Witness of Gor

Had she no concept as to where her true happiness might lie?

“Yes,” she said, “to the very highest of castes-saving only that of the Initiates, of course.”

The Initiates, as I understood it, were celibate, or putatively so.

“Oh, yes! He would come back!” she said. “He was smitten with me! But I would not so much as glace at him now, I reclining in my palanquin. Let him tremble. Let him suffer! The palanquin seemed a sturdy sort. It was he, of course, who would close its shutters. ‘Doubtless you will bring a high ransom,’ he said. ‘What?” I said, turning quickly toward him. The doors of the palanquin swung shut. I heard two bolts slide into place. It suddenly seemed extremely quiet in the palanquin. I rose to my knees and pounded on the door. I could hear my pounding very clearly but could hear little or nothing from outside. I was suddenly extremely frightened. The palanquin lifted. It began to move. I lost my balance. I wept. I recovered my balance. I cried out. I scrambled about the palanquin, pounding on the sides, the ceiling, the surface of the couch. It continued to move. I did not know to whence it was being borne. I was wild inside it, like a trapped animal. I called to the bearers. It seemed they could not, or would not, hear me. I screamed, my cry wild in the palanquin, reverberating within it, hurting my ears. But such a cry, I suddenly suspected, might not even be audible outside the palanquin. I tore away the hangings inside the palanquin. Behind them was iron. It was doubtless layered, insulated, and baffled. Outside, visible from the outside, would be the lacquered wood of the palanquin, it giving no hint as to what was inside. I lunged, and pressed, against the shutters of the door. They were, too, beneath the silk, torn away, of iron. Their construction was doubtless the same as, or comparable to, the construction of the sides. They were closed, and locked. I put my fingers to the margins of the shutters. They were fitted closely into heavy linings of leather. I could not begin to move them. I flung aside the cushions of the palanquin. I tore aside the coverlets. I thrust back the mattress. The flooring, too, was of iron. I tore the silk from the ceiling. It, too, was of iron. In it, as in the walls, were tiny baffles, doubtless such as to admit air, but soften, or preclude, the exit of sound waves. I knelt on the floor, pressing upward. I could budge nothing. I screamed again. I called out. I threatened. I promised rewards! I cajoled! The palanquin continued to move. It turned from time to time. Perhaps we were in less traveled streets now, side streets. I grew hoarse with calling out. I could now scarcely speak. The finger tips of my gloves, and the palms of them, were worn and soiled from pressing the hard surfaces about me. My gloves were expensive. They would be ruined. They were even torn at the knuckles. And my knuckles within them, and the sides of my fists within them, hurt, from my pounding on the sides, the floor and ceiling of the palanquin. It turned again, and continued to move. I thrust down the mattress and the coverlets, twisted as they were, and knelt on them, and pounded them, in frustration, in futile rage. I then, exhausted and miserable, threw myself to my stomach upon them, weeping.”

“Go on,” I said.

“I was in an iron box,” she said, “being carried away.”

“You were helpless,” I said.

“For the first time in my lift,” she said. “The palanquin was apparently later placed on a wagon, doubtless covered over, and thusly was I removed from the city. I eventually fell asleep and, doubtless Ahn later, I awakened. The palanquin must have been removed from the wagon. The doors opened, and a voice said, ‘Come forth.’ I crept to the edge of the palanquin, to the threshold. It was dark outside. I was in some sort of ruined barn. I could see though its sides, and roof. We were somewhere in the country. The moons were full. A rope was dropped over my head and drawn closely about my neck. By its means I was drawn from the palanquin. One man then stood behind me, he who held the rope by means of which I was kept in place. I was then, other than for the fellow behind me, standing before my captors. There were, altogether, six or seven of them. He who had lured me to the shop was there, and still masked. It was he who was most prominently before me. It was he, it seemed, who was first among them. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ I demanded. ‘You ca