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 Branding RackThis page dedicated to Ben These are relevant references from the Books where a Branding Rack is mentioned. I make no pronouncements on these matters, but report them as I find them. Arrive at your own conclusions. I wish you well, Fogaban By one wall there was a large bowl of burning coals, from which protruded the handles of several irons. A rack of some sort was placed near the bowl of coals. It was large enough to accommodate a human being. There was a drum fire near the center of the room on the floor. There was a littered look about the room, some pieces of chains about. Two smiths were in the room. There was a guard talking with the smiths. There was also a man in the green of the Caste of Physicians, standing at one side, writing notes on a slip of record paper. He was a large man, smooth-shaven. I saw a branding rack, noted that there were irons in the drum fire. There was also an anvil in the room, resting on a large block of wood. Against the far wall there were thirty kennels, five rows of six each, tiered, with iron runways and iron stairs giving access to them. They reached to the ceiling of the room. Elsewhere in the room there were some slave cages, but they were now empty. Slave rings were mounted on one wall. Hanging from the ceiling, worked from a windlass, dangled a chain, attached to which was a pair of slave bracelets. Against one wall I noted a variety of slave whips, of different weights and leathers. We then, following Ho-Tu, retraced our steps on the iron walkway, descended the steps, and, taking our way between the metal branding rack and the glowing, perforated steel drum containing irons, left the room. At a signal from Ho-Tu the guard carried Virginia to the branding rack and placed her in the rack, spinning the lever that locked there, wrists braceleted behind her back, locked in place, watching the approach of the iron, observing the graceful, white-hot character at the iron's termination; she screamed uncontrollably when the iron marked her, firmly, decisively for about three Ihn; and then she sobbed, beside herself, while the guard spun the lever releasing her; he lifted her from the rack and put her on the stones at the feet of Ho-Tu and Flaminius; Phyllis' eyes were wild with fear, but she, like Virginia, did not so much as whimper as the guard lifted her, carried her to the rack and locked her in place. "We still do hand branding," said Ho-Tu to me. "Mechanical devices brand too uniformly. Buyers like a hand-branded girl. Besides it is better for a female slave to be branded by a man; it makes them better slaves. The rack, however, is a useful device, preventing a blurred brand." He indicated the guard. "Strius," said he, "has one of the finest irons in Ar. His work is almost always exact and clean." On the flat-topped wagon, fastened to one side on a metal plate, already white with heat, was a brazier, from which protruded the handles of two irons. Also mounted on the wagon was a branding rack, of the sort popular in Tyros. It was, I conjectured, another instance of the cultural minglings which characterized the port of Lydius. "Lady Tina," requested the judge, "go to the rack." Wordlessly, the girl went and stood by the rack, her back to the curved iron. He then went behind her, and unbound her wrists. "Place your hands over your head," he said. She did so. "Bend your elbows," he said. She did so. "Lie back," he then said, supporting her. She did so, and was stretched over the curved iron. He then took her wrists and pulled her arms almost straight. He then locked her wrists in metal clasps, similar to those, though smaller, which confined her ankles. Her head was down. He then bent to metal pieces, heavy, curved and hinged, which were attached to the sides of the rack, and a bit forward. Each piece consisted of two curved, flatfish bands, joining at the top. He lifted them, and dropped them into place. Then, with two keys, hanging on tiny chains at the sides, he tightened the bands. They were vises. She might now be branded on either the left or right thigh. There was ample room, I noted, between the bands, on either side, to press the iron. She was held perfectly. Her tanned thigh could not protest so much as by the slightest tremor. She would be marked cleanly. The man, placing heavy gloves on his hands, withdrew from the brazier a slave iron. Its tip was a figure some inch and a half high, the first letter in cursive script, in the Gorean alphabet, of the expression Kajira. It is a beautiful letter. The judge looked down upon the Lady Tina of Lydius. She, fastened over the rack, stripped, looked up at him, in his robes, those with two borders, one of gold, the other of purple. Her eyes were wild. "Brand the Lady Tina of Lydius," he said. "Brand her slave." Then he turned, and departed from the platform. The girl gave a terrible scream. There was a shout from the crowd. The man now, swiftly, brutally, released the girl, spinning open the vises, and dropping them against the rack, unfastening her wrists and ankles, and dragged her to her feet. Her hair was over her face. She was weeping. It is important for the girl's, thigh to be held immobile; sometimes it is held by more than one man; sometimes it is bound to a wagon wheel; sometimes, in the house of slavers, a heavy, vise-equipped, metal branding rack is used. "It is here," said Hassan. He moved back the heavy iron door and we entered the room. I looked about, at the chains and devices. Tarna shrank back. She could not run, for my hand was on her arm. She seemed faint. I steadied her. It was dark in the room, except for a small tharlarion-oil lamp on a chain in one corner, and a brazier, glowing, near the branding rack. Hassan stirred the coals in the brazier. In a large kasbah irons are kept always hot. The slaves know this. I ripped the bit of cloth away from her hips and threw her against the rack. I swung shut the two heavy bands and with the two twist handles, tightened them on her thigh. She turned, trying to pound at the metal that held her. I took her wrists and pulled them forward, to the two posts, some six inches apart, part of the branding rack, putting them in the snap bracelets which dangled there, one from each post. These are simple mechanisms. It is quite easy to open and shut them, and it may be done with a snap of the finger, one for each bracelet. As the bracelets are situated, some inches apart, of course, and as the snap is on each bracelet itself, at the wrist, the girl herself cannot get her finger, of either hand, on the mechanism. Others may open them easily; she, on the other hand, is perfectly held. I took again the twist handles. I turned them extremely tightly. "Oh, oh," she cried. She pulled futilely at the snap bracelets. Then I again turned the twist handles. "Please!" she cried. "Be quiet," I told her. She bit her lip. I tightened the handles more and put in the locking device, that they might not slip back. Her thigh was absolutely immobile. "I see you like a left-thigh-branded girl," said Hassan. The girl can writhe in the rack or squirm, or scream, but the held thigh will not move. It is held for the kiss of the iron. There I took her down to the fourth level, the lowest level, and, throwing the tiny garment into a cell, whence it would be retrieved later, I took her to the branding chamber, threw her into the device, and locked it on her thigh. Hassan was there and the iron was already hot. It was the same iron with which he had, the night before, marked the proud Tarna. It had been cleaned, with a solvent. One iron, properly cared for, can mark thousands of women. "No, Master," she said, "please!" "Do you wish to mark her?" asked Hassan. "Yes," I said. I would place the mark on her left thigh, above that of the four bosk horns. It would be the common Gorean female slave mark, fitting for a low girl, such as she, one who had not been fully pleasing. At the height of the festivities the cage was opened and its occupant, a former free woman, whose name had been Melina, now a naked slave in sleen collar, was ordered forth on her hands and knees. A sleen leash was attached to her collar and she was marched, as a she-sleen, crawling, abused, to the rape-rack in which I had been earlier confined. Therein she was fastened, the beams locking her ankles and neck, and wrists, in place, and, as her left thigh was held by strong men, branded by the hand of Thurnus, caste leader of the village of Tabuk's Ford. She screamed wildly, branded, and, her thigh released, cleanly marked, moaned and twisted on the wood. Her head was then shaved. Then she wept, her head back, softly moaning, held in place by the heavy beams, forgotten, as men and women returned to their feasting. 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. 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. On the height of the central block I saw two attendants sliding out a branding rack. Another, its handles wrapped in heavy cloth, carried out a cylindrical, glowing brazier, from which protruded the handles of two irons. He placed this near the branding rack. At the same time the auctioneer freed the ankles of the girl from the ropes. He then freed the end of her wrist rope from its ring and the rope, sliding through the overhead ring, loosened. As it did so the attendant to whom the auctioneer had earlier addressed himself, now returned, supported the girl. I did not think she could stand. When the rope permitted it he lifted her in his arms. Her weight was nothing for him. The auctioneer then jerked the remainder of the rope through the overhead ring. The attendant then carried the girl, the rope trailing beside him, to the height of the central block. There, with the help of another fellow, he lowered her into the heavy rack, and spun shut the sturdy vises on her left and right thighs. She had been carried to the rack naked, her wrists bound before her. She winced, unable to move her thighs, dismayed doubtless at the perfect tightness with which they were held. Her wrists were then freed of the rope and taken behind her where they were fastened to a sturdy metal pole, a portion of the rack, by dangling slave bracelets. The fellow who had carried in the brazier now drew forth, holding it with two gloves, an iron. It was white hot. The girl regarded it, wild-eyed. "No!" she cried. "Are you beasts and barbarians? What do you think I am? Do you think I am an animal? Do you think I am a slave?" The iron was leveled. It approached the circular aperture in the vise, through which, deeply into her fair thigh, it would be thrust, and held, burning and hissing, until its work was done, until the girl was marked, and well, as slave meat. "You are bluffing!" she cried. "You cannot be serious!" She then learned that the intention of the iron with respect to her body was quite real. "You are now 'Tiffany,'" he said. "Yes, Master," I said. He wrote something down, presumably the name. He seemed to have heard it before, unlike the drivers. Some other "Tiffany" had perhaps, at some earlier time, stood where I stood. I also realized that I had now been named. I had lost the name "Tiffany Collins" a few Ahn ago, when I had been marked, when I had become slave. That name was gone, as soon as the iron, hissing, curling smoke, had been lifted from my flesh. A free person had been locked in the branding rack. A mere animal was released from it. The name "Tiffany" had now been put on me as a mere slave name, a name which might be removed or changed at the whim of masters. Many free women know more of the behaviors of slaves, and details of the relationships between them and their masters, than many free men give them credit for knowing. Indeed, many free women, while expressing disinterest in such matters, or disgust at their very thought, tend to be fascinated by them, and inquire eagerly into them. Perhaps there is a practical motivation for such interests. Perhaps they wish to know such things in case they should one day find themselves being pulled from a branding rack, their own flesh marked. I cried out. His hands were on me like iron. I could not have been held more helplessly in the vise of a branding rack. My thigh tingled as I remembered my own branding in the pens, long ago. It had been quite painful. I had cried out in misery. A branding rack had been used, to hold us steady for the mark. She had been taken to a room, where she had been stripped and had had her hands braceleted behind her; she had then been placed in the rack, in which her left leg had been held immobile. The marking itself took only a few moments. While she was gasping, and sobbing, and crying, shuddering, trying to comprehend the enormity of what had been done to her, the collar had been put on her neck, and locked. She could well imagine the horror, the dismay, the consternation, which might be felt by the fair guest when her disposition, what men had decided for her, was made clear to her. How her misery would mingle with the viselike grasp of the opened, then closed, spun shut, tightened, then locked-closed branding rack on her thigh, the meticulous, brief, carefully controlled, searing fury of the marking iron, the futile pulling at the light, attractive bracelets that held her hands confined so perfectly behind her, and the sudden awareness of the clasp of a metal band snapped shut, locked, about her neck! "In moments I lay supine, head down, ankles elevated, in the rack, my limbs held in the clamps. I wept and squirmed, save that I could not move, in the least, my left thigh. In double clamps, it was held utterly motionless. Our left thighs were locked in a rack, and, one after the other, we were routinely marked. "Heat the irons!" called the Forkbeard. "They are hot!" laughed a brawny man, in leather apron, standing on the dock. The girls shuddered. They would be branded. "Bring the anvil to the branding log!" said the Forkbeard. They knew then they would wear collars. "She first," said the Forkbeard, indicating the slender, blond girl. She, moaning, was seized by a fellow and thrown on her belly over the peeled log. Two men held her upper arms, two others her upper legs. A fifth man, with a heavy, leather glove, drew forth one of the irons from the fire; the air at its tip shuddered with heat. There I took her down to the fourth level, the lowest level, and, throwing the tiny garment into a cell, whence it would be retrieved later, I took her to the branding chamber, threw her into the device, and locked it on her thigh. Hassan was there and the iron was already hot. It was the same iron with which he had, the night before, marked the proud Tarna. It had been cleaned, with a solvent. One iron, properly cared for, can mark thousands of women. "No, Master," she said, "please!" "Do you wish to mark her?" asked Hassan. "Yes," I said. I would place the mark on her left thigh, above that of the four bosk horns. It would be the common Gorean female slave mark, fitting for a low girl, such as she, one who had not been fully pleasing. Certain areas of the house, however, I was not shown, presumably because I was a free woman, such as the lowest pens, the branding chamber, the discipline room, and the rooms where girls were taught to kiss and caress, and the movements of love. On the way we passed a girl, a girl from Cos taken hundreds of pasangs away in a raid on a caravan bound for Ar. She had been bound across a wagon wheel lying on the ground, her body over its hub. Her clothing had been removed. Fresh and clean on her burned thigh was the brand of the four bosk horns. It is important for the girl's, thigh to be held immobile; sometimes it is held by more than one man; sometimes it is bound to a wagon wheel; sometimes, in the house of slavers, a heavy, vise-equipped, metal branding rack is used. She lay on her right side, bound, thrust against the foot of the couch. Wadded furs helped to hold her in place. Her thighs had been tied for the iron. Bosk's weight, too, pressed upon her. She shut her eyes. |       
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