I mused to myself.
I had some reason to know that name. Rask of Treve, Targo, and others, had even more reason. It had been he, Rask of Treve, who had raided Targo's slave caravan, before, in the fields northwest of Ko-ro-ba, on the route to Laura, a wandering, strangely clad, barbarian girl had been enslaved, whose name was El-in-or. Indeed, it was because of Rask of Treve that Targo, who became that El-in-or's master, had lost most of his women and wagons, and all of his bosk. It was because of him that El-in-or, the barbarian girl, with the other girls, had been harnessed to his one remaining, partially burnt wagon, and had been forced, and under the switch, to draw it, as draft animals. Targo, as I knew, had fled into a Ka-la-na thicket with his men, saving his gold and nineteen of his girls, Inge, Ute and Lana among them. Rask of Treve, as a raider true to the codes of Treve, that hidden coign of tarnsmen, that remote, secret, mountainous city of the vast, scarlet Voltai range, had not, in these circumstances, much pushed pursuit. In the shadows of the forest the crossbow quarrel can swiftly touch, and slay. The element of the tarnsman is not the green glades, and the branches; it is the clouds, the saddle and the sky; his steed is the tarn, his field of battle, strewn with light and wind, higher than mountains, deeper than the sea, is the very sky itself. Such men do not care to venture creeping into the shadows of forests, pursuing scattered game. Victorious, they roar with laughter and, hauling on the one-straps of their tarn harness, take flight. There is always other gold, and other women. And, the Priest-Kings willing, a coin that is lost today, or a woman, may, at a later time, in a more convenient place, be found, and more! A woman, who escapes your collar this afternoon may, by nightfall, find herself chained at your feet. If the coin is to be yours, argue such men, it will be; and if the woman is destined, some night, on this or another, in your tent, on your rugs, by the light of your fire, to feel your chains locked on her body, she will. Flee though she might, that fate will be hers, and she, on the rugs spread over the sand, will be yours.
There was little known of Rask of Treve.
Indeed, there was little known even of the city of Treve. It lay somewhere among the lofty, vast terrains of the rugged Voltai, perhaps as much a fortress, a lair, of outlaw tarnsmen as a city. It was said to be accessible only by tarnback. No woman, it was said, could be brought to the city, save as a hooded, stripped slave girl, bound across the saddle of a tarn. Indeed, even merchants and ambassadors were permitted to approach the city only under conduct, and then only when hooded and in bonds, as though none not of Treve might approach her save as slaves or captive supplicants. The location of the city, it was said, was known only to her own. Even girls brought to Treve as slaves, obedient within her harsh walls, looking up, seeing her rushing, swift skies, did not know wherein lay the city in which they served. And even should they be dispatched to the walls, perhaps upon some servile errand, they could see, for looming, remote pasangs about them, only the wild, bleak crags of the scarlet Voltai, and the sickening drop below them, the sheer fall from the walls and the cliffs below to the valley, some pasangs beneath. They would know only that they were slaves in this place but would not know where this place in which they were slaves might be. It was said no woman had ever escaped from Treve.
And little more seemed known of Rask of Treve than of his remote and mysterious city.
It was said that he was young, audacious and ruthless, that he was powerful, and brutal and bold, that he was resourceful, brilliant, elusive, a master of disguises and subterfuges. It was said that a woman might not even know when she was in the presence of Rask of Treve, being casually examined, to see whether or not she was later to be acquired by him.
It was said that he was a fierce, long-haired man, a tarnsman, a warrior. It was said that he was one of the master swords of Gor.
It was said, too, that he was incredibly handsome, and merciless to women. Men feared his sword.
Women feared the steel of his slave collars.
Women, it was said, had special reason to fear Rask of Treve. It was said he had a gargantuan contempt, and appetite, for them. It was said that when he used a woman, he then branded her, with his name, as though she, once used, no matter to whom she might afterwards be given or sold, could truly belong only to him. It was also said that he would use a woman only once, claiming that he had, he, Rask of Treve, in once using her, emptied her, exhausted her, taken from her all she had to give, and that, thus, she could no longer be of interest to him. No man on Gor, it was said, could so humble, or diminish, a woman as Rask of Treve. And yet, it was said, there were few women on Gor, strangely enough to the fury of their own men, or guardians, who were not willing to be used, and branded and spurned by Rask of Treve, that young, audacious, ruthless warrior, only that they might helplessly know his touch.
Rask of Treve, it was said, had never purchased a woman. he would capture, and take by force, those that pleased him. Rask of Treve, it was said, like many Goreans warriors, preferred free women, enjoying the delicious agonies of his prey, as he reduced them to the utterness of the surrendered female slave. On the other hand, if is should please him, it was said he could take a girl who was already slave and make her more a slave than a slave.
I was later furious with myself that I had wept in the cell.
Of course I was a slave girl!
I had been taught that!
I knew it well!
But I would be a superb one! Sometimes, I thought angrily of girls on Earth, many of them, who, too, were slave girls, but who had not learned this, and who, presumably, would never do so. I thought of them, dressing for men, trying to please them, though not much caring for them, to advance themselves in powers and luxuries, using their bodies and minds, their smiles, and glances and words, and touches, clumsily perhaps, not having been trained, to obtain their desires of foolish, starved men. These were girls, not caring for men, who employ the needs of men, without penalty, intelligently to their own profit. Smile at a man of Earth and he will be grateful; pretend to be willing to please a man of Earth and he will do anything for you. You may then use them, such needful weaklings, to rise in the million strata of your intricate society, to climb, to ingratiate and insinuate yourself swiftly, expertly, into the high, warm, comfortable, luxurious places in your busy, impersonal, complex, loveless, anxious world. You will make them pay well for your favors. I held the bars. How different it was on Gor. Such an exploitative, indifferent girl, on Gor, might be simply carried off, and enslaved. Of such women the Goreans enjoy making slaves. She would find her favors were not hers to dispense, at her own pleasure and to her own profit, but his to command, as he was pleased to do so. Gorean men were not so easily fooled as the men of Earth. Gorean men do not choose to be dominated, but to dominate, to be the master. I wished, sometimes, that such girls, of Earth, might find themselves naked, branded, helpless in a Gorean slave cage, forced to be the slave girls they unknowingly were. I was taught. They were not. I was angry. But they were free. And I was caged. They, though as slave as I, had escaped; I had not; I had been captured, and, by, Gorean men, would be forced to pay my price! I had no hope of freedom. I was furious. I had hope only that, though on this world, I could use my inclinations and training, those of a slave girl, to win myself an easy life. That I did not think would be difficult to do, for a girl as clever and beautiful as I. My training, I suspected, as well as my intelligence, would make me more than a match for any man, even the strangely attractive, powerful men of Gor.
Our training continued.
Once, there was a visitor to the pens, a tall stranger, partially hooded, who wore the robes of blue and yellow silk, those of the Slavers. He had, over his left eye, a strip of leather, which was wound around his head. He was shown through our section of the pens by Targo.