“I intend to,” I told her.
She purred with delight. The slave responds well to restraints, and the uncompromising dominance which she yearns for with all her heart. Obviously she does not wish to be hurt, nor, generally, should she be hurt, unless she has been in some respect displeasing, and punishment is in order, but she does want to know herself slave, owned, and mastered. Accordingly she loves to be in the master’s power, whether merely heeding his word, obeying, or realizing, in frustration, that no matter how much she might wish to do so, she is not permitted to speak, or writhing in his bonds, helplessly exposed to his mercy, and caresses, should he choose to bestow them upon her, such things. She responds well to blindfolds, hoods, gags, ropes, straps, collars, slave bracelets, chains, and such. When I tied her hands behind her she put back her head in the hood, lovingly, and pressed against me.
Cecily, I thought, was coming along well.
From rope I had improvised a single leash, a common leash, by means of which, grasped at its center, I might control both girls.
I put them in this.
It was thus that they were being conducted through the forest.
Later unhooded, they would have no idea where they were, or how they had gotten there, nor where Pertinax’s hut might be found. The best they might do, given the time of day and the location of Tor-tu-Gor, Light- Upon-the-Home-Stone, the common star of Gor and Earth, would be to reach the coast, but, even so, would the hut of Pertinax lie to the north or south? And, of course, an isolated woman, or women, on Gor, undefended by men, whether collared or not, would be fair game for almost any Gorean male. It would be like picking up shells on the beach.
Constantina had stumbled.
“I beg to be unhooded!” she wept.
I then stopped, and Constantina, sobbing, stood still, waiting to be unhooded. She reached her bound wrists out a few inches from the small of her back. “Please, too,” she said, “untie me.”
Pertinax seemed pleased that the proud Constantina had begged, and had said “Please.”
This was not the Constantina with which he was familiar.
She stood still, waiting to be unhooded, and unbound.
Cecily stood docile, hooded and bound, on the leash, her head lowered. She knew it would be done with her as masters pleased, and she, a slave, wished to be done with as masters pleased.
I located a slender, supple branch, and broke it off.
“Oh!” cried Constantina, stung across the back of the thighs.
“Now,” I said, picking up the leash, “let us be on our way.”
We then continued our journey.
Chapter Seven
After an Ahn we came to the edge of a deep ditch, some twelve feet or so deep, and as wide. It extended for some hundreds of yards to the left and right. We could not see the corners, where it would turn and begin to enclose a large rectangle of ground.
It was a relief to have come through the tangles of our earlier passage. We had been moving largely eastward.
I stood at the edge of the ditch.
“Do not move closer,” I told Constantina and Cecily. “There is a drop here.”
I thought the reserve, what I could see of it, was awesomely impressive.
“Have you been here before?” I asked Pertinax.
“No,” he said.
“The signs continue,” I observed.
A wand was nearby, across the ditch and to the left. A ribbon dangled from it. I could see another wand or two, beyond it, to its left, along the ditch, and another to my right, perhaps a hundred yards away. I supposed such wands and ribbons, at intervals, lined the edges of the ditch.
“This is clearly a reserve,” I said.
“Clearly,” he agreed.
“It may be one of Port Kar,” I said.
“Perhaps,” he said.
“The ribbons will tell,” I said. They were green. That suggested Port Kar. Thassa, the sea, is generally green. Indeed, pirates commonly painted their ships green, to make them less discernible at sea, certainly while under oars, with the masts lowered. Colors in the Gorean high cultures, as in most cultures, have their connotations or symbolisms. Too, in the Gorean high culture, certain colors tend to be associated with certain castes, for example green with the Physicians, red, or scarlet, with the Warriors, yellow with the Builders, blue with the Scribes, white with the Initiates, and so on.
“This is very impressive,” I said. “I think I shall unhood Cecily for a moment. You may unhood your slave, too, briefly, if you wish.”
“How beautiful it is!” said Cecily.
“Unhood me!” demanded the Lady Constantina.
“Apparently,” I said to Pertinax, “your slave wishes one or more additional, corrective strokes of the switch.”
“No!” said the Lady Constantina.
She started to move awkwardly, turning about, pulling at her bound wrists, apprehensive, frightened, bewildered and helpless in the hood.
Was I behind her, again, with a switch?
“Be careful,” I said to her. “There is a drop.”
She stood very still then, whimpering.
“Hold still,” said Pertinax. “I will unhood you.”
“Wait,” I said to Pertinax. “I heard no suitable request.”
Constantina straightened her body, angrily. “Please,” she said, to Pertinax, in a voice venomous with irony, “unhood me,” adding, “-
“Of course,” he said, fumbling with the strings at her neck.
She would not have addressed me, I was sure, as she did Pertinax. Her contempt for him was in no way disguised. But then he was, of course, her employee, so to speak.
I was angry but would not interfere. She was, after all, a free woman. A slave who had spoken so to a Gorean master would have been instantly subjected to discipline, would have been instantly punished, and grievously, if not slain. She would never again dare to so address her master. In moments, sobbing, she would be at his feet, begging forgiveness. The slave addresses her master, and all free persons, with deference. She is a slave. She does not wish to die.
“It is beautiful,” I said, agreeing with Cecily.
“The prospect is not unpleasant,” said Constantina, freed of the hood.
The hair of both girls was damp, from the hood.
We stood before a reserve.
The trees were spaced, yards apart, and were lofty. There was a solemnity about the vista, as with colonnades stretching into far shadows, a world of living columns, with capitals of shimmering foliage.
They were Tur trees.
These are used mostly for strakes, keels, beams, and planking.
Needle trees, of which there were none here, are usually used for masts. They are a softer wood, and, less rigid, more flexible, are more inclined to bend with the wind and the yard, and so, under certain conditions, violent
