Tal Goreans,
Greetings visitors,

Welcome once again to the Booknotes column.

Jason Marshall is a fighting slave no longer, having been officially freed by his Mistress, Lady Florence, shortly before he himself enslaved and sold her. Accordingly, he has his freedom, but not much else save Lady Florence’s sale price and the meagre clothes he stands up in. He has neither rank nor station; no wealth; neither caste nor trade. All in all it is very much open to question how he is going to so much as stay alive, let alone succeed in his quest to find Beverly Henderson, his former Earth girlfriend. However, he has grown and matured immeasurably since we first knew him, and perhaps this will be enough. Let us find out as we open the cover of the second volume of Jason’s adventures, Rogue of Gor.

Chapter One

Jason begins logically by finding anyone who can tell him of the whereabouts of Oneander of Ar, Beverly’s last-known owner. During the course of this search he learns something of how the war, begun towards the end of the previous book, is going. Forces defending Vonda have been engaged and defeated, and this bodes ill for Miles of Vonda, sometime suitor of Lady Florence and the owner of Krondar, the bestial fighting slave who was Jason’s last and sternest challenge. But Jason is more interested in finding out what he can of Beverly, and he gets some information from Alison, another Earth girl slave. Although pleased to have found out what he wanted to know, Jason is infuriated by Alison’s claim that she, though of Earth, is a natural slave, and more by her assertion that all Earth women are, no doubt because he does not like the implications for one Earth woman in particular. Leaving Alison behind in the paga tavern of Busebius, Jason is on his way, enjoined by her to show no mercy.

Chapter Two

His odyssey now takes him to a camp near Vonda, as near as he can get by hired tarn to Lara, where Alison told him that Oneander was bound. Here he finds and interrogates Lady Tima, once one of his trainers and now only a slave, and he learns that Lady Gina, another trainer, is also a slave. The interrogation yields little information else, but does afford him the opportunity for a spot of amusement at Lady Tima’s expense, although by the time he gets around to it she is all for it.

Chapter Three

Thereupon Jason hies him to the food tent, where Lady Gina is waiting table, which is quite a come down from when we first met her, dressed up like a regular dominatrix and practising her wiles on the new-to-Gor Jason. She fancied herself as good as any man in those days, although she never proclaimed this before Gorean men lest they abruptly disabuse her of the notion, and she seemed to have some pity in her heart for the broken men of Earth whom she regarded as worse done by than any Gorean kajirus. But now she is indeed a slave, although she is convinced that no man would want her intimate services and torn between wanting it desperately and being sorely afraid of it.

He learns that the House of Andronicus, where he was trained, is no more, and then sets about demonstrating that Lady Gina is more desirable than she thinks and also considerably more sensual. By the time he is done with her she is no longer afraid of being a woman, but only that no man (other than Jason, obviously) will want her. This fear is plainly ill-founded, as a large uncouth Tarn Keeper promptly demands his turn with her, and this demand seems to bring about a transformation in Lady Gina. Jason takes his leave, bumps into a large, masked man who seems to find him strangely familiar (and he the masked man), and gets some more news about Oneander of Ar as he goes.

Chapter Four

At Lara we find Jason in the company of a woman, and we learn that she was a free woman until very recently, when she was unable to pay the innkeeper’s grossly extortionate fee. Jason, being in some wise a gentleman, promptly settled her account, and shortly after settled her account in another way, with the aid of a small packet of Tassa powder to put in her wine.

This was, however, no random deed of petty malice against a defenceless woman beyond the protection of her Home Stone, for it turns out that this is the Lady Tendite, she who once posed as an Earth girl called Darlene to set Jason up for his first sale in Earth clothing. Interestingly, she turns out to have kept her “Darlene” costume among her personal effects, which is reason enough for Jason to decide that she would be better translated to that name and that station with immediate effect. As usual on these occasions, it is only the matter of a very short time indeed before Darlene is reconciled to her new condition, and even welcoming it. She is not, perhaps, yet ready to accept this place at the feet of men other than Jason, but she is not given a choice in the matter. Soon she is in the keeping of a looting party from Ar, destined to end up with her sisters from Vonda on the slave block; and Jason watches her go with, so far as we can judge, complete indifference.

He also succeeds in catching up with Oneander, but not with Beverly, for it turns out that Oneander was attacked by river pirates and barely escaped with his life, and lost the bulk of his possessions including Beverly. The pirate was a famous one, Kliomenes, but where he may be now, or what he may be intending for Beverly, no one knows. It’s possible, though, that Beverly is for sale, but in any of a dozen or more towns along the Vosk.

Chapter Five

Jason has no trade as they are practised on Gor, but he does have one useful money-making talent: that of going into paga taverns and betting on his ability to beat any man in the house. Gorean men being what they are, he does not go short of challengers, and thanks to his training and his innate ability he is able to defeat a whole series of strong but untutored men in a single session. Since he is generous enough to stand drinks for his beaten opponents, he does not attract much resentment, and the tavern-keeper is all for it, for the sake of the business it drums up.

Chapter Six

Unfortunately the law takes a dimmer view of what we must suppose to be conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace, which is saying something for Gor where there is no difference between the words “stranger” and “enemy,” and he finds himself instructed to move on. This is when he is in a town called Fina, having made some progress in his pursuit of Kliomenes, but he tells us that he has received similar orders elsewhere, so he is plainly living something of the life of the rogue and vagabond. He mentions the names of several of the towns along the Vosk river, including Ar’s Station, once the site of the massing of the armies of Pa-Kur the Assassin; seventeen years have elapsed since then.

Discussing his next intended destination, the town of Victoria, with a river-captain from whom he seeks passage, Jason learns that this is a thoroughly disreputable town and a popular haunt for pirates. Fortunately, though, this is just what he is after.

Chapter Seven

Arriving in Victoria, Jason overhears some conversation he does not understand concerning a topaz, and makes enquiries as to where Kliomenes is and where he might be selling any slaves he has. This is no secret, any more than it is a secret that Kliomenes is a regular pirate and lieutenant to Policrates, a pirate of much standing on the river. Finding out that Kliomenes is indeed about the place, has slaves for sale, and will be selling them at the sales barn of Lysander, Jason heads into Victoria, having bought a slave chain for some reason.

Chapter Eight

Employing his favoured means of raising money, Jason is unfortunate enough to stumble across a mean-spirited individual who will have at him with a sword. Although he himself has one, he knows that he hasn’t the first idea how to use it nor the least chance of standing up to someone who can. When it all looks up for him, though, luck intervenes in the shape of another customer who volunteers his own services as a champion. This dissuades the sword-wielding bully from his intended murder, for the would-be champion is of the Warrior caste and presumably as much better than any randomly-chosen river pirate as that pirate himself is better than Jason.

The matter is not put to the test, for as soon as the Warrior’s characteristic scarlet is revealed the bully is disinclined to push the affair further, but the Warrior desires neither thanks nor Jason’s society. A spectator, who plainly knows the Warrior as he addresses him by name (Callimachus) observes that it is as well that the bully, who was none other than Kliomenes, did not call his bluff, for Callimachus is plainly an alcoholic and could not have made good on his promise if called on it. Jason indeed learns that this is Policrates, and is advised to quit Victoria for his own safety. Instead, he asks again about the slave sale, and learning that this is already in progress, he quits the tavern at once and makes haste for the sales barn of Lysander.

Chapter Nine

The sale is indeed in progress, and what is worse from Jason’s point of view, most of the slaves of Kliomenes have already been sold. However, there are some slaves which he obtained near Lara still to come, so Jason doesn’t give up hope yet. He watches several other girls being sold and admits that under other circumstances he would find them extremely interesting, an emotion he does not ask the reader to understand who has not himself owned a woman. Then a “cold, prissy” Earth-girl is sent to the block. This is Beverly, and bidding on her is initially slow, until the auctioneer puts her through her paces for the benefit of the customers. Jason’s instincts urge him to buy her, and yet as an Earth man himself he is still too wedded to his loyalty to the women of his own planet to give in to the impulse. Then, when her price has risen above ninety tarsks, although only of copper (compare this with the admittedly inflated tavern prices quoted earlier), Jason finds himself offering the winning bid, and moments later he is the legal owner of Beverly Henderson.

So Jason’s odyssey is at an end; and yet we can see with a quick glance at the page number that we are barely a quarter of the way through the book. Will he make Beverly his slave in truth as well as in legal fact, or will the Madonna side of his complex win out? What about the war that is in progress, and have we seen the last of the pirates, of Kliomenes, of Policrates, or even of the drunkard Callimachus (for the evidence is that there is a story there)? What of this overheard snatch of conversation about a topaz? And how is Jason going to earn a living if it isn’t safe for him to earn money by challenging all-comers to a fight? All these questions and more besides will be answered in their proper turn, but the reader will have to join me a month hence for our second instalment of Rogue of Gor.

I wish you well,

Socrates