“Really?” asked Petrucchio.
“Surely you know them well?” asked Chino.
“Well, some of them,” said Petrucchio.
“Your modesty, then, and our time, they being so numerous and lengthy, forbid me recounting them to you.”
“Naturally,” said Petrucchio.
“We wish you well, noble captain,” said Chino, shaking Petrucchio’s hand, warmly. “I do not think we shall soon forget our chance encounter with the great Captain Petrucchio.”
“That is for certain,” said Lecchio.
“Few do,” Petrucchio admitted.
“May we have your permission to tell our children and our grandchildren about this?” inquired Chino.
“Yes,” said Petrucchio.
“Thank you,” said Chino.
“It is nothing,” said Petrucchio, as though it might really have been nothing, the bestowal of so priceless a right.
Chino took the switch from Lecchio, and lightly tapped Rowena on the shoulder with it. “Lana,” he said, instructing her as to her new name. “Yes, Master,” she said, trembling at the touch of the switch, accepting the name. “Tana,” he said, tapping Lady Telitsia on the shoulder with the switch. “Yes, Master,” she said, accepting the name. “Bana,” he said, tapping Bina on the shoulder. “Yes, Master,” she said, accepting the name.
Chino handed the switch back to Lecchio who used it, tapping the girls here and there, and brushing it against them for delicate adjustments, to line them up in an exact and careful order.
“Well,” said Chino to Petrucchio, after having satisfied himself with the quality of Lecchio’s work, “it is time to be on our way. It is time to herd these pretty little she-tarsks to market.”
“I hope you get good prices for them,” said Petrucchio.
“I am sure we will,” said Chino.
The girls, together, aghast, reproachfully, regarded Petrucchio.
“Come now, girls,” said Chino, “we must be on our way.”
“Move, Lana!” said Lecchio, speeding her into motion with a swift stroke of the fierce, supple switch. “Move, Tana!” said Lecchio, adding another stripe to her, as she, in her place, hastened to move past him. “You, too, Bana!” said Lecchio, adding a swift, smart stripe to her, as well, as she, moaning, at the end of the chain, tried to hurry past him.
Chino and Lecchio, then, following the neck-chained girls, left the stage.
“I wish you well!” Petrucchio called cheerily after them. He then turned to the audience, twirling a mustache. “And thus,” he said, “concludes another of the adventures of Petrucchio, Captain of Turia. This has been the story of how Petrucchio penetrated the disguises of three clever female slaves, masquerading as free women, captured them, and returned them to their rightful bondage. In it has also been told how he generously bestowed the slaves, asking nothing for himself, upon two needy wayfarers.”
Petrucchio then apparently looked into the distance. “Oh! Oh!” he cried. “Is that dust upon the horizon? Or is it perhaps my imagination? It could be a group of verr, browsing in the fields. But, too, perhaps, it is nothing. But, too, perhaps it is men from the warring towns, as reported by the cloth workers, intensely combing the hills and fields for harmless Turians. Perhaps I should teach them a lesson. But then again, perhaps it is nothing, a stirring of wind, or even only my imagination. I wonder in what direction I should go? I shall let my sword decide!” Here he seemingly closed his eyes and swung his sword about in vast, eccentric circles. “Very well, sword,” he said, opening his eyes. “You have made the choice. I must abide by it, however reluctantly. It is in this direction that we will seek new adventures, lands to be devastated, armies to be defeated, cities to subdue, noble free women to be protected and guarded on dangerous roads.” He then set out in the direction in which the sword had pointed. It was, of course, the direction exactly opposite that in which he had, but a moment ago, fearfully, thought he might have discerned a movement of dust in the distance.
In a moment, smiling and bowing, all the actors had returned to the stage. Rowena, Lady Telitsia and Bina, freed of their chains, now had their collars bared. The scarves which they had worn about them were now knotted about their hips. They were knotted at the left hips, so that the opening was at their left thighs, where, on the thighs, could be seen the circular, adhesive patches they had worn during the play, those patches which, in the conventions of the theater, informed the audience that they were to be taken, for the purposes of the play, as free women, and not the slaves they really were. Boots Tarsk-Bit leaped, too, to the stage, bowing to the audience, and, with expansive gestures, proudly displayed his actors. Petrucchio, stepping forward, received the most applause. Boots removed, one by one, the circular adhesive patches from the thighs of the girls, this baring their brands. The theatrical convention was now terminated. Once again the girls were revealed to be what they had actually been all the time, only female slaves.
“Thank you, generous folks, noble patrons, citizens of Brundisium, guests and friends of Brundisium!” called Boots. No copper bowls were passed. No coins rattled to the stage. The troupe had already received a purse of gold from Belnar, Ubar of Brundisium. As a reward for their part in my capture the Lady Yanina, as Boots had hoped, had arranged for their performances at the banquet. Boots had spoken to her of such a banquet, and of the “finest entertainment.” He, of course, had had in mind his own troupe. “Thank you! Thank you!” called Boots, blowing kisses to the crowd in the Gorean fashion, brushing them from the side with an open hand to the audience.
I looked to the table where reposed Belnar, Ubar of Brundisium. On his left hand sat Flaminius, who, it seemed, had not joined in the applause. Flaminius, as I had earlier noted, did not seem too pleased with the nature and progress of the evening. It was at this table, too, where sat Temenides, a member of the caste of players, one who stood among the high boards of Cos. At the right side of Belnar there was a vacant place. Since this evening was to be a great triumph for the Lady Yanina, celebrating her capture of me and her restoration to favor in Brundisium, I supposed that that place had been reserved for her.
“Present yourselves,” said Boots to Rowena and Lady Telitsia, thrusting them forward on the stage.
Rowena stood at the front of the low stage. She put her head back, her hands clasped behind the back of her head, and arched her back, her legs bent. Then she put her arms down and back to the sides, her shoulders back, her breasts thrust forward. “Who wants me?” she called. There was then much shouting and clashing of silverware on goblets. Men rushed forward and seized her bodily and carried her, lifted high among them, back to the tables. Then Lady Telitsia stepped to the front of the stage. She thrust her hip out to the left and put her hands high over her head and to the right. She looked down and to the right. “I am not such a beauty,” she said to the crowd, plaintively. “I am sure no one will want me.”
“Ask! Ask!” demanded dozens of men, laughing, pounding on the goblets and tables with utensils.
“Who wants me?” called out Lady Telitsia, laughing, vibrant and alive in her collar, a slave, the property of Boots Tarsk-Bit, her master.
“I do! I do!” cried more than a dozen men. There was a rush to the stage. Then Lady Telitsia, too, was seized from the stage and carried helplessly, held high above the heads of several men, others crowding about them, back to the tables. Rowena, gasping and writhing, crying out, the scarf torn from her, flung down among the tables, pressed back helplessly to the tiles, held down by the arms, kept in place, by two men, was already serving.
Bina, smiling, hung back, standing between Petrucchio and Chino. On her left wrist she wore a slave bracelet. It had been put on her by the player. It signified that her use was his. I saw the player from Cos, Temenides, lean toward Belnar, and speak to him. He nodded. Temenides, then, rose behind the table. It was the table of the Ubar.
“Actor!” called Temenides to Boots, contemptuously, loftily.
“Yes, Master?�
� inquired Boots, pleasantly.
“What of her?” inquired Temenides, pointing to Bina.
“That is our Bina,” said Boots. Bina, finding herself the subject of the conversation of the men, instantly knelt. Her time with the player had clearly honed her slave responses. He had not had her use more than a day or two before she had learned, incontrovertibly, what she was.
I had feared he would be too weak to master her, but I had been mistaken. It was only that, before that time, he had not had her use. As soon as he had had her use, he had divested her of any tatters or remnants she might have thought she retained of her freedom.
I smiled to myself.
She had not treated him well.
It had doubtless been pleasant then for him to settle several scores with the luscious little she-sleen.
Certainly he had done well with her.
She was now a quite different Bina.
She was now an eager slave, at one with her deepest feelings and needs, one now apprised of, and welcoming, the revelations of her deepest femininity, its blossoming in exacting servitude, one who had now begun to understand that to which her sex entitled her, wondrous, ancient, inbred female fulfillments, to be found in capitulation, in submission, in service and love, insights which had shaped and guided her sex for millennia, insights without which a woman must remain incomplete, not truly a woman but, at best, an honorary man.
She was now privy to secrets and joys, and ecstasies, available only to the mastered woman.
How beautiful she had become!
She had been devastated.
She had been given not the least chance.
She was now categorically enslaved, fully subdued, and completely conquered.
She now found herself subjected to that uncompromising masculine domination of which every woman dreams, a domination to which she has no choice but to submit, in all ways, and with no qualification whatsoever.
In her collar she was joyous, in her bondage rhapsodic.
“Are you her owner?” asked Temenides.
“Yes, Master,” said Boots.
“Send her to my table,” said Temenides.
“That is not so easy,” said Boots.
“Now,” said Temenides.
“Though she is my slave,” said Boots, in explanation, “yet her use has been given to our player, he who travels with my small and humble troupe.”
At this point Bina, alarmed, suddenly put her head down and lifted and extended her left arm, the wrist hanging down. In this fashion she prominently displayed the slave bracelet on her left wrist.
“I want her,” said Temenides.
“Please, Master,” suggested Boots. “Take our Rowena or Telitsia. Both have learned passion in the collar, and the total pleasing of men.”
“It is she whom I want,” said Temenides, pointing at Bina. She kept her head down, trembling.
“I have given her use to another,” said Boots, desperately.
“It is now time to revoke your misguided and meaningless courtesy,” said Temenides. “I instruct you to do so.”
“Please, Master,” said Boots. “Consider my honor.”
“Consider something yourself,” said Temenides, player of Cos, “your life.”
“Sir?” asked Boots, turning pale.
It interested me that the player should be so bold. He was not in Cos. Indeed, it was somewhat strange that he was here, and certainly strange that he was seated at the table of Belnar. Brundisium was not even an ally of Cos. She was an ally of Ar.
“Reclaim her use rights, now,” said Temenides. “You are her master. The ultimate say in this matter is yours. Be quick about it.”
Belnar, I noted, rather than suggesting civility in his hall, quaffed paga, noncommittally.
“I am waiting,” said Temenides.
Suddenly the player, the hooded player, he called the “monster,” he who now had Bina’s use, rose from his place at a table and climbed the stairs to the stage. He looked about himself scornfully, regally, an attitude that seemed sorely at odds with his station in a lowly, itinerant troupe. He placed a coin, a golden tarn disk, in the palm of Boots Tarsk-Bit. Boots looked at it, disbelievingly. He had probably not seen too many coins of that sort in his life. He had particularly, doubtless, never expected to receive one from the player.
“I do not own her!” cried Boots suddenly to Temenides, in relief. He pointed at the player. “He owns her,” he said. “He just bought her!”
The girl cried out in astonishment, looking up at the player from her knees.
The hall was now muchly silent. That something of interest might be transpiring on the stage seemed somehow, suddenly, almost as if by secret communication, to be understood by all in that hall. Rowena and Lady Telitsia, breathing heavily, their nipples erected, their bodies red with usage, bruises on their arms where they had been held down and roughly handled, turned to their sides and, palms on the tiles, looked up to the stage. Even the numerous naked slaves who were serving the tables and, as men wished them, the banqueters, stopped serving, and, carrying their vessels and trays, stood still, looking, too, to the stage.
Slowly, beautifully, kneeling before him, looking up at him, Bina opened her thighs before the player.
“You own me,” she said to the player.
“Yes,” he said.
“You are the first man before whom,” she said, “I have ever willingly opened my thighs.”
He did not speak.
“You are the first man before whom,” she said, “I have ever gladly, eagerly, beggingly, opened my thighs.”
He continued to look down upon her, not speaking.
“I love you,” she said.
He did not respond to the slave.
“I love your strength, and your manhood,” she said. “And that you have taught me my slavery.”
“Kiss my feet,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“So, player,” said Temenides, “you now own her. You are a fool to have paid a golden tarn disk for such a woman. But it changes nothing. Send her to my table.”
Bina lifted her head from the player’s feet. She knelt before him, tears in her eyes, looking up at him. “I love you,” she said.
“How can you love a monster,” he asked.
“I have secretly loved you for months,” she said. “I loved you even when I despised you and hated you, and thought you weak. Now I love you a thousand times more, that you are strong.”
“But I am a ‘monster,’” he said.
“I do not care what you are, or think you are,” she said.
“But what of my hideousness?” he asked.
“Your appearance does not matter to me,” she said. “I do not care what you look like. It is you, the man, the master, I love.”
“I have never been loved,” he said.
“I can give you only a slave’s love,” she said, “but there is no greater, deeper love.”
He looked down upon her.
“Do not be weak with me,” she begged.
“I will not,” he said. “You will when necessary, or when it pleases me, know the whip.”
“Yes, Master,” she said, happily.
“Perhaps you did not hear me,” said Temenides, angrily. “I told you to send her to my table!”
“Send me to his table, Master,” she begged. “I will try to serve him well.”
“Oh!” she cried, in pain, cuffed to her side on the stage. She looked up at the player, startled, blood at the side of her mouth.
“Were you given permission to speak?” inquired the player.
“No, Master,” she said.
“Then be silent,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
The player then turned toward Temenides. “Did you say something?” he asked.
“Send the female slave to my table,” said Temenides, angrily, pointing at Bina.
“No,” said the player.
“Ubar!” cried Temenides, turnin
g to corpulent Belnar, lounging behind the low table, rolling in his fat, eating grapes.
“Perhaps you could buy her,” suggested Belnar, dropping a grape into his mouth.
“He just paid a golden tarn disk for her,” protested Temenides.
Belnar, not speaking, slowly put two such disks on the table.
“Thank you, Ubar!” said Temenides. He snatched up the two coins. “Here, fool,” he said to the player, lifting up the coins. “Here is a hundred times what she is worth, and twice what you paid for her! She is now mine!”
“No,” said the player.
Temenides cast a startled glance at Belnar. Belnar, saying nothing, put three more coins on the table. There were gasps about the hall. Then five coins altogether, five golden tarn disks, and of Ar herself, as it was pointed out, were offered to the player for his Bina, lifted in the furious, clenched fist of Temenides, of Cos, one of the masters of the high boards of Kaissa in that powerful island ubarate.
“No,” said the player.
“Take her from him,” said Temenides to Belnar. “Use your soldiers.”
Belnar glanced about himself, to some of the guardsmen at the side of the hall.
“I am a citizen of Ar,” said the player. “It is my understanding that the cities of Brundisium and Ar stand leagued firmly in friendship, that the wine has been drunk between them, and the salt and fire shared, that they are pledged both in comity and alliance, military and political. If this is not true, I should like to be informed, that word may be carried to Ar of this change in matters. Similarly, I am curious to know why a player of Cos, not understood ambassador or herald, sits at a high table, at the table even of Belnar, Ubar of this city. Similarly, how is it that Temenides, only a player, and one of Cos, as well, to whom both Brundisium and Ar stand opposed, to whom both accord their common defiance, dares to speak so boldly? Perhaps something has occurred of which I was not informed, that ubars now take their orders from enemies, and those not even of high caste?”
Belnar turned away from the soldiers. He did not summon them.
“I have soldiers of my own,” said Temenides. “With your permission, Ubar, I shall summon them.”
Players of Gor Page 42