Norman, John - Gor 20 - Players of Gor.txt

“Can it be,” I asked, “that Cos is planning to challenge Ar on the land?”

  “That would be madness,” said Samos.

  I nodded. Ar is the major land force in known Gor. The Cosian infantry, meeting

  her on land in open battle, in force, would be crushed.

  “It seems clear then,” said Samos, “that they are planning on using the infantry

  against Port Kar.”

  I nodded. Cos would never challenge Ar on the land. That was unthinkable.

  “That is what is bothering you?” I asked.

  “What?” he asked.

  “The possibility that Cos and Tyros may move against Port Kar,” I said.

  “No,” he said.

  “What is bothering you?” I asked.

  page 34

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Are you disturbed by the proximity of the Waiting Hand?” I asked.

  This is a frightening and difficult time for many Goreans.

  “No,” he said.

  “Let us stop playing and adjudicate the game as a draw,” I suggested.

  “No,” he said. “It is all right.”

  I moved my Ubara’s Builder to threaten his Ubar. This movement of the builder

  produced a discovered attack on his Home Stone by my Ubara’s Initiate. He

  interposed his own Ubar’s Builder, which I then took with the Initiate, a less

  valued piece. The Initiate’s attack, of course, continued the threat on the Home

  Stone. he then took the Initiate with his Ubara’s Builder, and I, of course,

  removed his Ubar from the board with my Ubara’s Builder.

  Samos turned to Linda. “Dance,” he said. She leaped to her feet and hurried to

  the center of the tiles. Susan, then, was pulled by the hair to the place of a

  keleustes, on who marks time, usually on a pounding block or a ship’s drum, for

  oarsmen. In some navies, and on ships of some registry, the office of the

  keleustes is referred to as that of the horator. He reports directly to the

  oar-master. The oar-master, like the helmsman, of which two are generally on

  duty at any one time, most Gorean ships being double ruddered, reports to the

  captain.

  We watched Linda dance. It seemed she had eyes only for Samos. Her fingers

  played teasingly with the disrobing loop at her left shoulder.

  “Strip, slave,” said Samos.

  She drew the disrobing loop. There was Gorean applause. She danced well. There

  was little left in her now of the Earth female. How happy and fulfilled she was

  on Gor. To be sure, she was only a slave.

  I returned my attention to the board, as did Samos.

  “It is capture of Home Stone in four,” I said.

  He nodded. He removed his Home Stone from the board, resigning.

  He lifted his head, regarding Linda. “She is pretty,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She writhed well, the Gorean slave.

  page 35

  “Why did you invite me this night to your holding?” I asked. “Surely not to play

  Kaissa?”

  He was now resetting the pieces. He would take Yellow this time.

  “Ubar’s Spearman to Ubar Five,” he said.

  This move attacks the center and opens a diagonal for the Ubara. It also makes

  possible a positioning move, matching him positionally in the center, stopping

  an advance on that file and securing the same advantages for the Ubara and

  Ubar’s Tarnsman. This is one of the most common opening moves in kaissa.

  We played twice more that night. I won both games easily, the first with a

  battering ram of Spearmen and Riders of the High Tharlarion on the Ubar’s side,

  and the second with a middle-game combination of Ubara’s Scribe, Ubara and

  Ubar’s Tarnsman. It was now late. Linda lay curled on the tiles near Samos. She

  was naked, save for her collar. She was beautiful and curvaceous. She was his.

  “Captain,” said one of the two guardsmen standing before our table. They were

  the fellows in whose custody the free woman, the Lady Rowena of Lydius, had

  earlier been drawn to our attention The woman who had been the Lady Rowena of

  Lydius was now again in their custody. She was now on her knees between them,

  facing us, her arms held high and to either side of her, each of her wrists in

  the grasp of a guard. She was now a slave.

  “Is it the sleen for her, Captain?” asked he who was first of the two guardsmen,

  he who had just spoken.

  “Dorto, Krenbar,” said Samos.

  “Yes, Captain,” said the men. Dorto was the oarsman who had opened the former

  Lady Rowena of Lydius for the uses of men. Krenbar was another oarsman. He had

  used her twice in the evening, after putting her through intricate slave paces

  each time.

  “Does this slave,” asked Samos, “give some indication that she might eventually

  prove to be at least somewhat adequate in a collar?”

  “Yes, Captain,” said Dorto. “Yes, Captain,” said Krenbar.

  “Tonight, as you know, my dear,” said Samos, “you danced and performed for your

  life.”

  “I beg to have been found pleasing,” she said.

  “Based on the evidences submitted by Dorto and Krenbar,

  page 36

  and my own judgment in the matter, your performances, at least for a new slave,

  have been found acceptable.”

  I thought she might almost faint with relief.

  “Accordingly, at least for the moment, you will not be thrown to sleen.”

  “Thank you, Master!” she said.

  “You are Rowena,” he said.

  “Thank you, Master,” she said, named. There is some security in a slave having a

  name. Most masters will not name a slave whom they are planning on having

  immediately destroyed. It would be a waste of name. To be sure, names may be put

  on slaves and taken off them on a master’s whim.

  “Though you have been spared, at least for now, do not grow complacent,” said

  Samos.

  “No, Master!” she said.

  “You are now, like any other slave, you must understand, under standard,

  unconditional slave discipline.”

  “Yes, Master!” she said. She was now a slave like any other, neither more nor

  less.

  “Take her below,” said Samos to he who was first of the two guardsmen. “Mark

  her, left thigh, common Kajira mark. Collar her, common house collar.”

  “Yes, Captain,” he said. In the case of the girl, Rowena, of course, as she was

  already a self-pronounced slave, the brand and collar were little more than

  identificatory formalities. Nonetheless she would wear them. They would be fixed

  visibly and clearly upon her. This is in accord with the prescriptions of

  merchant law. Too, for all practical purposes, they make escape impossible for

  the Gorean slave girl.

  “Then bring her to my chambers,” said Samos.

  “Yes, Captain,” said he who was first of the two guardsmen.

  “Master!” prote
sted Linda.

  Samos looked at her, and she lowered her head. “Forgive me, Master,” she said.

  “I shall try to be pleasing, Master!” Rowena avowed, frightened.

  Then the two guardsmen pulled her about and conducted her from our presence.

  “She is fat,” said Linda. I did not think this remark was fair on Linda’s part.

  The slave, Rowena, was not fat. She was sweetly shapely. To be sure, by a strict

  regimen of diet and exercise, she would soon be brought, in a manner congenial

  to her basic structure, within indisputable latitudes of slave perfection.

  page 37

  The Gorean slave girl is not a free woman. Accordingly she must keep herself

  beautiful.

  “Do you not like Linda any more?” she pouted.

  “Yes, I like you,” he said.

  “Linda can please you more than Rowena,” she said.

  “Perhaps,” said Samos.

  “I can, I will!” she said.

  “Who?” asked Samos.

  “Linda can, Linda will!” she said.

  “To your kennel,” said Samos.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, taking up her tunic, rising to her feet, tears in her

  eyes.

  “Do not fret,” he said. “Tomorrow night it will be you who will be chained at my

  slave ring.”

  “Thank you, Master!” she said.

  “And tonight, for you have not been fully pleasing,” he said, “tell the kennel

  master to put you in close chains.”

  “Yes, Master!” she laughed and, happily, dismissed, clutching her tunic, rose to

  her feet and scurried away. She would not spend a comfortable night, locked in

  the steel of close chains, but she was radiantly happy. She had been reassured

  of the interest of her master.

  “What are you going to do with the slave Rowena?” I asked.

  “She is one of a lot of one hundred,” said Samos. “They are to be sold at the

  fair of En’Kara.”

  “The slave, Linda,” I said, “doubtless would have been pleased to hear that.”

  “She will doubtless learn of it, in one way or another, sooner or later,” said

  Samos.

  “Doubtless,” I said.

  I rose to my feet. I was stiff from having sat for so long. I suspected Samos

  cared for the Earth-girl, Linda. It was no secret in Port Kar that the shapely

  collar-slut was first on his chain.

  Samos, too, with a grunt, rose to his feet. “Ah,” he said.

  We looked about. The men and slaves had left the room. We were alone.

  Our eyes met. I saw in his eyes that he wanted to speak to me, but he did not do

  so.

  “Your men and boat are waiting,” he said.

  page 38

  He accompanied me from his holding to the small landing , with its steps,

  leading down to the water, outside.

  I stepped down into the longboat and, shaking him by the shoulder, awakened

  Thurnock, the blond giant, he of the peasants. He awakened the rowers. I took my

  place at the tiller. One of Samos’ men cast the line into the boat.

  “I wish you well,” said Samos.

  “I wish you well,” I said.

  We then pushed off, thrusting against the steps with the port oars. In a moment,

  with unhurried strokes, we were making our way down the canal, back toward my

  holding. The canal was dark now. In two days, however, it would be lit with

  lanterns, thrust out on jutting poles from the bordering, clifflike house and

  strung with garlands and flags. It would then be the time of the Twelfth Passage

  Hand, the time of carnival.

  I heard the ringing of the time bar from the arsenal. It was the Twentieth Ahn,

  the Gorean midnight.

  I was very puzzled as to why Samos had invited me to his holding tonight. I was

  sure that he had wished to speak to me. But he had not, however, done so.

  I dismissed these considerations from my mind. If he chose to keep his own

  counsel, it was not mine to inquire into his motivations.

  I thought that I had played kaissa well tonight. To be sure, Samos was not an

  enthusiast for the game. He preferred, as I recalled, a different kaissa, one of

  politics and men.

  page 39

  2 Carnival

  “Master!” laughed she who seemed to be a naked, collared slave, flinging her

  arms about my neck, pressing her lips fervently, deliciously, to mine.

  “Oh!” she cried, as my hands checked her thighs. She was truly a slave. The

  brand was on her left thigh, high, just under the hip. Sometimes free women,

  during the time of carnival, masquerading as slaves, run naked about the

  streets.

  I slid my hands possessively up her body and then, between my thumbs and

  fingers, held her under the arms, half lifting her, half pressing her to me. I

  then returned her kiss. “Master!” she purred, delighted. I then turned her about

  and, with a good-natured, stinging slap, sped her on her way. She disappeared,

  laughing, among the crowds.

  “Paga, mate?” inquired a mariner.

  I took a swig of paga from his bota and he one from mine.

  I stepped to one side, nearly trampled by a gigantic figure on stilts.

  I was jostled by a fellow blowing on a horn.

  There might easily have been fifteen thousand people in the great piazza, the

  largest in Port Kar, that before the hall of the Council of Captains. It was

  ringed with booths, and platforms, and stages and stalls, and booths, and

  platforms and stalls, too, with colorful canvas, with their eccentrically carved

  wood, with their fluttering flags, and signs, like standards, illuminated by

  lamps and torches, throngs gathered about them, and flowing between them,

  bedecked and studded the piazza’s inner precincts.

  page 40

  Here it seemed there were a thousand things for sale and a hundred shows.

  Sweating men, stripped to the waist, with wands tipped with cylinders of

  oil-drenched, flaming wool, appeared to swallow fire. Jugglers performed awesome

  tricks with rings, balls and sticks. Clowns tumbled; acrobats spun and leapt,

  and climbed, one upon the other, until, abetted by the gravity of Gor, they

  swayed thirty feet above the crowd. One man somersaulted on a strand of tarn

  wire strung between posts. Another fellow had a dancing sleen.

  The lovely assistant of a magician, dressed in the robes of a free woman, but

  unhooded and unveiled, so probably a slave, appeared to put him in manacles. She

  then helped him into a sack inside a trunk. When he crouched down, lying in the

  trunk, she seemed to tie shut the sack over his head. She then, with great show,

  thrusting bolts home, seemed to close and lock the trunk. As a last touch she

  flung three hasps over three staples and seemed to secure the whole system with

  three padlocks. A fellow from the audience was invited forward to test the

  locks. He tried them, stoutly, and then, grudgingly, attested to the placement

  and solidity. He was requested to retain the keys. The lovely young woman then

  stepped into a nearby vertical cabinet. The crowd looked at one another. Then a

  drum roll, furnished by a f
ellow to one side, suddenly commenced and, steadily,

  increased in volume and intensity. At its sudden climax, followed by an instant

  of startling silence, the door of the vertical cabinet burst open and the

  magician, smiling, to cries of surprise, of awe and wonder, stepped forth,

  waving, his hands free, greeting the crowd. He wasted not a moment but searched

  out the startled fellow with the keys and began swiftly, one by one, to unlock

  the padlocks. In a moment, thrusting back the externally mounted security bolts,

  the padlocks already removed, he had the trunk open. The crowd was breathless,

  sensing what might, but could not, be the case. he jerked the sack inside to an

  upright position. I noticed that it was now secured with a capture knot, a knot

  of a sort commonly used in securing captives and slaves. He undid the know.

  Then, to another drum roll, he opened the mouth of the sack. At the climax of

  this drum roll, after its moment of startling silence, the figure of a

  beautiful, naked, hooded female, her wrists locked in slave bracelets, sprang

  up. The magician bowed to the crowd.

  It seemed the act was done. But few coins were flung to the platform. “Wait!”

  cried a man. “Who is it?” asked another. “It is not the same one!” cried a

  fellow, triumphantly. The magician seemed distraught, in consternation. It

  seemed he could not wait

  page 41

  to gracefully evacuate the stage. “Show her to us! Show her to us!” cried the

  crowd. Reluctantly, as though yielding most unwillingly, as responding only of

  necessity to such peremptory duress, he unbuckled the hood. Then he drew if off

  with a flourish. It was she! The same girl, of course! She smiled, and shook her

  head, throwing her lovely tresses behind her. Then, as the crowd cheered, and

  coins fell like rain on the platform, she, helped by the magician, stepped forth

  from the sack and trunk. She knelt on the platform, smiling. She wore a collar.

  This was easily detected now that she was neither hooded nor in the robes of a

  free woman. She still wore the slave bracelets, of course. I had little doubt

  that they were genuine, and confined her with snug and uncompromising

  perfection. That would be a typical Gorean touch.

  I myself threw a golden tarn disk to the boards. The slave looked at it in

  wonder. Perhaps she had never seen one before. It would buy several women such