Civitatis Ar, Plus!

Avenues / Streets / Districts

General Information (Avenues / Streets / Districts)

In the afternoon we moved on again, this time daring to use of the wide paved highways that lead from Ar, highways built like walls in the earth, of solid, fitted stones intended to last a thousand years. Even so, the surface of the highway had been worn smooth, and the ruts of tharlarion carts were clearly visible, ruts worn deep by centuries of caravans. We met very little on the highway, perhaps because of the anarchy in the city of Ar. If there were refugees, they must have been behind us, and few merchants were approaching Ar. Who would risk his goods in a situation of chaos? When we did pass an occasional traveler, we passed warily. On Gor, as in my native England, one keeps to the left side of the road. This practice, as once in England, is more than a simple matter of convention. When one keeps to the left side of the road, one's sword arm faces the passing stranger.
It seemed we had little to fear, and we had passed several of the pasang stones that line the side of the highway without seeing anything more threatening than a line of peasants carrying brushwood on their backs, and a pair of hurrying Initiates. Once, however, Talena dragged me to the side of the road, and scarcely able to conceal our horror, we watched while a sufferer from the incurable Dar-kosis disease, bent in his yellow shrouds, hobbled by, periodically clacking that wooden device which warns all within hearing to stand clear from his path. "An Afflicted One," said Talena, gravely, using the expression common for such plagued wretches on Gor. The name of the disease itself, Dar-kosis, is almost never mentioned. I glimpsed the face beneath the hood and felt sick. Its one bleared eye regarded us blankly for a moment, and then the thing moved on.
It gradually became clear that the road was becoming less traveled. Weeds were growing between cracks in the stone flooring of the highway, and the ruts of the tharlarion carts had all but disappeared. We passed several crossroads, but I kept moving generally in the direction of Ko-ro-ba. What I would do when we reached the Margin of Desolation and the broad Vosk River, I didn't know. The fields of Sa-Tarns were thinning out.  TARNSMAN OF GOR-, (1) Pages 112-114

Uneasily I touched the collar on my neck. It read, I had been told, `I am the property of the Lady Florence of Vonda.' I could not remove it, of course, for I was a slave and it had been locked on me. I looked down the avenue of the Central Cylinder, down which the troops had disappeared. I had heard, inadvertently from the Lady Melpomiene, as I had stood at the stirrup of my mistress, that an uneasy situation existed currently between Ar and the Salerian Confederation. The Lady Melpomene had said she was leaving Ar that night. The Lady Florence, of course, if I were identified as her slave, would by my collar presumably be recognized as a citizeness of Vonda, one of the cities of the confederation. I did not think it would go easily with her if hostilities should break out openly and she be seized in Ar. Indeed, we might be sold from the same platform. I wondered what she might look like in a collar. I knew, of course, what she looked like naked, for I was her silk slave. Free women think as little of concealing their bodies before their silk slaves as the women of Earth would before their pet dogs. Too, of course, it would not be well to be a woman of Ar in Vonda, should hostilities break out. Immediate reduction to total slavery would surely be the least of what would be inflicted on such a woman. I thought it would be desirable, from my mistress' point of view, to leave Ar in the near future, and make her way to her house in the resort town of Venna. I began to be uneasy. It seemed to me that the sooner we departed from the walls of Ar the better it might be. My alarm, of course, was not simply on behalf of my mistress, but on my own behalf as well. Gorean men, I had learned, are not patient with silk slaves. I did not wish to risk crawlng on my stomach, over stones, under whips, perhaps for pasangs, to the nearest slave market.
Some fifty yards away, in the street, another palanquin passed, borne by draft slaves, some lovely enslaved girls, in brief tunics, chained by the neck to a bar at its back. Their hands, too, were locked behind their backs in slave bracelets. Perhaps the display was a bit ostentatious, but I did not object. The girls were slim-thighed and sweetly breasted.
I looked down to the girl who, wrists bound, on the shortened neck-leash, sat at the slave ring in front of the shop of Philebus. It was later in the afternoon now, and it was hot. I was surprised to see, though I gave no sign of this, that she had been looking at me. She turned her head away. I continued to regard her. I think she was aware of this. She sat a bit more straightly against the wall, putting her head back. I thought again of the girls chained behind the palanquin I had just seen, and the girl before me now, at the ring, fastened there. How marvelous I thought to be on such a world, where such women might be owned. I was not displeased then to be on Gor. I regarded her ankles, her calves and thighs, the sweetness of her belly and breasts, her throat, her face, her hair.
"I am thirsty," she said.
"Kneel," I said.
"Never," she said.
I looked away.
"I am kneeling," she said.
I looked back at her. She was now kneeling.
"Slave!" said the male silk slave, fastened at the wall, at the next ring.
Somehow I had known the girl would kneel to me. It is difficult to say how I had known this. Indeed, perhaps I had not known it. Perhaps I had only expected it.
She was kneeling. She had obeyed.
I recalled our earlier exchange, in which she had told me that she was not for the likes of me, but for free men. "Do you yield well in their arms, Slave?" I had asked her. "I expect you yield well indeed, Slave," I had said to her. She had flushed crimson, and had sobbed. Our relationship was now quite different than it would have been, I sensed, had that exchange not taken place. In that exchange I had made it clear to her that she was a woman, and that, if she were to relate to me, she must do so as a woman. I would have it no other way. I had seen fit, by an act of my will, that of a male, to deny to her the convenient refuges of deceit, pretense and fraud. She now knelt at my feet. I had, by an imperious word, put her there.
She looked up at me. I saw that her eyes were angry. I saw, too, in her eyes that she knew she belonged at the feet of a man.
"I am very thirsty," she said.
"What of it?" I asked.
Her eyes flashed.
I looked away, out into the street.
"I am very thirsty," said the girl, after a time. "I am chained. Would you bring me water from the fountain, please?"
"You must pay me," I said.
The male silk slave at the next ring cried out with outrage.
"You must pay me," I said. "Do you understand?"
"Clearly," she said.
I went to the fountain and, from the lower bowl, scooped up a brimming, double handful of water which I carried, carefully, to the girl. I lifted it to her lips and she, kneeling, hands bound before her body, her neck on its chain leash fastened to the ring behind her, drank. My hands were in position, when she had drunk, to hold her head. She looked at me, frightened. "I know the feel of such hands," she said. "You are not a silk slave," she whispered.
"I," said the silk slave fastened at the next ring, "if I had been free, would have fetched you the water for nothing."
"I know your sort," said the girl. "You ask nothing, but you expect much." I thrust the girl back against the wall. I thrust my lips to her throat. "I prefer a man," gasped the girl, to the silk slave, "who takes command of a girl, and takes what he wants from her." Then she said to me, sucking in her breath, turning her head to the side, "And what do you want of me?" "Everything," I told her, "and more" "I feared so," she laughed. I thrust up her bound hands, to get them out of my way. I then understood why Goreans commonly bind the hands of women behind their back. Then her bound wrists, crossed, were behind the back of my neck, and her lips began to meet mine, eagerly. "Take me," she whispered, "--Master!"
"Stop!" cried the silk slave at the next ring. "Stop! I shall tell!"
"Take me, Master!" begged the girl. "Please take me!"
"Stop!" cried the silk slave. "Stop! I shall tell! I shall tell!"
I had been had numerous times on Gor by free women, usually chained or obedient to their commands, but I had not been permitted, myself, to take a woman, to hold her in my arms, owning her, and transform her into an obedient, squirming slave. Uncontrollable, wild, starved for the ownership of a woman, I thrust her back, brutally, against the wall. Then I dragged her, half lying, holding her helplessly, from the wall. Her head was up in the leash collar. "Oh," she cried, "oh!"
"Disgusting!" I heard from a free woman passing in the street.
"Animal!" I heard another woman say.
But these passers-by, and others, did not order us apart. We were slaves. Such scenes are not unknown on Gorean streets. They would attract little more attention than would the writhings of pet sleen. It is for such reasons that slave girls are sometimes sent from their houses locked in the iron belt. To be sure the slave girl is more likely to be attacked by young ruffians than male slaves, who are often closely supervised.
"Oh," moaned the girl in my arms. "Oh, Master."
"Please take me home, Publius, and touch me," I heard a woman, in robes of concealment, say to he who walked with her upon that street.
They hurried away.
I cried out with the glory of having her.
"Master!" she wept.
I withdrew from the girl, lifting her arms from about my neck, shuddering, gasping.
"You are ruthless. Master," she said. Then she reached out to me with her mouth, and kissed me, again and again, on the left forearm.
I stood up, and left her at my feet. I was breathing heavily.
"Wait until your Mistress comes," said the silk slave at the ring. "I shall tell her."
The girl, half sitting, half kneeling, her neck in the leash collar, her hands still bound before her, put her head against the wall. She was covered with sweat, and the smell of her pleasure. Her body was covered with deep crimson blotches. Demurely she smoothed down the hem of her tunic.
I turned about to look at the street. Some twenty yards away two palanquins, heading in opposite directions, were stopped. The men in them, facing one another, were talking, presumably greeting one another and passing the time of day with genial converse. The pace of life in a Gorean city, even a large city such as Ar, does not tend to be swift. Sometimes when there is an especially beautiful sky many people will close their shops and men will flock to the high bridges to watch.  FIGHTING SLAVE OF GOR-, (14) Pages 180-184

"Why are you fearful?" asked Claudia.
"They are coming this way," said Crystal.
"They were supposed to have left the city a week ago!" I cried.
"Apparently they did not do so," said Tupa.
"There is a crowd with them," said Claudia, excited. "Let us join them, and see where they go!"
"No!" I said. "No!"
Claudia looked at me, puzzled. We were on the Street of Hermadius, off the Plaza of Tarns. We all wore draped, sleeveless white tunics. These tunics, though brief, were rather modest in appearance. To look at us you might not have known that we were feast slaves. We were barefoot. Our collars were in plain sight. In his good taste, Aemilianus did not require us to wear advertising on our backs.
"What is wrong with you?" asked Claudia.
"Nothing!" I said. I looked back up the street. The crowd, indeed, as Crystal had observed, seemed to be coming this way. They had turned into this street from the plaza itself.
I looked down at the street. It seemed dirty. This was not usual for Ar. Usually, once a week, the streets are swept and washed down. This is usually the responsibility of those whose buildings face the street, the larger avenues, squares and plazas, and such, being cleaned by state slaves. Two days ago the smaller streets, such as the Street of Hermadius, should have been cleaned. Slave girls, who often go barefoot, tend to be very much aware of this sort of thing. I saw a slave girl, in a brief, brown tunic, standing near a wall, outside of a shop. She did not seem to be going anywhere and was not chained there. I thought, then, she might belong to the owner of the shop. Perhaps she had just emerged from the shop. She was shading her eyes, and looking down the street. Probably she had heard the crowd in the distance, and had come out to see what might be afoot.
"Mistress," I said to her, to flatter her.
"Yes, High Girl," she said.
"I am not a high girl," I said.
"You wear a high girl's tunic," she said.
I swiftly knelt before her. "Are you owned by the shopkeeper here?" I asked.
"Perhaps," she said.
I looked back at the crowd, some two or three blocks away, approaching.
"Answer me a question, Mistress," I begged.
"Perhaps," she said.
"Please," I said.
"Kiss my feet, High Girl," she said.
I did so.
"What do you want to know?" she asked.
"Two nights ago," I said, "one would have expected these streets to be cleaned. Were they?"
"Is this important to you, to know this?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Kiss my feet again, High Girl," she said.
I did so.
"More deferentially and lovingly," she said.
"Yes, Mistress," I said. Then I looked up at her.
"No," she said. "We received commands from the Central Cylinder itself, from the very palace itself, not to do so. Even the great squares were not washed down this week."
"Thank you, Mistress," I said. I leaped to my feet, sick.
Claudia, Crystal and Tupa were looking down the street. The crowd was now only about a block away. In the front of the crowd, their snouts down to the ground, almost on the paving stones themselves, were two gigantic gray sleen. Their ears were laid back against their heads. Each was being restrained by two men, a stout chain leash in the hands of each man. Even so the sleen, in their eagerness, were almost dragging their keepers. Behind the sleen, huge and menacing, his chest bared, a long, coiled whip in his right hand, was Hassan, the Slave Hunter. With him were some armed men, probably his. With them, too, were some officers of Ar. With them I saw, too, one uniform of Argentum. Behind these all, eager and excited, pressing about, spilling forward about the sides, some running and pushing, was the crowd. I fled away, down the street. "Tiffany" I heard Claudia call, from behind me. I ran.  KAJIRA OF GOR-, (19) Pages 312-314

I was bewildered, and confused and miserable. I did not know if I had eluded the sleen or not. I did not know what to do. I was afraid to return to the agency and afraid not to return to it. My trails would presumably be particularly rich and numerous in that vicinity. Certainly I left that building in the morning and returned to it in the evening. On the other hand, if I did not return to it, I did not know, then, what I should do. I could not leave the city and, if I remained within it, it seemed obvious that I must be apprehended, if not by the sleen then by free citizens, probably guardsmen. I did not think it would be difficult for them to do so. I would stand out. I was garbed as what I was, a slave, and my collar, which I could not remove, clearly identified me. Indeed, as soon as it became dark I would become suspect as a runaway slave. Slave girls, with the exception of coin girls, lure girls for taverns, and such, are generally not permitted to walk unaccompanied about the streets of a city after dark. I did not have the common garb of such slaves, such as the bell and coin box chained about my neck, of the coin girl, or the tavern silk, with its advertising, of a tavern's lure girl. My absence from my kennel would presumably be reported by midnight, the twentieth hour of the Gorean day. By morning guardsmen would be alerted to be on the lookout for me. How, too, could I live in the city? I might try to live by begging and scavenging garbage for a time as do those vagrant free women sometimes called she-urts, but I being collared, could never pass for one. The she-urts often wear tunics almost as short as those of slaves. This is supposedly to make it easier for them to flee from guardsmen. On the other hand the guardsman usually ignore them. Sometimes they will catch one and bind her helplessly, just to let her know that she can be caught, if men wish. These she-urts have their gangs and territories. I had little doubt but what they might set upon me and bind me, and turn me over to guardsmen, hoping for some small reward. I, being a slave, could hope for no mercy from them. They would hate and despise me. As low as they might be they were a thousand times higher than I. They were free women. Once or twice a year, particularly when there are complaints, or they are becoming nuisances, many of them will be rounded up and taken before a praetor. Their sentence is almost invariably slavery. Interestingly, once branded and in the collar, and knowing themselves helpless and under suitable male discipline, it is said they become joyful and content. It is almost as if they had adopted their mode of life and slavelike costumes because, in some part of themselves, perhaps some deep, hidden part, they were begging men to take them and make them slaves. They thought they hated men but they were, in fact, only begging to be put at their feet.  KAJIRA OF GOR-, (19) Pages 316-317

I looked down one of the side streets. Some of these streets, like many streets in Gorean cities, did not even have regular names. One finds one's way about by knowing the area or inquiring for directions from those who do. Some streets' are known informally by descriptions such as "the street where the leather worker Vaskon has his shop," "the street where the poet, Tesias, wrote such and such a poem," "the street where you can find the house of the general, Hasdron," "the street of the tarsk fountain," and so on. Irritatingly enough the same street is sometimes known by different names to different people. It is fairly common, for example, for a given street to be commonly known by one name at one end of it and another name at the other end of it, and perhaps by even another name or two, or three, along its length. For example, at one end people might think of it as the street where Vaskon, the leather worker, has his shop, and at the other end people will think of it as the street where Milo the Baker has his pastry shop. Sometimes incidents seem to give names to streets as well, such as "Fire Street," "Flood Street," "the street of the Six Raped Slaves," and so on. There seems to be a natural development, in many cases, from an unnamed but familiar street, to a street which is usually thought of under a given description, to a street which finally receives a name in a fairly ordinary sense. For example, "the street where the Initiates have their temple" is not unlikely to become "Temple Street"; "the street where you can find the brewery" may well become "Brewery Street," and so on. For example, one would expect, eventually, that the streets where Tesias wrote such and such a poem, or set of poems, such as, say, the Oracles of the Talender, will become more simply something like "Tesias Street" or even, as Tesias himself might have preferred, "TaIender Street." Street signs in Gorean cities, where they exist, incidentally, are not mounted on poles. They are commonly painted a few feet above the ground, on buildings at corners. Many buildings at intersections in Ar, incidentally, particularly where the streets are narrow, have rounded comers. This is to enable fire wagons speeding through the streets to make faster turns.  KAJIRA OF GOR-, (19) Page 318

The high, uprearing walls of the city, some hundred feet or more in height, the sun bright upon them, stretched into the distance. They were now white. That had been done, apparently, since the time of Cernus, the usurper, and the restoration of Marlenus, ubar of ubars. It was hard to look at them, for the glare upon them. We could see the great gate, too, and the main road leading to it, the Viktel Aria. Indeed, we ourselves, soon, I thought, would transfer to the Viktel Aria. Within the gamut of those gleaming walls, so lofty and mighty, rose thousands of buildings, and a veritable forest of ascendant towers, of diverse heights and colors. Many of these towers, I knew, were joined by traceries of soaring bridges, set at different levels. These bridges, however, save for tiny glintings here and there, could not be well made out at this distance.
"I do not think I have ever seen anything so beautiful," said a man.
We were looking upon what was doubtless the greatest city of known Gor.
"I did not know it was like that," said another man.
I remembered the great gate. I remembered, long ago, the horde of Pa-Kur. I did not forget the house of Cernus, the Stadium of Tarns, the great tarn, Ubar of the Skies, the racing factions, the Stadium of Blades, the bloodied sands of the arena. I had not forgotten the streets, the baths, the shops, the broad, noble avenues, with their fountains, the narrow, twisting streets, little more than darkened corridors, shielded from the sun, of the lower districts.
"I have never seen anything like it," said a man.
"Nor I," said another, in awe.
I gazed upon the city. In such places came together the complexities and the poverties, the elementalities and the richnesses of the worlds. In such places were to be found the rare, precious habitats of culture, the astonishing, moving delights of art and music, the truths of theater and literature, the glories and allegories of architecture, bespeaking the meanings of peoples, man-made symbols like mountain ranges; in them, too, were to be found iron and silver, and gold and steel, the chairs of finance and the thrones of power. I gazed at the shining city. How startling it seemed. Such places were like magnets to man; they call to him like gilded sirens; they lure him inward to their dazzling wonders, bewitching him with their often so meretricious whispered promises; they were symbols of races. In them were fortunes to be sought, and fortunes to be won, and fortunes to be lost; in them there were crowds, and loneliness, in them success trod the same pavements as failure; in their plazas hope jostled with despair, and meaning ate at the same table with meaninglessness. In such places were perhaps the best and worst that man could do, his past and future, his pain and pleasure, his darkness and light, come together in a single focus.
"Drink, cool drinks!" called a woman, selling juices by the side of the road, coming up to the cart. There was a small crowd at the crest of the hill. It was a place where carts, and wagons, and travelers often stopped. In such a place there were coins to be made. She paid no attention to the sight below. Doubtless she had seen it a thousand times. Her eyes were on possible customers.
"Would you like a drink?" I asked Boabissia.
"Yes," she said.
I purchased her some larma juice for a tarsk bit.
"Is it cool?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. The morning was hot.
It would have been stored overnight, I assumed, in an amphora, buried to the neck in the cool earth. Sometimes Earth girls, first brought to Gor, do not understand why so many of these two-handled, narrow-necked vessels have such a narrow, usually pointed base, for they cannot stand upright on such a base. They have not yet learned that these vessels are not intended to stand upright. Rather they are commonly fitted into a storage hole, buried there to keep their contents cool, the necks above the earth. The pointed base, of course, presses into the soft earth at the bottom of the storage hole.
"Bread, meat!" called a fellow, coming up beside the cart. Several of us availed ourselves of his provender. I bought some wedges of Sa-Tarna bread and slices of dried tarsk meat, taking some and giving the rest to Boabissia and Hurtha. I also went to the back of the cart, to the baggage area where I kept Feiqa. I gave her some of my bread and meat. I did not permit her to touch it with her hands, but, reaching between the thick wooden bars, some six inches apart, to where she knelt among the packs and boxes at the back, fed her by hand. "Thank you, Master," she said.  MERCENARIES OF GOR-, (21) Pages 255-258

"Come along," I said to my party. I led them east on Venaticus, to the Avenue of the Central Cylinder. It was then my intention to go south on that avenue until I came to Wagon Street, taking it east to Turia. There is more than one "wagon Street" in Ar, incidentally, but the one I had in mind, that which led to the Street of Brands, was the one usually called Wagon Street. The "wagon streets" are generally east-west streets. They are called that, I suppose, because they are open to wagon traffic during the day, and wide enough for two wagons to pass on them. On many streets in Ar wagon traffic is discouraged during daylight hours because of their narrowness. There is little difficulty, of course, with the avenues and boulevards. They are generally wider. Many girls, incidentally, have been on Wagon Street, being brought down it on their first trip to Ar, though perhaps they did not see much of it, their ankles chained to the central bar in the blue-and-yellow slave wagons, those delivering them, according, say to the disk numbers on their collars, or the addresses marked on their left breasts, to the various houses on the Street of Brands.  MERCENARIES OF GOR-, (21) Page 268

"Another for the black chain of Ionicus," said one of my master’s men. Ionicus was a master of work chains. He had several, the "red chain," the "green chain," "the yellow chain," and so on, each of which boasted several hundred men. Supposedly these were free work chains, "free" in the sense of not utilizing slaves. Goreans generally do not employ slaves for such labors as road construction, siege works, raising walls, and so on. Similarly they generally would not use them for the construction of temples and public buildings. Most such work is generally done by the free labor of a given community, though this "free labor" may, upon occasion, particularly in emergencies, be "levied," the laborers then contributing their labor as a form of special tax, or, if you like, "conscripted" or "drafted," rather as if for military service. Usually, of course, the free labor is paid, and with more than provisions and shelter, either from public or private funds. Any city in which free laborers tended to be systematically robbed of their employments in virtue of imbonded competition would doubtless be inviting discontent, and perhaps, eventually, revolution. Besides, the free laborers share a Home Stone with the aristocracies of these cities, the upper castes, the higher families, the richer families, and so on. Accordingly, because of this commonality of the Home Stone, love of their city, the sharing of citizenship, and such, there is generally a harmonious set of economic compromises obtaining the labor force, in general. Happily, most of these compromises are unquestioned matters of cultural tradition. They are taken for granted, usually, by all the citizens, and their remote origins, sometimes doubtless the outcome of internecine strife, of class war, of street fighting and riots, of bloody, house-to-house, determinations in the past, and such, are seldom investigated, save perhaps by historians, scribes of the past, some seeking, it seems, to know the truth, for its own sake, others seemingly seeking lessons in the rich labyrinths of history, in previous human experience, what is to be emulated, and what is to be avoided. Some think that out of such crises came the invention of the Home Stone. There are, of course, several mythical accounts of the origin of the Home Stone. One popular account has it that an ancient hero, Hesius, once performed great labors for Priest-Kings, and was promised a reward greater than gold and silver. He was given, however, only a flat piece of rock with a single character inscribed on it, the first letter in the name of his native village. He reproached the Priest-Kings with their niggardliness, and what he regarded as their breach of faith. He was told, however, that what they gave him was indeed worth far more than gold and silver, that it was a "Home Stone." He returned to his native village, which was torn with war and strife. He told the story there, and put the stone in the market place. "If the Priest-Kings say this is worth more than gold and silver," said a wise man, "it must be true." "Yes," said the people. "Whose Home Stone is it?" asked the people, "yours or ours?" "Ours," responded Hesius. Weapons were then laid aside, and peace pledged. The name of the village was "Ar." It is generally accepted in Gorean tradition that the Home Stone of Ar is the oldest Home Stone on Gor.  DANCER OF GOR-, (22) Pages 301-302

We then left the Avenue of Turia and were once again on a side street. Many Gorean streets, incidentally, do not have specific names, particularly from one end to the other, some being known by one designation here and another there. Indeed, sometimes a long, winding street will have several names, depending on its turns and so on. Others may have no names really, in themselves, but are referred to, for example, as the street on which Sabor has his smithy, and so on. This becomes more intelligible if one thinks of "alleys." For example, alleys seldom have names. So, too, many Gorean streets, particularly those that are smaller and much like alleys, may not have names. One may usually hire a lad from the district to direct inquiries of fellows in the area. In such inquiries, the male will normally speak to a male, and the female to a female. This has to do not only with matters of propriety, enshrined in Gorean custom, but also with common-sense security measures. For example, a woman would not wish to seem forward, nor, in effect, to be calling herself to the attention of a strange male, which can be dangerous on Gor, and a woman, a free woman, might be well advised not to respond to the accostings of a strange male. He might even be a slaver, or a slaver's man, interested in seeing if she had a pleasing voice, one suitable for a slave. Similarly if she responds to a strange male this may be taken as evidence that she is eager to please a man and obey, two attributes which suggest her readiness, even immediately, for his collar. One may, of course, make such inquiries of slave girls. In such a case they are expected to kneel immediately, being in the presence of a free man, or person, and be as helpful as possible. It is desirable, incidentally, for the girls of a district to know the district well, in case they are asked for directions and such. If they do not know the information desired, it is sensible on their part to keep their head very low, even to the stones, or even to belly to the interlocutor. This may save them a cuffing or kick.  MAGICIANS OF GOR-, (25) Pages 108-109

Many Gorean streets, incidentally, are almost always in shade because of their narrowness and the encompassing buildings. A result of this is that one is not always clear as to the position of the sun and, accordingly, it is easy to lose one's orientation, even as to the time of day. The fact that not all Gorean streets have generally accepted or marked names can add to the confusion. To one who knows the area this presents little difficulty but to a stranger, or one unfamiliar with the area, it can be extremely confusing. Interestingly enough many Gorean municipalities intentionally resist the attempt to impose some form of rational order on this seeming chaos. This is not simply because of the Gorean's typical reverence for tradition but because it is thought to have some military advantage, as well. For example, portions of invading forces have upon several occasions, in one city or another, literally become lost in the city, with the result that they have been unable to rally, rendezvous, group and attain objectives. Cases have been reported where an enemy force has literally withdrawn from a city and some of its components have remained in the city, wandering about for a day or two, out of communication with the main forces. Needless to say, the military situation of such isolated contingents is an often unenviable one. More than one such group has been set upon and destroyed. To be sure, invaders usually supply themselves with fellows who are familiar with the city. It is illegal in many cities, incidentally, to take maps of the city out of the city. More than one fellow, too, has put himself in the quarries or on the bench of a galley for having been caught with such a map in his possession.  MAGICIANS OF GOR-, (25) Pages 387-388
 

Kudos to you, Mr. Norman for writing the Gorean series!
A rich, yet utterly simple saga; a world, a time, a people;
those of the Counter-Earth .. the planet .. Gor.
Thank you!

The material presented herein was researched and compiled by me, naia{Saul}.
The material referenced comes from John Norman's Gor Series, The Counter-Earth Saga.
This is a work in process.
Please, do not take, copy, duplicate, or use this work as your own.
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