Tal Goreans,

Greetings visitors,

Welcome once again to the Booknotes column. In our last look at “Hunters of Gor” we observed how that which goes before a fall, which Bosk has been indulging in plenty of, has indeed turned out to go before a fall. He has only himself to blame. Things may have been going straightforwardly enough in his foray into the northern forests on his quest for his long-lost love Talena, but that was no excuse for simple carelessness and arrant stupidity. If there is a Rule No. 1 for warrior and man-hunter alike, it might be something along the lines of “When you are unexpectedly alone in the enemy’s mysteriously vacant camp, do not help yourself to anything edible or potable conveniently left unattended therein; but if you do, be sure that your most expendable henchman tastes it first, and give it plenty of time to go down.” We might add as a corollary: “This goes redoubled in spades if the quarry you are after is notoriously crafty, sneaky, and incapable of standing up to you in a face-to-face”; and you would think this was obvious. But after allowing all of his men to ignore this wisdom, and ignoring it himself, Bosk has only himself to blame for that at the last count he was seen falling unconscious and being clapped in irons.

And now to discover what he has made of this latest reverse…

Chapter Nine

Regaining his senses many hours later, Bosk finds himself stripped naked, bound hand and foot, and subjected to the inspection of a skin-clad Panther Woman. He makes a bluff attempt to claim the rights of prisoners, which has to rank as both enormous optimism and massive hypocrisy, since he was intent upon enslaving all the women he could succeed in capturing. Kindly, his captor doesn’t even ridicule him for his cheek; but he has precious little else to be cheerful about.

Verna (for it is indeed she) interviews Bosk, admittedly under conditions that he doubtless finds somewhat distressing, and almost seems to pity his foolishness in coming after Talena at all, never mind his shocking lack of competence. It turns out that Talena has been permitted to send her father Marlenus, Ubar of Ar, a letter in which she begged to be purchased and freed. Since referring to herself in such a manner admits that she is now something that can be bought and sold, and is tantamount to proclaiming herself slave, Marlenus has disowned her, and so Bosk’s plans for her have come to naught. There is no implicit status whatever in becoming the Free Companion of a slave, no matter who she might have been when she was free.

As for Marlenus, Mira, who is Verna’s lieutenant, informs Bosk that, after disowning his daughter, he has returned to Ar and given up the hunt. Verna meanwhile recommends to Bosk that he put Talena from his mind. He looks bitterly on the ruin of his dreams, as well he might - and the reader who has been patiently waiting ever since Book Two for Tarl, as he then was, to find the great love of his life once more, may share his feelings. Sorry. Try Edgar Rice Burroughs’s “Barsoom” chronicles if you want that kind of happy ending. Evidently Norman had given up on pastiche by the time he got this far in the series (although I for one would be curious to know if this was how he intended things panning out back when he finished “Tarnsman”).

Bosk’s immediate future is as a plaything of Verna and her band. He acquires the shaven stripe of degradation that marks those who have been captured by Panthers, and as the moons head towards the full -

Actually, that is quite interesting. Could they really be in a close orbit around Gor, two of them in the Trojan points of the third, and so close to their primary that their phases really do change appreciably during the course of a single night, as the Martian moons do? Unfortunately, Norman never tells us. Oh that he had had, say, a Larry Niven’s grasp of hard science. Anyway -

As the moons head towards the full and the Panthers show visible signs of discomfiture, he is made the centrepiece of a savage, erotic dance, staked out supine at the centre of it. Many red-blooded adolescents of all ages may well feel that, if Panthers really do look like the girl on the front cover of the book (Star edition - I can’t speak for the rest - and I ran on about what she looks like a couple of months back), being gang-banged by a dozen or so supremely gorgeous women would be by no means a fate worse than death. That’s not the point. To anyone who understands anything of manhood as it is explored in the Gor books, the humiliation and degradation attendant upon the surrender of one’s dominance is of far greater moment, and Bosk is enraged by the prospect even as his own body’s physical responses betray him.

However, just as Verna explains to Bosk, in case he really was as slow on the uptake as his embarrassing capture might have suggested, that he is about to be raped, the festivities are interrupted by the arrival of a gate-crasher. It is, almost inevitably, Marlenus of Ar.

Chapter Ten

The entire band of Panthers is immediately made captive, with the sole exception of Mira. Earlier glimpses of her have suggested that she might be the kind of venal creature who would betray her own sisters on the least provocation, and this is so. Her reward shall be to become the second-in-command to Hura, the Panther who was last seen on her way to take over Verna’s range. Verna is as indignant as you would expect, but is quite unable to give vent to it in any meaningful manner.

Gathering the shreds of his dignity around him, Bosk expresses his gratitude to the ever-victorious Ubar of Ubars, who has seen his hunting expedition brought to a successful conclusion and who has even had time to find and free Bosk’s unfortunate companions. He is in expansive mood, delighted to meet Bosk, and in a position to offer him hospitality; for although he once had to banish Tarl Cabot from Ar on pain of death, he is not presently within the bounds of Ar, and the sentence does not apply here.

For a brief instant Bosk clings to the hope that the news of Talena’s disownment was all part of Marlenus’s plan, having no basis in fact, but Marlenus is obliged to disabuse him of this notion - although he does plan to allow Talena to live out her days peacefully and in comfort in Ar, on terms that will not embarrass him. As for Verna, the last time he captured her he had intended to carry her off as an honoured prisoner, as if she were a man; but this time, she shall be a female slave, nothing more. Bitterly she asks Marlenus if he is always victorious; but his joviality is quite undented. (And “jovial” is the bon mot for Marlenus, whose bearing, whenever we have seen him, always has been entirely appropriate to the king of the gods.)

Chapter Eleven

Marlenus, as Bosk informs us, is a devastating player of Kaissa, and good as Bosk is, he seems still to be waiting for his first win against the great Ubar, even if Marlenus can’t handle him with quite the ease he would like. But Marlenus is playing a different kind of game at the moment, and both adversary and prize are the same: Verna. She has been allowed to attempt escape, been recaptured (for Marlenus’s woodcraft is more than a match for hers) and, dressed in silk, has been made to wait upon Marlenus. Still, he has not yet put her to “slave use”; that is yet to come.

Bosk and Marlenus have conflicting philosophies on the owning of recalcitrant women. Bosk is of the view that patience will suffice to teach even Verna the meaning of her slavery, but Marlenus, Ubar and giver of orders, has no intention whatever of waiting patiently until a mere slave is good and ready to acknowledge her own status. He demonstrates on a fragile flower that one who is helpless can either beg for mercy or be crushed, and Verna is to be given the same choice.

He doesn’t delay in putting his plan into effect. That night Verna is allowed to escape again, and Marlenus has loaded the dice so thoroughly against her that the attempt is sure to fail. Fail it does, of course, and Verna is brought back the very next day by Hura and Mira, just to put an extra edge on her humiliation. She expects a whipping, which she is prepared to meet with ample courage and defiance.

Marlenus though is not quite as stolid and unimaginative as that. Instead he pronounces a sentence of hamstringing on the outlaw Verna. This terrifies her, as well it might. The prospect of being a crippled beggar is far worse a fate than death for her, and she screams for mercy on the grounds of her sex. Marlenus hears her plea, thoroughly catechising her on the question of whether she really does wish to be treated as a woman and not as a man, and then changes his sentence to “Hamstring the slave”. It’s not an uncommon punishment for a runaway slave, especially when it is not a first offence, and Verna, on the very point of being mutilated, appeals for mercy to her Master himself.

We have been here before, of course, when Tarl Cabot begged for life as a slave in preference to being fed to swamp tharlarion, and we know what effect it had on him; for one thing, he has gone under his slave name of “Bosk” ever since. And Verna’s proclamation of her own slavery has much the same effect on her. She submits as a slave to Marlenus, and accepts her collar and binding from him, and is led away.

Marlenus takes the time to advise Bosk to forget all about Talena, and whatever he does, not to think about securing her for himself. He no longer considers himself her father, but he is her Ubar, and he will do with her as he thinks fit. It is, however, by no means the whole focus of his attention. He is giving quite as much of his mind to the game of Kaissa in which he is effortlessly proving himself Bosk’s conqueror (but, once again, the move descriptions themselves suffer from a lack of internal consistency) and also to the coming enjoyment of Verna’s pearl of great price, whatever her deficiencies (for she has yet to be properly awakened to slave heat).

As Marlenus begins to enjoy Verna, and her declarations of love and cries of delight alike fill the night, Bosk tactfully absents himself, finds the other captured Panthers and disports himself with one he finds pleasing, a beauty named Rena. She does not seem unhappy at her fate.

Chapter Twelve

Needing a day or two of private time, Bosk leaves Arn and the rest of his hunting party at the camp of Marlenus, and sets off back to rejoin the crew of his ship, waiting patiently by the banks of the river with only some cheaply-hired slave girls and free wine to help them pass the time. He reflects on his now-shattered plans. Being himself only of the Merchants these days, having repudiated his old Caste, the Warriors, in self-revulsion at his submission in the marshes, Bosk could have done with a well-placed companion to advance him socially. Instead, all he has earned is humiliation for himself and all his men, so easily outwitted, captured and marked by Verna’s band, before Marlenus rescued them with quite as much ease and, no doubt, tacitly brought home to Bosk how much better he could have managed things.

Perhaps Marlenus is owed a debt of gratitude, but Bosk’s reaction suggests, as I have heard very well expressed, that gratitude is an ill-fitting garment that chafes if worn too long. He is also still chewing fretfully at the bone of his plan to Companion a woman of high Caste and, preferably, high political status. The daughter of a Ubar would do nicely, but there are very few who are even remotely suitable, and it occurs to Bosk, annoyingly, that the few daughters he could consider might be refused him, by virtue of his being only a Merchant of Port Kar, even if a wealthy and successful one.

So he stumps along, going round and round the same treadmill of his thoughts: the ruination of his plans, the shame of having to be rescued by Marlenus, his envy and resentment of the Ubar of Ubars who had so easily bettered him in everything he set out to do, from the freeing of Talena, to the capture of Verna, to even the mastery of the Kaissa board. And he resigns himself to returning to Port Kar as a laughing stock, even if Marlenus, the good-mannered sod, should forbear to laugh in his face.

With such happy thoughts circling in his head, it must come as a mighty shock to poor Bosk to find his ship and crew gone, leaving him to realize far too late that Verna and her girls do not hold any monopoly on the delicate art of slipping soporofics into people’s wine, especially wine that a considerate tavern-keeper offers as boot on the surprisingly cheap hire of a consignment of slaves, and the tarsk-bit falls with a resounding thud as it occurs to him that the Tyrosian ship he spotted earlier and casually dismissed may not have been after Marlenus at all, or at any rate, not after Marlenus alone.

At a time like this the only tactful thing to do for a man who has suffered such reverses as has Bosk is to make our excuses and slip away quietly, which I invite our readers to do, pending next month and another peek into “Hunters of Gor”.

I wish you well,

Socrates