20 Players of GorPlayers of Gor
John Norman
Chronicles of Counter-Earth Volume 20
1 Samos
page 7
I looked up from the board, idly, as the woman, struggling, in the grasp of two
guards, was thrust into the vicinity of our table.
“It is your move,†said Samos.
I regarded the board. I moved my Ubar’s Tarnsman to Ubara’s Tarnsman Five. It
was a positioning move. The Tarnsman can move only one space on the positioning
move. It attacks only on a flight move.
The woman struggled fiercely in the grasp of the two guards. She could not, of
course, free herself.
Samos studied the board. He positioned his Home Stone. It was, looking at the
tiny counter at the edge of the board, his tenth move. Most Kaissa boards do not
have this counter. It consisted of ten small, cylindrical wooden beads strung on
a wire. The Home Stone must be placed by the tenth move. He had placed it at his
now-vacated Ubar’s Initiate One. In this position, as at the Ubara’s Initiate
One, it is subject to only three lines of attack. Other legitimate placements
subject it to five lines of attack. He was also fond of placing the Home Stone
late, usually on the ninth or tenth move. In this way, his decision could take
into consideration his opponent’s early play, his opening, or response to an
opening, or development.
I myself, who’s Home Stone was already placed, preferred a much earlier and more
central placement of the Home Stone. I did not wish to be forced to sacrifice a
move for Home-Stone placement in a situation that might, for all I knew, not
turn out to be to my liking, a situation in which the obligatory placement might
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even cost me a tempo. Similarly, although a somewhat more central location of
the Home Stone exposes it to more lines of attack, it also increases its
mobility, and thereby its capacities to evade attack. These considerations are
controversial in the theory of Kaissa. Much depends on the psychology of the
individual player.
Incidentally, there are many versions of Kaissa played on Gor. In some of these
versions, the names of the pieces differ, and, in some, even more alarmingly,
their nature and power. The caste of Players, to its credit, has been attempting
to standardize Kaissa for years.
A major victory in this matter was secured a few years ago when the caste of
Merchants, which organizes and manages the Sardar Fairs, agreed to a
standardized version, proposed by, and provisionally approved by, the high
council of the caste of Players, for the Sardar tournaments, one of the
attractions of the Sardar Fairs. This for of Kaissa, now utilized in the
tournaments is generally referred to, like the other variations, simply as
Kaissa. Sometimes, however, to distinguish it from differing forms of the game,
it is spoken of as Merchant Kaissa, from the role of the Merchants in making it
the official form of Kaissa for the fairs, Player Kaissa, from the role of the
Players in its codification, or the Kaissa of En’Kara, for it was officially
promulgated for the first time at one of the fairs of En’Kara, that which
occurred in 10,124 C.A., Contasta Ar, from the Founding of Ar, or in year 5 of
the Sovereignty of the Council of Captains, in Port Kar.
The fair of En’Kara occurs in the spring. It is the first fair in the annual
cycle of the Sardar Fairs, gigantic fairs which take place on the plains lying
below the western slopes of the Sardar Mountains. These fairs, and others like
them, play an important role in the Gorean culture and economy. They are an
important clearing house for ideas and goods, among them female slaves.
The woman stifled a cry and stamped her foot.
Samos, his Home Stone positioned, looked up.
It was now two days before the Twelfth Passage Hand, in the year 10,129 C.A.
Soon it would be Year Eleven in the Sovereignty of the Council of Captains, in
Port Kar. It seemed, somehow, only recently that the five Ubars, who had divided
Port Kar between them, had been deposed. Squat, brilliant Chung and tall,
long-haired Nigel, like a warlord from Torvaldsland, had fought with us against
the fleets of Cos and Tyros, participating with us in the victory of the
Twenty-Fifth of Se’Kara, in Year One of the Council of Captains; remained in
Port Kar as
page 9
high captains, admirals in our fleet. Sullius Maximus was now a despised and
minor courtier at the court of Chenbar of Kasra, Ubar of Tyros, the Sea Sleen.
Henrius Sevarius, freed, now a young man, had his own ship and holding in Port
Kar. He owned a luscious young slave, Vina, whom he well mastered. She, now a
love slave, had once been the ward of Chenbar, Ubar of Tyros, and once had been
intended to be the free companion of gross Lurius of Jad, the Ubar of Cos,
thence to be proclaimed Ubara of Cos, which union would have even further
strengthened the ties between those two great island ubarates. She had been
captured at sea and had fallen slave. Once marked and collared, of course, her
political interest had vanished. A new life had then been hers, that of the mere
slave. I did not know the whereabouts of the fifth Ubar, Eteocles.
We were in the great hall in the holding of Samos, in Port Kar. The room was lit
by torches. Many of his men, sitting cross-legged at low tables, as we were,
were about. They were eating and drinking, being served by slaves. We sat a bit
apart from them. Some musicians were present. They were not now playing.
I heard a slave girl laughing, somewhere across the room.
Outside, in the canal traffic, I heard a drum, cymbals and trumpets, and a man
shouting. He was proclaiming the excellencies of some theatrical troupe, such as
the cleverness of its clowns and the beauty of its actresses, probably slaves.
They had performed, it seems, in the high cities and before Ubars. Such
itinerant troupes, theatrical troupes, carnival groupings, and such, are not
uncommon on Gor. They consist usually of rogues and outcasts. With their wagons
and tents, often little more than a skip and a jump ahead of creditors and
magistrates, they roam from place to place, rigging their simple stages in
piazzas and squares, in yards and markets, wherever an audience may be found,
even at the dusty intersections of country crossroads. With a few boards and
masks, and a bit of audacity, they create the mystery of performance, the magic
of theater. They are bizarre, incomparable vagabonds. They are denied the
dignity of the funeral pyre and other forms of honorable burial.
The group outside, doubtless on a rented barge, was not the first to pass
beneath the narrow windows of the house of Samos this evening. There were now
several such groups in the city. Their hand-printed handbills and hand-painted
posters, the latter pasted on the sides of buildings and on the news boards,
were much in evidence. All this had to do with the approach of the Twelfth
Passage Hand, which preceded the Waiting Hand.
page 10
The Waiting Hand, the five-day period preceding the vernal equinox, the first
day of spring, is a very solemn time for most Goreans. During this time few
ventures are embarked upon, and little or no business is conducted. During this
time most Goreans remain within their houses. It is in this time that the doors
of many homes are sealed with pitch and have nailed to them branches of the brak
bush, the leaves of which have a purgative effect. These precautions, and others
like them, are intended to discourage the entry of ill luck into the houses.
In the houses there is little conversation and no song. It is a time, in
general, of mourning, meditation and fasting. All this changes, of course, wit
the arrival of the vernal equinox, which, in most Gorean cities, marks the New
Year.
At dawn on the day of the vernal equinox a ceremonial greeting of the sun takes
place, conducted usually by the Ubar or administrator of the city. This, in
effect, welcomes the New Year to the city. In Port Kar this honor fell to Samos,
first captain in the Council of Captains, and the council’s executive officers.
The completion of this greeting is signified by, and celebrated by, a ringing of
the great bars suspended about the city. The people then, rejoicing, issue forth
from their houses. The brak bushes are burned on the threshold and the pitch is
washed away. There are processions and various events, such as contests and
games. It is a time of festival. The day is one of celebration.
These festivities, of course, are in marked contrast to the solemnities and
abstinences of the Waiting Hand. The Waiting Hand is a time, in general, of
misery, silence and fasting. It is also, for many Goreans, particularly those of
the lower castes, a time of uneasiness, a time of trepidation and apprehension.
Who knows what things, visible or invisible, might be abroad during that
terrible time? In many Gorean cities, accordingly, the Twelfth Passage Hand, the
five days preceding the Waiting Hand, that time to which few Goreans look
forward with eagerness, is carnival. The fact that it was now only two days to
the Twelfth Passage Hand, explained the presence of the unusual number of
theatrical and carnival troupes now in the city.
Such troupes, incidentally, must petition for the right to perform within a
city. Usually a sample performance, or a part of a performance, is required,
staged before the high council, or a committee delegated by such a council.
Sometimes the actresses are expected to perform privately, being “testedâ€, so to
speak, for selected officials. It the troupe is approved it may, for a fee, be
licensed.
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No troupe is permitted to perform within city unless it has a license. These
licenses usually run for the five days of a Gorean week. Sometimes they are for
a specific night or a specific performance. Licenses are commonly renewable,
within a given season, for a nominal fee. In connection with the fees for such
matters, it is not uncommon that bribes are also involved. This is particularly
the case when small committees are involved in the approvals or given
individuals, such as a city’s Entertainment Master or Master of Revels. There is
little secret, incidentally, about the briberies involved. There are even fairly
well understood bribery scales, indexed to the type of troupe, its supposed
treasury, the number of days requested for the license, and so on. These things
are so open, and so well acknowledged, that perhaps one should think of them
more as gratuities or service fees than as bribes. More than one Master of
Revels regards them as an honest perquisite of his office.
The woman struggled in the grip of the guards. She stamped her foot again. “Tell
these boorish ruffians to unhand me!†she demanded.
I, too, now, looked up.
her eyes flashed at Samos, over her veil. Then they looked angrily at me, too.
“Now!†she demanded.
Samos nodded to the guards, scarcely moving his head.
“That is better!†she said, jerking angrily away from the guards, as though she
might have freed herself, had she chosen to do so. She angrily smoothed down her
long, silken, capelike sleeves. I caught a glimpse of her sweetly rounded
forearm and small wrist. She wore white gloves.
“This is an outrage!†she said. Se wore tiny, golden slippers. Her robes of
concealment, silken and flowing, shimmered in the torchlight. She adjusted the
draping of the garment, an almost inadvertent, unconscious movement, a natural
vanity.
“What is the meaning of this?†she demanded. “I demand my immediate freedom!â€
One of the slave girls, one kneeling a few feet away, before us and to our
right, at a table, one of those who was naked, save for her collar, laughed.
Then she turned white with fear. She had laughed at a free woman. Samos turned
to a guard and pointed at the offending slave. “Fifteen lashes,†he said. The
girl shook her head in misery. She whimpered with terror. These would be lashes,
she knew, with a Gorean slave whip. It is an efficient instrument for
disciplining women.
The blows were delivered with suitable force, with authority, but in an evenly
spaced, measured fashion. There was nothing
page 12
personal, or emotional, in the beating. It was almost like a natural force or a
clockwork of nature. There was enough time between the strokes to allow her to
feel each one individually and fully, and enhance, maximizing, the irradiations
of its predecessors, enough time for her, in the fullness of her pain,
imagination and terror, to prepare herself for, and anticipate, fearfully and
acutely, the next blow. It was not much of a beating, of course. She had erred.
She was being punished. Then she was lying on her belly, on the tiles, the
beating over. She did not even dare to move her body, for the pain. Samos had
been rather merciful with her, I thought. If he had been truly displeased with
her, he might have had her fed to sleen.
We now returned our attention to the woman in the silken, shimmering robes of
concealment, standing before our table. her eyes were apprehensive, over her
veil. I could see that the beating of the female slave had had its effect on
her. She was breathing deeply. Her breasts, rising and falling, moved nicely
under the silk.
“May I present,†inquired Samos, “Lady Rowena, of Lydius?â€
I inclined my head. “Lady,†said I, acknowledging the introduction. To a free
woman considerable deference is due, particularly to one such as the Lady
Rowena, one obviously, at lest hitherto, of high station.
She inclined her head to me, and then lifted it, acknowledging my greeting.
Lydius is a bustling, populous trade center located at the estuary of the
Laurius River. Many cities maintain warehouses and small communities in Lydius.
Many g
oods, in particular wood, wood products, and hide, make their way westward
on the Laurius, eventually landing at Lydius, later to be embarked to the south
on the ships of various cities, lines and associations. The population of
Lydius, as one might expect, is a mixed one, consisting of individuals of
various races and backgrounds.
The woman drew herself up to her full height. She looked at Samos, angrily.
“What is the meaning of my presence here?†she demanded.
“Lady Rowena is of the merchants,†said Samos to me. “The ship on which she had
passage, enroute from Lydius to Cos, was detained by two of my rovers. Her
captain kindly consented to a transfer of cargo.â€
“What is the meaning of my presence here?†repeated the woman, angrily.
“Surely you are aware of the time of year?†inquired Samos.
“I do not understand,†she said. “Where are my maidens?â€
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“In the pens,†said Samos.
“The pens?†she gasped.
“Yes,†said Samos. “But do not fear for them. They are perfectly safe—in their
chains.â€
Slavers remain active all year on Gor, but the peak seasons for slaving are the
spring and early summer. This has to do with such matters as the weather, and
the major markets associated with certain feasts and holidays, for example, the
Love Feast in Ar, which occurs in the late summer, occupying the full five days
of the Fifth Passage Hand. Also, during these seasons, of course, occur the
great markets associated with the fairs of En’Kara and En’Var. These are the two
major seasonal markets on Gor, exceeding all others in the volume of women
processed.
“Chains?†she whispered. She shrank back, her hand at her breast.
“Yes,†said Samos.
“I was hooded,†she said. “I do not even know where I am.â€
“You are in Port Kar,†he said.
She staggered. I feared she might faint.
“Who are you?†she whispered.
“Samos,†said he, “first slaver of Port Kar.â€
She shuddered with misery. A tiny moan escaped her. I saw she had heard of
Samos, of Port Kar. “What hope have I?†she asked.
“None,†said Samos. “Remove your veil.â€
Norman, John - Gor 20 - Players of Gor.txt Page 1