"I shall,” said Cabot. “And then we must join the fray."
"I will go ahead, tonight,” said Lord Grendel. “If the revolution should be successful, the Lady Bina, as a traitress, will be in great danger. She may need me."
"Forget her,” said Cabot.
"No,” said Grendel.
"She is worthless,” said Cabot.
"True,” said Lord Grendel, “but she is beautiful."
"I fear you are human,” said Cabot.
"Human, perhaps,” said Grendel. “Perhaps human, yes, and perhaps too human."
* * * *
"Master,” said the slave, Lita, kneeling before him.
It was now morning.
Yesterday evening, taking advantage of the darkness, Lord Grendel had exited the cave, taking with him a knife, the ax, one of the bows, and a sheaf of arrows.
About the slave's head was the wreath of blossoms, this of white Lirillium.
It is not unusual for slaves to bedeck themselves as they may, and to do so occasionally with flowers, sometimes a garland, sometimes with a mere blossom or two, fixed in the hair. Such things can be fetching, and it is likely they are not unaware of this. They can treasure simple things, too, a ribbon, a bangle, a bracelet, a string of colorful glass or wooden beads. Indeed, such simple things, as worn by a slave, herself recognized as goods, can be a thousand times more provocative to a male than the pearls and diamonds of a free woman.
Beautiful women tend to be vain of their beauty, and it is natural for them to nurse, guard, and enhance it, and slave girls, commonly the most beauteous of all, for commonly it is only the most beautiful of girls which are taken for collaring, are no exception. Accordingly, the slave girl, well aware of her beauty, which commonly far exceeds that of the plainer free woman, is seldom a stranger to vanity. Moreover, as a slave in a unapologetically and uncompromisingly male-dominated world, she is excruciatingly aware, as she might not be in a drabber, grayer, hypocritical world, of her femaleness, and its enormous importance. After all, it has been in virtue of that that she has been acquired, and it is in virtue of that that she will be bought and sold. Her femaleness in such a culture is not incidental to what she is. In such a culture it is not the unimportant empirical contingency, the biological irrelevancy, the meaningless anatomical fortuity, it is claimed to be in a world of anonymity and negativity, of neuterism, that of a world engineered to abet the mindless servicing of machines, technological and economic, political, and corporate. On Gor, the slave, particularly if extracted from Earth's barbarisms of fatuity and denial, discovers, usually for the first time, the enormous importance of her femaleness. It is no longer a supposed accident casually appertaining to her body but rather she herself, what she is. She is a female. It is what she is. Certainly this is clear to her when she is exposed on the block.
On Gor the woman discovers then, often for the first time, fully, that she is a female, and the specialness, preciousness, wonderfulness, and importance of this.
And, too, on Gor, she learns her desirability, and what this will mean in a world of strong men.
And she learns she has been designed in virtue of a binary sexual shaping, a complementary wholeness within which alone she can find her fulfillment, a wholeness within which there is one to command and one to submit, one to rule and one to obey.
A collar on her neck, her lips pressed fervently to the feet of a master, she rejoices to learn what she is, and would not be other than she is.
How else can she find her ultimate and perfect fulfillment?
On Gor these things are understood.
Too, on Gor, at last, as a slave, she finds she has an incontrovertible, indisputable, inexpugnable societal and cultural identity.
At last she finds she is real, quite real, and in two ways, one biological, and one societal and cultural.
Biologically she is a female, and societally and culturally, incontrovertibly, she is a slave.
And she learns on Gor what men are, and can be, and how she will be treated, and what will be done with her.
And she will have little to say about this, and this is welcomed, and it thrills her lovely belly.
Gor is a natural world.
And she finds herself a female in such a world, and the most female of all women, the female slave.
Not until she was collared did she understand the power and beauty of men, whose slave she is, and in whose arms she now longs to be enfolded.
"You are pretty, Lita,” said Cabot.
"Thank you, Master,” she said.
"What have you in your hands?” asked Cabot.
She put her head down and lifted and extended her arms, offering Cabot the object. “Master,” she said. In the pleasure cylinder, she had been taught to so proffer items to a free person.
"What is it?” asked Cabot.
He took the object from the girl, which was a small object, weighty, and of gold.
"It is a ring,” said Cabot, “a Kur ring."
"It is the ring of Lord Arcesilaus,” said the slave.
"He is dead?” said Cabot.
"No,” said the slave.
"How is it you have the ring?” asked Cabot.
"Yesterday,” said the girl, “Lord Arcesilaus gave it to Lord Grendel, to be given to you this morning."
"Why to me?” asked Cabot.
"I do not know,” she said.
"I cannot accept it,” said Cabot.
Cabot made his way to the back of the cave.
He crouched down beside Arcesilaus, and turned on the Kur's translator. “Here,” said Cabot, trying to press the ring into the paw of the large Kur.
His offer was received with a growl. A soft, tortured noise came from the Kur. The translator, however, rendered this in a natural volume, and clarity. “No,” it said.
"I cannot accept this ring,” said Cabot.
"You will fight against Agamemnon,” came from the translator.
"Yes,” said Cabot.
"Take the ring,” came from the translator.
"Why?” asked Cabot.
"Take it,” came from the translator.
"Very well,” said Cabot.
"Now, leave me,” came from the translator.
Cabot rose up, the ring clenched in his hand, and went back to where the slave waited. When he came into her proximity, as she was still kneeling, not having been given permission to rise, she put her head to the floor of the cave.
The former Miss Pym looked well, kneeling so.
As many times before, Cabot speculated how the young men she had known on Earth would regard her as she now was, a collared slave.
He did not doubt but what they would rejoice.
Perhaps they would make bids for her.
But he did not think he would sell the slave, at least not now.
"Be as you will,” said Cabot, absently.
She knelt up, regarding him.
"I do not understand it,” said Cabot, considering the ring. “If authority is here, it is not an authority I could use. I could not command Kurii."
"He did not explain its use?” asked Lita.
"No,” said Cabot. “If authority were involved, he should have given it to Lord Grendel, if only that he might give it to another."
"But he gave it to you,” said Lita.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I do not know,” said Cabot. He examined the ring. It was heavy, carved, ornate, but it did not seem unusual. It did not seem a mechanism. It did not seem a key. It did not seem a container of some sort. It did not open. “It is too large for my finger,” said Cabot. “I will put it on a string, about my neck."
The slave, unbidden, fetched a bit of cord, from which Cabot, with his knife, cut a strand of suitable length.
"You put it within your tunic,” observed the slave, who had returned to first position.
"Yes,” said Cabot, “in war, in certain lights, say, in moonlight, a glint on a buckle, a flash from an emblem, such things, might betray one's position."