“No,” she had said. “No.” I had then bound her with them.
“Is she not much too clean?” asked Hassan.
I looked at the bound girl. “Yes,” I said. Then I said to the girl, “Down, down on the floor, on your belly and back, roll.”
She looked at us angrily, but then complied. When she stood again before us, Hassan took soot from one of the tharlarion-oil lamps and rubbed it, here and there, on her body. He then took some tharlarion-oil and, as she shuddered, poured and rubbed it on her left shoulder.
“Of great danger to us now,” said Hassan, “is her lack of a brand.”
“Unless you have an iron with you,” I said, “there is not much helping that at the moment.”
Still the problem was serious. Girls are branded prominently, usually on the left or right thigh. The brand on a slave girl is not something for which, when the wench is stripped, one must hunt. If it were noted, in our journey to the lower levels, that the woman we led was unmarked, it would be assumed that she was free. This would excite curiosity, and would be sure to be later recalled.
Tarna, of course, would be unmarked. Indeed, she would be likely to be the only unmarked female in the kasbah.
I tore down one of the hangings, a yellow one, and ripped a narrow strip from it. I wound this about the girl’s thighs, low, to reveal her navel. It is called the slave belly. On Gor it is only slave girls who expose, their navels. But the cloth would cover the area, on either hip, which be the likely site of the incised slave mark.
“It might be better,” said Hassan, studying the beauty, “if she were completely stripped.”
“Not without a brand,” I said.
“You are right,” said Hassan. “We cannot risk it.”
“Let them assume,” I suggested, “that we are leading her to someone to whom we are giving her, and that we wish to tear off her last veil, to her horror, only before her new master.”
“Excellent,” said Hassan. “It is at least plausible.”
“It will have to do,” I said.
“Please,” said Tarna. “Lift the cloth to cover my navel.”
I thrust the cloth down, another inch on her hips. She shook with anger, but was silent. She did not much approve either when Hassan cleaned his hands on the cloth about her hips. This dirtied the cloth, making it more fitting to be worn about the hips of a slave; too, of course, it removed the soot from his hands, from the tharlarion-oil lamp.
As we had led her through carousing soldiers, many of them reached for the girl, whom they assumed, as we had intended, was slave. “Oh,” she cried. “Oh!” She found herself much caressed, with the rude familiarity with which a slave girl is handled.
“Hurry, Slave,” I barked at her. She did not even know enough to say, “Yes, Master.” I did not lead her gently. At last, to my relief, we reached the door leading to the lower levels.
“Did you see them look at me?” she asked. “Is this what it is to be a slave girl?”
We did not respond to her. Hassan threw back the heavy door. I removed the bonds from the girl, and threw them aside. I took her by the arm and, Hassan preceding us, I conducted her down the curving, narrow, worn stairs, deep below the kasbah.
We had brought her safely through the halls. This pleased me.
I have little doubt that our success in this matter was largely to be attributed to what Tarna, stripped and roped back by the neck, had learned on her own couch. There is a great deal of difference in the way that various sorts of women relate to men and look upon them. These differences tend often to be functions of what their experiences have been with men. For example, do they regard themselves as the equals of men, or their superiors? Or, have they been taught, forcibly and clearly, that they are not the dominant organism? Have they been put, helpless, beneath the Will of a male? Have they learned their delicious vulnerability, that they are the male’s victim and prey, his pleasure and delight? And have they learned, to their helpless horror and joy, the fantastic things he can do to their body? “How do you look upon men, Wench?” Hassan had asked. “How do you meet their eyes?” he had asked.
And Tarna had gazed upon him.
He had moaned. “We shall lose our heads,” he had said.
I had then dragged her by the neck to her own couch, that swift instruction be administered to her.
She had thousands of pasangs to go, but we had made a start with her, enough to get her through the halls.
I had seen her react as we had dragged her through the soldiers. She was not then the Tarna of old. She was a woman who had been taught what men could do with her.
I heard singing, shouting, from below, too. We descended four levels, until we reached the bottom level. Tarna looked sick.
“The smell,” she said. A drunken soldier, carrying a bottle, brushed against us.
I let her throw up, twice, in the hall. Then I pushed her ahead of me, holding her by the arm, stumbling through the straw and slime down the corridor. She cried out, miserably, as an urt scurried past, brushing her ankle. We looked through one cell door, swung open. It led into a large, long, narrow room.
Against the far wall, chained by the neck, on straw, were more than a hundred slave girls. Soldiers, many drunken, sported with them. Some, holding the slaves in their left arm, forced wine from bottles down their throats. Some of the girls squirmed, eagerly, their hands on the bottles. Others, at the end of their chain and collar, on their knees, held out their hands. “Wine, Master, please!” they cried. They did not bargain, as might have a desperate free woman, “Anything for a sip of wine, Noble Sir!” for they were slave girls. Anything could, and would, be demanded of them, and for nothing. They were slave.
“How horrid men are,” moaned Tarna.
“Speak with care,” warned Hassan, “for soon, as much as any slut at the wall, you will belong to them.”
Tarna threw back her head, and moaned.
“It is here,” said Hassan. He moved back the heavy iron door and we entered the room. I looked about, at the chains and devices. Tarna shrank back. She could not run, for my hand was on her arm. She seemed faint. I steadied her. It was dark in the room, except for a small tharlarion-oil lamp on a chain in one corner, and a brazier, glowing, near the branding rack. Hassan stirred the coals in the brazier. In a large kasbah irons are kept always hot. The slaves know this.
I ripped the bit of cloth away from her hips and threw her against the rack. I swung shut the two heavy bands and with the two twist handles, tightened them on her thigh. She turned; trying to pound at the metal that held her. I took her wrists and pulled them forward, to the two posts, some six inches apart, part of the branding rack, putting them in the snap bracelets, which dangled there, one from each post. These are simple mechanisms. It is quite easy to open and shut them, and it may be done with a snap of the finger, one for each bracelet. As the bracelets are situated, some inches apart, of course, and as the snap is on each bracelet itself, at the wrist, the girl herself cannot get her finger, of either hand, on the mechanism. Others may open them easily; she, on the other hand, is perfectly held. I took again the twist handles. I turned them extremely tightly. “Oh, oh,” she cried. She pulled futilely at the snap bracelets. Then I again turned the twist handles. “Please!” she cried. “Be quiet,” I told her. She bit her lip. I tightened the handles more and put in the locking device, that they might not slip back. Her thigh was absolutely immobile.
“I see you like a left-thigh-branded girl,” said Hassan.
The girl can writhe in the rack or squirm, or scream, but the held thigh will not move. It is held for the kiss of the iron.
With a heavy glove, Hassan pulled an iron from the brazier. “What do you think of this brand?” he asked.
It was the Taharic slave mark.
“It is beautiful,” I said. “But let us assure ourselves that this will be a common slave, one fit to sell north.”
“A good idea,” said Hassan. He returned the one iron to the brazier and reached for another. It glowed red. It was a fine iron, clean and precise. At its tip, bright red, was the common Kajira slave mark of Gor. Tarna looked upon it with horror.
“It is not yet hot enough, my pretty,” said Hassan. He returned it to the brazier.
We heard shouting, as though from far away. Hassan looked at me. “I shall investigate,” I said. I left the room and ascended to the third level. The noise was coming from the level above, the second. A soldier was stumbling by. “What is going on?” I asked. “On the level above?”
“They are searching for Tarna,” he laughed. He then stumbled away.
I saw two slave girls led past me, on wrist chains, in the grip of another soldier.
I returned to the fourth level. I returned to the room where Hassan waited.
“They are searching for Tarna,” I said.
“On what level are they?” asked Hassan.
“The second,” I said.
“Ah,” said Hassan, “then we have plenty of time.” In a few Ehn he removed the iron from the coals, and examined it. He then again replaced it. Shortly thereafter, however, for it must have been almost ready, he drew it-forth again.
It glowed white.
“You may scream and cry out, my pretty,” said Hassan, not unkindly.
She struggled in the bracelets, she watched the iron. Then she screamed. For five long Ihn Hassan held the iron, pressing it in. I saw it sink in her thigh, smoking and hissing. Then he, cleanly, withdrew it. Tarna was marked.
She sobbed, wildly. We did not rebuke her. I freed her thigh of the rack. She fell on her knees at the posts, sobbing. I freed her wrists of the snap bracelets. I lifted her, sobbing, in my arms.
I, Hassan, leading, carried Tarna to an empty cell on the fourth level. Hassan pushed back the door, tying it open. There was dim light in the cell from the hall outside. I put Tarna, still sobbing, on the dank straw at the back wall of the cell.
“I’m a slave girl,” she whispered. “I am a slave girl.”
We found the chain and collar, and I fastened it about the girl’s neck, locking it.
We looked at her.
She was chained to the wall.
“I am a slave girl,” she whispered to us, disbelievingly, through her tears.
We heard sounds, from the level above.
“They are searching the third level, that above us,” said Hassan. “They will soon be here.”
“I am a slave girl,” she said.
