Tal Goreans,
Greetings visitors,

Welcome once again to the Booknotes column.

Resuming the narrative after a lengthy layoff - about three years in Earth time, though less in Gorean terms - Tarl Cabot has found himself, in Savages of Gor, in the somewhat surreal position of siding with a Kur, and not just any old Kur but the fearsome General Zarendargar “Half-Ear.” After a parley with a Kurii Death Squad intent on hunting down the disgraced General, Tarl opted not to help them but instead give Zarendargar a warning if he possibly could. The problem is that Zarendargar is currently located in the “Barrens,” a region of Gor not as geographically inhospitable as the name suggests but exclusively inhabited by the Red Savages, a people who make the normally xenophobic Goreans (let’s not forget that in Gorean the word for “stranger” is the same as the word for “enemy’) look positively neighbourly. For this reason Tarl is wisely looking for a guide, but the one he is after, Grunt by name, is proving hard to find. Let’s rejoin the search.

Chapter Eight

Tarl tours the slave market, watching the customary procession of Earth women being sold for a pittance (which demonstrates, once again, that Kur slave ships run on free energy and are crewed by men who don’t expect to be paid, or else that the Kurii are willing to run the whole operation at a large loss; perhaps this is a strange and highly inefficient form of money laundering) and one redhead in particular being stripped for the pleasure of the crowd. There is a bit of business over the necklace of fake pearls that she wears: “Goreans have a rather primitive sense of honesty,” this apparently serving as some kind of excuse to treat her as a slave, though I for one have yet to see Earth women on Gor treated otherwise with or without excuse.

While this is going on Tarl is gently accosted by a pair of tavern sluts, Ginger and Evelyn, both intent on soliciting his custom for their respective employers. They watch the stripping and sale of the terrified Earth girl with some detachment, though they must surely have known some similar experience in their turn. The price on the unnamed redhead rises and is reaching a thoroughly respectable level for an untrained barbarian slave, when a couple of roughnecks enter the saleroom. It seems that these men, the Hobarts, cowhands from the Bar Ina ranch (well, as good as; transplanting the Wild West to Gor doesn’t quite convince), are the reason why Ginger and Evelyn have been hiding at the auction, and Tarl, not for the first time in his career, decides to interfere with their intentions. A short fist-fight ensues, nobody being willing to go for his gun (sword: sorry) and the end result is that the Hobarts, Max and Kyle, are sent packing. This earns the approval of a man in a broad-brimmed hat, though he warns Tarl that he has made some bad enemies. Tarl, of course, merely obtains somewhat in the modality of shrug.

Unfortunately for Evelyn and Ginger, their habit of hanging around the auction house has made them something of a nuisance, and they have been bought from their respective taverns in order to have them sold out of the town. The man in the broad-brimmed hat (TMITBBH), who has been buying barbarians, reasons that they may be able to serve him as trainers and language instructors, and the two girls quickly confirm that this is the case. He buys both of them and also the redhead, and compliments Tarl on his martial prowess. He establishes that Tarl is intent on getting out of town - which is as well, since the Hobarts will be after him mob-handed and armed to the teeth - but warns him against entering the Barrens. However, he acquaints Tarl with the local rules, enforced by the Red Savages, mostly to do with restricting the numbers of mounted white men in the Barrens.

When TMITBBH speaks of trading the girls he has just bought for yellow kailiauk hides, which are quite valuable, Ginger and Evelyn immediately divine that they are to be sold to Red Savages, at which they plead for mercy. They’re not destined to receive any. Now Tarl reveals that he has himself been searching for Grunt the trader, and TMITBBH confirms that this is himself, which Tarl had already suspected.

Chapter Nine

So a short while later Grunt, his purchases, and Tarl Cabot are all approaching the border, delineated by feathered wands some eight feet in height, and Ginger and Evelyn know what this signifies. Grunt ignores their pleas not to be taken into Red Savage country and gives them the customary hastener when they are slow to obey. This, the Ihanke, is an innocuous barrier in itself, but it is plainly portentous, and in crossing it Tarl feels that he is crossing a Rubicon of some kind.

Chapter Ten

Tarl observes a trail of dust in their wake, some two days later. He surmises that one or another Red Savage tribe is on their track, but Grunt chides him for his ignorance. Men who know the Barrens well know how to ride without raising dust, and were it a savage war-band behind them, it is highly unlikely that a greenhorn such as Tarl would know about it. Given the amount of dust and the probable numbers of their pursuers, Tarl does divine that some white men have dared to violate the savages’ laws, and agrees with Grunt’s guess that this is probably the Hobarts and those of their party. The numbers are daunting, even to Tarl, but Grunt affects unconcern and recommends that Tarl do likewise, as they are not in any danger.

Chapter Eleven

At any rate, there is no sign of the Hobarts as yet, while Ginger and Evelyn are instructing the new girls in the realities of their situation. This is being conducted in English, which naturally affords Tarl (and us) the opportunity to eavesdrop. The regular reader will not be surprised by the content of the lesson: the existence of slavery, the hopelessness of passing for a free woman, the awful punishment for runaways, and the nature of service to the master, including (in response to a question that the reader could easily have answered) any sexual whims the master may happen to have. The questioner, who is the redhead Grunt bought earlier, drops Tarl a covert glance at this, which he pretends not to notice.

Grunt affably offers Tarl the use of her or any of the other girls, and is quite keen that the redhead should be deflowered soon (for she proclaimed her virginity, albeit in English, when she was pleading for mercy, and Grunt has independently verified the fact). In the Barrens, apparently, virginity does not raise the price of a white slave; quite the reverse, if anything. And as for the Hobarts, plainly they would have caught up with Tarl and Grunt by now if they were still trailing them; therefore it is clear that they are not, and Grunt recommends that Tarl put them from his mind.

Chapter Twelve

Tarl and Grunt go to investigate the fate of the Hobarts and their Bar Ina friends, and find a scene of terrible slaughter, which somewhat surprises Tarl as this was the work of Dust Legs, a tribe of savages normally considered gentle and friendly. Indeed Grunt confirms that this was a comparatively clean and merciful piece of work, and Tarl has yet to see Red Savages live up to the name. Other than dead bodies, nothing has been left behind; all material wealth and all kaiila have been looted by the victorious Dust Legs. However, two pieces of worthless trash have been left: Max and Kyle Hobart, bound with savage efficiency and doomed to die of thirst or predators unless Grunt sees fit to rescue them. This he does, but as slaves; and as naked, collared slaves (or, if we’re picking nits, prisoners, at least until they are sold) they are added to the rear of Grunt’s coffle.

Chapter Thirteen

A night or two later the red-headed barbarian is sent to Tarl, with one or two painfully memorised phrases of Gorean on her lips. He soon decides that “I have been sent to your blankets” and ”Forgive me, master” will make for dull conversation, and lets her in on the secret of his own ability to speak English. For a foolish moment she even hopes that he is going to free her and the other girls, but he soon disabuses her of that notion (it’s not as if he could, even if he would; on the other hand, it’s not as if he would, even if he could; the Tarl Cabot of the early books is long gone). But he orders her not to let his linguistic ability become common knowledge.

The purpose of her visit is obvious; as mentioned earlier, Grunt wants her virginity corrected before she is sold. (She uses the word “deflowered,” which Tarl scoffs at, speaking instead of “opening” her, as a service to men.) He doesn’t expect too many problems, and speaks mildly of resorting to a little crude gynaecology if matters don’t go well, although to be sure, by no means as crude as the savages would use. Neither of them knows why Grunt is not doing this useful and enjoyable duty himself, and neither discusses the subject further; but the reader may wish to note the question.

They spend a little time discussing her arrival on Gor. As Millicent Aubrey-Wells she was an upper-class American, a debutante, one who was rebellious enough not to be content with merely being someone important’s trophy wife, but unfortunately not possessing any talent marketable enough to make a living independent of family connections. Even with family connections she was able only to get a token job as secretary to a real businesswoman, whose jealousy was responsible among other things for the fake pearls (as Millicent’s family money could easily have stretched to some real ones).

In time she experienced another variety of the usual slave-capture such as we have seen described in Captive of Gor and Fighting Slave of Gor, and awoke to find herself on a strange world. The rest we know already.

Tarl then addresses himself to the serious business. For what it is worth he gives Millicent his opinion that on Earth she already was a slave in all but name, and bringing her to Gor is only enabling her true status to be given its proper title. He confirms that he is about to take her virginity and he does so, with his usual finesse; so much so that before rosy-fingered dawn begins to creep up over the edge of the world, the slave has had seconds, thirds and fourths.

As is usual on such occasions, when there’s not enough plot to fill up the book and the author wants to pad his word-count with some more fascinating but desperately unimportant aspects of Gorean culture that he has made up, Tarl begins to lecture. At least on this occasion he has a pupil instead of having to talk directly to his audience. He teaches her two distinct Gorean terms for virginity and its converse: glana and metaglana on the one hand, protofalarina and falarina on the other, before informing her that the “positive” terms glana and falarina are most often used (“virgin” and “opened,” if you like) rather than their respective opposites (“ex-virgin” and “unopened”). But in speaking of slaves “white silk” and “red silk” are the customary expressions, as we have known for quite a while.

Finally Tarl introduces the slave to another new experience, that of being tied and at a man’s mercy (in a rather different context to what was done to her at the slave market), and while she is thus immobilised he treats her to a “taking” which brings her to the first of her “slave orgasms,” which as we have been assured before is a large step up from the more refined sensations experienced by free women. He advises her to develop the facility, to become used to it, and to welcome it; and he returns her to the coffle, having helped out Grunt, his friend.

And why Grunt did not do it himself must remain a minor mystery for now. Tarl has yet to make contact with the Red Savages, but he is deep in Indian country and no doubt much reassured to have the goodwill of this mysterious trader to call upon. As to the whereabouts of Zarendargar or the Kurii Death Squad, that is also unexplained and even un-touched upon, and the reader wishing to satisfy his curiosity will have to wait until next month, when we will look at the final third of Savages of Gor.

I wish you well,

Socrates