They were teaching her what it was to be a slave.
Yet I feared she had not even, as yet, begun to learn.
I considered her.
How far she was now from the seats of commercial power, far from the treasure houses of wealth, far from paneled board rooms, long corridors, marshaled desks, and bright offices.
This was a world other than that to which she had been accustomed, and which she had thought to leave behind only for a life of wealth and leisure.
I continued to regard her.
I saw there was a collar on her neck. The lock was in the back, as is common. It was doubtless that of Lord Nishida.
I had no doubt she had no access to its key.
Now, doubtless as never before, she knew what it was to be in a slave collar.
“Saru,” I called.
She threw herself to her belly in the straw, facing away from me, and covered her head with her hands. “Please, please do not whip me!” she begged.
The slave had been given the name ‘Saru’.
The saru is found variously on Gor, but usually in tropical areas. For example, it is common in the jungles of the Ua. Also, I had learned from Tajima, it is found, here and there, in the home, so to speak, of the “strange men.” The saru is a small, usually arboreal animal. It is usually regarded with amusement, or contempt. It figures in children’s stories as a cute, curious, mischievous little beast, but also one that is stupid, vain, and ignorant. Although the saru, as far as I can tell, is not a monkey zoologically, it surely occupies a similar ecological niche, and resembles the monkey in its diet, habits, groupings, and such. It is tailless. I think it would not be amiss to think of the saru as a Gorean monkey. In any event Tajima, when he put the slave before him on her knees, in the stable, to be named, told her, in English, that there be no mistaking the matter, and she clearly understand what was being done to her, what ‘Saru’ meant, its connotations, and such. She was, in effect, he told her, going to be named “Monkey.” “Yes Master,” she whispered. The slave, of course, is named by masters. She has nothing to say as to what she will be named, no more than a sleen or kaiila. Names may be changed, from time to time. Some names, like ‘Saru’, are belittling names, or contempt names. Other names may be fit for low slaves, others for prized slaves, and so on. Names may be used to punish or commend, to humiliate or delight, and so on. Earth-girl names, which may be put on any slave, regardless of her world of origin, are commonly used for low slaves. ‘Cecily’, the name of my slave, had once been one of her free-woman names. Now, of course, it was not the same name, for I had given it to her as a slave name. The slave understands, of course, that she has no name, not in a legal sense, and that the name she is given is a name bestowed on her by a master, and removable by a master. Even the name which appears on formal slave papers is a slave name.
“You are no longer Miss Margaret Wentworth,” Tajima explained to her. “As soon as you were entered on an acquisition list, months ago, you were only a nameless slave.”
“Yes, Master,” she said, kneeling before him.
“I have explained to you the meaning of ‘Saru’,” he said. “You have understood?”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“I am now going to name you,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she whispered.
“You are Saru,” he said. “Rejoice that you are no longer a nameless slave.”
“Yes, Master,” she said, frightened.
“You may thank me,” he said.
“Thank you, Master,” she said.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“‘Saru’, Master,” she said.
“Who are you?”
“I am Saru,” she said, “Master.”
He then turned about, and left her, and she collapsed to the straw of the stable, wracked with sobs.
She shuddered in the straw, naked. “Please do not whip me!” she begged.
“It is I, Tarl Cabot,” I said. “Do not be afraid. I have not come to whip you.”
She rose to all fours, and turned about, and regarded me, in the gloom of the stable, almost half-uncomprehendingly.
Cecily stood, behind me, to my left.
“Do not be afraid,” I said. Then I snapped my fingers, and pointed to the floor, before me, and she crawled to that place, on all fours, and looked at me.
Her head had been shaved.
I thus inferred that the gifting of her, amongst other gifts, to a shogun by Lord Nishida, which I understood to be his intent, would not be imminent, but perhaps months away.
Surely she was in no condition to be presented, now, to anyone, even a herder of tarsks, a lowly shearer of the bounding hurt.
But her bondage journey had begun. By the time she had learned her collar, and her skin would again sparkle, and her hair would be again a glory, and her eyes would no longer reflect terror but rather the eagerness of a surrendered slave, hoping to be found pleasing by her master, she would be worthy, I was sure, of having the vestiture of a silken presentation sheet removed before a shogun, or even a Ubar.
“Master?” she asked, her head lifted to me.
“Slave?” I said.
“Has Master Pertinax inquired after me?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Why do you ask?”
She put down her head, “Nothing, Master,” she said.
“Perhaps,” I said, “it is his whip you would like to feel?”
Among slaves, a common way for one slave to inquire of another her owner is to ask, “Who whips you?”
To be sure, the slave may never have been whipped. She is, of course, subject to the whip of the master, for she is a slave. Sometimes a slave may be bound and whipped, to remind her that she is a slave. After this, she is under no illusions as to her condition. She now knows well what she is; she is slave, only slave.
The slave was silent, but trembled.
“As a slave, of course,” I said, “you are unworthy of any free man.”
“Yes, Master,” she said. Then she looked to Cecily. “She is standing,” she said.
“Of course,” I said. “You are a slave. If you were a free person, she would be on her knees.”
She looked at Cecily. “I am sorry,” she said, “that I was cruel to you.”
“It is nothing,” said Cecily.
Saru looked up from all fours, her knees and hands in the straw. “May I kneel, Master,” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
She had not asked for permission to stand. She knew herself in the presence of a free man.
I wondered if Thrasilicus was looking into a different slave for Lord Nishida. Perhaps a better slave would be sought.
“Back straight, head up,” I told her.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Knees,” I said.
“Before her?” asked Saru, in misery. Cecily was standing.
“Before me,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Wider,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“I see you are collared,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“And you have been branded?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
I crouched beside her. “It is an excellent mark,” I said. It was, as I had expected, the common Kef.
“I am told so,” she said. “I am now well marked. There will be no confusing me now with a free woman.”
“Nor should there be,” I said.
“No, Master,” she said.
“You look well, kneeling, with your knees spread,” I said.
“Thank you, Master,” she whispered.
“A slave is pleased, if she is found pleasing,” I said.
“I am pleased if I am found pleasing,” she said.
“Understand it,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
A tear coursed down her cheek.