"John Norman - Gor 24 - Vagabonds of Gor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norman John)

Vagabonds Of Gor
Chapter 1 - Part 1 - A Female SLave


“You were once the Lady Temione, were you not?” I inquired.
“Yes, Master,” she said, lifting her head a little from the dirt, where, before me, in the camp of
Cos, on the south bank of the Vosk, north of Holmesk, she knelt, head down, the palms of her
hands on the ground.
“Lie on your right side before me,” I said, “extending your left leg.”
She did so. In this way, the bit of silk she wore fell to the right, displaying the line of her hip,
thigh and calf. I saw the brand, tiny and tasteful, yet unmistakable, fixed in her thigh, high, under
the hip. It was the common kajira brand, the staff and fronds, beauty subject to discipline, worn
by most female slaves on Gor. She had the toes of the left leg pointed, lusciously curving the calf.
I saw that she had had some training.
“You may resume your original position,” I said.
She returned to it, a common position of slave obeisance.
I noted that her hair had grown out somewhat, in the weeks since I had last seen her, a free
woman on the chain of Ephialtes, a sutler whom I had met at the inn of the Crooked Tarn, on the
Vosk Road. He had been kind enough to act as my agent in certain matters.
“Tell me of matters since last we met,” I suggested.
“It was at the Crooked Tarn, was it not?” she asked.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“Or was it in the camp of Cos, near Ar´s Station?” she asked.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“I with others was once there blindfolded, and displayed,” she said.
“Oh?” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Speak,” I said.
“As master recalls,” she said. “I was detained at the Crooked Tarn, as a debtor slut.”
“Yes,” I said.
“And forced to earn my keep.” she said.
“Yes,” I said. Her use had cost me a tarsk bit. Had I had a slave sent to my “space” it would have
cost me three full copper tarsks, for only a quarter of an Ahn. I had had her for a full Ahn, for the
tarsk bit. That was, because, at that time, she had been free. She would be worth much more now,
clearly. I noted the collar on her neck, metal, close-fitting and locked. It was easy to see, even
with her head down, because of the shortness of her hair. It had been shaved off some weeks ago
by the keeper of the Crooked Tarn, to be sold as raw materials for catapult cordage. Women´s
hair, soft, glossy, silky and resilient, stronger than vegetable fibers and more weather resistant,
well woven, is ideal for such a purpose. The concept of “earning one´s keep,” in one sense, a
strict legal sense, is more appropriate to a free woman than a slave. The slave, for example,
cannot earn anything in her own name, or for herself, but only, like other domestic animals, for
her master. To be sure, in another sense, a very practical sense, no one “earns her keep” like the
female slave. She earns it, and with a vengeance. The master sees to it. The sense of “earning her
keep” of which the former Lady Temione spoke was a rather special one. It was rather analogous
to that of the slave, for, as I recalled, the keeper of the inn appropriated her earnings, ostensibly
to defray the expenses of her keeping. A result of this, of course, was to make it impossible for
her, by herself, to subtract as much as a tarsk bit from her redemption fee.
“In the morning, early, after the evening in which I had been carried, bound, to your space, to
serve you, I, with other debtors-”
“ ‘Debtor sluts´,” I said.