Explorers of Gor by John Norman Page A

rested on their shoulders.
    The, girl was brought into the shop and stood in the branding rack, which was then locked on her, holding her upright. The metal worker placed her wrists behind her in the wrist clamps, adjustable, each on their vertical, flat metal bar. He screwed shut the clamps. She winced. He then shackled her feet on the rotating metal platform.
    “Left thigh or right thigh?’ he asked.
    “Left thigh,” said Ulafi. Slave girls are commonly branded on the left thigh. Sometimes they are branded on the right thigh, or lower left abdomen.
    The metal worker turned the apparatus, spinning the shaft, with its attached, circular metal platform. The girl’s left thigh now faced us. It was an excellent thigh. It would take the mark well. The metal worker then, with a wheel, tightening it, locked the device in place, so that it could not turn.
    I looked at the girl’s eyes. She hardly knew what was being done to her.
    The metal worker drew out an iron and looked at it. “Soon,” he said, putting it back.
    I looked at the girl. She had tried to run away. She had lied at the praetor’s desk. Yet her feet had not been removed. Her nose and ears had not been cut from her. She had been shown incredible mercy. She had only been whipped. Her transgressions, of course, had been first offenses, and she was only an ignorant barbarian. I think now, however, she clearly understood that Gorean men are not permissive, and that her second offenses in such matters would not be likely to be regarded with such lenience.
    “She is in shock, or half in shock,” I said.
    “Yes,” said the metal worker. “She should be able to feel the mark.”
    He took the girl by her hair and, by it, cruelly, shook her head; then he slapped her, sharply, twice. She whimpered.
    “May I?” I asked. I pointed to a bucket of water nearby. used in tempering.
    “Surely,” said the metal worker.
    I threw the cold water over the girl who, shuddering and sputtering, pulled back in the branding rack.
    She looked at me, frightened. But her eyes were now clear. She twisted, wincing. She could now feel the pain of the whipping which she had endured. She sobbed. But she was no longer numb, or in shock. She was now a fully conscious slave, ready for her branding.
    “The iron is ready,” said the metal worker. It was a beautiful iron, and white hot.
    Ulafi threw the metal worker a copper tarsk. “My friend here,” said Ulafi, indicating me, “will use the iron.”
    I looked at him. He smiled. “You are of the metal workers, are you not?” he asked.
    “Perhaps,” I smiled. He had told me earlier that I was not of the metal workers.
    “We are ready to sail,” said Ulafi’s first officer, who had come to report.
    “Good,” said Ulafi.
    I donned leather gloves and took the iron from the metal worker, who cheerfully surrendered it. He assumed I was, because of my garb, of his caste.
    Ulafi watched me, to see what I would do.
    I held the iron before the girl, that she might see it. She shrank back. “No, no,” she whimpered. “Please don’t touch me with it.”
    The girl is commonly shown the iron, that she may understand its might, its heat and meaning.
    “Please, no!” she cried.
    I looked upon her. I did not then think of her as an agent of Kurii. I saw her only as a beautiful woman, fit for the brand.
    She tried, unsuccessfully, to struggle. She could move her wrists, her upper body and feet somewhat, but she could not move her thighs, at all. They were, because of the construction of the branding rack, held perfectly immobile. They would await the kiss of the iron.
    “Please, no,” she whimpered.
    Then I branded her.
    “An excellent mark,” said Ulafi.
    While she still sobbed and screamed the metal worker freed her wrists of the clamps. Ulafi put her immediately in slave bracelets, braceleting her hands behind her, that she not tear at the brand. The metal worker then freed her thighs of the rack, and she sank, sobbing, to her knees.