Selius Arconious is a weakling, she thought.
Most of the camp work will be done, she thought. Good!
When she reached the camp the men were waiting for her. Though in the presence of free men she decided she would not kneel.
“Greetings, Masters,” she said. Certainly it would not be wise to neglect such an obvious token of deference as an appropriate form of address.
“Remove your tunic,” said Selius Arconious.
“Master?” she asked. Her voice broke, slightly.
His gaze was not pleasant.
Certainly she did not wish for a command to be repeated, as that is a common cause for discipline. She slipped the tunic over her head. She hoped that she had not hesitated too long before doing so.
She then decided it would be a good idea to kneel, and so she did so, and, a moment later, trembling a little, before their gaze, carefully widened her knees. She now regretted not having knelt when she had first come into their presence. It is common for a slave to kneel when she comes into the presence of a free person, and to kneel, too, should they, as in entering a room, come into her presence. She clutched the tunic in two hands, desperately, frightened.
Selius Arconious approached her. He held out his hand. “Give it to me,” he said.
She lifted the tunic up to him.
“Hold your wrists before you, closely together, veins to veins,” he said.
“Master?” she asked. But she did as she was told, and wasted no time in doing so.
Her wrists were then bound together, tightly, separated only by looping cordage, but in such a way that a length of rope was left free in front, extending from her wrists, falling to the ground. By this free portion of the rope she could be led about, by her bound wrists. It constituted, in effect, a tether.
“Surely I have not displeased masters,” she said.
“There is an abandoned tarsk pen nearby?” Selius Arconious asked Fel Doron.
“Yes, as I said,” said Fel Doron. “I gathered some of the firewood there.”
“Then let us show our little she-tarsk,” said Selius Arconious, grimly.
Ellen was yanked rudely to her feet by the tether. She almost lost her balance. Then she was dragged, stumbling, perforce, trying not to fall, behind her impatient, precipitate master.
The tarsk pen, with its shed, was in ruins. But there was, at one side, the remains of the pen’s siding. It consisted of horizontal poles, some four inches thick. Here Selius Arconious angrily kicked away two of the lower horizontal poles, and left one horizontal pole in place, which was about four feet above the leaves, wood chips, rotted straw, and turf.
“Master, please!” said the slave.
She was forced down on her knees before the pole, facing it, and the interior of the pen, and then, in a moment, her wrists were lashed to the pole. She then knelt there, before it, her wrists up, fastened to it.
“What are you going to do, Master?” she wept.
But Selius Arconious had returned to the wagon, and there, as nearly as the slave could tell, looking wildly over her right shoulder, began rummaging through his belongings.
In a moment or two he had returned to where she knelt before the pole, her wrists up, bound to it. Portus Canio and Fel Doron were in the vicinity. “Masters?” she asked. She had been unable to see well behind her, given the angle from which Selius Arconious had approached. Accordingly she was not clear on what he might have fetched, if anything, from the wagon.
“I purchased this at the festival camp, outside Brundisium,” said Selius Arconious.
“It looks like an excellent buy,” said Portus Canio.
“I think it will do, nicely,” said Selius Arconious.
“What is it, Master?” asked the slave.
“A whip,” he said. “A slave whip.”
“No, Master!” cried the slave.
“I thought I might need it,” said Selius Arconious.
“You were right,” said Portus Canio.
“It is a useful tool,” said Fel Doron. “One should keep such a thing on hand. One never knows when it will be needed.”
“No, Master!” wept the slave. “Please, no, Master!”
She struggled to her feet, before the pole, twisting about, wildly, pulling at her bound wrists. There was no mistaking the device in the hands of Selius Arconious. She had not realized, perhaps foolishly, that he owned such a thing, that he would even own such a thing. “Get back on your knees,” she was told. She returned to her knees, facing the pole, staring ahead.
“What are you going to do, Master?” she asked, quavering.
“What do you think, little fool?” he said.
“Master?” she said.
“Whip you,” he said.
“No, Master!” she cried, in alarm. “Do not whip me!”
“Prepare to be whipped,” said he.
Her hair was thrown before her body.
Normally a slave girl’s hair is behind her shoulders, that there be less impedance to the vision of masters. If she is naked the hair is sometimes placed before her shoulders, that it may be brushed back by the master, or put behind her by the slave, upon the command to do so. The beauty of the slave is, of course, a source of great pleasure to the master.
“It is a joke, surely a joke, Master!” she said. “You have frightened me! I will be good!”
“Prepare to be whipped,” said he, angrily, “slave.”
“You cannot whip me, Master!” she cried. “I am an Earth woman! You cannot whip an Earth woman! Earth women are never whipped! We are never punished, no matter what we do! Even if we ruin lives, and destroy men, we are never punished!”
“Embonded women do not ruin lives and destroy men,” he said. She heard the strands of the leather shaken out.
“I am an Earth woman!” she cried. “We are never punished! Such things are not done to Earth women!”
“You are not now on Earth,” he said.
She began to sob.
“Surely you have been whipped before,” he said, “if not on Earth, where you should have been, and perhaps frequently, then on Gor.”
“Yes, Master,” she wept.
“Is it true,” he asked, “that Earth women, on Earth, are never whipped?”
“I do not know,” she wept.
“If they are free, of course,” he said, “it would be inappropriate to whip them.”
“Yes, Master,” she cried.
“But doubtless a whipping would do some of them a great deal of good,” said Portus Canio.
“Doubtless,” said Fel Doron.
“But what of the women of Earth who are not free?” asked Selius Arconious.
“All the women of Earth are free!”
“That is surely false.”
“Yes, Master,” she sobbed.
“So what of those who are not free?”
“If they are not free, then they are subject to the whip,” said Ellen.
“Do you feel that they should not be whipped?”
“It is up to their masters!” she said.
“But what of a woman of Earth who is brought to Gor and enslaved?” he asked. “What do you feel about such a one? Should she be whipped?”
“It is up to her master,” said Ellen.
“Precisely,” he said.
“What have I done to displease you, Master?” she cried.
This inquiry was met with silence, which was more terrifying to her than a response. A thousand subtleties, and fears, rushed in upon her. There seemed so much, great and small, that she might have done differently.
“For what reason would you whip me?”
“You are a slave,” he said. “I do not need a reason.”
She moaned with misery, and fought the bonds, but dared not rise from her knees. It was true. As a slave she could be beaten at the master’s pleasure, for any reason, or for no reason.
She cast about, wildly, in her mind, for some way to allay his anger, to put him from his purpose, to avoid the punishment which, in her heart, she knew she deserved, and only too well.