Civitatis Ar, Plus!

Slaves

State

Most of the individuals in the Central Cylinder were men of lower caste, attending to their duties, with the exception of numerous Scribes. I saw two Physicians. From time to time I saw a slave girl in the halls. The female state slave of Ar wears a brief, gray slave livery, with matching gray collar. Save for the color it is identical with most common slave livery. About her left ankle is normally locked a gray steel band, to which five simple bells of gray metal, are attached. Many years ago, in Ar and Ko-ro-ba, and several of the other northern cities, and common slave livery had been white but diagonally striped, in one color or another; gradually over the years this style had changed; the standard livery was also, now, commonly, slashed to the waist; as before, it remained sleeveless; these matters, as generally in the cut of robes and style of tunics, undergo the transitions of fashion. I smiled. One of the decrees of Marlenus, uttered at his victory feast, yesterday evening, to rounds of drunken cheers and applause, and been to decree a two-hort, approximately two and one-half inch, heightening of the hemline in the already rather briefly skirted livery of female state slaves; this morning I supposed this decree would be adopted by the private slave owners of Ar as well; indeed, I noted that already the effects of the decree were evident in the livery of the girls I passed in the halls. The hair of the female state slave of Ar, incidentally, is normally cut rather short and brushed back around the head; the common slave girl, on the other hand, normally has rather long hair, which is unbound.  ASSASSIN OF GOR-, (5) Pages 393-394

It could be perhaps mentioned that such work, cooking, cleaning and laundering, and such, is commonly regarded as being beneath even free women, particularly those of high caste. In the high cylinders, in Gorean cities, there are often public slaves who tend the central kitchens in cylinders, care for the children, but may not instruct them, and, for a tiny fee to the city, clean compartments and do laundering. Thus even families who cannot afford to own and feed a slave often have the use of several such unfortunate girls, commonly captured from hostile cities. Free women often treat such girls with great cruelty, and the mere word of a free woman, that she is displeased with the girl’s work, is enough to have the girl beaten. The girls strive zealously in their work to please the free women. Such girls, also, have a low use-rent, payable to the city, should young males wish to partake of their pleasures. Here again, the mere word of the free person, that he is not completely pleased, is enough to earn the miserable girl a severe beating. Accordingly, she struggles to please him with all her might. It is not pleasant, I fear, to be a public slave. The Gorean free woman, often, does only what work she chooses. If she does not wish to prepare a meal, she and her companions may go to the public tables, or, should they wish, order a girl to bring them food from the central kitchens.  CAPTIVE OF GOR-, (7) Page 317

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.  KAJIRA OF GOR-, (19) Pages 312-313

At one point, to the shouts and delight of the men of the Ubar some two or three hundred girls were ushered quickly into the room of the court. They wore the brief gray livery of the state slave of Ar, slashed to the waist, knotted with a gray cord; about their throats was locked the gray metal collar of Ar's state slave; they were barefoot; on the left ankle of each was the gray metal band, with its five gray bells, worn by the female state slave. Their hair, in state fashion, had been cut short, shaped, and combed back around the head. The wrists of each were confined behind her back with gray slave bracelets. They were chained in long lines by the collars, five-foot lengths of chain being used, with a snap at each end fastening to a given collar, each collar, save for those terminating a line being fastened on two sides.
"Here are the most choice of the female slaves of the House of Cernus," said Marlenus, expansively gesturing to the two or three hundred girls.
There was a cheer from the many partisans of Marlenus in the room.
"Pick your slave," said he.
With great cheers the men hurried to the girls, to pick one that pleased them.
There were shouts of pleasure, and screams, and protests, and cries and laughter, as the men clapped their hands on wenches who struck their fancy. When the men had taken their pick the girls were released from the common chain and the key, that which served to unlock collar, bracelets and anklet, was given to he who had chosen his prize. Scribes at nearby tables endorsed and updated papers of registration, that the ownership of the girls be legally transferred from the state ot individual citizens.
There was silence in the room when one girl, alone, was brought forth. She was attired as were the others, in the brief livery of the state slave of Ar. Her wrists, like theirs had been, were confined behind her back. The belled anklet was the only sound in the room as she came forward, trembling. She walked between two Warriors. Each held a five-foot chain leash that was snapped on her gray collar. When she had reached the tiles before the throne of the Ubar, she knelt, head down. The Warriors, bolding their leashes, stood on each side of her.
"Slave," said Marlenus.
The girl lifted her head. "Master?" she said.
"What is your name?" asked he.
"Claudia Tentia Hinrabia," she whispered.
"You are the last of the Hinrabians?" asked Marlenus.
"Yes, Master," she said, her head down, not daring to lift it, to gaze into the terrible countenance of Marlenus, her Ubar.
"Many times," said Marlenus, "your father, when Administrator of Ar, by stealth and openly, sought my destruction. Many times did he send Assassins and spies, and tarnsmen, to the Voltai, to find me and my men, and destroy us."
The girl trembled, saying nothing.
"He was my enemy," said Marlenus.
"Yes, Master," she whispered.
"And you are his daughter," he said.
"Yes, Master," whispered the girl. She trembled in the chains of the state slave. The Warriors seemed very tall and powerful beside her. She suddenly put her head down to the tiles.
"Shall it be torture and public impalement for you?" asked Marlenus.
She trembled.
"Well?" asked Marlenus.
"Whatever Master wishes," she whispered.
"Or perhaps," said Marlenus. "It might be more amusing to keep you as a Pleasure Slave in my Pleasure Gardens."
The girl dared not lift her head. "Whatever Master wishes," she whispered.
"Or should I free you?" asked Marlenus.
She looked up, startled.
"That you may be kept locked in a compartment of the central cylinder, not as slave but prisoner, a high-born woman, to be mated in the future as best accords with the politics of Ar, as I see fit?"
There were tears in her eyes.
"That way," said he, "a Hinrabian might at last well serve the interests of Ar."
"That way," whispered the girl, "I would be more a slave than a slave."
"I free you," said Marlenus, "but I free you that you may be at liberty to go where you will, and do what you wish."
She looked at him, suddenly, her eyes wide, startled.
"You will receive a pension from the state," said Marlenus, "ample to the needs of a woman of High Caste."
"Ubar!" she cried. "Ubar!"
He now spoke to the guards with her. "See that she is in all things treated as the daughter of a former Administrator of Ar."
Claudia, weeping, was conducted from the hall.
Following this more business was conducted. I remembered among this business arose the matter of more than one hundred exotic slaves from the House of Cernus, the white-robed girls who had been raised without the knowledge of the existence of men.
"They know nothing of slavery," said Marlenus. "Let them not learn now."
The girls would be treated gently, and brought well into the world of Gor, with as much tenderness as so harsh a society permitted, being freed and domiciled individually with Gorean families, whose households did not contain slaves.  ASSASSIN OF GOR-, (5) Pages 395-398

Why had this been done to me? Was this the reward for my services? And what of Elizabeth? Was it that Marlenus had looked upon her and so pleasing did he find her that he had decreed that she be reserved for the very Pleasure Gardens of the Ubar of Ar himself, to serve him as a silken wench, one of perhaps hundreds waiting perhaps a year for his casual notice or his touch? Men such as Marlenus are wont to take what pleases them, and to hold it, should they wish, at the point of a blade. Had it been that his eye had glanced upon her and he had, by the prerogative of the Ubar, commanded her to his slave ring. But was this honor? My hatred for the Ubar of Ar, whom I had helped restore to his throne, welled up within me, volcanic, molten and black. My hand was clutched on the hilt of my sword.
I threw open the door to my compartment.
The girl turned and faced me suddenly. She wore the briefly skirted gray slave livery of the state slave of Ar, the gray collar, the slender band of gray metal with its five simple bells locked about her left ankle. I heard the bells as she moved toward me. In her eyes there were tears.
I took Elizabeth Cardwell into my arms. I felt that never would I let her go. We wept, our tears meeting in her hair and on our cheeks as we kissed and touched. The tiny, fine golden ring of the Tuchuk woman was in her nose.
"I love you, Tarl," she said.
"I love you," I cried. "I love you, my Elizabeth!"
Unnoticed Hup, the small Fool, had entered the room. He carried with him some papers. There were tears in his eyes.
After a time, he spoke. "There is only an hour," said he, "until sundown."
Holding Elizabeth I looked at him.
"Thank Marlenus, Ubar of Ar, for me," said I.
Hup nodded. "Yesterday evening," said he, "Marlenus sent her to you, to tie your sandals, to serve you wine, but you refused even to look upon her."
Elizabeth laughed and pressed her cheek to my left shoulder.
"I have been refused bread, and fire and salt," I said to Elizabeth.
She nodded. "Yes," she said. She looked at me, bewildered. "Hup told me yesterday it would be so."
I looked at Hup.
"But why has this been done to me?" I asked. "It seems unworthy of the hand of a Ubar."
"Have you forgotten," asked he, "the law of the Home Stone?"
I gasped.
"Better surely banishment than torture and impalement."
"I do not understand," said Elizabeth.
"In the year 10,110, more than eight years ago, a tarnsman of Ko-ro-ba purloined the Home Stone of the city."
"It was I," I told Elizabeth.
She shuddered, for she knew the penalties that might attach to such a deed.
"As Ubar," said Hup, "it would ill become Marlenus to betray the law of the Home Stone of Ar."
"But he gave no explanation," I protested.
"An Ubar gives no accounting," said Hup.
"We fought together," said I, "back to back. I helped him to regain his throne. I was once the companion of his daughter."
"I say because I know him," said Hup, "though I might die from the saying of it, Marlenus is grieved. He is much grieved. But he is Ubar. He is Ubar. More than man, more than Marlenus, he is Ubar of my city, of Ar itself."
I looked at him.
"Would you," asked Hup, "betray the Home Stone of Ko-ro-ba?"
My hand leaped to the hilt of my sword.
Hup smiled. "Then," said he, "do not think Marlenus, whatever the price or cost, his grief, his dream, would betray that of Ar."
"I understand," I said.
"If a Ubar does not respect the law of the Home Stone, what man shall?"
"None," said I. "It is hard to be Ubar."
"It is less than an hour to sundown," said Hup.
I held Elizabeth to me.
"I have brought you papers," said Hup. "They have been endorsed to you. The slave is yours."
Elizabeth looked at Hup. He was Gorean. To him she was that, simply, a slave.
To me she seemed the world.
"Write on the papers," said I, "that on this first day of the restoration of Marlenus of Ar, the slave Vella was by her master, Tarl of Ko-ro-ba, granted her freedom."
Hup shrugged, and so endorsed the papers. I signed them, my name in Gorean script, followed by the sign of the city of Ko-ro-ba.
Hup gave me the key to Elizabeth's collar and anklet and I freed her of the steel that marked her slave.
"I will file the papers in the cylinder of documents," said Hup.
I took the free woman, Vella of Gor, Elizabeth Cardwell of Earth, in my arms.  ASSASSIN OF GOR-, (5) Pages 406-407

I went over and picked up the sewing which Phoebe had dropped to the floor, when she had leaped to her feet. It was a tunic resembling that of a state slave, done in the new fashion. The garmenture of the state slave, that of a girl owned by the city itself, some time ago, had been brief, sleeveless and gray, slashed to the waist. The collar worn by such slaves had been gray, matching the tunic, and it had been customary to lock about their left ankle a steel band, also gray, from which depended five small bells, also of gray metal. Fashions in such things tended to change, of course, even in normal times. For example, the hemlines might go up and down a bit, the garments might be accented or trimmed with color, or not, the number of bells on the ankle might be increased, say, to seven, or be returned to the original five, and so on. Currently, however, the garmenture of the state slaves, as one might have expected, given the defeat of Ar and the hegemony of Cos, had been considerably altered. No longer were the tunics slashed to the waist. Now the necklines were high, and about the throat. Similarly the hemlines had been considerably lowered, just above the knee. These alterations had been introduced to assist in the subjugation of the men of Ar, by seeking to depress their sexual vitality. Similarly, of course, no longer were the left ankles of the slaves belled. the sound of slave bells on a woman's ankle tends to be sexually stimulating to a male. To be sure, of late, with the rise of the Delta Brigade, and the undercurrent of unrest in Ar, there seethed in the city, doubtless to the dismay of Cos, a surgency of male energies. As I have mentioned earlier, many masters, now, no longer sent their slaves unescorted about the city, until they had fastened them in the iron belt. The slave tunic of the state slave was still sleeveless, however. That is common with slave garments.  MAGICIANS OF GOR-, (25) Page 340

I rose to my feet and indicated that she should do so, as well,. She had already donned the livery intended to resemble the state livery of Ar, and I had earlier put on her neck the collar designed to resemble a state collar. Indeed, I had even a few days ago, stopped a state slave, to check her collar. "RETURN ME TO THE WHIP MASTER OF THE CENTRAL CYLINDER" read the legend on the collar. I picked up the small cloak she had worn, and put it about her shoulders. I smiled to myself. It was much like a fellow helping a young lady on with her cloak, or coat. Yet what a difference there was here. I could do what I wanted with her. I owned her. We then, I first, she following behind at an interval, left our small room, in the insula of Torbon on Demetrios street, in the Metellan district. I was pleased, for my own purposes, at any rate, that state slaves in Ar were no longer belled, a consequence of the misguided and unsuccessful policies of Cos, to devirilize, and thus make more manageable, the men of Ar. Thus that the slave, Lavinia, beneath the cloak, was in state livery, you see, would not be suggested to any in the streets outside.  MAGICIANS OF GOR-, (25) Page 372

The lot of a state slave can be one of great deprivation. Indeed, I fear it often is. Certainly it is commonly regarded as an extremely unenviable slavery by most slaves. To be sure, they are occasionally made available to male slaves, guards and such. Some state slaves, of course, usually girls of unusual beauty, are used at state banquets, to serve and entertain. But even there the state not unoften utilizes trained feast slaves, rented from various establishments or, upon certain occasions, even the girls from a Ubar's own pleasure gardens.  MAGICIANS OF GOR-, (25) Page 376

The palanquin now having been set down, its bearers, its accompanying free men, and the two men who had accompanied the fellow from the theater, withdrew. This left the fellow in a position to conduct some form of tête-à-tête with the palanquin's occupant, of the privacy of which she would presumably wish to be assured. I wondered if this fellow commonly ran such a gauntlet on his way back from the theater to the house of his master, Appanius of Ar. When the palanquin stopped, Lavinia did, too, naturally, and, of course, some yards behind her, so, too, did I. While the fellow was engaged in discourse with the palanquin's occupant one of the free men, the fellow who had gone on ahead to call upon the fellow and his companions to wait, took notice of Lavinia and began to approach her. She must have seen him coming, for she reacted in fear, and turned about. She cast a wild glance toward me, but I pretended not to notice. She began to come back, back down Aulos, in my direction, but he called out, "Hold, female slave!" I was afraid for a moment that she might panic and bolt in which case he would presumably have her in custody in a moment and she would have been beaten. If he did not catch her I would have to beat her tonight, for having disobeyed a command of that sort, from a free person. Such are not to be disobeyed. But, to my satisfaction, accosted, although she had apparently momentarily gripped with fear, she had the good sense to turn about and kneel. Also, as he was a man, she had her knees in proper position. One of the advantages of that position, aside from its general suitability and its effect on the female, is that it commonly has placatory value. The fellow had, I assumed, noted her lingering about, too, in the vicinity of the theater, and had probably noted that she was following them, or, more likely, he whom they were following. Perhaps, while he was waiting, in order to while away the time, it was his intent to draw her aside, into a doorway, and thrust her back against the door or wall, for a bit of brief sport. I did not think I would object to this, if no danger came to the note. Too this might fit in with her guise as a state slave, for such are often not averse to such attentions, and have something of a reputation of provoking them. As I have earlier indicated the state is generally heedless of the sexual needs of its state slaves. At any rate, it seldom seems inclined to make any adequate provision for the satisfaction of these very real, and very profound, needs. To be sure, what does it matter, as the women are only slaves? On the other hand, it might be noted that state slaves being sold into the private sector often bring good prices. They seem eager to become private slaves, with a given master, whom they may then try to serve with such perfection and devotion that they may hope to exert some influence, however small, on the quality of their lives, for example, with respect to the nature of the contentments they may receive, those which their master may deign to bestow upon them. On the other hand, his mien seemed hostile, so I moved somewhat closer. He stood now before Lavinia, angrily, who, wide-eyed, kneeling, quaked before him. She spread her knees even more. I saw now that it was apparently his intention to protect his employer's interests, as he saw them, that he wished to warn her away. That would not do. He drew back his hand to cuff the slave. As his hand came forward I intercepted it, and held it, by the wrist, in midair. "Ai!' he cried out, in surprise, in anger, in pain. When he ceased to struggle I released his hand. He pulled his wrist away, angrily, rubbing it.  MAGICIANS OF GOR-, (25) Pages 379-380
 

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.
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