Tal, Goreans,

Greetings, visitors,

Welcome once again to the Booknotes column. We have been following the career of one Elinor Brinton, a spoiled rich bitch who has been kidnapped by slavers and taken to Gor, where she has become a slave. Originally, as we have found in one brief encounter with her original captors, this was done so that she could be insinuated into the house of a certain someone and poison him, but she has spent most of her time in the slave-chain of one Targo, a Slaver first met in Book Two, where she has been to some extent coming to terms with her changed circumstances. However, every time she starts to get used to the idea of being a slave, something drastic happens, as at the end of the last installment when Targo’s caravan was attacked and, for his own greater good, he ordered his slaves to scatter. In the course of the panic Elinor and a slave called Ute have managed to escape both from Targo and from the attacking band of tarnsmen led by Haakon of Skjern, and we need to find out how they have dealt with this. So we plunge once again between the covers of the seventh book in the Gorean cycle, “Captive of Gor”.

Chapter Thirteen

It need hardly be said that Elinor has less than no idea of how to look after herself in the wild on Gor; she led a pampered city-bred life on Earth, let alone knowing a thing about the flora and fauna of this strange world. Fortunately Ute has a much better idea on how to manage virtually everything, beginning with undoing the thong that bound them throat to throat. Ute knows how to trap fish and game, build fires, and conceal their presence from the searching tarnsmen, whereas Elinor is barely able to manage even a poor half of the work the two need to do to stay alive; and at that, she resents the fact that she must defer to Ute, who is a fairly lower-class and ill-educated girl. This may be viewed as a commentary on people who grab for power and status when they don’t have the faintest idea what they will do with it when they have won it, and may also be viewed for that reason as a commentary on feminism in Seventies America.

We learn a little of Ute’s background. Back in Book Three, Tarl Cabot told us how all civilized Goreans must make the pilgrimage to the Sardar once in their lives, and how many such pilgrims fall prey to slavers; and this is what happened to Ute. She has had several masters, one of whom she loved but who got rid of her when she tried to manipulate him, and now that she has been a slave - a fortiori on account of her pierced ears - she can never go home.

Unfortunately their freedom will be brief. They are doing the best they can - which is to say, the best Ute can - but they are up against men who are used to overcoming the best obstacles that fleeing slaves can put in their way, and have had years to learn the craft from very able teachers. Ironically it is Elinor’s fault that the raiders catch up with them. She is too squeamish to eat her food raw regardless of emergency, and the hunting tarnsmen spot the remains of the fires that Ute has built to cook for them, and soon Elinor overhears men hunting for them. What she overhears terrifies her. It is plain that the least the girls will have to worry about is being recaptured; they are in for being summarily raped into the bargain.

Very well, this is Elinor’s own “Room 101”. Winston Smith, in the climactic scene of Nineteen Eighty-Four, could not bear the thought of being stuck face-first into a cage full of rats, and was willing to betray his own girlfriend to such a fate rather than endure it himself. Similarly Elinor is so afraid at the prospect of being put to such use - more terrified, perhaps, than anyone would have been who was not a child of her own times and culture - and besides, hoping desperately that the men she has overheard are after only one girl, she decides that it might as well be Ute. All this perhaps is understandable and, to an extent, forgivable; what is less forgivable is her cold-blooded execution of her plan, and the air of satisfaction with which she views the outcome.

Of course, once she has betrayed Ute, she is doomed not to last long in her own freedom. She has little idea how to look after herself, and she does not like hard work, which leads her to steal from some “stupid” peasants. This quickly leads to their forming a beating party to flush her out into the open, where she is at once captured by a hunting tarnsman. Her only comfort, when he lands to offer his thanks to the villagers, is that he will not let them beat her for her thievery, paying them some small money in restitution and telling them: “Her first beating is mine to bestow”.

Whereupon they fly off, and in the course of an exciting journey, in which our hero fights off no less than Haakon of Skjern himself, he reveals that he knows all about her, her various attempts to secure better treatment for herself by lying her ears off notwithstanding. He knows very well that she is that poorly-regarded, idle, slatternly, thieving slave Elinor, and she recognizes him as the slaver Soron of Ar. But this, he now reveals, was only a ruse and a subterfuge, for he is really the famous bandit and adventurer, Rask of Treve.

Chapter Fourteen

Elinor finds herself in the secret camp of Rask, where she is prepared for her collaring ceremony by a slave called Ena, a kind-hearted girl who sets her at her ease as well as can be managed and who dispels some of the more lurid tales about Rask, such as that he uses a woman only once, or diminishes and humiliates every woman who falls into his hands - although, as Ena thoughtfully observes, if he wished to diminish or humiliate a woman, no doubt he would do it very well. The camp is not devoid of comforts, and she gets her first good meal for many days, but she also notices a couple of curiosities: a very small cage, hardly more than a box, and a suspended ring that might do, say, for hanging meat.

She is then ceremonially made to submit to Rask and receive his collar, but is not yet on course for any fate worse than death. However…

Chapter Fifteen

Of course, all Elinor needs in her present straits is to find herself delivered into the hands of Ute, whom she so callously betrayed; and that is exactly what she gets. Ute is not best pleased to see her, but once Elinor has confessed her crime, in the sight and hearing of Rask as it turns out, she scrupulously treats her no worse than the other work slaves whom she oversees. Elinor being Elinor, mere fairness doesn’t satisfy her for much longer than it takes for her to realize that she has been let off, and she starts expecting preferential treatment. This she doesn’t get; indeed, as soon as Ute catches her slacking, she gives Elinor a severe warning by showing her the “meat-hanging ring”, which is actually for hanging slaves from by the wrists while they are whipped (should such treatment be necessary).

Life is not too hard, but it has its share of frustrations. The other girls, though only work slaves, still get called upon to serve the men when there is feasting and merrymaking, and Elinor isn’t, being left in the dormitory shed while all the fun is going on. She tells herself she doesn’t care, and is unable to convince herself.

It does not exactly gladden her heart when the camp enjoys a visit from Verna, the Panther Woman, whom Elinor amused herself by taunting and having slave girls attack when she was helpless in Marlenus’s prize cage a few chapters ago. Of course, fearful for her own skin, Elinor mendaciously denies all knowledge of such events, to Verna’s amusement and to Rask’s ire. He gives her a final warning about telling lies, which is at least one more warning than slaves generally get, and she can consider herself fortunate.

Verna, by the way, has been sprung from Marlenus’s clutches by Rask in order that the Ubar of Ubars can be annoyed and embarrassed, and also because he has a further such plan which Elinor soon learns about. Present in Rask’s camp, as a slave, is none other than Talena, daughter of Marlenus and once the Free Companion of Tarl Cabot; and he is deciding what best to do with her - one possibility being to give her to Verna, who will be returning to the forests shortly and will gladly take the chance to teach Talena a whole new depth of abject slavery.

Returning to Elinor, however, it seems that she is becoming more accepted as a part of the camp, and she is to be included in the ranks of the serving slaves at the next feast, within limitations proper to White Silk slaves. Between then and now, though, comes another berry-picking expedition, and Elinor is soon up to her old tricks, stealing from the basket of her fellow slave to get her own work done the sooner, and also pilfering berries for herself; and this in spite of a cryptic “Be careful” from Ute. When she gets back to camp, the sword of Damocles falls. Despite the evidence against her, Elinor can’t resist lying in an attempt to escape punishment, and once again Rask sees the whole thing. This infuriates him beyond endurance, and he decides to punish her as she richly, by Gorean lights, deserves.

He brands her four times, as liar, thief, traitress, and with the city brand of Treve to remember the other three brands by; he beats her, probably about two dozen lashes (one stroke for each letter in the Gorean words for liar, thief and traitress, plus another ten for good measure) and has her confined in the slave box, the tiny cage she earlier saw; and he leaves her there for many days.

Children, do not try this at home. In the first place, this is only a story. In the second place, we may presume that Rask, an experienced slave-keeper from a culture in which slave-keeping is endemic, is very well acquainted indeed with what a slave can and cannot endure and will recover from. In her subsequent imprisonment, she is encouraged to believe that Rask has forgotten all about her and will never have her released; but I prefer to think that, especially in the light of future events, he knew very well exactly what condition she was in from start to finish, even if he displayed no concern that Elinor ever heard about. And in the third place, we neither want any dead bodies on our hands, nor do we want any of our number to wind up in the sneezer. All clear?

Eighteen days later, Elinor is released, washed, cared for, given a day off, and then put back to work again. In purely practical terms, she has learned her lesson, and refrains from lying or stealing ever again; and, additionally, she has had plenty of time in the slave box to think seriously about what kind of woman she had had to be in order to end up there, and she does not like it. So she reforms, in a way, taking refuge in a kind of chilly priggishness; she desires nothing but her work during the day, and leave to sleep at night, and endures any petty cruelty put on her with stoicism, although Ute, despite all that Elinor has done, still has some tenderness in her heart for her.

Although now Elinor no longer wants to be allowed, like the other slaves, to attend the men at their feasting, the decision is not in her hands, and soon she is included in another entertainment after Rask’s men have enjoyed a particularly successful raid. She is treated as something of a novelty act - it is not every day that the men have dance for them a liar, thief and traitress, all in one handy package, and she avails herself of the opportunity to dance brilliantly, beautifully, tauntingly, and even angrily, before all of the men but most especially before Rask of Treve. His response to this is to order her sent to his tent, there to have visited upon her what used to be termed “a fate worse than death”.

Chapter Sixteen

Norman, after his habit that I have remarked on before, jumps us forward in time to a point where even the segue, “Let her be chained under the moons of Gor” (spoken by Verna), is given in the pluperfect tense. But, filling in the blanks from what Elinor now tells us, being ravished by Rask was an incredibly life-affirming experience, filling her with a new affection for her fellow-slaves and a hope that her master would want more of her. He appears indifferent, preferring the service of Talena, and laughingly adopting Verna’s suggestion.

She is chained in a manner that allows her to dance as the Panthers danced back in Chapter Nine, and for the same reason: acute sexual frustration. Verna stops by to see her, and they have a slight heart-to-heart. Any animosity the Panther Queen might have had for her is gone, and so is any pretense Elinor might have had to be superior to other women and devoid of their weaknesses. Verna is returning to her forests, and taking Talena with her, there, as she admits, to think long and hard about the only man on Gor she suspects could master her as Rask has mastered Elinor: Marlenus, Ubar of Ubars.

So we see Talena removed from the picture, and Rask does indeed want more of Elinor; and, strangely, though she is a worthless piece of trash, guilty of crimes that are despicable even in a slave, or perhaps especially in one, Rask cares for her and has wanted her for his own since first he saw her in Targo’s caravan. Of course, this will not let her off doing a fair share of her duties as a work slave; and, at last, she does not want it to. She has found happiness, and it doesn’t involve manipulation, lying, stealing, or anything of that sort.

Chapter Seventeen

Unfortunately Rask, a few weeks later, comes to resent the hold Elinor has on his heart, though it is by no witting deed of hers that this has happened. He at first tries to put her aside and sport with other women; then he abandons any pretense that he wants anyone but her, and he shares intimate secrets with her that perhaps he has shared with no-one since he was a small boy. She fears that this will end in tears, and in time he announces that he is tired of her and will sell her; and off she goes in a tarn-basket to be sold in no less a venue than the Curulean in Ar, whence she goes to a tavern. Here she is bought, a few months later, by one of the two men who abducted her from Earth, the man she saw in Chapter Ten posing as a mountebank with a tame beast (and we saw that this was no ordinary beast, the reader may recollect).

His agenda hasn’t changed, and as an additional lever, he has managed to engage Rask’s great rival, Haakon of Skjern, to capture him, albeit at quite a cost in life. Rask is no-one’s fool, and sensing what is about to happen, he sternly orders Elinor: “I am of Treve. Do not stain my honor.” But Elinor is given a packet of powdered ost venom and told that Rask will die unless she administers it to a merchant of Port Kar, Bosk by name.

In the house of Bosk, doom hangs by a thread. Elinor understands Rask’s injunction not to stain his honour, but she cannot bear to let him die; and yet she is not a murderer (or as Norman puts it, with somewhat stilted pedantry, “a murderess”). We have a brief name-check on the characters we last saw at the close of “Raiders of Gor”, all present and correct; then it’s off to the kitchen for a goblet of wine, and in goes the poison. Yet, as Elinor makes her faltering way towards a course of action that spells Rask’s only slender chance for life, she shrinks from the dreadful work before her, and into the scales of her decision drops one tiny feather; an old memory of the death of her pet poodle, the only creature she ever cared about before she met Rask, her one comfort in a childhood of privilege but neglect, spitefully poisoned by her mother in punishment for chewing a slipper. Well, we were told this back in Chapter One, and I told you to remember this detail. A feather? A hair; but the scales tip even as the cup is at Bosk’s lips, and she warns him in the nick of time.

She expects no better than torture and impalement at best, which is the notion on the lips of most of the household, but the unusual Bosk, who is the only man she has met in a long while who pronounces her name in Earth fashion (we know why) instead interrogates her, and at once sends men to free Rask. But they find when they get there that Rask has engineered his own escape, killing Haakon, the unnamed agent, and the beast; and since it seems that Rask came to Port Kar in the first place to find Elinor, Bosk has let the bush telegraph know where she is to be found.

So Elinor is no longer Rask’s, but she is happy knowing that she lives, and willingly takes to the life of a kitchen slave. Rask does come to Bosk’s house, but it is a matter of principle with him that he never buys women, and Bosk, who is a merchant, will not give her away, though he is willing to sell her at a modest profit. And Rask cannot take her by force; Bosk has too many loyal hands, and besides, good a swordsman as Rask may be, we know that there is on all Gor one who is almost incomparably better. Whereupon Elinor’s account closes.

Chapter Eighteen

Bosk adds his postscript to this story. He has cut his ties with the Priest-Kings and no longer wants any part of their millennia-long struggle with “The Others”; and yet it seems that those Others are not willing to leave it at that. Also, after years of searching, chance rumor has told him where his Talena is to be found. While he wonders what to do, and talks to his friend Thurnock the Peasant, he watches Elinor walk alone on the high walls late at night, as he allows.

There it is that a tarn strikes at dead of night, and as Bosk restrains Thurnock, who is no mean shot with the peasant bow and has it ready to hand, Elinor runs to the tarnsman and is gone into the darkness. The tarnsman’s last gesture is to toss a purse of gold, one hundred tarns of Treve, to the walls; and so honour is satisfied. Bosk would not give the girl away for nothing, but he gave Rask a generous opportunity to steal her; and Rask would not buy her, but he was happy coincidentally to leave behind her price plus a generous mark-up. Thus are impasses resolved.

We now bid farewell to Elinor, whose ever-crooked path has come to a journey’s end that we may view as satisfactory for all concerned; and we leave Bosk still with the burden of decision on his shoulders. What he will see fit to do touching his long-lost Talena (no longer his Free Companion, by Gorean law)? Will he take up the Priest-Kings’ cause again (since the Others will not leave him be)? Where else should we look for the answers but in the pages of the eighth book in the Gorean Cycle, “Hunters of Gor”?

I wish you well,

Socrates