Mariners of Gor

Chapter Thirty-Three

The tharlarion oil had burned low in the lamps, and, outside, we could hear the sounds of the morning, the roll of carts, men calling to one another.

The bar signifying the fifth Ahn had rung.

The Sea Sleen is a small tavern, not particularly well-known, even in Brundisium. Those near the southern piers, however, are likely to be aware of it. It was to this tavern the stranger, haggard, destitute, in his rags, in his soiled mariner’s cap, had come, and regaled us with a story, however far-fetched.

He had been fed, and given paga.

Surely that is payment enough for a story.

“You are a liar,” said the proprietor to the stranger.

“He wheedles paga and a free meal cleverly,” said another fellow.

“Beware of mariners,” laughed another.

The stranger smiled, as though discovered.

“Clever fellow!” laughed another.

The stranger took no offense. The comments of those about the small table were uttered in the way of good-natured raillery, and were not designed to disparage or affront a fellow, but, rather, to let him know they were not the sort to be taken in, not the sort to give credit to the absurd, the wild, and incredible, that they were aware astute fellows, and not fools.

I saw, clearly, that the stranger had not expected to be believed, and was not concerned that he had been found out, had he been found out.

“Have you a place to stay?” I asked him.

“All Brundisium,” he said.

“Do you have money, for food?” I asked.

“I need it not,” he said. “Garbage troughs are at hand.”

“You need not compete with pier urts,” I said. “I will give you a tarsk-bit.”

“For what?” he said.

“For hearing your story,” I said.

“I have been paid for that,” he smiled.

“Are you a liar?” I asked.

“Perhaps,” he said.

“Was there a Cabot, a Tersites, an Alcinoe?” I asked.

“Perhaps,” he said.

To the side, there was a small sound of slave bells. They were fastened, with cord, about her left ankle. She had been brought to the table, last night, to serve the stranger paga. He had then had her reveal herself, removing the thin, clinging, camisk of yellow rep cloth. He had later had her bound, hand and foot, it had been done by the taverner’s man, and it was thus that she had begun to hear the story, as a helpless, kneeling, nude slave, her wrists bound behind her, her ankles crossed and fastened together. In such a way a woman is well apprised that she is bond. Later in the evening, he had permitted her to recline, beside the table, but still bound, hand and foot. She hung upon the story, as did we. And when slaves were mentioned her breath quickened, and she leaned forward a little, that she might the more clearly sense the feelings of women such as she, far away. And how far away must her former reality have seemed, the former reality of this small, luscious barbarian, a brunette, nicely breasted, narrow waisted, and invitingly hipped, with small hands and feet, from her present reality, lying bound on the floor of a tavern, at the side of a table of masters. Although she had reportedly not been long in the collar, her slave fires, following a remark of the proprietor, were already causing her the restlessness and agitation so familiar to the occupants of the collar.

“Is this not an attractive barbarian?” I asked the stranger.

“Lift her up,” he said, “your left arm beneath her knees, your right hand supporting her, behind the back.”

I did as he asked, and turned her, so that he might see her, so held.

Commonly a slave is not so held, but she may be held so, to be the better displayed. Commonly a slave is held on her belly, over the left shoulder, her head to the rear, rather as other goods might be conveyed, sacks of sa-tarna, and such. A free woman, held so, can do little other than squirm, and strike futilely with her small fists, on the back of he who carries her. To be sure, a free woman would not be likely to be so carried, were she not being carried to a slave pen.

She looked down and back at him, helpless, and frightened, and so looked up to me, from my arms, as well.

What a nice bundle a slave makes, so held, so tied.

“Yes,” he said. “She is attractive.” He pointed to a place on the floor, near the table. “Kneel her there,” he said.

And the small barbarian kajira was so knelt.

“I understand,” said the stranger to the slave, “that you have not been named.”

“No, Master,” she said. “I have not been named.”

Sometimes one holds off on the naming of a slave, for the naming of a slave, as of any other animal, is a matter which may call for thought. To be sure, as with any other animal, names may be withheld, or changed, at will, at the master’s will.

“You are a paga slave,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“That is quite different,” he said, “I take it, from your former reality.”

“Yes, Master,” she said, “I was what is called a graduate student, a student of certain classical languages, Greek, and Latin, languages unfamiliar to you.”

I saw they were indeed unfamiliar to the stranger. “Like archaic Gorean,” I said.

She looked at me, suddenly, startled. “You know of such things?” she asked, eagerly.

“A little,” I said.

“He is a Scribe,” said the stranger. “You can tell from his robes.”

“You know something of Earth!” she cried.

“I am familiar with the second knowledge,” I said. “The languages you refer to are little, if at all, spoken on that world now.”

“No,” she said.

“Why would you concern yourself with them?” I asked. To be sure, this question was a test, as much as anything, to help me ascertain her depth, and worth. One hopes for such things, obviously, in a slave. One does not buy without care, one does not own without circumspection.

“They are beautiful,” she said, “and they speak of distant, different, exciting worlds, worlds in many ways natural and beautiful.”

I was pleased with this answer.

Would not such a one look well, bound before one? Would the lips of such a one, on her belly, not be pleasant on one’s feet?

“Surely you have noticed,” I said, “that words from those languages, along with those of many other languages, are found in Gorean.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“She seems to me quite intelligent,” said the stranger.

“I expect so,” I said.

To be sure, high intelligence, sometimes quite high intelligence, was often found in barbarian kajirae, as masters preferred it in their slaves. Few men wanted a stupid slave. The intelligent slave is more likely to survive her training, and, once trained, is likely to sell for better prices. She is also likely to be considerably more sensitive to her condition, and is likely to be far more prompt in understanding what is expected of her, the devoted and zealous service of the interests, inclinations, and pleasures of her master, than a less intelligent woman. She tends, as well, to be more vulnerable, and more sexually responsive, than her simpler sister. How easy it is, in so soft, nicely curved, and vital a property, astonished, reveling in her newly discovered profound and radical femininity, which she is no longer permitted to suppress or deny, to ignite slave fires. How helpless she will be, now the property of men, once they flame in her belly. Once they burn, would she then trade her collar for a shallow deceit, the denial and falsification of her most profound reality, that of female, for the betrayal of nature, for the repudiation of her deepest self, for the inertnesses and tepidities of freedom? She has found herself, and is content. How secure she is now, having found herself at last to be what she has always wanted to be, and has always been. Is this not the life she has secretly dreamed of living, now put upon her, as securely as her collar, as securely as her chains? She is attentive to the master, for she fears his whip, but she is inventive, as well, for she desires to please him, and be found pleasing. It gives her joy to be found pleasing. As she learns Gorean, too, her high intelligence well serves her, for her master delights in her lyrical capacity to express herself, delights in learning of her feelings and thoughts, and delights in the joys of her intellectual companionship, though she may be chained naked at his slave ring. In bondage, many such women learn their beauty, their sex, their nature, their meaning, and their identity. They learn they are not men, but women, and are content, and whole.

“Intelligence is often associated with the intensity of slave fires,” said the stranger.

“Yes,” I said.

It is well known that the most intelligent slave is often the most helpless in a man’s arms. So often are conjoined intelligence, vitality, sensitivity, and imagination with uncontrollable, inevitable responsiveness. The more intelligent woman swiftly comprehends what is being done to her, recognizes her vulnerability as a female, that she is defenseless, powerless to resist the inescapable ecstasies to which she will be subjected, that she will be mastered, as a female in the order of nature, and will soon be a gasping, begging, pleading, yielding slave. Then, in her mind and heart, she surrenders, as she knows she will, and must, and wants, rejoicingly acknowledging herself as her master’s slave. She is now herself.

There are two sexes, and they are not the same.

“Touch her,” said the stranger.

“Ai!” sobbed the slave, squirming.

“See?” said the proprietor.

It was clear to all.

“In your studies,” I said to the slave, “doubtless you learned of certain aspects of those worlds you described as different, distant, and exciting, those worlds in many respects quite different from that which you knew, worlds in many respects natural and beautiful.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Perhaps it was such things,” I said, “which attracted you to such worlds.”

“Doubtless, Master,” she said.

“Were you aware that in such worlds there were slaves?”

“Certainly,” she said.

“And that among these,” I said, “many would be female?”

“Yes, Master.”

“And did you ever imagine yourself as a female slave?”

“-Yes, Master.”

“You spoke of yourself as a ‘graduate student’,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Touch her,” said the stranger.

“Oh!” she cried.

“See her press herself against his hand,” said a fellow.

“Yes,” said another.

The slave pulled back, as she could. Tears sprang to her eyes.

“Do not be upset,” I said to her. “Being unable to help yourself, hoping to be touched, begging to be caressed, responding helplessly, is a sign of vitality, of health.”

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

“And it will improve your price,” said a fellow.

“When you were engaged in your studies,” I said, “I would suppose you did not anticipate your fate, that you would one day find yourself a slave on a far world, one you had perhaps heard of, but had not realized existed.”

“I thought it was only in books,” she said.

“You think differently now,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “I find myself kneeling, naked and bound, collared, before masters, in a tavern in Brundisium. I think differently now.”

Many of my world, of course, did not accept the existence of her Earth, as another world. They thought it the name of a remote place on Gor, from which lovely barbarians, illiterate, somehow, unbelievably enough, not even capable of speaking the language, were harvested for the markets. Such goods, for example, must have some place of origin.

“Perhaps,” I said, “my lovely graduate student, as you call it, your current reality is not so different now from that which you occasionally imagined on Earth, when you thought of yourself as a slave in one or another of those different, ancient worlds.”

“No, Master,” she said, squirming, “but now it is real.”

I thought her quite beautiful.

But what woman is not, naked and bound?

“Master,” she said, “I think you understand me!”

“A little, perhaps,” I said.

How piteous she seemed!

“I have waited so long for one who might understand me!” she said, tears in her eyes. “You are the first who has done so, on this world!”

“He is privy to the second knowledge,” said the stranger. “See his robes. He is a Scribe.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “you would like a private master?”

She leaned forward. “Oh, yes, yes, Master!” she wept. “I want a private master, a private master!”

This is not unusual amongst slaves. It is a common dream of public slaves, tavern slaves, brothel slaves, the girls of the laundries, the public kitchens, the mills, and such, that they should have a private master. And, of course, the dream goes far beyond this, for usually the dream is to be the single slave of a private master, to be the only slave in her master’s household. For example, there is often much misery, much grief, even lamentation, in the pleasure garden of a rich man, who is assuredly a private master, where slaves may often constitute little more than another adornment, much as the colored grasses, the trimmed shrubberies, the beds of flowers, the exotic trees, the unusual fruits, to enhance the beauty of the garden. Perhaps no more than two or three preferred slaves are ever called to the slave ring of their master. Indeed, he may often bring in rent slaves from the party houses to sing and dance for him, and his guests, to play the kalika, to accompany with flute music the measuring of wine and the cutting of meat. Indeed, as the stocking and tending of such gardens is often managed by independent companies, staffed with professionals, he is likely to have several girls in his gardens whom he, personally, has never seen.

“You are looking upon me, Master,” she said. “Would that I might find favor in the eyes of Master.”

I wondered if she, as a graduate student, whatever that might be, had ever thought that she might one day kneel naked and bound before a man, a slave, and speak so.

Certainly she was beautiful. And she was clearly of high intelligence, and her background, I thought, though of Earth, was of a sort which shared certain affinities with that of my caste. Too, she impressed me as a girl who might soon, in the throes of her need, belly and grovel for the caress of a master. Already, I had understood, from the proprietor, she had begun to feel slave fires in her belly. Certainly that had been suggested by her responses to my touch. And had not her belly, as that of a slave, pressed beggingly against my hand, until she, suddenly, realizing what she had done, that she had betrayed her need, and vitality, had withdrawn it, with tears of shame?

She must, of course, learn the absurdity of shame, and that it was not permitted to the slave. If nothing else, let the whip teach her so. Such indulgences and frivolities are not permitted the slave; they are permitted only to free women, who might be foolish enough to cultivate them. The slave is an animal, and is to be as wild, and open, and free, and appetitious and sexual, as any other animal. What a pathological world from which she must be derived, I thought, to be ashamed of her health, her vitality, and womanhood. What purposes could be served, and whose purposes, I wondered, on such a world, to instigate such suspicions, such conflicts and contradictions, to set one part of a body against another part, one part of a mind against another? How ill or insane the society which might find profit in such divisions and treacheries! Why should she not be tutored in other betrayals, as well? Why should she not be taught to fear the dictates of her hereditary coils? Why should she not be terrified at the movement of a tiny corpuscle in her lovely body, not be ashamed, as well, of the beating of her heart, the circulation of her blood?

The slave is not to be ashamed of her needs; she only need fear that the master will not satisfy them.

Yes, it was clear that the slave fires had begun to burn in the belly of the fair slave before me.

And once she had bucked and writhed in the slave orgasm, helpless in her ropes or chains, she would be spoiled forever for freedom. What had freedom to offer a woman which might compare with the caress of her master?

“Does a master not look upon me with desire?” she said. “Does a master not look upon a slave with lust in his eyes?”

I was silent.

I wondered if, in her former world, when she was clothed, and free, she had ever been looked upon with lust, with thoughts of stripping, with thoughts of the rope, and leash.

And had she ever, even, I wondered, thought of herself as such a woman, one who might one day be so looked upon, and who might be purchased?

Yes, I thought, for she had imagined herself a slave.

“Buy me, Master!” she said. “I beg to be bought!”

And thus, irremediably, she acknowledged herself as that which could be bought, as slave.

“Three silver tarsks,” said the proprietor. “No less!”

The stranger laughed. Clearly the slave did not begin to be worth so much. She was barbarian, she was a mere paga girl, and from a low tavern, her accent was unusual, she had not been much trained, she was new to her collar, and she was just beginning to sense the heat of slave fires, in the grasp of which, perhaps even in days, she would find herself helpless. She was certainly beautiful, and would not have been purchased had she not been, but I did not think she would be likely to be the first pick of many of the tavern’s customers. I suspected the proprietor had not paid more than a quarter of a silver tarsk for her, in a pier market. I thought she might bring a silver tarsk, or one and a half, but not two. And I could not afford even a silver tarsk. I could, of course, afford the tarsk-bit which, in a low tavern, such as The Sea Sleen, might purchase a cup of paga, accompanying which, if I chose, might be her use.

“I cannot afford one silver tarsk,” I said.

“It is morning,” said the proprietor.

We struggled to our feet, stiff, from the night.

“My thanks,” I said to the stranger, “for your unusual tale.”

He grinned.

I looked down at the table, where the two quarrels, fired by the Assassins, had struck the wood, piercing it, scattering splinters about, when the stranger had interposed it between himself and their missiles.

“Why, friend,” said I, “were you sought by those of the black caste?”

“It was doubtless a case of mistaken identity,” he said.

“Or, perhaps,” I said, “Tyrtaios, who wished to reward you for your opposition to the desertion, had a colleague, or agent, aboard the great ship.”

“But then,” said the stranger, “the tale would be true.”

“Where is the great ship?” I asked.

“I do not know,” he said. “Tersites is mad, and the ship had eyes, and could now see her way. Thassa was vast before him. A hundred horizons beckoned. There are shores that have not yet been seen. I, with others, desiring to return to civilization, were put ashore at Daphna, of the farther islands, and we made our way severally, as we would.”

“And you came to Brundisium?”

“Those who draw the oar,” he said, “do not set the helm.”

“You were followed, it seems,” I said.

“Seemingly so,” said he.

“The arm of Tyrtaios was long,” he said.

“Not long enough,” he said. “Thassa, last night, received two of the black caste.”

“I believe your story,” I said.

A couple of the fellows laughed.

“Then,” said the stranger, “you are a fool. Had I heard my story I would not have believed it. Why should you?”

“True, true,” laughed a man, good-naturedly.

“Return the slave to her cage,” said the proprietor to his man.

The slave looked up at me, wildly, piteously, and squirmed a little. Her lips formed the word, ‘Master’.

I said nothing.

Why should one deign to acknowledge a slave?

The slave was then freed, and, stood. “Oh,” she said. Her footing was a bit uncertain, as her ankles had been crossed, and tied, for some Ahn. There was a sound from the bells fastened about her left ankle. Then she, unsteady, and rubbing her wrists, was taken by the hair, by the proprietor’s man, was bent over, at the waist, and, in standard leading position, was conducted to the back of the tavern, and drawn through a thick curtain of layered, dangling, colored beads. A moment later I heard a last flash of bells, and the closing of a sturdy metal gate.

“You found the slave attractive,” I said to the stranger.

“Of course,” he said.

I went to press a tarsk-bit into his hand. “This is for her use,” I said.

“For the story?” he said.

“Surely,” I said.

“No,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“She is not Alcinoe,” he said.

“I see,” I said.

“Keep it, pay for her use, for yourself,” he said.

“I do not wish to share her with others,” I said. “I do not wish to pay for her use. It is her, the whole of her, I want.”

“You have seen her before?” he said.

“Surely,” I said, “and with interest, but never as this night.”

“She is quite beautiful,” he said.

“And never so beautiful as this night,” I said.

“Clearly the meaningless slut, the worthless chit,” he said, “wants you for her master.”

“And I,” I said, “want her for my slave.”

“She is a true slave,” he said. “She will be hot, and helpless.”

“I read her so,” I said.

“She is on the verge now,” he said. “Did you not see her respond to your touch?”

“That is why,” I asked, “that you had her subjected to the touch of a master?”

“Yes,” he said, “and twice, that she would understand herself to be what she is, and that you could see, without mistake, what she is.”

“A slave,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“I see,” I said.

“There is an affinity here,” he said. “Strange it is how a slave, transported, might find her master on a new, unsuspected world, one far different from her own, on which she must kneel and wear a collar, and a master might find his slave, placed at his feet, brought to him from a far-distant, scarce-realized world.”

“You realize there is such a world, a different world,” I said, “from which she was harvested.”

“I have gathered so,” he said.

I thought of men and women, of masters and slaves.

A word is spoken, a glance registered.

How mysterious are such things, I thought. There is nothing, and then there is everything. Who can understand such things?

How piteously, how zealously, I thought, the girl had begged to be purchased!

And how well, I thought, would my collar look on the neck of that slave!

“And how would you keep her?” asked the stranger.

“As she should be kept,” I said, “absolutely and totally, without the least recourse or qualification, without the least concession or compromise, as a complete slave, how else?”

“Even to the chain and whip?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said.

“Excellent,” he said.

“Noble fellows,” said the proprietor. “It is morning. The tavern must be vacated.”

We, all of us, moved toward the door.

Several of us, who had listened through the night, bade the stranger a hale farewell.

“You are a liar amongst liars,” grinned a fellow.

“Would you believe your story?” asked a fellow of the stranger.

“No,” he smiled, “not if I heard if from another.”

“And if you heard it from yourself?” laughed another.

“Probably not then, either,” said the stranger.

“I wish you well, fellow,” said more than one.

I think the fellows had been pleased enough by what they had heard, but that few, if any, would take it seriously, with its talk of the World’s End, of the great ship, of the mad Tersites, of Tarl Cabot, the tarnsman, of the much-sought fugitive, Talena of Ar.

Who could believe such things?

And from a derelict and vagrant, from a wanderer and vagabond, from a drifter, and wayfarer, worn and soiled, without a tarsk-bit in his wallet.

“Out, out!” said the proprietor, and closed the door, and bolted it, behind us.

The stranger and I were then alone, on the street, before the tavern.

“Come with me,” I said to the stranger. “I will get you some breakfast.”

“The garbage troughs are at hand,” he said.

“I work in the harbor office,” I said, “at the high piers, where the great ships dock, in the registry.”

“Few dock now,” he said, “the season is late.”

“The work is light,” I agreed.

He began to turn away.

“Come along.” I said. “You need money. I may be able to find you a day’s work, on the high piers, in a warehouse, if not on the dock.”

He looked at me, and I felt tested.

“Leave the garbage troughs for the urts,” I said.

“I am of Cos,” he said.

“You are more welcome here,” I said, “than those of Ar.”

“Ar is dangerous now?” he said.

“Marlenus is again on the throne,” I said.

We then, together, began to make our way along the waterfront, to the high piers, so called, those which might, by depth of water, levels of platforms, varieties of lading devices, and proximity to shops and warehouses, accommodate and service round ships. It is in this district that is located the harbor office, where I worked, in the registry.

“I hear the bar,” said the stranger. “Why is it sounding?”

“Do not be concerned,” I said. “It is coming from the high piers.”

“Is it an alarm?” asked the stranger.

“No,” I said, “it is the signal of a new docking, a round ship, doubtless.”

War galleys were not announced, and, shallow-drafted, commonly used the low piers. When a new round ship docks its arrival is usually announced by the bar. At such a time, those with business, or who hope for business, as well as the idle and curious, may visit the piers. One might see docksmen there, as well, looking to pick up coin. If it were later in the day, paga girls might be sent to the wharves, to solicit custom for their master’s establishment. There are often boys about the docks, too, in ragged tunics, who love to see the large ships, and hope, one day, to learn the trade of the sea.

“Is the signal commonly so vigorous?” asked the stranger.

“No,” I said. “I do not understand.”

The sound of the bar carried over the port, even to the land walls. It suggested an intensity, or agitation.

“Surely it is an alarm,” said the stranger.

“No,” I said. “The sound is different, the tone, the strokes. It is not the bar of alarm.”

“It sounds like no simple announcement to me,” said the stranger.

“Nor to me,” I said.

“It is something unusual?” he said.

“Clearly,” I said. “Let us hurry!”

“Ho!” cried men, running past, come up from the docks, hurrying toward the high city. “A strange ship! A strange ship!”

Other men were rushing toward the high piers.

A number of boys, shouting to one another, ran past.

Many citizens, from their windows, looked toward the sea. I saw several on the roofs, pointing toward the high piers.

The stranger and I were jostled.

He caught my arm, once, and kept me from falling.

Two free women joined the crowd.

I heard a fellow call out to his slave. “Go, see what is going on! Come back, and tell me!”

“Yes, Master,” she cried, and, barefoot, in her light tunic, sped toward the docks.

“I have never seen anything like it!” said a fellow, standing on a ledge, shading his eyes.

“Could it be the ship of Tersites?” I asked the stranger, though he, of course, was in no position to see better than I, from our current position.

“I cannot think so,” he said. “I do not think Tersites would risk her east of the farther islands, because of Cos and Tyros, and it would be madness to bring her as far as Brundisium. Too, if the ship is at the piers, I do not think it could be that ship, given her draft. It is no common round ship. She would lie a quarter of a pasang offshore, or seek a harbor of unusual depth.”

“What ship, then?” I asked, as we hurried on.

“Aii!” cried the stranger, as we surmounted a small rise, and then had the piers below us, and before us.

We stopped.

Men with us, too, stood in amazement.

“I have never seen such a ship,” I said.

“I have,” said the stranger.

“It is so large,” I said. “How could it be at the pier?”

“It is shallow-drafted,” he said. “It can manage rivers. It maintains stability in the high seas by the descent of a dagger board.”

Men were pointing at the ship.

Boys continued to run past us.

The ship had a high stern castle, and four masts. Most unusual to me were the large, strange sails, tall, and rectangular, and ribbed, divided into lateral sections.

“That,” I said, turning to the stranger, “is a ship from the World’s End.”

“It is,” said the stranger.

“How can it be?” I asked.

“Tersites,” he said, “showed the way. He proved that such a voyage was possible. For those at the end of the world, we are the World’s End. What can be done by sailing west, can be done, as well, by sailing east. The voyage of Tersites has made the world different. Because of him men will never again think of the world in the same way.”

“You have seen such ships,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “many, in the Vine Sea, but few as large.”

“It is a strange, and beautiful, ship,” I said.

“I know its lines, its markings,” he said.

“You have seen it before?” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “briefly, at a wharf, at the foot of a walled-in-trail, in a sheltered cove.”

I regarded him.

“It is, or was, one of the three ships,” he said, “of the shogun, Lord Temmu.”