A fellow, clothes aflame, shielding his eyes, stumbled from the hut and was cut down, from each side.
Smoke billowed from the hut. The walls were afire.
Another fellow, coughing, burst into the open, and ran two or three paces, and was cut down. Another followed him, and was similarly dealt with.
I think the fellows in the hut were blinded with the smoke, and burned. Two more emerged, to be cut down.
I looked within the hut, and the roof fell in, turning the enclosure into a furnace. I saw two or more dark shapes like shadows, silhouetted in the flames. Two more rushed from the hut, and died. One or two remained inside, and fell in the midst of the flaming branches, unable, I supposed, to reach the door. There was screaming for a few Ihn, and then it was quiet, save for the crackling of the flames.
The figure in the hideous, horned, masklike helmet removed it, and faced me. “You have come to report?” he inquired.
“The sky is ours,” I informed Lord Nishida.
“Some will have escaped,” he speculated.
“Yes,” I said. “They fled. They separated. They were many. We were few. We could not kill them all.”
“Unfortunate,” said Lord Nishida. “Our plans must now be advanced.”
I did not understand this.
Others approached, and Lord Nishida politely received their reports, as well. The camp was clear, it seemed, save for one or two huts, which would be soon attended to.
Lord Nishida turned to me. “We are pleased, Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” he said.
I bowed, acknowledging this compliment.
“Now,” smiled Lord Nishida, “it seems a feast, a victory feast, would be in order, when things are done, and matters cleared, of course, a feast in, say, a day or two, after the day’s work. Is it not the Gorean way?”
“Perhaps,” I said, “if a watch is kept, and sufficient men are armed and at hand, to prevent unpleasant surprises, and such.”
Most such feasts, of course, take place within a holding within the environing walls of a city, perhaps one over which the tarn wire still sways in the wind, not in the open, not in a camp.
“It is unfortunate,” he said, “that we have not captured suitable numbers of the enemy’s free women, that they might serve such a feast naked.”
“Yes,” I said.
“That is the Gorean way, is it not?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, “but I suspect that it is also a way not unknown to the Pani.”
He smiled.
“It seems, Lord,” I said, “we are short of such serving maids.”
It is common to have the women of the enemy serve such a feast naked. It is one of the pleasures of victory. The women may either be collared prior to their service or not. It is usually thought best to save their collaring for later. That they should serve such a feast while still free is thought to shame them excellently, and to teach them that even the glorious free women of the defeated are worthy only to be the naked servitors, and later slaves, of the victorious.
“I trust the slaves are well, and in hand,” I said.
“Yes,” said Lord Nishida. “Doubtless you are concerned with your pretty Cecily.”
“She is well curved,” I said.
“Even now,” said Lord Nishida, “she is within a ring, her small hands upon the rope.”
This was a reference to the “rope circle.” In the “rope circle,” a single rope is tied about a group of slaves, either kneeling or standing, at their belly. The hands of each slave must then grasp the rope and may not, until permitted, release the rope. This holds a group of slaves together, nicely.
“How fares the blond-haired, blue-eyed slave whom I believe is now named ‘Saru’?” asked Lord Nishida of me.
“The stable slut?” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“I have not seen her in weeks,” I said.
“Doubtless the honorable Pertinax, tarnsman, has more recent news,” said Lord Nishida.
I recalled that Lord Nishida had had plans for the former Miss Margaret Wentworth.
“No, Lord,” said Pertinax, “I have not seen her since the pavilion, when you remanded her to the tharlarion stable.”
“That seems strange to me,” said Lord Nishida.
Pertinax shrugged.
“My fellow, Pertinax, I fear,” I said to Lord Nishida, “fears to look upon her.”
“‘Fears’?” inquired Lord Nishida.
Pertinax reddened.
“Much of him,” I said, “remains of Earth. He fears, I think, that he would succumb to her charms, that she would manipulate and dominate him, that she would easily bend him to her will, that she would make of him much what she once made of him, her slave.”
“The slave of a slave?” smiled Lord Nishida.
“Yes,” I said.
“Surely, Pertinax,” said Lord Nishida, “you know her neck is in a collar.”
Pertinax nodded.
“Even so,” I said, “the beauty of a woman, a tear in her eye, the trembling of a lip, such things, are formidable weapons.”
“Until she is suitably mastered,” said Lord Nishida.
“True,” I said.
“Perhaps she should be whipped,” said Lord Nishida. “The whip is useful in convincing a woman she is a slave. Perhaps if she were weeping, and squirming, and begging for mercy, under a whip, she would no longer be in doubt as to what she was.”
“I think she is in no doubt as to her bondage,” I said. “I am sure the grooms in the stable have seen to that. The fear is that she might not know herself a slave before Pertinax, that she might attempt to use the subtle wiles of Earth, guilt, and such, to work her will in a hundred ways upon him.”
“And perhaps the honorable Pertinax fears she might prove successful in such endeavors?”
“I think so,” I said.
“Then he is weak,” said Lord Nishida.
“He fought well today,” I said.
“One who is strong in one way may be weak in another,” said Lord Nishida.
“True,” I said.
How many men are conquered by a look cast over a shoulder, by a smile! Some men are drunk on kaissa, others on power, others on kanda, others on paga. I recalled a warrior, on a Steel World, who, in misery and futility, once risked ruin, harkening to the siren lure of a swirling, golden beverage.
“Be a master,” I said to Pertinax.
He looked down.
“No woman can find herself,” I said, “until she finds herself at the feet of a master.”
Pertinax regarded me.
“And the slave, Saru,” I said, “is no different.”
“By now, the hair of the slave should be grown out a bit,” said Lord Nishida. “Had I realized that our plans must be advanced, I would have had it cropped, and not shaved.”
I knew nothing of his plans.
I did know he had anticipated giving Saru to an important individual, a shogun. I had no doubt that cleaned up, and trained, whip trained, and otherwise, that she would be likely to make a lovely gift. Her coloring and such would be, I gathered, unusual amongst the Pani, and her slave fires, as I had determined, had already been nicely ignited.
She was now a slave.
She needed men.
Without them she would be in torment.
I hoped that Pertinax, from his absurd conditioning on Earth, would not scorn her for her vitality, and needs. Her belly was now hot, and alive, even piteously so. Rather, let him accept her now as what she was, and now only was, a slave. A Gorean male, of course, is not surprised by female needs. He may not expect such things in a free woman, but he does expect such things in a slave. The repressed free woman, struggling against her own sexual nature, often in misery, may scorn the slave, whom she envies, for her needs, but the master, naturally, does not. He accepts them. They are exactly what he expects in a given form of merchandise, a property girl, a collar slut, a luscious, needful, obedient, owned female, a slave.