Kajira of Gor

32 The Throne Room

The throne room in the palace at Argentum was now cool and dark. I entered, fearfully, a slave girl frightened to be in such a place. It had a lofty ceiling. I walked barefoot on the tiles to the vicinity of the dais and throne. I turned, suddenly, fearfully, as the door closed behind me. I could not see, in the shadows, who had shut it.

"Master?" I asked. I knelt, not knowing what else to do. This was the afternoon of the day of the great feast, that for which, purportedly, feast slaves had been brought even from Ar. No longer now, of course, was I a feast slave. I was now a work slave and pleasure slave owned by Miles of Argenturn. Tonight, at the feast, I was to be presented naked and in chains to Claudius, the Uber of Argentum, and the council. I looked up, toward the ceiling. Suspended there, some forty feet from the floor, on a long rope, almost lost in the shadows, was a golden sack. The sack, weighted, hung heavily on the taut rope. Sometimes, with a creak of rope, it swung slightly. I was reminded of an almost immobile pendulum.

I heard a sound in the shadows, near the door. I looked quickly in that direction.

I could see nothing in the darkness.

"Master?" I called.

A girl had told me that I was to report to the throne room. She was conveying this message on behalf of a free man. She did not recognize him. Ile had seemed important, authoritative. As she had hesitated to obey him, in relaying his message, so, too, I would not hesitate to obey him, in complying with it. Neither of us could guess his office or status. That he was within the palace, however, a free man, clearly suggested to us his possession of some privilege or power. As we were slaves, we obeyed. The man had been described to me by the girl, who had seemed shaken by her encounter with him, merely as one who was obviously a natural master of women such as we, slaves.

I could see him now, dimly, in the shadows, as my eyes adjusted to the light. He was standing near the door. He was a large man. "Head down," he said, "palms on the floor."

I immediately assumed this position. The voice sounded familiar, but I could not place it. It sounded, too, somewhat tense or feigned. I wondered if that were its natural sound, or if it were being disguised.

I heard steps coming around behind me. Then, from behind, my head was pulled up, by the hair.

I now knelt, with my back straight. My tunic, then, the tunic of Miles of Argentum, that brief, trim tunic, of brown, trimmed with yellow with the plunging neckline, and slit at the sides to the rib stripped away from me, from the back.

My hands then, with two loops of a thong, were tied be-hind me.

"Master?" I begged. Then I could not speak. A heavy wadding was thrust into my mouth and secured there with a folded strip of cloth, drawn deeply back between my teeth, knotted tightly behind the back of my neck. was then turned about and put on my back before my captor, on the tiles at the foot of the dais on which reposed the throne of Argentum.

I squirmed in terror. I uttered muted, tiny sounds.

"Yes," said he. "it is I, Ligurious, once first minister of Corcyrus." I looked up at him, in terror.

"I, and two others," he said, "escaped the raid in Ar." I recalled I had heard swordplay, and the crashing of glass. "I see that you are now a branded, collared slave," he said. "It is appropriate. That is not the major or primary reason you were brought to Gor, but it was the minor or secondary reason You were destined, from the beginning, if not for the impaling spear, then, eventually, for the collar."

I looked up at him, terrified, over the gag, naked and helplessly bound before him.

"You are a natural slave," he said. "Perhaps you know that by now. The brand and collar are perfect on you. You are a thousand times more beautiful as a slave than you were as a free woman."

I squirmed, his bound prisoner.

"I wonder how you escaped from the camp of Miles of Argentum," he said. "You certainly upset our plans in that particular. We had not even considered the possibility of such thing. But it seems that now the former Miss Collins of Earth may yet prove useful in our plans."

I uttered tiny, helpless sounds.

"I have not been captured," said Ligurious, "nor have I entered the palace surreptitiously. I am here of my own will. I return for immunity I have volunteered to give evidence for the state of Argentum in the identification of the Tatrix of Corcyrus. Who would know her better than I? My two retainers, those two of all the others who have remained faithful, and with me, those who escaped with me from the house in Ar, have been entered into the palace in the guise of envoys from distant Tuna. As I will have my business here, So too, will they have theirs. There is some dispute, you see, a to who is the true Tatrix of Corcyrus, she who is eve now suspended in the golden sack near the ceiling in this very room, or yourself, helpless now before me on the tile Witnesses will give testimony. Drusus Rencius, for example has come here from Ar. He will doubtless identify you as the true Tatrix, as he did before. We saw to it that he, like several others, knew only you as the Tatrix. Similarly I had had clothing smuggled out of Corcyrus, clothing which you wore. This will be presented to Claudius, the Ubar, and the high council, as the clothing of the Tatrix of Coreyrus, it will be identified as the former wearer of the clothing, course, by sleen. The work of Claudius and the high council of course, will be made somewhat easier by the fact the when the golden sack is opened at the banquet it will be Occupied not by the true Sheila, but by you, her dupe and double. We will not encounter objections by Hassan, the Slave Hunter, as he will not appear at the banquet. My two men will see to it that he is detained. Similarly, objections will not be encountered by Miles of Argentum. He will receive formation, purportedly from Hassan, that he had the wrong girl and that you, as he now recognizes, are the true Tatrix Accordingly he has placed you in the sack and, in his embarrassment, and fearing a loss of honor, has left the palace, ta mg the other girl with him, she then to be consigned to sor suitable slavery or other. In this fashion we expect Miles Argentum to be satisfied. He, in any case, is convinced, you probably know, that it is you, and not the other woman who is the Tatrix. This, of course, is because we saw to it that he, like certain others, would know only you as the Tatrix. He will identify you as the true Tatrix, for be knows you as such, with the same conviction as Drusus Rencius, and others. All this is in accord with our plans. And, of course, I too, shall identify you as the true Tatrix. You may depend on it. Meanwhile, of course, the true Sheila will be concealed in my quarters, later to be smuggled from the palace in the guise of a free woman, that of a companion of one of my retainers, supposedly an envoy from Tuna. The slave brought in with him in this role, put back in proper slave garb, has already been sold to an officer in the palace guard. He could not resist the superb price on her."

There were tears in my eyes. I pulled futilely against the thongs on my wrists. You are very pretty, as a slave," he said, regarding me, musingly, his hands on my ankles. He moved my ankles, tight in his grip, slowly, widely apart. I could not prevent this. Then angrily, he closed them. "No," be said. "It would be too long much like her." Then, with a loop of thong, he crossed my ankles and tied them together. I could not rise to my feet now. He then looped a thong from my ankles to a slave ring near the foot of the dais. I could not now even squirm from my place. "Doubtless she will be naked in the sack," he muttered to himself, "as naked as a slave. The in-human beasts will have done that to her.' I must try not to look at her more than is necessary.".

He then, quickly, rose from my side and went to the side of the room. He loosed the rope there, that rope going up to a ring in the ceiling, and then down to the sack.

I fought frenziedly to free myself. I could not do so.

Hand by hand, he lowered the golden sack to the tiles. He then opened it and drew forth from it the vulnerable, quivering body of a naked woman. She looked wildly at him. She was bound head and foot. She was gagged.

"They have put you in a collar!" he said. "How dare they have done this!" She struggled to kneel to him. I do not even know if he, in his agitation, realized this. The collar, of course, was the collar of Hassan. He had put it on her in Ar, and had apparently never removed it.

"No!" cried Ligurious. "The beasts! The beastsl They have put your fair thigh under the iron!"

I recalled that Hassan, in Ar, had informed her that the' would make a stop first, before proceeding to his lodging That stop, I now realized, must have been the shop of metal worker.

There the slave mark would have been burned into her thigh. It would already be on her, thus, when shi was carried over his threshold, naked and on his shoulder, a slave.

The hands of Ligurbious fumbled at the cords on he ankles, and then on her hands. He was sweating. She knelt frightened, her back to him.

"What have they done to you!" he cried. "What have they done to you!" She knelt with her back to him, her head down, frightened.

Could he not see what they had done to her?

She was not the same woman he had known. He had known a cold, supercilious, arrogant woman, one who had been petulant and harsh, one who had been cruel, severe an~ demanding, an imperious and haughty slut. This, now, was not she. There were many differences. For example, she knelt now rather than stood, and she was now naked, rather than regally robed and bedecked. Too, of course, on her neck, now there was a locked, close-fitting, steel slave collar, and on the thigh, of course, might be found a certain, meaningful mark one apprising all who might find it of interest of her status that it was bond.

Too, for those who might, find such thing interesting, it might have been noted that her master, Hassan apparently had her on a careful diet and exercise program Her body was now vital and healthy, and excitingly curved far beyond anything that one commonly expects in a free woman.

But all of these things, in their way, were perhaps rather trivial or external. The most important difference about her how were internal differences, deep, profound differences, differences which manifested themselves beautifully and unmistakably in such things as appearance, carriage, attitude and behavior. These differences were doubtless consequences of having been helplessly in the hands of Hassan, the Slave Hunter. These were the major differences in her. She was now soft and vulnerable; she was now extremely feminine; she was now informed and mastered; she was now, in the thousand ways in which this can be true of a woman, slave.

Ligurious tore the gag from her.

"Master," she sobbed.

"You know me," he said. "I am Ligurious!"

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Do not call me "Master,'" he said, his voice throaty with emotion. I saw that he was only too eager to hear this word from her. He was fighting himself. But even this innocent title, doing little more than recognizing the place of his maleness in the order of primate nature, and surely a suitable expression on the lips of a female slave, such as she now was, alarmed him. Too long bad he idolized this woman. He was not yet ready to see that she had become real; it seemed he desperately wished to keep her as some remote, cherished illusion. On the other hand, there was a painful ambiguity in his relationship to her, probably one that she had once fully exploited.

This had been evident in his attitudes toward me. He had, at various times, I had understood, seriously considered subjecting me to his pleasure and, rather clearly, I think, in the modality of the uncompromising master. In this, he had, I think clearly evidenced his desire to use her in the same fashion. He had wished to use me as a proxy for his longed-for domination of her. Our resemblances, however, had apparently been too close. Each time he had refrained from doing so. I do not think he truly desired me, or at least not other than as a man might casually desire a girl he sees in a paga tavern or, say, one of the girls he might notice chained in a row on their mats on a side street, but he did desire her. Ligurious was truly a master; he had proved this with other women; similarly, in most circumstances, had he so much as snapped his fingers at me, I would have thrown my legs apart for him; this was not the modality though, for whatever reason, in which he related to this other woman; he seemed to see her as some frosty ideal of perfection, as something finer than and different from all other women, as something of which he might scarcely be worthy, as something to which he should perhaps dare not aspire, as something almost untouchable and abstract. In his mind he condemned her to perfection; in this fashion he kept her from being a woman. Hassan, of course, did not see her in this fashion. In his arms she would not find herself cheated of herself. This is not all that unusual, incidentally. A woman revered by one man as an icy goddess is often another man's pleading, licking slave. Ligurious, to his fury, as a timid swain, would never get a hundredth from her of what Hassan, her master, might command with a casual word. But this, of course, was only to be expected. She was, after all, Hassan's slave.

"But you are a free man," she whispered. "What are you doing here? What are you doing? Where is Hassan, my master?"

"Do you wish to be impaled?" he asked.

"No!" she said.

"Your body!" he suddenly cried,' looking at her. "It is that of a slave!" "Yes, Master," she wept, trying to crouch down and cover her breasts with her hands.

"And the collar on your throat, and the brand, superb!"

"Thank you, Master," she wept. "No," he suddenly cried, much to himself; "It cannot be!" Then, not looking at her, he angrily pointed to the tunic, on the tiles near me. "Put that on," he said. "Be quick! In the halls they will think you are she."

"Yes, Master," she said.

I struggled again to free myself, and could not do so.

In a moment Ligurious had freed my ankles of the thong that fastened me to the slave ring and dragged me by the arm across the tiles to the golden sack. There, putting me to my stomach, he began to replace my bonds with those she had worn. This, presumably, is what Hassan would have done had he himself been effecting this change of slaves.

"It is so small," she said, pulling down at the sides of the slave tunic. I looked up at her, angrily. It was the slave tunic Miles of Argentum put us all in. We all wore it, all of his girls. To be sure, in it she was well displayed, and as what she now was, a slave.

My gag was then replaced with the one which she had worn. The wadding was packed into my mouth. It was still wet from her saliva. It was then secured in place. I was then thrust feet first into the golden slave sack. My head was thrust down. The sack was tied shut over my head. In a moment I felt myself, bit by bit, helpless in the sack, being hoisted upward. The rope was then secured, and, miserable and frightened, I swung slowly back and forth in the darkness of the sack until, eventually, there was little more movement than that connected with the tension of the rope, and my own small, occasional movements.

I ~ ~be ~ b~ng I~Wered. f ~o not think I had been in it for even an Aim. Surely it Was not yet time for the great feast.

Then the sack was on the floor.

It was opened.

My eyes widened. I could not cry out, gagged. I was drawn from the sack by Drusus Rencius.

Behind him, naked, bound hand and foot, gagged, kneeling, was Sheila, the former Tatrix of Corcyrus.

Drusus Rencius removed my bonds and, lastly, my gag. "Be silent," he said. I nodded, and knelt before him, as the slave I was, before a master.

I then saw him, and not gently, replace the bonds on Sheila, she now on her belly on the tiles, with those I had worn, even to the gag, packed then tightly in her mouth, wet and sopping, and secured there. He then thrust her in the sack, tied it shut and, in moments, had hoisted her high to the ceiling, its enclosed and helpless prisoner.

I reached out, timidly, to touch Drusus Rencius. "May I speak?" I whispered. I did not wish to be cuffed.

"Yes," he said.

"I am not the Tatrix of Corcyrus," I said.

"I am sure you are not," he said. "I have been a dupe and a fool, as I am sure so, too, have been many of us."

"Where is Ligurious?" I asked, frightened.

"He is with his cronies from Corcyrus, those pretending to be envoys from Turia," he said.

"Fortunately they did not see me. I recognized them, of course. Indeed, I have been keeping a close eye on Ligurious ever since I discovered he was in the palace. I saw him, for example, enter the throne room, and saw you enter later. I then, later, saw him leaving the throne room with the other woman, she whom, after he left his quarters, I took the liberty of replacing in the sack where she belongs. He was in his banquet robes when he left his quarters. Accordingly I do not think he will discover her new whereabouts until the sack is opened." "It is intended," I said, "that the cohorts of Ligurious detain Hassan, and prevent him from attending the banquet."

"Hassan, I am sure," said Drusus Rencius, "can take care of himself." I looked at him, wildly.

"Stand," he said.

I did so.

"I believe this is yours," said Drusus Rencius, lifting skimpy tunic which, doubtless hut shortly before, he had moved from Sheila, probably binding and gagging her.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Put it on," he said, throwing it against my body.

I caught it. "Yes, Master," I said. In a moment I was in It does not take long to don such a garment. I adjusted it my body. Then I straightened up. I saw I was being inspect as a slave.

"Turn, slowly," he said.

I did so, displaying as well as I could one of the property of Miles of Argentum.

"Have you been named?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"What is it?" he asked.

"'Sheila,' Master," I said.

He smiled. "That would seem appropriate," He said, least from the point of view of Miles of Argentum. That, incidentally, is the name of the slave in the sack. It was on her in Ar by her master, Hassan, the Slave Hunter."

I nodded. I had not known that. He could have named I anything, of course. Daphne, Jean, Wanda, Marjorie, Ta Nose, Excrement, whatever he pleased. It had apparently amused him, however, perhaps as an irony, to put her name back on her, this time, of course, as a mere cognon in bondage, a convenience by means of which to refer to as the animal she now was, a slave name.

"You are very pretty, Sheila," he said.

"Thank you, Master," I said. That was my current sl~ name.

"The other Sheila, too, is very pretty," he said. "It will interesting, tonight, to compare you, when you are both naked and in chains, side by side, presented to Claudius a the high council."

"Doubtless, Master," I said. In such a situation, ni might, I supposed, make their appraisals and deterministic under almost ideal conditions. The conditions would be most as favorable as those of a slave market. We might even be measured and posed. When I was exhibited before him this fashion it was my hope that Drusus Rencius would like what he saw.