Mariners of Gor

I again regarded her.

She was totally helpless, and unable to either see or speak.

I went again to the door, and again addressed the stranger. “Ho!” I called. “Come and see your gift!”

He then turned, though I fear reluctantly. Indeed, I had feared he might have left the warehouse.

“What is it?” he called.

“I fear it is negligible,” I said. It was, after all, only a slave.

“Good,” he said.

He had been denied passage on the River Dragon, which had been of desperate importance to him. What then might compensate him for a loss so grievous? A valuable gift would have been, under the circumstances, cruel, or insulting. A negligible gift thus, at least, demonstrated that Lord Nishida and Tarl Cabot understood and respected his feelings, acknowledging, in this way, the accepted disparity involved, that the values involved were incommensurable.

He approached the door, and I stood aside.

He stopped within the threshold. He stood still, there, as though shocked, as in disbelief. He put a hand to the door jamb, on his right, suddenly striking it, to steady himself. He wavered. I feared, for a moment, his knees would buckle. Was this the man, I asked myself, who had faced mutineers, who had stood before a gate at the World’s End? He trembled. He tried to speak. No words emerged. He shook his head, twice, as though to assure himself that what he saw was real.

“Are you well?” I asked. “What is wrong?”

He did not respond to me.

“You need not accept it,” I said, “but I think it would be churlish not to do so. When the ship is gone, which will apparently be soon, sell it. It is your right.”

“Can it be?” he said. “Can it be!” he cried.

“No one would blame you,” I said. “Not Lord Nishida nor Tarl Cabot.”

“Aii!” he cried out, suddenly, and flung himself on his knees, beside the object, his dagger free.

“Do not kill it!” I cried, alarmed.

I seized his arm, holding it.

“Do not be enraged!” I said. “Do not take your disappointment out on the slave. She is innocent! She is only a slave. See, she is bound! She is blindfolded! She is gagged! She can help nothing!”

I struggled to hold his arm.

I could not determine if he were laughing, or crying.

“Innocent?” he cried. “A slave, innocent! See her beauty! You say she can help nothing! Every movement, every wisp of her hair, is guilty! Her ankles, her wrists, her bosom, her eyes, her lips, her feet, her hands, each quarter hort of her, each bit of her, each particle of her is guilty! Innocent? A slave, innocent! Does her beauty not wrench the heart of a man! Might not her smile slay with the swiftness of a quarrel? Is her touch not more dangerous than that of the ost? Does she not make a man helpless! Might she not conquer with a whisper, a caress? A kiss might breach the walls of a city, overturn the thrones of Ubars! What net, what web, can compare with her laughter?”

“Do not be concerned,” I said. “They are animals, she-sleen! Keep them in collars. Hold the whip over them. They understand the collar, the lash! It is a question of who will be master. They crave strength, not weakness! Freed they are the bitterest and most frustrated, the subtlest and slyest of enemies. In their collars, they are content, appetitious, desirable, grateful, and fulfilled. They find the wholeness of their joy only when they are choiceless, and mastered. Men seek their slaves, and women their masters.”

He pulled his arm away from me, and the dagger swiftly parted the cord that held her head down, fastened to her feet.

Her eyes must have been wild, open, but unable to see anything, blocked in the darkness of the blindfold. She made tiny, helpless, piteous, desperate noises, scarcely detectable outside the sturdiness of the gag, its tight, encircling leather perimeters.

The Pani had done their work well.

The slave could neither see nor speak.

“Kneel her up,” I said. “What does her collar say?”

As the collar was light, it seemed to me likely that it was a private collar, not a public collar, not, say, a ship’s collar.

“Read it,” he said.

“I cannot read Pani script,” I said. I had seen samples of it amongst the trading tables.

“You can read it,” he said.

“Ah!” I said.

I could indeed read it.

“It is in familiar Gorean,” I said.

“Tarl Cabot,” he said.

“But the gift, surely,” I said, “is from Lord Nishida.”

“Yes,” said the stranger. “He is a daimyo.”

The collar read as follows: “I am Alcinoe. I belong to Callias, of Jad.”

“It was for this,” I asked, “that you would have ventured to the World’s End, for this, a mere slave?”

“Yes,” he said, “for this, a mere slave.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

A Scribe Concludes an Account

“Wine, Master?” said my slave.

“Wine, Master?” said the slave of the stranger.

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes,” said the stranger.

They served the wine well, kneeling beside the two small tables, behind which we sat, cross-legged, touching the goblet softly, tenderly, appropriately, to their body, then lifting it, and licking and kissing the goblet’s rim, as they looked over the rim, into the eyes of their masters, then lowering their heads humbly between their extended arms, both hands on the goblet, proffering the goblets to the masters.

My slave had done well in the market, and I was quite pleased. The ka-la-na, for example, was excellent. I was impressed as she was a barbarian. I wondered if the slave of the stranger would have done as well. For example, when she had been free, given her station, she had probably had few experiences making her way amongst the stalls and baskets.

The ka-la-na was indeed excellent.

I wondered how much that had to do with her market skills, and how much might have had to do with her smiles and the brevity of her tunic. To be sure, for a slave, one supposed a sharp distinction amongst such things might not be warranted.

It had taken Callias only a moment, in the back room of the warehouse, at the side of the slave, to cut away her bonds, and tear loose the blindfold and gag.

“Master! Master! Master!” she had wept, joyfully, clutching him, melting against him.

“Oh!” she cried.

“Do not break her back,” I warned, for he held her with possessive address, with ferocity.

I supposed few free women had ever been so held, unless they were on their way to the marking iron, the collar.

She drew back for a moment and her lips were reddened, and bruised, and the lower lip bleeding, and then she thrust them, again, wildly to his.

“Stand,” I said to Callias. “She is a slave. Put her to your feet!”