Renegades of Gor by John Norman Read Free Book Online Page B

shackles and squirmed against the wall. She was covered with
    rain, which had blown back under the roof’s overhang. Her hair was sopped, and
    dark and much about her, adhering to her shoulders and body.
    “Avert your eyes!” she demanded.
    I took her hair and put it back, behind her shoulders. In that way it was out of
    the way. Shackled as she was she would find it difficult to get it back again
    before her body. If necessary, of course, it could be bundled and knotted at the
    back of her neck.
    “Please!” she wept.
    In a flash of lightning the entire wall and court was illuminated. There were
    only five positions there for securing women, and they were all occupied.
    “Redeem me!” she begged.
    “Buy me?” I inquired.
    “Never!” wept the woman. “I am a free woman!”
    “We are free women!” cried the woman next to her.
    “We are all free women!” cried she beyond that one.
    I had supposed this, of course, for I had seen that none were collared.
    “Oh,” said the first woman, as I checked her flanks.
    “Do not carry on,” I said. “You had probably been out here at least since this
    afternoon, and have probably been touched by several men.”
    I detected no brands on her, at least in the two most favored Gorean brand
    sites. They were probably, as they claimed, free women.
    “Redeem me,” she begged.
    (pg.41) I saw that above and behind the head of each, thrust over nails driven
    into the logs, were small rectangles of oilcloth.
    I turned one over and, in the next flash of lightning, read the numbers on its
    back.
    “What is your name?” I asked the first woman.
    “I am the Lady Amina of Venna,” she said. “I was visiting in the north, and
    forced to flee at the approach of Cosians.”
    “You redemption fee,” I said, “is forty copper tarsks, a considerable amount.” I
    had read this amount on the back of the oilcloth rectangle.
    “Pay it!” she begged. “Rescue a noble free woman from jeopardy. I will be
    forever grateful.”
    “Few men,” I said, “would be content with gratitude.”
    She shrank back, frightened, against the rough surface.
    “My bill is only thirty tarsks,” said the second woman, a blonde. “Redeem me!”
    “Mine is thirty-five!” said the third woman.
    “Mine is only twenty-seven!” cried the fourth woman.
    “Mine is fifty,” wept the last of the five women, “but I will make it well worth
    your while!”
    “In what way?” I asked.
    “In the way of the woman!” she said, brazenly.
    There were cries of protest, and anger, from the others.
    “Do not sound too righteous,” I said to the first four prisoners at the wall.
    “We are free women!” said the first woman.
    “You are all debtor sluts,” I said.
    The first woman gasped, startled, so referred to, and the second and third woman
    cried out in anger. The fourth whimpered, knowing what I had said was true. The
    fifth was silent.
    I recalled that the porter, when I had come to the outer gate, at the height of
    the bridge over the moat, seeing that I was not a female, had made me show
    money, and a considerable amount of it, before he had admitted me. This was
    probably because of the crowding at the inn, and perhaps inflated prices, in
    these unusual, perilous times. Women, I had gathered, on the other hand, would
    not be required to show such money. This, of course, was presumably not so much
    because such a challenge might be thought to be demeaning (pg.42) to a free
    woman, as, perhaps, that women on Gor, in a sense, are themselves money. They
    are, or can be, a medium of exchange, like currency. This is particularly true
    of the slave, of course, who, like other goods, or domestic animals, has an
    ascertainable, finite value, whatever free persons are willing to pay for her.
    Women such as these, those at the wall, would be surrendered by the management
    of the inn for the equivalent of their unpaid bills. T hey would then be in the
    power of their “redeemers,” any who might make good