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| Musicians of Gor-3; Caste-Instruments | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Oct 31 2010, 10:43 PM (171 Views) | |
| Julalina | Oct 31 2010, 10:43 PM Post #1 |
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Raiders of Gor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is often lonely on the rence islands, and festival comes but once a year. The bantering of the young people in the morning, and the display of the girls in the evening, for in effect in the movements of the dance every woman is nude, have both, I expect, institutional roles to play in the life of the rence growers, significant roles analogous to the roles of dating, display, and courtship in the more civilized environments of my native world, Earth. It marks the end of a childhood when a girl is first sent to the circle. Suddenly, before me, hands over her head, swaying to the music, I saw the dark-haired, lithe girl, she with such marvelous, slender legs in the brief rence skirt; her ankles were so close together that they might have been chained; and then she put her wrists together back to back over her head, palms out, as though she wore slave bracelets. Then she said, “Slave,” and spit in my face, whirling away. I wondered if it might be she who was my mistress. Then another girl, the tall, blond girl, she who had held the coil of marsh vine, stood before me, moving with excruciating slowness, as though the music could be reflected only from moment to moment, in her breathing, in the beating of her heart. “Perhaps it is I,” she said, “who am your mistress.” She, like the other, spit then in my face and turned away, now moving fully, enveloped in the music’s flame. One after another of the girls so danced before me, and about me, taunting me, laughing at their power, then spitting upon me and turning away. The rencers laughed and shouted, clapping, cheering the girls on in the dance. But most of the time I was ignored, as much as the pole to which I was bound. Mostly these girls, saving for a moment or two to humiliate me, danced their beauty for the young men of the circle, that they might be desired, that they might be much sought. After a time I saw one girl leave the circle, her head back, hair flowing down her back, breathing deeply and scarcely was she through the joined circles of the rencers, but a young man followed her, joining her some yards beyond the circle. They stood facing one another in the darkness for an Ehn or two, and then I saw him, gently, she not protesting, drop his net over her, and then, by this net, she not protesting, he led her away. Together they disappeared in the darkness, going over one of the raft bridges to another island, one far from the firelight, the crowd, the noise, the dance. Then, after some Ehn I saw another girl leave the circle of the dance, and she, too, was joined beyond the firelight by a young man and she, too, felt a net dropped over her, and she, too, was led away, his willing prize to the secrecy of his hut. The dance grew more frenzied. The girls whirled and writhed, and the crowd clapped and shouted, and the music grew ever more wild, barbaric, and fantastic. And suddenly Telima danced before me. I cried out, so startled was I by her beauty. It seemed to me that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and before me, only slave, she danced her insolence and scorn. Her hands were over her head and, as she danced, she smiled, regarding me. She cut me with her beauty more painfully, more cruelly, than might have the knives of a torturer. It was her scorn, her contempt for me she danced. In me she aroused agonies of desire but in her eyes I read that I was but the object of her amusement and contempt. And then she unbound me. “Go to the hut,” she said. I stood there at the pole. Torrents of barbaric music swept about us, and there was the clapping and shouting, and the turning, and the twisting and swirling of rence girls, the passion of the dance burning in their bodies. “Yes,” she said. “I own you.” She spat up into my face. “Go to the hut,” she said. I stumbled from the pole, making my way through the buffeting circles of dancers, through the laughing circles of rencers, shouting and clapping their hands, and made my way to Telima’s hut. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clitus, after returning to our quarters, had left and returned with four musicians, bleary-eyed, routed from their mats well past the Twentieth Hour, but, lured by the jingling of a pair of silver tarsks, ready to play for us, past the dawn if need be. We soon had them drunk as well and though it did not improve their playing, I was pleased to see them join with us in our festivities, helping us to make our feast. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I turned to the musicians. "Do you know," I asked, "the Love Dance of the Newly Collared Slave Girl?" "Port Kar’s?" asked the leader of the musicians. "Yes," I said. "Of course," said he. I had purchased more than marking and collars at the smithy. "On your feet," boomed Thurnock to Thura, and she leaped frightened to her feet, standing ankle deep in the thick pile rug. At the gesture from Clitus, Ula, too, leaped to her feet. I put ankle rings on Midice, and then slave bracelets. And tore from her the bit of silk she wore. She looked at me with terror. I lifted her to her feet, and stood before her. "Play," I told the musicians. The Love Dance of the Newly Collared Slave Girl has many variations, in the different cities of Gor, but the common theme is that the girl dances her joy that she will soon lie in the arms of a strong master. The musicians began to play, and to the clapping and cries of Thurnock and Clitus, Thura and Ula danced before them. "Dance," said I to Midice. In terror the dark-haired girl, lithe, tears in her eyes, she so marvelously legged, lifted her wrists. Now again Midice danced, her ankles in delicious proximity and wrists lifted again together back to back above her head, palms out. But this time her ankles were not as though chained, nor her wrists as though braceleted; rather they were truly chained and braceleted; she wore the linked ankle rings, the three-linked slave bracelets of a Gorean master; and I did not thing she would now conclude her dance by spitting upon me and whirling away. She trembled. "Find me pleasing," she begged. "Do not afflict her so," said Telima to me. "Go to the kitchen," said I, "Kettle Slave." Telima turned and, in the stained tunic of re-cloth, left the room, as she had been commanded. The music grew more wild. "Where now," I demanded of Midice, "is your insolence, your contempt!" "Be kind!" she cried. "Be kind to Midice!" The music grew even more wild. And then Ula, boldly before Clitus, tore from her own body the silk she wore and danced, her arms extended to him. He leaped to his feet and carried her from the room. I laughed. Then Thura, to my amazement, though a rence girl, dancing, revealed herself similarly to the great Thurnock, he only of the peasants, and he, with a great laugh, swept her from her feet and carried her from the room. "Do I dance for life?" begged Midice. I drew the Gorean blade. "Yes," I said, "you do." And she danced superbly for me, every fiber of her beautiful body straining to please me, her eyes, each instant, pleading, trying to read in mine her fate. At last, when she could dance no more, she fell at my feet, and put her head to my sandals. "Find me pleasing," she begged. "Find me pleasing, my Master!" I had had my sport. I sheathed the blade. "Light the lamp of love," I said. She looked up at me, gratefully, but saw then my eyes. Her test was not yet done. Trembling she fumbled with the flint and steel, to strike sparks into the moss bowl, whence by means of a Ka-la-na shaving the lamp might be lit. I myself threw down, in one corner, near a slave ring, the Furs of Love. The musicians, one by one, each with a silver tarsk, stole from the room. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- With twelve ships I began to approach the treasure fleet from the southeast. Although I had had the masts, with their yards, taken down and lashed to the decks, and the sail stored below, I had the flutists and drummers, not uncommon on the ram-ships of Thassa, strike up a martial air. Then, rather bravely, the music drifting over the water, or oars at only half of maximum beat, we moved across the gleaming waters toward the large fleet. Since the ram-ships of the enemy had not yet struck their masts, it would be only a matter of moments before we were sighted. ... I listened for a while, chuckling, to the brave tunes being put forth by my flutists and drummers. Then, when I saw the perimeter ships of the treasure felt swinging about toward me, I motioned for the musicians to discontinue their performance. When they were silent, I could hear the flutes and drums from the enemy ships. I called down to the oar-master to rest oars. I wanted it to appear that I was suddenly undecided as to whether or not to attack, as though I was confused, startled. I signaled my trumpeter to transmit the command "Rest oars." The same message was run up the halyard to the height of the stern castle. Over the faint music coming from the distant ships, now approaching, I could hear her war trumpets and, with the glass, observe her flags. Whereas I did not know exactly the codes employed by the treasure fleet, I had little doubt that our hesitation was being signaled about the fleet, and then I heard other trumpets, and saw the round ships drawing apart, and tarn ships streaking between them, fanning out in our direction. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was crowded with tables of my retainers, feasting. To one side musicians played. There was a clear space before my great table, in which, from time to time, during the evening, entertainments had been provided, simple things, which even I had upon occasion found amusing, fire eaters and sword-swallowers, jugglers and acrobats, and magicians, and slaves, riding on one another’s shoulders, striking at one another with inflated tarsk bladders tied to poles. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The man had been blinded, it was said, by Sullius Maximus, who believed that blinding improved the quality of a singer’s songs. Sullius Maximus, who himself dabbled in poetry, and poisons, was a man of high culture, and his opinions in such matters were greatly respected. At any rate, whatever be the truth in these matters, the singer, in his darkness, was now alone with his songs. He had only them. I looked upon him. He wore the robes of his caste, the singers, and it was not known what city was his own. Many of the singers wander from place to place, selling their songs for bread and love. I had known, long ago, a singer, whose name was Andreas of Tor. We could hear the torches crackle now, and the singer touched his lyre. I sing the siege of Ar of gleaming Ar. I sing the spears and wall of Ar of Glorious Ar. In the long years past of the siege of the city the siege of Ar of her spires and towers of undaunted Ar Glorious Ar I sing. I did not care to hear his song. I looked down into the paga goblet. The singer continued. I sing of dark-haired Talena of the rage of Marlenus Ubar of Ar Glorious Ar. I did not wish to hear this song. It infuriated me to see that the others in that room sat rapt, bestowing on the singer such attention for such trifles, the meaningless noises of a blind man’s mouth. And of he I sing whose hair was like a larl from the sun of he who came once to the walls of Ar Glorious Ar he called Tarl of Bristol. I glanced to Telima, who stood beside my great chair. Her eyes were moist, drinking in the song. ... And, as the torches burned lower in the wall racks, the singer continued to sing, and sang of gray Pa-Kur, Master of the Assassins, leader of the hordes that fell on Ar after the theft of her Home Stone; and he sang, too, of banners and black helmets, of upraised standards, of the sun flashing on the lifted blades of spears, of high siege towers and deeds, of catapults of Ka-la-na and tem-wood, of the thunder of war tharlarion and the beating of drums and the roars of trumpets, the clash of arms and the cries of men; and he sang, too, of the love of men for their city, and, foolishly, knowing so little of men, he sang, too, the bravery of men, and their loyalties and their courage; and he sang then, too, of duels; of duels fought even on the walls of Ar herself, even at the great gate; and of tarnsmen locked in duels to the death over the spires of Ar; and of yet another duel, one fought on the height of Ar’s cylinder of justice, between Pa-Kur, and he, in the song, called Tarl of Bristol. "Why does my Ubar weep?" asked Telima. "Be silent, Slave," said I. Angrily I brushed her hand from my shoulder. She drew back her hand swiftly, as though she had not known it had lain there. The singer had now finished his song. "Singer," called I to him, "is there truly a man such as Tarl of Bristol?" The singer turned his head to me, puzzled. "I do not know," he said. "Perhaps it is only a song." I laughed. ... When again I sat down I said to the serving slaves, "Feast the singer well," and then I turned to Luma, slave and accountant of my house, braceleted and chained at the end of the long table, and said to her, "Tomorrow, the singer, before he is sent on his way, is to be given a cap of gold." "Yes Master," said the girl. "Thank you, Captain!" cried the singer. My retainers cried out with pleasure at my generosity, many of them striking their left shoulders with their right fists in Gorean applause. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You may dance, Slave," I told her. It was to be the dance of the six thongs. She slipped the silk from her and knelt before the great table and chair, between the other tables, dropping her head. She wore five pieces of metal, her collar and locked rings on her wrists and ankles. Slave bells were attached to the collar and the rings. She lifted her head, and regarded me. The musicians, to one side, began to play. Six of my men, each with a length of binding fiber, approached her. She held her arms down, and a bit to the sides. The ends of six lengths of binding fiber, like slave snares, were fastened on her, one for each wrist and ankle, and two about her waist; the men, then, each holding the free end of a length of fiber, stood about her, some six or eight feet from her, three on a side. She was thus imprisoned among them, each holding a thong that bound her. I glanced to Thura. I recalled that she had been caught in capture loops on the rence island, to unlike the two now about Sandra’s waist. Thura was watching with eagerness. So, too, were all. Sandra then, luxuriously, catlike, like a woman awakening, stretched her arms. There was laughter. It was as though she did not know herself bound. When she went to draw her arms back to her body there was just the briefest instant in which she could not do so, and she frowned looked annoyed, puzzled, and then was permitted to move as she wished. I laughed. She was superb. Then, still kneeling, she raised her hand, head back, insolently to her hair, to remove from it one of the ornate pins, its head carved from the horn of a kailiauk, that bound it. Again a thong, this time that on her right wrist, prohibited, but only for an instant, the movement, but inches from her hair. She frowned. There was laughter. At last, sometimes immediately permitted, sometimes not, she had removed the pins from her hair. Her hair was beautiful, rich, long and black. As she knelt, it fell back to her ankles. Then, with her hands, she lifted the hair again back over her head, and then, suddenly, her hands, by the thongs were pulled apart and her hair fell again loose and rich over her body. Now, angrily, struggling, she fought to lift her hair, again but the thongs, holding apart her hands, did not permit her to do so. She fought them. The thongs would permit her only to wear her hair loosely. Then, as though in terror and fury, as though she now first understood herself in the snares of a slave, she leaped to her feet, fighting, to the music, the thongs. The dancing girls of Port Kar, I told myself, are the best on all Gor. Dark and golden, shimmering, crying out, stamping, she danced, her thonged beauty incandescent in the light of the torches and frenzy of the slave bells. She turned and twisted and leaped, and sometimes seemed almost free, but was always, by the dark thongs, held complete prisoner. Sometimes she would rush upon one man or another, but the others would not permit her to reach him, keeping her always beautiful female slave snared in her web of thongs. She writhed and cried out, trying to force the thongs from her body, but could not do so. At last, bit by bit, as her fear and terror mounted, the men, fist by fist, took up the slack in the thongs that tethered her, until suddenly, they swiftly bound her hand and foot and lifted her over their heads, captured female slave, displaying her bound arched body to the tables. There were cries of pleasure from the tables, and much striking of the right fist on the left shoulder. She had been truly superb. Then the men carried her before my table and held her bound before me. "A slave," said one. "Yes," cried the girl, "slave!" The music finished with a clash. The applause and cries were wild and loud. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Captive of Gor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After we had eaten we continued on our way, climbing the wooden streets, tied together by the neck beside the wagons. Once we passed a paga tavern, and, inside, belled and jeweled, otherwise unclothed. I saw a girl dancing on a square of sand between the tables. She danced slowly, exquisitely, to the music of primitive instruments. I was stunned. Then there was a jerk at my neck, on the binding fiber, and the guard prodded me ahead with the butt of his spear. Never had I seen so sensuous a woman. About noon we arrived at a slave compound north of Laura. There are several such. Targo had rented space in one compound, adjoining others. Our compound shared a common wall of bars with another, that of Haakon of Skjern, whom Targo had traveled north to do business with. The compounds are formed of windowless log dormitories, floored with stone on which straw is spread; the dormitory then opens by one small door, about a yard high, into the barred exercise yard. This yard resembles a large cage. Its walls are bars, and its roof, too. The roof bars are supported at places in the yard by iron stanchions. There had been rain recently in Laura and the yard was muddy, but I found it more pleasant than the stuffy interior of the dormitory. We were not permitted our camisks in the compound, perhaps because of the mud in the yard. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sometimes I was irritated by the instructor, herself a slave, when she would commend me. "See," she would say to the other girls. "That is how it is done! That is how the body of a slave girl moves!" but I wanted to learn, that I might use my skills to enhance my fortunes on Gor. As a warrior applies himself to the arts of his weapons, so I applied myself to the arts of the female slave, which I was. I became sleek and more beautiful from the diet and the exercises. I learned things of which I had not dreamed. Our training, because it was limited to a few short weeks, did not include many of the elements that are normally included in a full training. I remained ignorant of Gorean cooking and the cleaning of Gorean garments. I learned nothing of musical instruments. I remained ignorant even of the arrangements of small rugs, decorations and flowers, things that any Gorean girl, slave or free, it likely to know. But I was taught to dance, and to give pleasure, and to stand, and move, and sit and turn, and lift my head and lower it, and kneel, and rise. Interestingly, and sometimes not altogether to my pleasure, I found the training becoming effective. In the early evening of the day on which our nose rings had been affixed I was returning to my cage, after having run an errand for Targo in the pens. I was one of his favorites, and he often used me for his errands. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We heard music in the distance, trumpets, drums and cymbals. We looked at one another, scarcely able to restrain ourselves. "Move to one side and stop,’ said a voice outside, one who spoke with authority. Our wagon pulled over to one side of the broad avenue, Ko-ro-ba’s Street of the Field gate. We felt crowds surge about the wagon. The music was coming closer. There was much shouting. "It is the catch of Marlenus!" cried a man. My heart leapt. I turned about, kneeling, twisting the ankle chain, and dug with my fingers under the edge of the rain canvas. The drums, the cymbals, the trumpets, were now quite close. I lifted up an edge of the canvas and peeped through. A hunt master, astride a monstrous tharlarion, holding a wand, tufted with panther hair, preceded the retinue. He wore over his head, half covering his face, a hood formed of the skin of the head of a forest panther. About his neck there were twined necklaces of claws. Across his back there was strapped a quiver of arrows. A bow, unstrung, was fastened at his saddle. He was dressed in skins, mostly those of sleen and forest panthers. Behind him came musicians, with their trumpets, and cymbals and drums. They, too, wore skins, and the heads of forest panthers. (pg. 210) Then, on carts, drawn by small, horned tharlarion, there came cages, and poles of trophies. In certain of the cages, of heavy, peeled branches lashed together, there snarled and hissed forest sleen, in others there raged the dreadful tawny, barred panthers of the northern forests. From the poles there hung the skins and heads of many beasts, mostly panthers and sleen. In one cage, restlessly lifting its swaying head, there coiled a great, banded hith, Gor’s most feared serpentine constrictor. It was native only to certain areas of the forest. Marlenus’ hunting must have ranged widely. Here and there, among the wagons, leashed, clad in short woolen skirts, heavy bands of iron hammered about their throats, under the guard of huntsmen, cowled in the heads of forest panthers, walked male slaves, male outlaws captured by Marlenus and his hunters in the forest. They had long, shaggy black hair. Some carried heavy baskets of fruits and nuts on their shoulders, or strings of gourds; others bore wicker hampers of flowers, or carried brightly plumaged forest birds; tied by string to their wrists. The other girls, too, watched excitedly, all of them coming to my side of the wagon, wedging among us, lifting up the rain canvas, peeping out. "Aren’t the male slaves exciting," said one of the girls. "Shameless!" I scorned her. "Perhaps you will be hooded and mated with one," she hissed back. I struck her. I was angry. It had not occurred to me, but what she said was true. If it should please my master, I could, of course, be mated, as easily as a bosk or a domestic sleen. "Look at the huntsmen!" breathed Lana, her eyes bright, her lips parted. Just at that moment one of the cowled huntsmen, a large, swarthy fellow, looked our way and saw us peeping out. He grinned. "I wish such a man would hunt me," said Lana. "I, too," said the Lady Rena, excited. I was startled that she had spoken so. Then I recalled that she, too, was only a female slave. The Lady Rena of (pg. 211) Lydius, like the rest of us, was only a naked girl, a slave, chained in a wagon, destined for the touch of a master. I rejoiced that I did not have their weaknesses. I peeped again through the tiny opening between the canvas and the wooded side of the wagon. More carts were going by, and more huntsmen and slaves. How proud and fine seemed the huntsmen, with their animals and slaves. How grandly they walked. How fearful they appeared, in skins, cowled in the heads of forest panthers, with their hunting spears. They did not bear burdens. They led or drove those that did, inferior, collared, skirted men, slaves. How straight walked the huntsmen, how broad their backs, how straight their gaze and high their head, how large their hands, how keen their gaze! There were masters! They had made slaves even of men! What would a mere woman be in their hands? ... Then we heard more music from outside, as more musicians, near the end of the retinue, approached. ... I pressed closer to the opening, looking out. More carts of sleen and panthers, with huntsmen and slaves, were passing. Then I heard the snap of the whip again. The crowd gave another shout. "Look!" cried Inge. And then we saw it. A cart was passing, flanked by huntsmen and slaves, bearing their burdens of gourds, flowers, nuts and fruits. On the cart, horizontally, parallel to the axles, there was a high pole, lashed together at the point of their crossings. It was a trophy pole, with its stanchions, peeled, formed of straight branches, like the other trophy poles, from which had hung the skins of slain animal. Only standing below this pole, alone on the cart, her skins knotted about her neck, her wrists bound behind her back, her hair fastened over the pole, holding her in place, was a beautiful panther girl, stripped, her weapons, broken, lying at her feet. I recognized her as one of the girl’s of Verna’s band. I cried out with pleasure. It was the first of five carts. On each, similarly, wrists bound behind her back, stripped, her hair bound cruelly over a trophy pole, stood a panther girl, each more beautiful than the last. I heard the blare of the trumpets, the clash of the cymbals, the pounding of the drums. The men shouted. Women cursed, and screamed their hatred of the panther girls. Children cried out and pelted them with pebbles. Slave girls in the crowd rushed forward to surge about the carts, to poke at them with sticks, strike them with switches and spit upon them. Panther girls were hated. I, too, wished I could rush out and strike them and spit upon them. From time to (pg. 214) time, guards, huntsmen, with whips, would leap to the cart and crack their whips, terrifying the slave girls, who knew that sound well, back from the carts, that they might pass, but then the slaves would gather again, and rush about the following cart, only to be in turn driven back again. Standing outside the range of the whip they would then spit, and curse and scream their hatred of the panther girls. "Slaves are so cruel," said Ute. Cart by cart passed. "Look!’ cried Inge. We now heard the snap of whips again, but this time the leather blades fell upon the naked backs of girls. "Look!" cried Lana, pleased. A huntsmen came now, holding in his hand five long leather straps, dragging behind him five panther girls. Their wrists were bound before their bodies, lashed tightly. The same strap that lashed their wrists, I saw, served, too, as their leash, that held in the huntsman’s grip. Like the girls bound by the hair to the trophy poles, on the carts, these were stripped, their skins knotted about their necks. Behind them there walked another huntsman, with a lash. He would occasionally strike them, hurrying them forward. I saw the lash fall across the back of the blond girl, she who had held my leash in the forest, who had been so cruel to me. I heard her cry out, and saw her stumble forward, bound, in pain. I laughed. Behind this first group of five girls there came a second group, it, too, with its huntsman holding the leashes, dragging his beautiful captives, and another following behind, occasionally lashing them forward. How pleased I was. There had been fifteen girls, five on the carts, and two of the tethered groups! All of Verna’s band had fallen captive! There now came a great shout, and I squeezed even further forward in the wagon, to peep out. Then the crowd became suddenly quiet. One last cart approached. I could hear its wheels on the stones before I could see it. It was Verna. (pg. 215) Beautiful, barbaric Verna! Nothing, save her weapons, had been taken from her. She still wore her brief skins, and about her neck and on her arms, were barbaric ornaments of gold. But she was caged. Her cage, mounted on the cart, was not of branches, but of steel. It was a circular cage, between some six and seven feet in height, flat-bottomed, with a domed top. Its diameter was no more than a yard. And she was chained. Her wrists were manacled behind her body, and a chain led from her confined wrists to a heavy ring set in the bottom of her cage. Her head was in the air. She was manacled as heavily as might have been a man. This infuriated me. Slave bracelets would hold her, as they would any women! How arrogant and beautiful she seemed! How I hated her! And so, too, must have the other slave girls in the crowd, with their switches and sticks. "Hit her!" I screamed through the canvas. "Be quiet!" cried Ute, in horror. "Hit her!" screamed Lana. The crowd of slave girls swarmed forward toward the cart with their sticks and switches, some of them even leaping upon it, spitting, and striking and poking through the bars of the high narrow cage. I saw that the domed top of Verna’s cage was set with a ring, so that the cage might be, if one wished, hung from the branch of a tree, or suspended from a pole, for public viewing. Doubtless Marlenus had given orders that she be exhibited in various cities and villages on the route to Ar, his prize, that she might thus, this beautiful captive, an outlaw girl well known on Gor, considerably redound to his prestige and glory. I supposed that she would not be enslaved until she reached Ar. Then, I supposed, she would be publicly enslaved, and perhaps by the hand of Marlenus himself. (pg. 216) The slave girls swarmed about the cage, poking, and striking with their switches, and spitting and cursing. Their abuse was endured by Verna. It seemed she chose to ignore them. This infuriated them and they redoubled their efforts. Verna now flinched with pain, and her body was cut and marked, but still she would not lower her head, nor did she deign to speak to, or recognize in any way, her foes. Then there was a roar of anger from the crowd and, to my fury, men began to leap, too, to the cart, but to hurl the slave girls from the cage. And huntsmen, too, angrily, now leaped to the cart, striking about them with their whips. The slave girls screamed, and fled from the cart. Men seized them, and disarmed them of their sticks and switches, and then threw the girls to the stones at their feet, where they cowered, at the sandals of free men, and then the men ordered them from the street. The girls leapt up and, weeping, terrified, fled away, humiliated, chastened slaves. I was angry. I wished that I might have had a stick or switch. How I would have beaten Verna! I was not afraid of her! I would have beaten her well, as she deserved! How I hated Verna! Her cart was now moving away, drawn by the small, horned tharlarion. In her cage, manacled, Verna still stood proudly. Her head was still in the air, her body straight, her gaze level and fixed. She gave no sign that she had noticed either those who had so rudely assailed her, or those who had protected her from them. How arrogant and superior she seemed! How I hated her, and hated her! A spear butt struck at the wood of the wagon, near where we peeped out. We drew back, frightened. The canvas was then tied down again. We were alone with ourselves again, closed in the wagon. We heard the drums, the trumpets and clashing cymbals growing fainter, down the street, as the retinue continued on its way. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rask clapped his hands once, and four musicians, who had been waiting outside, entered the tent. And took a place to one side. Two had small drums, one a flute, the other a stringed instrument. Rask clapped his hands twice, sharply. And the black-haired, green-eyed, olive-skinned slave girl stood before him. "Put her in slave bells," said Rask, to one of the musicians. The musician fastened leather cuffs, mounted each with three rows of bells, on her wrists and ankles. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The music of those of the caste of musicians was heady, like the wine. There was shouting and laughing, the pleasurable moaning and crying out of girls used beyond the rim of firelight. There was much feasting, and drinking. One the sand, before the warriors, belled, in scarlet silk, the girl, Talena, danced. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Dance, Slave," said Rask of Treve. I leaped to my feet, my hands held over my head. The musicians again began to play. And Elinor Brinton, of Park Avenue, of Earth, a Gorean slave girl, danced before primitive warriors. The music was raw, melodious, deeply sensual. I suddenly saw, scarcely comprehending, the awe in their eyes. They were silent, their fierce eyes bright. I saw their hands tighten, the shoulders lean forward. I danced. Well had I been trained in the pens of Ko-ro-ba. Not for nothing had it been I and Lana who had been among the most superb of the slave females then in the pens. In the firelight, in the sand, before warriors, I danced. My feet, belled, struck in the sand. The perfume was wild about me, swift in the brightness and the shadows. On my lips I wore slave rouge. I danced. I could see the eyes of the men, the movements of their bodies. (pg. 328) I realized, suddenly, in the dance, that I had power in my beauty, incredible power, power to strike men and stun them, to astonish them in the firelight, to make them, if I wished, mad with the wanting of me. "She is superb!" I heard whisper. I danced toward him, he who had said this, and he leaped toward me, but two of his fellows seized him, holding him back. I danced back, my hands held to him, as though I had been torn from him. "Aiii!" he cried. There were shouts of pleasure. I saw the girls watching too, their eyes wide, too, with pleasure. I threw back my head and the bells flashed at my ankles and wrists, and in my body the music, in its bright flames, burned. I would make them mad with the wanting of me! I would do so. Something deep and female within me emerged, something I had never felt before. I would torture them! I did have power. I would make them suffer! I was white silk! It was safe to dance before them as I pleased. And so Elinor Brinton danced to torment them. They cried out with anguish and pleasure. How pleased I was in my power! As the music changed so, too, did the dancer, and she became as one with the music, a frightened girl, new to the collar, a timid girl, delicate and submissive, a lonely slave, yearning for her master, a drunken wench, rejecting her slavery, a proud girl, determined to be defiant, a raw, red-silk slave, mad with the need for a master’s touch. And, too, as I danced, I would sometimes dance toward a warrior, sometimes as though begging him his glance, sometimes as though seeking his protection in my plight, sometimes as though I could not help myself, but was drawn to him, helplessly, in the vulnerability of the female slave, sometimes, when I chose, to deliberately, overtly and cruelly, (pg. 329) taunt him with my beauty, my desirability, and my inaccessibility. More than one cried out with rage and reached toward me, or shook his fist at me, but I laughed, and danced back away from him. Then, as the music struck towards its swirling peaks I unaccountably, boldly, for no reason I understood, faced Rask of Treve, and before him, my master, I danced. His eyes were expressionless. He sipped his wine. I danced my hatred for him, to make him mad with the desire of me, which desire I could then frustrate, which desire I could then, in my strength, for I was not as other women, for I did not have their weaknesses, fail to fulfill! I could hurt him, and I would! He had captured me! He had enslaved me! He had lashed and branded me! He had put me in the slave box! I despised him. I hated him. I would make him suffer! How desperately, in my dance, I tried to arouse him! Yet his eyes remained expressionless. And, from time to time, observing me through narrowed lids, he would sip his wine. And then I knew my body was dancing something to him that I could not understand, that I feared. It was strange. It was as though my body would, in its own right, speak to him, as though it were trying, on some level I could not comprehend, to communicate to him. And then again I was as I was before, and could dance my contempt and hatred for him. He seemed amused. I was furious. When the music finished, I fell to my knees, insolently, before him, my head to the ground. There were many shouts of acclaim, and pleasure, from the men, and even from the girls, who struck their left shoulders with the palms of their hands. |
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4:39 AM Jul 11