| “Get back!” he cried.
Some crowded yet more closely about the wagon. “Bread!” they begged. “Please!” Then the whip fell amongst them and they, though free women, fell back, away from it, crying out in pain, and scattering. “Tomorrow then,” he cried, angrily, “if you wish, there will be nothing for any of you!” “No, please!” wept the women. “Kneel down,” he said. Swiftly they fell on their knees, behind the wagon. “Heads down to the dirt,” he commanded. They complied. I was not certain that it was proper to command free women in this fashion. It was rather as one might command slaves. Still, women, even free women, look well, obeying. The slave, of course, must obey. She has no choice. “You may lift your heads,” he said. “Are you contrite?” he inquired. “Yes,” moaned several of the women. “Perhaps you are moved to beg my forgiveness?” he asked. “We beg your forgiveness, generous and noble sir!” called a woman. “Yes, yes!” said others. Mercenaries of Gor Book 21 Page 27 - 28 “Oh!” cried Feiqa, suddenly stung by a stone, hurled by another woman. She then walked weeping, almost pressed against the side of the wagon. She could not even think of daring to object to such treatment, of course. In the hut of the free woman, last night, she had learned, unconditionally, that she was a slave. I wondered if the former rich young woman of Samnium had herself, in bygone days, accorded slaves similar treatment. I supposed so. It is not uncommon on the part of free women. Now, of course, as a slave herself, she would understand clearly what it was to be the one who is subjectable to such treatment. Perhaps free women would treat slaves somewhat differently if they understood that one day it might be they themselves whom they might find in the collar. In these attacks, of course, Feiqa was in no danger of being seriously injured, or disfigured or maimed. Accordingly, I did not take any official notice of them. Mercenaries of Gor Book 21 Page 29 Feiqa danced. The men cried out with pleasure, many of them joining in the song, and keeping time with their hands. I was incredibly proud of her. How joyful it is to own females and have absolute power over them! Seldom, indeed, I imagined, did the rude herders of the Alars have such a vision of imbonded loveliness in their camp, and in their arms. Such delicious females were not allowed in their camps, I gathered. The free women did not permit them. . . . “Disgusting! Disguisting!” cried the free woman, Boabissia, in her leather and furs, having returned to the fire, and she rushed forward, a stout, thick, short, supple, single-bladed quirtlike whip in her hand. She began to lash Feiqa, who fell to her knees, howling with misery, a whipped slave. “We do not allow such as you in an Alar camp!” cried the free woman. Feiqa put her head down. Again the lash fell on her. I leaped to the free woman and tore the whip from her hand, hurling it angrily to the side. She looked at me, wildly, in fury, not believing I had dared to interfere. “What right have you to interfere?” she demanded. “The right of a man who is not pleased with your behavior, female,” I said. “Female!” she cried, in fury. “Yes,” I said. Mercenaries of Gor Book 21 Page 61 - 62 On Gor it is commonly only slaves, incidentally, who bare their legs . . . Contrariwise, almost no free woman would bare her legs. They would not dare to do so. They would be horrified even to think of it. The scandal of such an act could ruin a reputation. It is said on Gor that any woman who bares her legs is a slave. Indeed, in some cities a free woman who might be found with bared legs is taken in hand by magistrates, tried and sentenced to bondage. After the judge’s decision has been enacted, its effect carried out upon her, reducing her to the status of goods, sometimes publicly, that she may be suitably disgraced, sometimes privately, by a contract slaver, that the sensitivities of free women in the city not be offended, she is hooded and transported, stripped and chained, freshly branded and collared, a property female, slave cargo, to a distant market where, once sold, she will begin her life anew, fearfully, as a purchased girl, tremulously as the helpless and lowly slave she now is. Mercenaries of Gor Book 21 Page 69 “A free woman is present,” I said to Feiqa. Immediately she knelt. “Head to the ground,” I whispered to her. Immediately she complied. Mercenaries of Gor Book 21 Page 72 “You might be caught, and put in chains,” said Hurtha. He did not even mention, explicitly, the horrifying word “bondage.” In this he was tactful. She was a free woman. Mercenaries of Gor Book 21 Page 73 Page32 |