To our surprise she had not resisted the boy's kiss.
He held her by the arms. "I am a slave," he said.
To our astonishment, then, she, in all her friendlessness, in all her misery and loneliness, lifted her lips to his, with great timidity, that he might, should it please him to do so, again touch them.
Again he gently kissed her.
"I, too, am a slave," she said. "My name is Vina."
"You are worthy," he said, holding her head in his hands, "to be a Ubara."
"And you," she whispered, "to be a Ubar."
"I think you will find," I told her, "the arms of the boy Fish more welcome, though on the mat of a slave, than the arms of gross Lurius, on the furs of the Ubar's couch."
She looked at me, tears in her eyes.
I spoke to the kitchen master. "At night," I said, "chain them together."
"A single blanket?" he asked.
"Yes," I told him.
The girl collapsed weeping, but Fish, with great gentleness lifted her in his arms and carried her from the hall.
I laughed.
And there was great laughter.
How rich a joke it was, to have enslaved the girl who would have been Ubara of Cos, to have put her to work in my kitchens, to have given the use of her to a mere slave boy! This story would soon be told in all the ports of Thassa and all the cities of Gor! How shamed would be Tyros and Cos, enemies of my city, Port Kar! How delicious is the defeat of enemies! How glorious is power, success, triumph!
I reached drunkenly into the bag of gold beside my chair and grabbed up handfuls, flinging them about the room. I stood and threw about me showers of the tarn disks of Ar, of Tyros, of Cos, Thentis, Turia and Port Kar!. Men scrambled wildly, laughing and fighting for the coins. Each was of double weight!
"Paga!" I cried and held back the goblet and Telima filled it.
I regretted only that Midice and Tab were not with me to share my triumph.
I stood drunkenly, holding to the table. I spilled paga. "Paga!" I cried, and Telima again filled the goblet. I drank again. And then, again, wildly, shouting, crying out, I threw gold to all the corners of the room, laughing as the men fought and leaped to seize it.
I drank and then threw more coins and more coins about the room.
There was laughter and delighted cries.
"Hail Bosk!" I heard. "Hail Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar!"
I threw more gold wildly about. I drank again, and again. "Yes," I cried. "Hail Bosk!"
"Hail Bosk!" they cried. "Hail Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar!"
"Yes," I cried. "Hail Bosk! Hail Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar! Hail Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar!"
I heard a cry, as of fear, from my right, and I turned to stare drunkenly toward the end of the table. There, Luma, chained at the table, in her bracelets, was looking at me. On her face there was a look of horror.
"Your face," she cried. "Your face!"
I looked at her, puzzled.
The room was suddenly quiet.
"No," she said, suddenly, shaking her head. "It is gone now."
"What is wrong?" I asked her.
"Your face," she said.
"What of it?" I asked.
"It is nothing," she said, looking down.
"What of it!" I demanded.
"For an instant," she said, "I thought—I thought it was the face of Surbus."
I cried out with rage and seized the great table, flinging it, scattering dishes and paga, from the dais. Thura and Ula screamed. Sandra screamed, darting away, her hands before her, with an incongruous clash of slave bells. Luma, fastened by the neck to the table, was jerked from the dais, and thrown over the table to the tiles of the hall. Slave girls fled from the room, screaming.
Enraged I took the bag of gold, what was left of it, and hurled it out into the hall, spilling a rain of golden tarn disks before it struck the tiles.
Then, furious, I turned about and, stumbling, left the hall.
"Admiral!" I heard behind me. "Admiral!"
I clutched the medallion about my neck, with its tarn ship and the initials of the Council of Captains of Port Kar.
Stumbling, crying out in rage, I staggered toward my quarters.
I could hear the consternation behind me.
In fury, I rushed on, sometimes falling, sometimes striking against the walls.
Then I burst open the doors of my quarters.
Midice and Tab leaped apart.
I howled with rage and turned about, striking the walls with my fists and then, throwing off my cloak, spun weeping to face them, in the same instant drawing my blade.
"It is torture and impalement for you, Midice," I said.
"No," said Tab. "It is my fault. I forced myself upon her."
"No, No!" cried Midice. "It is my fault! My fault!"
"Torture and impalement," I said to her. Then I regarded Tab. "You have been a good man, Tab," said I, "so I will not save you for the torturers." I gestured with my blade. "Defend yourself," I said.
Tab shrugged. He did not draw his weapon. "I know you can kill me," he said.
"Defend yourself," I screamed to him.
"Very well," said Tab, and his weapon left its sheath.
Midice flung herself on her knees between us, weeping. "No!" she cried. "Kill Midice!"
"I shall slay you slowly before her," I said, "and then I shall deliver her to the torturers."
"Kill Midice!" wept the girl. "But let him go! Let him go!"
"Why have you done this to me!" I cried out to her, weeping. "Why? Why?"
"I love him," she said, weeping. "I love him."
I laughed. "You cannot love," I told her. "You are Midice. You are small, and petty, and selfish, and vain! You cannot love!"
"I do love him," she whispered. "I do."
"Do you not love me?" I begged.
"No," she whispered, tears in her eyes. "No."
"But I have given you many things," I wept. "And have I not given you great pleasure?"
"Yes," she said, "you have given me many things."
"And have I not," I demanded, "given you great pleasure!"
"Yes," she said, "you have."
"Then why!" I cried out.
"I do not love you," she said.
"You love me!" I screamed at her.
"No," she said, "I do not love you. And I have never loved you."
I wept.
I returned my blade to its sheath.
"Take her," I said to Tab. "She is yours."
"I love her," he said.
"Take her away!" I screamed. "Leave my service! Leave my sight!"
"Midice," said Tab, hoarsely.
She fled to him and he put one arm about her. Then they turned and left the room, he still carrying the unsheathed sword.
I walked slowly about in the room, and then I sat on the edge of the stone couch, on the furs, and put my head in my hands.
How long I had sat thus I do not know.
I heard, after some time, a slight sound in the threshold of my quarters.
I looked up.
In the threshold stood Telima.
I looked at her.
"Have you come to scrub the tiles?" I asked, sternly.
She smiled. "It was done earlier," she said, "that I might serve late at the feast."
"Does the kitchen master know you are here?" I asked.
She shook her head. "No," she said.
"You will be beaten," I said.
I saw that, about her left arm, she wore again the armlet of gold, which I remembered from so long ago, that which I had taken from her to give to Midice.
"You have the armlet," I said.
"Yes," she said.
"How did you get it?" I asked.
"From Midice," she said.
"You stole it," I said.
"No," she said.
I met her eyes.
"Midice gave it back to me," she said.
"When?" I asked.
"More than a month ago," sa
id Telima.
"She was kind to a Kettle Slave," I said.
Telima smiled, tears in her eyes. "Yes," she said.
"I have not seen you wear it," I said.
"I have kept it hidden in the straw of my mat," said Telima.
I looked on Telima. She stood in the doorway, rather timidly. She was barefoot. She wore the brief, stained, wretched garment of a Kettle Slave. About her throat, locked, was a simple, steel collar. But she wore on her left arm an armlet of gold.
"Why have you worn the armlet of gold?" I asked.
"It is all I have," she said.
"Why have you come here at this time?" I asked.
"Midice," she said.
I cried out and put my head in my hands, weeping.
Telima timidly came closer. "She did care for you," she said.
I shook my head.
"She cannot help it if she did not love you," whispered Telima.
"Go back to the kitchens!" I wept. "Go back now, or I will kill you."
Telima knelt down, a few feet from me. There were tears in her eyes.
"Go away," I cried, "or I will kill you!"
She did not move, but knelt there, with tears in her eyes. She shook her head. "No," she said, "you would not. You could not."
"I am Bosk!" I cried, standing.
"Yes," she said, "you are Bosk." She smiled. "It was I who gave you that name."
"It was you," I cried, "who destroyed me!"
"If any was destroyed," said she, "it was not you, but I."
"You destroyed me!" I wept.
"You have not been destroyed, my Ubar," said she.
"You have destroyed me," I cried, "and now I shall destroy you!"
I leaped to my feet, whipping the sword from my sheath and stood over her, the blade raised to strike.
She, kneeling, looked up at me, tears in her eyes.
In rage I hurled the blade away and it struck the stones of the wall thirty feet across the room and clattered to the floor, and I sank to my knees weeping, my head in my hands.
"Midice," I wept. "Midice."
I had vowed once that I had lost two women, and would never lose another. And now Midice was gone. I had given her the richest of silks, the most precious of jewels. I had become famed. I had become powerful and rich. I had become great. But now she was gone. It had not mattered. Nothing had mattered. And now she was gone, fled away in the night, no longer mine. To me she had chosen another. I had lost her. I had lost her.
"Midice," I wept. "Midice!"
Then I rose to my feet, and stood there, and shook my head, and wiped the sleeve of my tunic across my eyes and then, catching my breath, I walked to the bottom of the stone couch and sat down, my head down.
"It is hard," I said to Telima, "to love, and not to be loved."
"I know," she said.
I looked at her. Her hair had been combed.
"Your hair is combed," I said.
She smiled. "One of the girls in the kitchen," she said, "has a broken comb, one that Ula threw away."
"She let you use it," I said.
"I did much work for her," said Telima, "that I might, one night, when I chose, use it."
"Perhaps the new girl," I said, "to please the boy Fish, will sometimes wish to use the comb."
Telima smiled. "Then she, too," said Telima, "will have to work."
I smiled.
"Come here," I said.
Obediently the girl rose to her feet and came and knelt before me.
I put out my hands and took her head in my hands. "My proud Telima," I said, "my former mistress." I looked on her, kneeling barefoot before me, my steel collar locked on her throat, in the scanty, miserable, stained garment of the Kettle Slave.
"My Ubar," she whispered.
"Master," I said.
"Master," she said.
I drew the golden armlet from her arm, and looked at it.
"How dare you, Slave," I asked, "wear this before me?"
She looked startled. "I wanted to please you," she whispered.
I threw the armlet to one side. "Kettle Slave," I said.
She looked down, and a tear ran down her cheek.
"You thought to win my favor," I said, "by coming here at this time."
She looked up. "No," she said.
"But your trick," I told her, "has not worked."
She shook her head, no.
I put my hands on her collar, forcing her to look directly at me. "You are well worthy of a collar," I said.
Her eyes flashed, the Telima of old. "You, too," she said, "wear a collar!"
I tore away from my throat the broad scarlet ribbon, with its pendant medallion, with the tarn ship and the initials of the Council of Captains of Port Kar. I flung it from me.
"Arrogant Slave!" I said.
She said nothing.
"You have come to torment me in my grief," I told her.
"No," she said, "no!"
I rose to my feet and flung her to the tiles of the bed chamber.
"You want to be first girl!" I cried.
She stood up, looking down. "It was not for that reason that I came here tonight," she said.
"You want to be first girl!" I cried. "You want to be first girl!"
She looked suddenly at me, angrily. "Yes," she cried, "I want to be first girl!"
I laughed, pleased that she had spoken her guilt out of her own mouth.
"You are only a Kettle Slave," I laughed. "First girl! I am going to send you back to the kitchens to be beaten, Kettle Slave!"
She looked at me, tears in her eyes. "Who will be first girl?" she asked.
"Doubtless Sandra," said I.
"She is very beautiful," said Telima.
"Perhaps," I asked, "you saw her dance?"
"Yes," said Telima, "she is very, very beautiful."
"Can you dance thus?" I asked her.
She smiled. "No," she said.
"Sandra," I said, "seems eager to please me."
Telima looked at me. "I, too," she whispered, "am eager to please you."
I laughed at her, that she, the proud Telima, would so demean herself.
"You resort well," I said, "to the wiles of the slave girl."
She dropped her head.
"Are the kitchens that unpleasant?" I taunted her.
She looked up at me, angrily. There were tears in her eyes. "You can be hateful," she said.
I turned away.
"You may return to the kitchens," I told her.
I sensed her turn and move toward the door.
"Wait!" I cried, turning, and she, too, in the doorway, turned.
And then the words that I spoke did not seem to come from me but from something within me that was deeper than the self I knew. Not since I had knelt bound before Ho-Hak on the rence island had such words come from me, so unbidden, so tortured. "I am unhappy," I said, "and I am lonely."
There were tears in her eyes. "I, too," she said, "am lonely."
We approached one another, and extended to one another our hands, and our hands touched, and I held her hands. And then, weeping, the two of us cried out, holding one another.
"I love you," I cried.
And she cried, "And I love you, my Ubar. I have loved you for so long!"
16
What Occurred One Night in Port Kar
I held the sweet, loving, uncollared thing in my arms.
"My Ubar," whispered Telima.
"Master," I said, kissing her.
She drew back, reproachfully. "Would you not rather be my Ubar, than my Master?" she asked.
I looked at her. "Yes," I said, "I would."
"You are both," she pronounced, again kissing me.
"Ubara," I whispered to her.
"Yes," she whispered, "I am your Ubara—and your slave girl."
"You wear no collar," I pointed out.
"Master removed it," said she, "perhaps that he might the more easily kiss my throat."
"Oh," I said.
"Oh!" she cried.
"What is wrong?" I asked.
"Nothing," she laughed.
I felt her back, and the five weals left there by the switch of the kitchen master.
"But a few hours ago," said she, "I displeased my master and he had me beaten."
"I am sorry," I said.
She laughed. "How silly you sometimes are, my Ubar. I left your side unbidden, and so, of course, I was beaten." She looked up at me, laughing. "I have richly deserved many beatings," she confided, "but I have not always received them."
Telima was Gorean to the core. I myself would always be, doubtless, at least partly, of Earth. I held her. There could never be, I told myself, any question of sending this woman to Earth. In that overcrowded desert of hypocrisies and hysterical, meaningless violences, she would surely wither and blacken, like some rare and beautiful plant of the marshes uprooted and thrust down among stones to die.
"Are you still sad, my Ubar?" she asked.
"No," I told her, kissing her. "No."
She looked at me, gently. And touched my cheek with her hand. "Do not be sad," she said.
I looked about and found the golden armlet. I slipped it once again on her arm.
She leaped to her feet, standing on the furs of the couch, and threw her left arm into the air. "I am a Ubara!" she cried.
"Commonly," I said, "a Ubara wears more than a golden armlet."
"On the couch of her Ubar?" asked Telima.
"Well," I admitted, "I do not know about that."
"I do not either," said Telima. She looked down at me, brightly. "I shall ask the new girl in the kitchens," she said.
"You wench!" I cried, grabbing for her ankle.
She stepped back swiftly, and then stood there, regally on the furs.
"How dare you address such a word to your Ubara, Slave!" demanded she.
"Slave!" I cried.
"Yes," she taunted, "Slave!"
I cast about for the slave collar I had taken from her throat.
"No, no!" she cried, laughing, almost losing her footing in the furs.
Then I had the collar.
"You will never collar me!" she cried.
She darted away, laughing. I, laughing, leaped from the couch, pursuing her. She ran this way and that, and dodged back and forth, laughing, but then I had her pinned in the corner of the room, her arms held down by the walls and my body, and snapped the collar again on her throat. I lifted her and carried her again to the furs and threw her down upon them.
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