|
 Bond GirlThis is my short narrative and relevant references from the Books where Bond Girl or Bond-Maid are mentioned. I make no pronouncements on these matters, but report them as I find them. Arrive at your own conclusions. I wish you well, Fogaban
This is certainly not every instance where the word "bond" appears within the series. What I have included below are those quotes which provide an understanding of the life of a bond girl. And what should become clear is that a bond-maid, bond-girl is not a separate type of enslavement. It's just another word for slave. "Go to the bond-maid circle," said Ivar Forkbeard, indicating the circle he had drawn in the dirt. The women cried out in misery. To enter the circle, if one is a female, is, by the laws of Torvaldsland, to declare oneself a bond-maid. A woman, of course, need not to enter the circle of her own free will. She may, for example, be thrown within it, naked and bound. Howsoever she enters the circle, voluntarily, or by force, free or secured, she emerges from it, by the laws of Torvaldsland, as a bond-maid. She held up her head. "No," she said. "I am free. Never will I consent to be a bond-maid. I shall first choose death!" "Very well," laughed the Forkbeard. "Kneel." Startled, she did so, uncertainly. "Put your head down," he said, "throw your hair forward, exposing your neck." She did so. He lifted the great ax. Suddenly she cried out and thrust her head to his boot. She held his ankle. "Have mercy on a bond-maid!" she wept. "Bond-maids," ordered Ivar Forkbeard harshly, "strip!" Crying out the girls removed their garments. I saw that the weeping, slender blond-hair girl was incredibly beautiful. Her legs and belly, and breasts, were marvelous. And her face, too, was beautiful, sensitive and intelligent. I envied the Forkbeard his catch. "Fetter them," said Ivar Forkbeard. "I hear the townsfolk gathering," said one of the men at the door. Two of the men of Torvaldsland had, from their left shoulder to their right hip, that their right arms be less I impeded, a chain formed of slave bracelets; each pair of bracelets locked at each end about one of the bracelets of another pair, the whole thus forming a circle. Now they removed this chain of bracelets, and, one by one, removed the pairs, closing them about the small wrists, behind their backs, of the female captives, now bond-maids. Aelgifu, clothed, led the coffle. She was free. The others were only bond-maids. The beams which secured the doors were thrown back, but the doors were not opened. The men of Torvaldsland struggled to lift their burdens. Gold is not light. "Utilize the bond-maids," said the Forkbeard, angrily. Swiftly, about the necks of the bond-maids were tied strings plate. Soon, they, too, were heavily burdened. Several staggered under the weight of the riches they bore. "In the north, my pretty maids," Ivar assured them, "the burdens you carry will be more prosaic, bundles of wood for the fires, buckets of water for the hall, baskets of dung for the fields." They looked at him with horror understanding then what the nature of their life would be. And at night, of course, they would serve the feasts of their masters, carrying and filling the great the horns, and delighting them with the softness of their bodies in the furs. Some say the master belt gets its name because it is used sometimes in the disciplining of bond-maids. This seems to be a doubtful origin for the name. It is true, however, questions of the origin of the name aside, that bond-maids, stripped, are often taught obedience under its lash. Behind us, amidships, we heard the weeping of women fettered bond-maids being carried north to serve harsh masters. Like the bond-maids, she had been fed only on cold Sa-Tarna porridge and scraps of dried parsit fish. As he approached the bond-maids they shrank back from him, fearing him, as would any bond-maid one of the men of Torvaldsland. "Now turn about," said he, "and walk there as a bond-maid." Her face went white. Then she turned and walked to the opened planking as a bond-maid. The other bond-maids gasped. The men watching her hooted with pleasure. I grinned. I wanted her. "Bond-maid!" scorned Aelgifu, from where she was fettered and chained to the mast. I gathered that these two, in Kassau, had been rival beauties. Then, sobbing, the blondish girl, who had been forced to walk as a bond-maid, fell to her knees beside the opened planking. Once she vomited over the side. But, on the whole, she did well. "Give Gorm back the scoop," said the Forkbeard, "and then carry water to my men." "Yes," she said. The Forkbeard looked at her. "Yes," she said "- my Jarl." To the bond-maid the meanest of the free men of the North is her jarl. The men who had fished with the net had now cleaned the catch of parsit fish, and chopped the cleaned, boned, silverish bodies into pieces, a quarter inch in width. Another of the bond-maids was then freed to mix the bond-maid gruel, mixing fresh water with Sa-Tarna meal, and then stirring in the raw fish. The bond-maids did not much care for their gruel, unsweetened, mudlike Sa-Tarna meal, with raw fish. They fed, however. One girl who did not care to feed was struck twice across her back by a knotted rope in the hand of Gorm. Quickly then, and well, she fed. The girls, including the slender blondish girl, emptied their bowls, even to licking them, and rubbing them with their saliva-dampened fingers, that no grain be left, lest Gorm, their keeper in the ship, should not be pleased. They looked to one another in fear, and put down their bowls, as they finished, fed bondwenches. "I will not eat the gruel of bond-maids," said Aelgifu. "You will eat it," said the Forkbeard, "or you will be stripped and put to the oar." She looked at him with horror. "That will not violate you, my pretty," said the Forkbeard. In this punishment, the girl, clothed or unclothed, is bound tightly on an oar, hands behind her, her head down, toward the blade. When the oar lifts from the water she gasps for breath, only in another moment to be submerged again. A recalcitrant girl may be kept on the oar for hours. There is also, however, some danger in this, for sea sleen and the white sharks of the north occasionally attempt to tear such a girl from the oar. When food is low it is not unknown for the men of Torvaldsland to use a bond-maid, if one is available on the ship, for bait in such a manner. The least pleasing girl is always used. This practice, of course, encourages bondmaids to vie vigorously to please their masters. An Ahn on the oar is usually more than sufficient to make the coldest and proudest of females an obedient, eager-to-please bond-maid. It is regarded as second only to the five-lash Gorean slave whip, used also in the south, and what among the men of Torvaldsland is called the whip of the furs, in which the master, with his body, incontrovertibly teaches the girl her slavery. "You are too pretty to ransom," he informed her, and turned away. To Gorm, he said, "Feed her on the gruel of bond-maids." I saw people running down the sloping green land, toward the water. Several came from within the palisade. Among them, white kirtled collared, excited, ran bond-maids. These, upon the arrival of their master, are permitted to greet him. The men of the north enjoy the bright eyes, the leaping bodies, the squealing, the greetings of their bond-maids. A bond-maid thrust through the crowd. "Does my Jarl not remember Gunnhild?" she asked. She whimpered, and slipped to his side, holding him, lifting her lips to kiss him on the throat, beneath the beard. About her neck, riveted, was a collar of black iron, with a welded ring, to which a chain might be attached. "What of Pouting Lips?" said another girl, kneeling before him, lifting her eyes to his. The brand used by the Forkbeard, found rather frequently in the north, consisted of a half circle, with, at its right tip, adjoining it, a steep, diagonal line. The half circle is about an inch and a quarter in width, and the diagonal line about an inch and a quarter in height. The brand is, like many, symbolic. In the north, the bond-maid is sometimes referred to as a woman whose belly lies beneath the sword. "Sometimes," said he, "to discipline a bond-maid, she is hurled naked among the thralls." He smiled. "Do not fear. Should this be done to you I, in my turn, shall use you well Bond-maid. Quite well." The two bond-maids, stripped, too, like the others, for the feast, Pretty Ankles and Pouting Lips, struggled down the length of the smoky, dark hall, a spitted, roasted tarsk on their shoulders. They were slapped by the men, hurrying them along. They laughed with pleasure. Their shoulders were protected from the heat of the metal spit by rolls of leather. The bond-maid, Olga, laughing and kicking, thrown helplessly over the shoulder of an oarsman, was carried past. I saw several of the bond-maids in the arms of Ivar's men. Among them, too, some trying to resist, were the new girls. One, who had irritated an oarsman, her hands held, was beaten, crying out, with his belt. Released, she began to kiss him, weeping, trying to please him. Men laughed. Another of the new girls was thrown over one of the benches; she lay on her back; her head was down, her dark hair, long, wild, was in the dirt and reeds, strewn on the floor of the hall; her head twisted from side to side; her eyes were close her lips were parted; I saw her teeth. "Do not stop, my Jarl," she begged. "Your bond-maid begs you not to stop!" Bond-maids, collared and naked, fled about, filling horns with mead. Then he again thrust her back to the furs, with such force that she cried out, and then he, with rudeness and incredible force, used her for his pleasure. I saw her body struck again and again, she clinging to him, helplessly. He gave her no quarter. Bond-maids are treated without mercy. Thyri, and other bond-maids, leaped and clapped their hands. How alive and vital they seemed! Their hair was loose, in the fashion of bond-maids. Their eyes shone; their cheeks were flushed; each inch of them, each marvelous imbonded inch of them, was incredibly alive and beautiful. How incredibly feminine they were, so living and uninhibited and delightful, so utterly fresh, so free, so spontaneous, so open in their emotions and the movements of their bodies; they now moved and laughed and walked, and stood, as women, pride was not permitted them; joy was. Only a kirtle of thin, white wool, split to the belly, stood between their beauty and the leather of their masters. The daughter of Gurt, the Administrator of Kassau, was being taught to bake. She watched fearfully as the Forkbeard bit into one. "It needs more salt," he had said to her. She shuddered. "Do you think you are a bond-maid of the south?" he asked. "No, my Jarl," she had said. "Do you think it is enough for you to be pleasant in the furs?" he asked. "Oh, no, my Jarl!" she cried. "Bond-maids of the north must know how to do useful things," he told her. "Yes, my Jarl!" she cried. "Take these," said he, "to the stink pen and, with them, swill the tarsks!" "Yes, my Jarl," she wept, leaping to her feet, and fleeing away. "Bond-maid!" called he. She stopped, and turned. "Do you wish to go to the whipping post?" he asked. This is a stout post, outside the hall, of peeled wood, with an iron ring near the top, to which the wrists of a bond-maid, crossed, are lashed over her head. Near the bosk shed there is a similar post, with a higher ring, used for thralls. "No, my Jarl!" cried Pudding. "See then," said he, "that your baking improves!" "Yes, my Jarl," she said, and fled away. "It is not bad bread," said Ivar Forkbeard to me, when she had disappeared from sight. He broke me a piece. We finished it. It was really quite good, but, as the Forkbeard ha said, it could have used a dash more salt. "You have seen," said Ottar, to the Forkbeard, "that he has been bold with a bond-maid, the property of free men." "Thralls and bond-maids, sometimes," said I, "banter." "He would have put his hands upon her," said Ottar. That seemed true, and was surely more serious. Bond-maids were, after all, the property of free men. It was not permitted for a thrall to touch them. "Is it only a bond-maid, my Jarl," asked Thyri, "who can know these pleasures?" "It is said," I said, "that only a bond-maid can know them." She lay on her back, her head turned toward me. I lay at her side, on one elbow. Her left knee was drawn up; about her left ankle, locked, was the black-iron fetter, with its chain. On her throat was the collar of iron. "Then, my Jarl," said she "I am happy that I am a bond-maid." I hastily, as though frightened, made as though to close the flat, leather case of vials. "Leave that," she said. She laughed. "I shall give it to my bond-maids." I smiled, though secretly. The haughty wench would rob us of our entire stores! None of that richness, I knew, would grace the neck or breasts of a mere bond-maid. She, Hilda the Haughty, daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar, would keep it for herself. Pet sleen are taught to heel; so, too, sometimes, are bond-maids; I was familiar with this sort of thing, of course; in the south it was quite common for slave girls, in various fashions in various cities, to heel their masters. "Tonight we feast," said Ivar Forkbeard. "The feast must be prepared." "She is to help prepare the feast?" asked Gunnhild. "And serve it," said the Forkbeard. "I see, then, the nature of her duties," said Gunnhild, smiling. "Yes," said Ivar Forkbeard. He regarded Hilda. "You will beg Gunnhild to set you about the duties of a bond-maid." I would let her smolder for another Ahn or two. By that time her body would be ready. To my slightest touch it would leap, helpless, squirming, in my arms. I would use her twice, the second time in the lengthy use of the Gorean master, that use in which, over an Ahn, the female slave or bond-maid is shown no mercy. She stood very still, facing the couch, at its foot. She was a bond-maid. She was property. She was owned. "Force me," she whispered. Bond-maids know they are chattel, and relish being treated as such. The Forkbeard had bought with him, too, some bond-maids. They followed us. Their eyes were bright; their steps were eager; they had been long isolated on the farm; rural slave girls, the Forkbeard's wenches, they were fantastically stimulated to see the crowds; they looked upon the thing-fields with pleasure and excitement; even had they been permitted, some of them, to look upon certain of the contests. It is said that such pleasures improve a female slave. Sometimes, in the south, female slaves are dressed in the robes of free women, even veiled, and taken by their masters to see the tarn races, or games, or songs-dramas; many assume that she, sitting regally by his side, is a companion, or being courted for the companionship; only he and she know that their true relation is that of master and slave girl; but when they return home, and the door to his compartment closes, their charade done, she immediately strips to brand and collar, and kneels, head to his feet, once again only an article of his property; how scandalized would have been the free woman, had they known that, next to them perhaps, had been sitting a girl who was only slave; but there were no disguises in Torvaldsland; there was no mistaking that the girls that followed the Forkbeard, or "Thorgeir of Ax Glacier," were bond; to better display his pets, and excite the envy of others, the Forkbeard had had his girls drop their kirtles low upon their hips, and hitch them high, that their beauty might be well exhibited, from their collars to some inches below their navels, and, too, that the turns of their calves and ankles might be similarly displayed; I would have thought that they might have groaned with humiliation and attempted to hide themselves among us, but, instead, even Pudding and Thyri, they walked as proud, shameless bond-maid; the exposure of the females navel, on Gor, is known as the "slave belly"; only female slaves expose their navels; from a vendor, the Forkbeard bought his girls honey cake; with their fingers they ate it eagerly, crumbs at the side of their mouths. "Look!" cried Pudding. "A silk girl!" The expression "silk girl" is used, often, among bond-maids of the north, to refer to their counterparts in the south. The expression reflects their belief that such girls are spoiled, excessively pampered, indulged and coddled, sleek pets, who have little to do but adorn themselves with cosmetics and await their masters, cuddled cutely, on plush, scarlet coverlets, fringed with gold. There is some envy in this charge, I think. More literally, the expression tends to be based on the fact that the brief slave tunic of the south, the single garment permitted the female slave, is often silk. Southern girls, incidentally, in my opinion, though scarcely as worked as their northern sisters in bondage, a function of the economic distinction between the farm and the city, are often worked, and worked hard, particularly if they have not pleased their masters. Yet, I think their labors less than those often performed by the wife of Earth. This is a consequence of Gor's simpler culture, in which there is literally less to do, less to clean, less to care for, and so on, and also of the fact that the Gorean master, if pleased with the wench, takes care that she is fresh and ready for the couch. An overworked, weary woman, despondent and tired, is less responsive to her master's touch; she does not squirm as well. The Gorean master, treating her as the animal she is, works and handles her in such a way that the responses of his passionate, exciting, hot-eyed, slim-legged pet are kept honed to perfection. Some men are better at this, of course, than others. There are scrolls, books, on Gor, which may be purchased inexpensively, on the feeding, care, and training of female slaves. There are others who claim, as would be expected, that the handling of a slave girl, in order to get the most out of her, is an inborn gift. Incidentally, for what it is worth, though the southern girl is, I expect, worked less hard then the northern girl, who is commonly kept isolated on the farm, she is more often than her northern sister put to the switch or whip; I think she lives under a harsher discipline; southern masters are harder with their girls, expecting more from them and seeing that they get it; northern girls, for example, are seldom trained in the detailed, intricate sensuous arts of the female slave; the southern girl, to her misery, must often learn these to perfection; moreover, upon command, she must perform, joyfully and skillfully. "High-farm girls!" she whispered, as she passed the bond-maids of Ivar Forkbeard. In the south the southern slave girl commonly regards her northern counterparts as bumpkins, dolts from the high farms on the slopes of the mountains of Torvaldsland; she thinks of them as doing little but swilling tarsk and dunging fields; she regards them as, essentially, nothing more than a form of bosk cow, used to work, to give simple pleasure to rude men, and to breed thralls. "Cold fish!" cried out Pudding. "Stick!" cried out Pouting Lips. The silk girl, passing them, did not appear to hear them. "Pierced-ear girl!" screamed Pouting lips. The silk girl turned, stricken. She put her hands to her ears. There were sudden tears in her eyes. Then weeping, she turned away, her head in her hands, and fled after her master. The bond-maids of Ivar Forkbeard laughed delightedly. The Forkbeard reached out and seized Pudding by the back of the neck. He looked at her. He also looked at Pouting Lips, who shrank back. He turned Pudding's head. "You wenches," he said, "might look well with pierced ears." "Oh, no, my Jarl." wept Pudding. "No!" "No," wept Pouting Lips. "Please, no, my Jarl!" I noted that the bond-maids of Ivar Forkbeard attracted more than their expected share of attention. They were quite beautiful, from collars to low bellies, and the turn of their legs. "Your girls walk well." I told Ivar. "They are bond-maids," said he, "under the eyes of strange men." "When we return to Forkbeard's Landfall," said the Forkbeard, "they will be better, for having looked, and having been looked upon." "We have better uses for our bond-maids," said Svein Blue Tooth, "than to feed them to Kurii." I had felt Olga's small fingers at my ankle; she was, like several of the other bond-maids, chained by the right ankle, the chain some eight feet in length, to a stake driven into the earth near the center of the Forkbeard's tent; Male thralls turned the spits over the long fire; female thralls, bond-maids, served the tables. The girls, though collared in the manner of Torvaldsland, and serving men, were fully clothed. Their kirtles of white wool, smudged and stained with grease, fell to their ankles; they hurried about; they were barefoot; their arms, too, were bare; their hair was tied with strings behind their heads, to keep it free from sparks; their faces were, on the whole, dirty, smudged with dirt and grease; they were worked hard; Bera, I noted, kept much of an eye upon them; one girl, seized by a warrior, her waist held, his other hand sliding upward from her ankle beneath the single garment permitted her, the long, stained woolen kirtle, making her cry out with pleasure, dared to thrust her lips eagerly, furtively, to his; but she was seen by Bera; orders were given; by male thralls she was bound and, weeping, thrust to the kitchen, there to be stripped and beaten; I presumed that if Bera were not present the feast might have taken a different turn; her frigid, cold presence was, doubtless, not much welcomed by the men. But she was the woman of Svein Blue Tooth. "You have dared to collar the daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar!" cried Bera to Ivar Forkbeard. "My master does what he pleases, Lady," said Hilda. I wondered what Bera would say if she knew that Hilda had been put at the oar, and taught to heel; that she had been whipped, and taught to obey; that she had been caressed, and taught to respond. "Silence, Bond-maid!" cried Bera. Hilda put down her head. "To think," cried Bera, "that I expressed solicitude for a collar-girl!" Kurii, unlike Goreans, do not subject bond-maids to heavy labor; it toughens their meat; Not ten yards before the clash took place, Svein Blue Tooth and his lieutenants before the running line, as the girls, under the whips of Kurii, fled, terrified, seeing the axes, the leveled weapons, toward them, made a sign no bond-maid of the north mistakes, the belly sign. Almost as one the girls, crying out, flung themselves to their bellies among the bodies and the charge of the men of Torvaldsland, missing not a step, took its way over them, striking the startled Kurii with an unimpeded impact. I cut down one of the Kurii with its whip. "When the whip is put to the back of slaves," I told it, "it is we who shall do so." "My Jarl," said a voice. We turned about. Hilda knelt before Ivar Forkbeard, her hair to his feet. "May I not follow my Jarl?" she begged. "A lowly bond-maid begs to heel her Jarl." "Then, heel," said Ivar, good-naturedly, turning away. "Thank you, my Jarl!" she wept, leaping to her feet, falling into step on his left, two steps behind him. Ivar and I had little doubt that Wulfstan, upon reflection, would indeed retrieve his pretty Thyri, vital and slim, from the pen, and, indeed, perhaps others as well. Once the proud young lady of Kassau had spurned his suit, regarding herself as being too good for him. Now he would see that she served him completely, deliciously, helplessly, as a bond-maid, an article of his property, his to do with as he wished, and perhaps serve him as only one of several such lowly wenches. Mead was replenished in the drinking horn by a dark-haired bond-maid, who filled it, head down, shyly, not looking at me. She was the only one in the hall who was not stripped, though, to be sure, her kirtle, by order of her master, was high on her hips, and, over the shoulders, was split to the belly. Like any other wench, on her neck, riveted, was a simple collar of black iron. Now came slave girls bearing skins of water. They walked slowly, bent over, placing each step carefully, that they not lose their balance, heavy skins, bulging and damp, across their shoulders. I saw Honey Cake among them, and the Forkbeard's golden girl, the southern silk girl, too, she laboring as any other bond-maid. I do not think that in the south she had been forced so to work. She staggered. "Hurry," said the girl behind her, "or we will be beaten!" "Beloved Master," she whispered. She knelt. She put her head down. "If I were a bold free woman," she said, "and not a bond girl, I would ask that you bring with you on your return a bottle of wine for your pleasure, that you would enjoy me more." It was with joy, later in the morning, that I felt, thrown against my body by my master, a bit of brown cloth. It was a sleeveless body scrap, a shred of slave rag. It was a few threads, fit for a bond girl. Did my master not love me, as I loved him? He, narrow-lidded, looked at me over the rim of the goblet of paga. "Do not do this to me!" I cried to him, helplessly, in English. "I love you!" Surely, though he spoke no English, he could not have mistaken the anguish, the feelings, the deep intent of the helpless girl so shamefully belied and bound before him. "I love you!" I cried. I saw in his eyes that he, as a Gorean master, had no concern for my anguish, my intent and feelings. I shuddered. I was a bond girl. Yesterday night my master had taken my virginity, much pleasured himself with me, and forced my total surrender to him, the surrender of a completely vanquished bond girl. But should I then have inferred that I was a favored girl? That there was something special about me? No. It had been only first rights with me, naturally taken by him, the leader. It had meant nothing. I was only a girl. What had meant so much to me, what had been so momentous to me, had been meaningless to him. It had been only first rights. Doubtless he had taken first rights with countless girls, many of them more beautiful than I. I was truly for the use of all, as much, or more, than the lovely Eta. There was nothing special about Judy Thornton. I was only a slave, but I did not think myself much less free than the Lady Sabina, whose beauty was being bartered for commercial and political power. I might have to be half naked in a bond girl's Ta-Teera but she, I expected, despite the wealth of her robes and jewels, was in her way as slave as I. I now saw them as unique, exciting masters, each different and incredibly individual, who might, for a word or gesture, have me, how could I not regard them differently from a free woman, and, too, doubtless, they saw me in a similarly immediate and intensely personal fashion, not as an object shielded by prejudice and law, and fear and pride, from them. even to touch whom could be a crime, but rather as a slave girl vulnerable, exposed, at their mercy, unique in her exact helplessness and individuality, the same in some respects as all other bond girls and yet interestingly and profoundly different, too, from all the others. I shared the condition of slavery with other bond wenches, but each of us, of course, as masters know, in the depths and complexity of us, is a surprisingly and uniquely different individual, a latent prize for the chain, an astonishment fascinating to learn and subdue. In the feast to come tonight, Eta had warned me, there would be a general exchange of slave girls, the bond girls of the village being made available to my master's men, and his own girls, among whom I was one, being made available to the young lads of the community. After the capture of the Lady Sabina we had returned to the secret cache camp, to which my master had originally brought me, his barbarian girl. At the cache camp, the first night of our arrival, the Lady Sabina had been stripped and thrown on her back, head down, on the inclining, white-barked tree trunk, to which she had then been, as I had been before her, helplessly roped. When the iron had been pulled from her burned, marked flesh she had been rendered, as was the intention of my master, and those in Ar, politically valueless. She was then only a slave. She was unroped and thrown, a bond girl, to the feet of my master. I did not much fear being trailed for, though slave girls would be barefoot, as I, there would also be in the village the numerous prints of village bond girls, not simply mine, and those of my sisters in bondage. I felt warm, and protected, and stimulated as a slave girl, warm in my master's furs. I wished that he, too, were in the furs, that I might perform delicious, servile duties for him, fitting for one who was only a lowly bond girl. I did not yet have a name. But, in spite of the fact that my master, currently, seemed to be much taken with Marla, and that she was clearly the preferred bond girl in our camp, I did not feel that she had managed to negate the moments or the tacit understanding which I felt I shared with the man who owned me. "Long ago I loved you," she said, "but as a free woman. Then, for years I did not love you, but despised you. Now again, after long years, I feel love for you, only now it is the shameful, helpless love of a bond girl for her master." "You may do as you wish, Master," I said. I knew I was at his complete mercy, only a bond girl. I did not let her speak further then, but forced the slave, as my whim had it, to endure the lengthy tumult of a bond girl's degradation, lying chained in the arms of a master who does not choose to show her mercy. Who would recognize in her the former lofty lady of Lydius, the rich Lady Tina, who had often trod these streets aloof and hidden, probably escorted, in her several veils and multitudinous robes of concealment? Looking upon her, and look they would, they would see only a bond girl, only a lovely, half-naked slave at the heels of her master. "Very well," said he. "It is true that I enlisted the services of a lowly bond girl in his house, to obtain material from which I might give scent to the sleen." To be sure, the master who is harder to please gets more from his girl than the master who is easy to please, but, nonetheless, I think kindness is not out of place upon occasion toward a bond girl. She wore a tan slave tunic, sleeveless, of knee length, rather demure for a bond girl. It did, however, have a plunging neckline, setting off the collar well. One might exult in a spasmodic slave, subjecting her to the conquest of the helpless bond girl but, it was true, how could one, in such a situation, respect her? "You, Jason," said Kenneth, sternly. "Were you given permission by some free person to engage in slut sport with this bond girl?" His voice was quite different when he spoke to the slave from what it had been when he had spoken to the free woman. After all, he was then addressing himself to one who was only a bond girl. "No, my Master," she whispered, "I do not mean either merely that he induced in me the spasm submissions of the bond girl, or that he enforced upon me the fullness of the humiliating, ecstatic slave orgasms, so far beyond anything attainable by the free woman, to which any free man may subject the slave in his arms. Mira came and knelt before Seibar, her head down. "Have mercy upon us, Master," she said. "We are only women, one bond and one free. We know your strength. We know what you can do. We do not dispute your sovereignty. We beg for mercy, if only for a time. We beg for kindness, if only for a moment." "She said that there were two women who knelt before you, one bond and one free. In this she was in error. There were two women who knelt before you, but one was not bond and one free. Both were bond." Mira, tears in her eyes, suddenly seized the woman bound beside her, and kissed her. I took Mira by the hair and threw her to the side. "Yes," said the leather-bound woman looking up at Seibar. "I am bond." "Beware of the words you speak," said Seibar. This was true. Such words, in themselves, in the appropriate context, effected enslavement. Intention, and such, is immaterial, for one might always maintain that one had not meant them, or such. The words themselves, in the appropriate context, are sufficient. Whether one means them or not one becomes, in their utterance, instantly, categorically and without recourse, fully and legally a slave, something with which masters are then entitled to do with as they please. Such words are not to be spoken lightly. They are as meaningful as the collar, as significant as the brand. "The words I speak, I speak knowingly," she said. "Speak clearly," he said. "I herewith proclaim myself a slave," she said. "I am a slave." "You are now a slave," I said to her, "even in the cities. You are a property. You could be returned to a master as such in a court of law. This is something which, is recognized even outside of the Barrens. This is much stronger, in that sense, than being the slave of Kaiila or Yellow Knives." "No," said the woman. "It will be soon enough done to her, such things. She will learn, soon enough, what it is, a bond maid, to be owned by men." I put my head down. I did not doubt but what he might despise me. But, too, I suspected his feelings toward me were more complicated. I was sure they exceeded a simple contempt for a bond wench. Her body was ill concealed, clothed, if such be the word, in a bit of open-sided, diaphanous slave silk, suitable for a casual lifting aside. It was a slave garment, and would have well mocked the modesty of even a bond girl. I looked back at the girl again. She did have pretty thighs, well revealed in the Ta Teera. But then I steeled myself against softness, and reminded myself that this was no time to acquire a bond maid, even one with a lovely little figure and pretty thighs, one who was now clearly ready to obey instantly, and with perfection. And is not one man's high slave no more to another than the least of his bond maids, laboring shackled in his stables, her use a perquisite for rude grooms, and is it not the case that even for the same man she who is this evening a high slave may be tomorrow the least of his properties in the scullery? The use of their sex, and desirability, to achieve their own ends is, of course, common with women generally, whether bond or free. The women, then, of whatever station, whether low-born or high, whether of high caste or low, together with camp slaves, are herded to the center of the blackened, smoldering camp, where all must, at a word, disrobe themselves, both bond and free, to be assessed, as though in a field market. "Enough of the meaningless chatter of bond sluts," said Axel. Then he turned to my captor. "I will report the capture of the slave to the magistrates," said Axel. "You will see to her keeping." Goreans, bond and free, are eager for news, but the channels of its conveyance, for the populace at large, it lacking post riders and hired informants, tend to be unreliable and haphazard. |       
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