Swordsmen of Gor

Her head had been shaved.

I thus inferred that the gifting of her, amongst other gifts, to a shogun by Lord Nishida, which I understood to be his intent, would not be imminent, but perhaps months away.

Surely she was in no condition to be presented, now, to anyone, even a herder of tarsks, a lowly shearer of the bounding hurt.

But her bondage journey had begun. By the time she had learned her collar, and her skin would again sparkle, and her hair would be again a glory, and her eyes would no longer reflect terror but rather the eagerness of a surrendered slave, hoping to be found pleasing by her master, she would be worthy, I was sure, of having the vestiture of a silken presentation sheet removed before a shogun, or even a Ubar.

“Master?” she asked, her head lifted to me.

“Slave?” I said.

“Has Master Pertinax inquired after me?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Why do you ask?”

She put down her head, “Nothing, Master,” she said.

“Perhaps,” I said, “it is his whip you would like to feel?”

Among slaves, a common way for one slave to inquire of another her owner is to ask, “Who whips you?”

To be sure, the slave may never have been whipped. She is, of course, subject to the whip of the master, for she is a slave. Sometimes a slave may be bound and whipped, to remind her that she is a slave. After this, she is under no illusions as to her condition. She now knows well what she is; she is slave, only slave.

The slave was silent, but trembled.

“As a slave, of course,” I said, “you are unworthy of any free man.”

“Yes, Master,” she said. Then she looked to Cecily. “She is standing,” she said.

“Of course,” I said. “You are a slave. If you were a free person, she would be on her knees.”

She looked at Cecily. “I am sorry,” she said, “that I was cruel to you.”

“It is nothing,” said Cecily.

Saru looked up from all fours, her knees and hands in the straw. “May I kneel, Master,” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

She had not asked for permission to stand. She knew herself in the presence of a free man.

I wondered if Thrasilicus was looking into a different slave for Lord Nishida. Perhaps a better slave would be sought.

“Back straight, head up,” I told her.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Knees,” I said.

“Before her?” asked Saru, in misery. Cecily was standing.

“Before me,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Wider,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“I see you are collared,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“And you have been branded?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

I crouched beside her. “It is an excellent mark,” I said. It was, as I had expected, the common Kef.

“I am told so,” she said. “I am now well marked. There will be no confusing me now with a free woman.”

“Nor should there be,” I said.

“No, Master,” she said.

“You look well, kneeling, with your knees spread,” I said.

“Thank you, Master,” she whispered.

“A slave is pleased, if she is found pleasing,” I said.

“I am pleased if I am found pleasing,” she said.

“Understand it,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

A tear coursed down her cheek.

She would soon, I was sure, as a slave, aside from fear, take great pleasure in being found pleasing, and be genuinely grateful for having been found so, and, if not, there was always the leather.

How desperate, I thought, are slaves, once they understand their condition, to be found pleasing. Surely the switch, the lash, are unpleasant. Saru was new to her bondage, but, thanks to the grooms, she was already well aware of the consequences of failing, in any particular, to be pleasing to free men.

But most desirably the slave should eventually desire to be found pleasing, should strive to be so, for the joy of being found pleasing by her master, and not from dread of the boot or leather.

“To whom do you belong?” I asked.

“To Lord Nishida,” she said.

I had supposed that that would be the case. On the other hand, if a different slave were being sought, with her coloring, and such, it was quite possible that she might have been given to another.

I examined the collar. “I cannot read the collar,” I said. I supposed it was in Gorean, but it was not in a common Gorean script. I had encountered something similar, long ago, in the Tahari, where Gorean was written in a quite different script, a flowing, beautiful script common in the Tahari.

“It was shown to me,” she said, “but I, too, could not read it.”

“Can you read Gorean?” I asked.

“It was not thought necessary that I learn it,” she said.

“Many Earth-girl slaves are kept illiterate in Gorean,” I said. “Why should a slave be taught to read?”

“I was not a slave!” she said.

“In the view of some, it seems, you were,” I said. “But, in any event, illiteracy would seem a suitable aspect of your disguise.”

“And I understand,” she said, bitterly, “they had a collar in mind for me, even from the beginning.”

“Certainly,” I said.

“Yes, certainly,” she wept.

“I assume your collar was read to you,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“‘I am the property of Nishida of Nara’,” she said.

This was doubtless Lord Nishida.

“What is Nara?” I asked.

“I do not know,” she said.

On the common Gorean collar it might be a city, a district, even a cylinder. On her collar, for all I knew, it might be a place, a port, a caste, a family, a clan, or something else. I did not know what. I would later learn it was a citadel, a lofty fortress castle.

“Were you given slave wine?” I asked. I recalled she had had “the wine of the noble free woman.”

She closed her eyes and, involuntarily, shuddered with misery. Then she looked at me, shaken. “My hands were tied behind my back,” she said, “and then I was knelt and my head yanked back by the hair, and held in place, and the spout forced between my teeth, and my nostrils pinched shut, and it was poured into me, and I must imbibe the beverage or suffocate. It was most bitter, most foul. And then, unable to disgorge the brew, even later, for the tying of my hands, I must endure to have my head shaved.”

“The shaving of the head was doubtless to help you understand better your bondage,” I said, “but, too, it is perhaps not entirely regrettable considering the applications to which you have been put. Your hair was very beautiful, as well you knew, in your vanity, and it would have been a sorry thing for it to have been fouled in the ordure of tharlarion.”

“I protested my work, and as they would have me attend to it,” she said, “and my face was forced down, into