"Yes, Master," she said.
Lehna again, savagely, struck the kneeling girl. "Please, do not strike me, Mistress!" wept the Lady Sabina.
My master turned away, to speak to his men. In a few moments he, not looking back, strode away, through the trees, followed by the majority of his men, in single file. One man remained behind, to follow the coffle, some yards to the rear.
"On your feet, Lady Sabina!" cried Lehna.
The Lady Sabina leapt to her feet, with a rustle of chain.
"You will take your first step with your deft foot," said Lehan, "upon my signal. Later you will learn to walk gracefully and beautifully in chains. That is too much to expect now from an ignorant girl."
"Yes, Mistress," said the Lady Sabina.
"Are you ready, noble, lofty Lady Sabina?" inquired Lehna.
"I am sorry I switched you, Mistress," said the Lady Sabina.
"Do not fret, my dear," said Lehna. "I will see that you are well repaid."
"Please, Mistress!" cried the Lady Sabina.
"Were you given permission to speak in coffle?" asked Lehna.
"No, Mistress," moaned the Lady Sabina. Lehna then struck her twice, cruelly, with the switch.
"Do you think me weak, Lady Sabina?" inquired Lehna.
"No, no!" wept the Lady Sabina.
Lehna then struck her again. "You are right," she said. "I am not weak."
The Lady Sabina wept.
"Stand straight," said Lehna. "Straighter!" She poked the Lady Sabina with the switch.
The Lady Sabina then, choking back her tears, stood straight in the coffle, the posture accentuating the lovely lines of her chained beauty. I smiled. She stood as straight, as desirably, as beautifully as a slave girl.
"On the left foot, on my signal," said Lehna.
"Yes, Mistress," said the Lady Sabina.
"Now!" said Lehna, crying out, striking her. With a cry of misery the Lady Sabina, moving first on her left foot, stumbled forward. "Faster!" said Lehna, hitting her again. "Yes, Mistress!" cried the Lady Sabina.
We hurried on then, swiftly, through the mixed shadows and moonlit trees, following the men, our masters.
"I do not want to be run for the pleasure of boys," wept Slave Beads.
"Be silent, Slave Girl," snapped Lehna.
"Yes, Mistress," said Slave Beads.
The girls of Clitus Vitellius, I among them, stood at the line scratched in the dirt within the peasant village of Tabuk 's Ford, some four hundred pasangs to the north, and slightly to the west of Ar, some twenty pasangs off the Vosk road to the west.
The young lads of the peasantry eyed us with pleasure. We were all vital, lithe beauties, and, most excitingly, slaves. It was not everyday that such girls, the girls of a warrior, would be run for their pleasure. Our bondage meant that we must, once captured, be marvels for them.
There was discussion of the rules of the hunt. Too, bets were being taken. Some of the young men came to the line, to look us over at closer hand.
"Oh," said Slave Beads. One of the lads had put his hand on her leg.
"Good stock," said one of the boys. "Yes," agreed another.
Another young lad, strapping, put his hands on me. I tried to pull away a bit, but I did not much resist. I was a slave, and did not wish to be whipped.
On the other side of Donna. Marla stood, her head in the air, seeming not to notice the hands of the boys upon her.
I looked over at Slave Beads. She was crying. Her head was in her hands. Two peasant lads, one standing, one crouching, were, by hand and eye, appraising her flesh. They did this with the same attention and innocence that they would have brought to the examination of any other domestic animal.
The two boys then moved on to me. I closed my eyes. They were not gentle. I was examined with less respect, being a slave, than would have been accorded to a bosk heifer.
I wanted to tear at their eyes with my fingernails. But I did not wish to be whipped, or slain. It is not surprising that the Gorean slave girl is obedient. Those who are not obedient are often destroyed. I was terribly afraid then, that I had even felt a momentary impulse to rebellion. I shook with terror. Did I think I was still on Earth? Did I not know I was now on Gor? I shuddered. Rebellion is not permitted to the Gorean slave girl.
The boys continued to examine me.
Tears formed in my eyes. There is a mock rebellion which is sometimes permitted a slave girl, or even commanded of her, for the master's amusement. I felt a tear on my cheek. "Show rebellion," is a command which a girl must, as any other, obey. Yet it is a terribly cruel command. "Kneel," is the command which, commonly, puts an end to her rebellion. When a girl has been permitted defiance it is then all the sweeter, I gather, to bring her again to her knees before you.
Suffice it to say the girl belongs to her master, completely. I opened my eyes. The young men moved on to Donna.
"You are crying," said Slave Beads to me.
I shook my head, and hair. "It is nothing," I said. I stood on the line. How far I had come from Earth, I thought. I was sensitive, and a poetess. Now I stood on a dirt line in a peasant village on an alien world, no longer the free Judy Thornton but rather now only a nameless, half-naked slave girl, waiting to be run for the pleasure of boys. I understood little of what had happened to me. I did not know how it was that I had come to this world. I did not know, in a sense, who I was or what I was supposed to do.
I smiled to myself. I did know I belonged to Clitus Vitellius, a captain of Ar.
In the belly of me, though I would scarcely admit this to myself, I did not object. He was such a man.
From the line, I glanced back to the open fires, where he sat with men of the village, Thurnus, caste leaders, peasant and sleen master, among them.
I shook with pleasure as I stood on the line, and looked at Clitus Vitellius. Within the Ta-Teera my thighs, even looking at him, were hot and damp. He did not notice me, and was talking to Thurnus. He was the sort of man who would set his terms for a woman, even a free woman. No woman, even one who was free, would be permitted to relate to him save on his terms, and on his terms alone. He would not argue, nor would he discuss, nor persuade nor negotiate; to the free woman's horror she would understand that she must, as he saw fit, submit herself as hopelessly and will-lessly as a slave girl for his consideration. He would enter into no relationship except on his own terms. His terms were simple, that the woman be yielded to him, totally, that she be as much his, and as helplessly, though by her own free will, as any slave girl on whom he might choose to fix his collar. He would be, even in a companionship, to the scandal of Ar, master. No woman who failed to meet these understood, publicized and well-known terms would be acceptable.
I looked at my master, sitting cross-legged by the fire, talking with Thurnus.
Yet hundreds of the highborn free women of Ar, many rich, had avidly sought companionship with Clitus Vitellius.
I did not blame them. Had I been a free woman of Ar, I, too, would have sought such companionship. To have such a man as Clitus Vitellius I would have accepted his terms. So, too, I think would have any true woman. Surely it is better to have a true man on any terms than to have half a man, or no man at all. Men are masters; if the man be strong, the woman must submit. Given the opportunity to relate to a true man, few women will settle for less. Indeed, true women, in the belly of them, desire to submit to true men. It is an ancient instinct bred into the bellies of beautiful, feminine women.
"Remove your clothing," would my master say to a high-born free woman, suing to be considered by him in companionship. She would do so, and be assessed. If he was not pleased, he would send her weeping from his presence, clutching the rag of a slave, to don it and return to her dwelling. If he was not displeased he would gesture to the tiles before him where there waited a goblet of slave wine which she, kneeling before him, would eagerly drink. She would serve him that night as a slave. In the morning, she, nude, would prepare and serve to him his breakfast, after which he would make fresh use of her; he would then send her from his presence, first pressing into her hand a coin, usually a copper tarsk or a silver tarsk, commensurate with the quality of her service. Such women went from his quarters proudly, clad in the full regalia of the free woman. They were not discontent. They had been touched by Clitus Vitellius. Some women claimed that they had earned from Clitus Vitellius a tarn disk of gold. Such a coin would buy several girls such as myself. Sometimes a girl, rather than be sent from his presence, would beg to be kept as a collared slave. She would then sign a document of enslavement which, after her signature was affixed, she would be powerless to alter or break, for she would then be only a slave. Clitus Vitellius would commonly keep such a girl for a few days, and then discard her, usually giving her to a friend or selling her. I wondered if such a girl, braceleted, and pulled away from him on her leash, regretted her choice. She was then in bondage, subject to chains and the whip, and the will of men. What had she then to look forward to but the degradation of the sales block, being exposed to men as a slave and being vended in a public market; being owned by a succession of hard masters, accustomed to the management of girls such as she; onerous work and strict discipline; and the continuous exploitation of her body and service? Perhaps, for a woman, the thrill of being owned and commanded, of being at the absolute mercy of a powerful man, knowing that she must obey him, and experiencing, if she be fortunate, incredible, helpless, incomparable love, of the sort which can be felt only by a completely rightless woman, fully and absolutely owned by a man, in his total bondage. But such thoughts would not be likely to be prominent in the mind of a leashed girl, helplessly braceleted, being dragged to her first sale.