“And so there are no Priest-Kings?” said Portus Canio.
“Blasphemy,” again whispered one of the men at the wagon, he who had spoken earlier.
“Precisely,” said Mirus. “There are no Priest-Kings.”
“You have loosed lightning,” said Portus Canio. “Have you released such lightning before?”
“Several times,” said Mirus, “here and there, and in hunting.”
“Then,” said Portus Canio, “the Priest-Kings will know of it.”
“This is the world of the Priest-Kings,” said a man. “They have forbidden men such things.”
“There are no Priest-Kings,” said Mirus. “If there were Priest-Kings they would have acted, to enforce their so-called laws. But there are no Priest-Kings, as we see, and the laws have a simple explanation, namely, an attempt to preclude an ever-increasing efficiency of engineered carnage.”
“Which by comparison makes the weapons we carry all the more formidable in their power,” said one of the men behind Mirus.
“Yes,” grinned another.
Yes, Ellen thought, it makes sense, the nonexistence of Priest-Kings. If there were once such things, they are now no more. If there were such, their presence would surely have been manifested by now.
Thus they do not exist.
“Perhaps there are no Priest-Kings,” said one of the men at the wagon.
“Do not speak so,” whispered another, frightened.
Mirus then returned his gaze to Ellen, who knelt facing him, Selius Arconious standing behind her.
“Will it be necessary to repeat a command, slave girl?” asked Mirus.
Numbly, in misery, Ellen rose to her feet and moved slowly toward the strangers.
“No!” cried Selius Arconious, and lunged forward, but he was seized by two of his fellows, who restrained him, as he struggled.
“I am taking this one,” said Mirus. “You can buy another, and doubtless a better.”
The man who had dismounted approached Ellen. He carried several coils of light rope, sufficient for binding a woman.
Ellen momentarily regarded the light constraints with chagrin, and dismay. Such things can hold me, and perfectly, she thought. With them I can be bound helplessly, hand and foot. Even laces and cords could bind me, as well. I am slight, soft, and weak. I could break them no more than the chains men are so fond of putting on me! Do not such things show me that I am a female? Do they not show me the nature of men and women, and who it is who is at the mercy of whom, and who are the masters, and who the slaves! Sometimes Ellen loved to be bound, for this so assured her of her nature, and her subjection to the domination which so excited her, which she found so delicious. It thrilled her to be so at the mercy of a man, his to be done with as he might please. In her training she had often been bound, usually with colorful, soft cords. How pretty she had seen herself to be in the mirrors in the house of Mirus, struggling, under an instructor’s command, to free herself, struggling futilely. Then she had at last lain before him, at his feet, quiescent, subdued, helpless. Sometimes he had roared then with frustration, and left her on the polished boards of the training room, until, say, an Ahn or so later, calmer, perhaps having in the meantime utilized a house slave, he had returned to free her, and send her to her next class, perhaps one of cooking or sewing, or one of bathing a male. But now she was to be stolen, taken from her master. The ropes now were not those of Selius Arconious, her master, in which she might have been left alone, to simmer in his absence, well aware of her bound limbs, or squirmed in anticipation, delighting in her helplessness, and readying herself for his caresses, against which she would be helpless to defend herself. These were the ropes of a stranger.
Should you not be pleased, she asked herself, to be taken from the presence of so hateful, vile, and arrogant a monster as Selius Arconious!
Surely, yes, she told herself.
But her eyes filled with tears.
At a gesture from Portus Canio Selius Arconious stopped struggling, but he stood, trembling, dark with rage, between the two who had briefly held him.
“Wait,” cautioned Portus Canio.
“Leave them to the Priest-Kings,” said one of the men.
“The Priest-Kings do not concern themselves with the affairs of men,” said Selius Arconious, bitterly.
“They concern themselves with the keeping of their laws,” said a man.
“Beware the Priest-Kings,” said one of the men.
Mirus, and several of those with him, smiled.
“Have you ever seen a Priest-King?” asked one of the strangers, of the fellow who had spoken.
“No,” said the man.
“Have you ever seen any evidence of the enforcement of their laws?” asked another of the strangers.
“I have heard of such things,” averred the man.
“But have you ever seen any evidence of such a thing?” he was asked.
“No,” said the man.
“It does not exist,” he was told.
Ellen stood at the right-hand stirrup of the saddle of Mirus. It was to that position that he had gestured her, casually, with the muzzle of the gun. She knew what it could do. Perhaps now, too, to some extent, did those with Portus Canio, with Fel Doron and the wagon. She stood there, now no more than a slim, graceful Gorean kajira. She could smell the leather of the saddle in the clear air. She could see his heeled boot in the stirrup. She looked back, to see Selius Arconious and the others. “Put your wrists behind you, crossed,” said the fellow who had dismounted, who carried the rope. She felt her wrists being fastened behind her.
“No,” said Mirus. “Tie her wrists before her body, and then put her to the grass and tie her ankles together. I wish to fasten her hands to the thongs on the left saddle ring and her ankles to the thongs on the right saddle ring, that she may thus lie bound, hand and foot, belly up, before me.”
The knots were jerked tight on Ellen’s wrists.
The belly-up binding position is often used on long rides, or tarn flights, as it is reliably secure and the captive, or slave, is constantly under surveillance, conveniently at hand, completely in view. It is also useful as the captor, or master, may then caress the captive or slave, if only to while away the time. By the time that camp is made a free woman is commonly begging for the brand and collar, and a slave will be beside herself, writhing and gasping, moaning, crying out, begging, with need, pleading that he will be merciful, that he will deign, if only briefly, to attend to the collar of her.
“Did you hear me?” inquired Mirus.
The rope was then lifted and a length of it looped twice about the slave’s neck and knotted there. In this fashion a single rope may be used for both binding and leashing. This is not all that unusual on Gor. One end secures the slave’s wrists, the center collars her, and the remainder, the free end, serves as a leash or tether. It may also be used, of course, if one wishes to immobilize her, to fasten her ankles together. Her ankles may be simply bound or, if one wishes, tied closely to her wrists. That tie is sometimes spoken of, properly or not, as the “slave bow.” It may be called that simply because the slave’s wrists and ankles are bound together, and this bends her body, in a natural bow, or it may be called that because of a supposed analogy with exhibitory slave bows, in which, for example, on a slave block, a slave might be bent backward, or knelt, and her head drawn by the hair back to the floor, and so on. These exhibition bows are often utilized in showing the slave, as they accentuate the delights of her figure. There are a number of “tethering slave bows,” of course, for example, for fastening a slave over a saddle, a wheel, a piece of furniture, or such. These diverse uses and meanings, of course, are not mutually exclusive, because a slave might well be displayed in a “tethering slave bow.” Some conjecture that the original meaning of ‘slave bow’ has to do with exhibition. Accordingly, it is their speculation that the “tethering slave bows” are derivative from that primary usage, that of exhibition. This would make sense because the “tethering slave bows” certainly do exhibit the slave, as well as rendering her helpless. Others seem to feel that the basic meaning is that of a form of secure and revelatory binding, in which the slave is helplessly and delightfully displayed, and that the exhibitory usages of the expression are secondary, being founded upon, and derivative from, this more basic, original usage. On the other hand, as most suppose, and as seems most plausible to the slave, these usages may very well have been developed independently, both based on the obvious consequences on the slave’s body of a certain form of handling or manner of binding. There seems to be some division among Goreans on this matter. And doubtless it is not of great importance. Please forgive this excursion into speculative etymology. Ellen finds such matters fascinating, perhaps in part because she has been so handled and so roped. What is perfectly clear and indisputable is that in Gorean ‘slave bow’, putting aside considerations of origin, derivation and chronology, and such, has the basic meaning of the forming of the slave’s body into a bow, and two application meanings, one pertaining to a modality of exhibition and the other to a modality of binding. Abstract obscurity, as usual, vanishes in concrete context. As this phenomenon is common in many languages, it is not surprising that it should appear in Gorean, as well. A stripped free woman might, of course, be put in a “slave bow,” without compromising the meaning of the expression. And the free woman might find this situation instructive, and anticipatory.