the officer of the Ashigaru.

He approached the slave and indicated that she should stand. He then said, very sharply, “Lesha!”

Instantly the girl turned away from him, lifted her head, turned it to the left, and placed her small wrists, crossed, behind her back.

Pertinax uttered an angry sound.

In a moment the girl’s wrists were thonged together, tightly, behind her back. A leash was then snapped about her neck, and she was led from the fire, toward the road, toward the central camp.

Pertinax went to the wall of the stable, and, in fury, sobbing, struck it with his fists. There would be dried blood there in the morning.

I then bid goodnight to Tajima and returned toward the central camp, and the hut I shared with Pertinax. Near the hut I removed Cecily, who was asleep, from the rope circle, and carried her, gently, to the hut. I did not awaken her. I put her on a slave mat, at my side. Her tunic had slipped up, about her waist, and I drew it down a bit, and smoothed it. She was an incredibly beautiful slave. She had originally been selected by Priest-Kings to tempt me to the subversion of my honor, and had been, accordingly, with all their wisdom and expertise, chosen with exquisite care to attain that end. She had been chosen to appeal to me in ways of which I had not even dreamed, and, by a parity of design, her own needs and desires had been taken into consideration, and mercilessly exploited, as well, and unscrupulously so, in that she had been selected as one who by her own nature would find herself similarly attracted, and, indeed, helplessly so, and, indeed, as might be a slave before her master. In short, by the devious machinations of Priest-Kings, to forward their own dark purposes, we had been matched to one another, superbly, and helplessly. The plan of Priest-Kings would have succeeded, sooner or later, I was sure, had it not been for the intervention of Kurii, in a raid on Gor’s Prison Moon. She was, of course, in the beginning, when we first became acquainted, in our imprisonment, a free woman. Had she not been, my honor would have not been the least in jeopardy. She was English, as I, and was a student at an Oxford College, as I had once been. She was unusually intelligent, and extraordinarily beautiful. She had been spoiled, and she derived from a wealthy mercantile background with pretensions, mistaken pretensions it seemed, to an aristocratic origin. To be sure, a lovely ancestress of hers had apparently been selected out from the fields in the Fifteenth Century to be a stirrup mistress to a knight, but the resultant, oblique line, as it turned out, was without spurs. This fact, however, seems to have been regarded as negligible to the line in question. It was not important, it seems, that a snapping of fingers might have once brought the lips of a low-born lass to a knight’s boot. In any event, she had been haughty, arrogant, supercilious, refined, and insolent. She had despised men, though on some level had found them fascinating and troubling, and had enjoyed leading them on and tormenting them with her wit and beauty. Too, however, she had had strong slave urges, something of which the Priest-Kings undoubtedly took note. Later, on the Steel World to which the raiding Kurii took us, I brought her into my collar.

I regarded her, but would not awaken her.

Her intelligence was high. Her features and figure were delightful. Her slave needs were overpowering. The slave fires were always ready to spring into flame in her belly. In a fair market I thought she might go for two tarsks or more. Under a man’s touch she was helpless. I was pleased to own her.

She was tired. I would not put her to use.

Pertinax had not yet returned to the hut.

I had little doubt he was wandering about, angrily, trying to sort out a variety of thoughts and feelings, most of which were doubtless troubling. I trusted he would remember to retrieve his Jane, the former Lady Portia Lia Serisia of Sun Gate Towers, near the Street of Coins in Ar, from the rope circle. I did not think she would be pleased with his lateness.

I dropped off to sleep, but later, I am not sure how much later, but it was not yet light, Pertinax returned to the hut, his Jane following him. She was modestly tunicked. To be sure, her neck was in his collar. I wondered if I should have purchased her for him.

I gave no indication that I was awake.

She seemed in a foul mood and Pertinax, of course, given the events of the day, and particularly of the evening, was possibly even less benignly disposed.

“Where were you?” she asked. “What kept you? I spent Ahn in the rope circle! My hands were raw from standing and clutching the rope, under the eyes of the Ashigaru. Too, they dared to look at my legs and ankles! How could they help themselves? You have them bared, you brute! Then we were knelt and we must still cling to the rope! Ahn later our waists were encircled, and we were permitted to recline! Only then we were given gruel and water! I was the last to be freed! The very last! The Ashigaru had even left! Why were you so late! You are never again to keep me waiting in such a fashion!”

“Were you given permission to speak?” he inquired. There was a quiet menace in his tone, and I hoped that the slave was aware of that.

“What?” she said, uncertainly.

He leaped to her and seized her collar, and, by it, with two hands, he held her.

She regarded him, frightened. Never before had he behaved in such a fashion.

He lifted the collar, as he held it, with both hands, and it was tight under her chin, and then she was lifted rudely, stretched, standing, before him. She was then straight before him. She could not get her feet fully on the ground, but, at best, her toes. It was clear she was frightened, and quite uncomfortable. In this fashion a girl may be reminded that she wears a collar, a slave collar.

“Master?” she whispered.

He then removed his hands from the collar, and she stood before him, uncertain, frightened, and docile.

He then put his left hand in her hair, tightly, and, measuring her, carefully, deliberately, cuffed her once, and then again, once with the front of his hand, and then once with the back of his hand. Her head snapped back, and forth. Her eyes were confused, and frightened.

He then turned her about, and tied her hands together behind her back. He then turned her about, again, so that she faced him.

“Master?” she asked.

“Oh!” she gasped, turned and twisted by the force of it, and her tunic had been torn from her.

He then threw her to her knees before him, fetched a whip, and thrust it to her lips.

Instantly, terrified, she pressed her lips to it, kissing it, desperately, fervently, placatingly.

He then cast the whip aside, dragged her on her knees by the hair to a slave mat, and threw her back upon