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

  as she. “Thank you, Kind Master!” she cried. “Thank you, Kind Sir!” called the

  magician, snatching it up.

  “They are skillful,” commented a man, standing near me.

  “Yes,” I granted him, and then turned away, back into the crowd.

  The man who had spoken was not masked, nor was I. On the other hand, masks are

  common at carnival time. Many in the crowd wore them. Popular, too, at this

  time, it might be mentioned, are bizarre costumes. Such things, maskings, and

  disguisings, and dressing up, sometimes in incredible and wild fashions, are all

  part of the fun of carnival. Indeed, at this time, there are even parades of

  costumes, and prizes are awarded, in various categories, for most ingenious or

  best costume. Most of the dressing up, of course, is not done for the sake of

  winning prizes but just, so to speak, for carnival, just for the fun of it. It

  is something that is done at carnival time. To be sure, I suppose there are

  various psychological benefits, too, other than the simple fun and pleasure of

  it, attendant on the maskings and disguisings. They might, for example, give one

  an opportunity to try out new identities, to relieve boredom, to break up

  routines, to release tension, and so on. They also provide one with an

  opportunity for foolery, jokes, pranks, and horseplay. Who was that fellow, for

  example, who poured paga on one’s head? And who, the free woman might wonder,

  was that fellow who gave he so sudden, so unexpected, so fierce a pinch? Indeed,

  perhaps she is fortunate that her very veil was not lifted up and her lips

  pressed by those of a stranger, or was it a stranger? And who are those

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  fellows in the robes of the caste of physicians, apparently administering

  medicines to one another, after which they leap and roll about, seemingly in

  great distress? Are they physicians? It seems more likely they are sawyers or

  sailmakers from the arsenal. Carnival, too, with its freedom and license, is

  often used by both men and women as a time for the initiation of affairs, and

  for arrangements and assignations, the partners often not even being known to

  one another. In such relationships another advantage of the mask is clearly

  demonstrated, its provision of anonymity to the wearer, should he or she desire

  it.

  Masks, incidentally, at times other than carnival, are not entirely unknown on

  Gor. They are often used by individuals traveling incognito or who do not, for

  one reason or another, wish to be recognized in a certain place or at a certain

  time. Their use by brigands or highwaymen, of course, is a commonplace. They are

  also sometimes used by gangs of high-born youths prowling the streets, usually

  looking to catch a slave girl for an evening’s sport. Lower-caste gangs, engaged

  in similar pursuits, seldom affect masks. They can afford, of course, to be

  relatively open about their interest, and its indulgence. They are comparatively

  invulnerable to the nuisances of scandal.

  “Paga!” cried a fellow.

  We exchanged swigs from our botas. He reeled away into the crowd.

  Three fellows walked by supporting swirling carnival figures. These particular

  constructions had huge, stuffed, bulbous, painted heads, and great flowing

  robes. They were some nine feet tall. They are supported on a pole and the

  operator, holding the pole, supporting the figure, is concealed within the

  robes. He looks out through a narrow, gauze-backed, rectangular opening in the

  robes. The figures bobbed and nodded to the crowd.

  Children fled by, playing tag.

  I saw a woman stripped to the waist. She had a brief cloth tied about her hips.

  She was collared. She looked at me, over her shoulder, and turned away.

  In at least a dozen places on the great piazza there must have been groups of

  musicians.

  I saw Tab, a caption once associated with my holding, one with whom I still had

  occasional dealings. He was with his slave, Midice. She clung to his left arm.

  It was too crowded here even to heel him properly. I called out to him. But, in

  the press, and noise, he did not hear. His scabbard was empty. So, too, was

  mine. We had checked our weapons before entering the piazza.

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  “I shall have to trouble you for your sword, Sir,” said one of the Arsenal

  Guards, on duty here tonight.

  “No,” had said another. “Do you not recognize him? That is Bosk, the Admiral, he

  of the Council of Captains.”

  “Forgive me, Captain,” had said the man. “Enter as you are.”

  “No,” I said. “It is perfectly all right.” I surrendered my sword to him, and

  the knife, too, I commonly carried, a quiva, a Tuchuk saddle knife, balanced for

  throwing. I myself had voted in the council for the checking of weapons before

  entering the piazza during carnival. The least I could do, it seemed to me, was

  to comply with a ruling which I myself had publicly supported.

  I remembered now where I had seen the man who had spoken to me near the platform

  of the magician. He had been waiting near one of the checking points opening

  onto the piazza, that point through which I had entered. It was there that I had

  seen him.

  The checking of the weapons is accomplished as follows: One surrenders the

  weapons and the guard, in turn, tears a ticket in two, placing one half with the

  weapons and giving you the other half. This ticket is numbered on both ends. In

  reclaiming the weapons one matches the halves, both with respect to division and

  number. My half of the ticket was now in my wallet. The ticket is of rence

  paper, which is cheap in Port Kar, owing to its proximity to one of Gor’s major

  habitats for the rence plant, the vast marshes of the Vosk’s delta.

  “Captain,” said a voice.

  I turned about. “Captain Henrius?” I asked. He, grinning, thrust up the mask. It

  was he. I thought I had recognized the voice. The young Captain Henrius was of

  the lineage of the Sevarii. Once he had been of my house but now held sway in

  his own house. With him was his lovely slave, Vina, who once had been intended

  to be the companion of gross Lurius of Jad, then, sharing his throne, to be

  proclaimed the Ubara of Cos. She was now a slave in Port Kar. I had not

  recognized her immediately for the gaudy paints which had been applied to her

  body. She knelt beside Henrius, holding to his thigh, that she not be forced

  away from him in the crowd.

  “Someone is looking for you,” said Henrius.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “I do not know,” he said.

  “He suggests that you meet him among the purple booths, in Booth Seventeen.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

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  Henrius, then, with a grin, readjusted his mask, drew Vina to her feet and, with

  her in tow, by an elbow, vanished in the crowd.

  I looked after them. I was fond of them both.

  A free woman, in swirling robes of concealment, veiled, appeared before me.

  “Accept my favor, please!” she laughed. She held forth the scarf, teasingly,

  coquettishly. “Pleas
e, handsome fellow!” she wheedled. “Please, please!” she

  said. “Please!”

  “Very well,” I smiled.

  She came quite close to me.

  “Herewith,” she said, “I, though a free women, gladly and willingly, and of my

  own free will, dare to grant you my favor!”

  She then thrust the light scarf though an eyelet on the collar of my robes and

  drew it halfway though. In this fashion it would not be likely to be dislodged.

  “Thank you, kind sir, handsome sir!” she laughed. She then sped away, laughing.

  She had had only two favors left at her belt, I had noted. Normally in this game

  the woman begins with ten. The first to dispense her ten favors and return to

  the starting point wins. I looked after her, grinning. It would have been

  churlish, I thought, to have refused the favor. Too, she had begged so prettily.

  This type of boldness, of course, is one that a woman would be likely to resort

  to only in the time of carnival. The granting of such favors probably has a

  complex history. Its origin may even trace back to Earth. This is suggested by

  the fact that, traditionally, the favor, or the symbolic token of the favor, is

  a handkerchief or scarf. Sometimes a lady’s champion, as I understand it, might

  have borne such a favor, fastened perhaps to a helmet or thrust in a gauntlet.

  It is not difficult, however, aside from such possible historical antecedents,

  and the popular, superficial interpretations of such a custom, in one time or

  another, to speculate on the depth meaning of such favors. One must understand,

  first, that they are given by free women and of their own free will. Secondly,

  one must think of favors in the sense that one might speak of a free woman

  granting, or selling, her favors to a male. To be sure, this understanding, as

  obvious and straightforward as it is, if brought to the clear light of

  consciousness, is likely to come as a revelatory and somewhat scandalous shock

  to the female. It is one of those cases in which a thing she has long striven to

  hide from herself is suddenly, perhaps to her consternation and dismay, made

  incontrovertibly clear to her. In support of the interpretation

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  are such considerations as the fact that these favors, in these games, are

  bestowed by females on males, that, generally, at least, strong, handsome males

  seem to be the preferred recipients of such favors, that there is competition

  among the females in the distribution of these favors, and that she who first

  has her “favors” accepted therein accounts herself as somewhat superior to her

  less successful sisters, at least in this respect, and that the whole game, for

  these free women, is charged with an exciting, permissive aura of delicious

  naughtiness, this being indexed undoubtedly to the sexual stimulations involved,

  stimulations which, generally, are thought to be beneath the dignity of lofty

  free women.

  In short, the game of favors permits free women, in a socially acceptable

  context, by symbolic transformation, to assuage their sexual needs to at least

  some extent, and, in some cases, if they wish, to make advances to interesting

  males. There is no full satisfaction of female sexuality, of course, outside of

  the context of male dominance. I wondered what the free woman whose favor I wore

  would look like, stripped and in a collar. How would she look, how would she

  act, I wondered, if slave fires had been lit in her belly. I did not think she

  would then be distributing silken scarves to make known her needs to men. She

  must then do other things, such as putting a bondage knot in her hair, offering

  them wine or fruit, dancing naked before them, or kneeling before them,

  whimpering and whining for attention, licking and kissing at their feet and

  legs.

  I saw again the woman in the collar, she who was stripped to the waist, she who

  had a brief bit of cloth tied about her hips. As our eyes met she looked away,

  quickly.

  I took a step towards her and she turned hastily away, frightened, and began to

  make her way through the crowd. I followed her, indirectly, circling about. As I

  had expected, in a few moments she stopped and turned about, to see if I was

  following. She stood there, uncertainly, scanning the crowd, looking back the

  way she had come. Had she been pursued? she did not know. Then suddenly I

  stepped behind her and pulled her back against me. She could not move. She was

  as helpless, my hands upon her beauty, as one locked in one of the body cages of

  Tyros.

  “Sir!” she said, frightened, stiffening.

  “Sir?” I asked.

  “Master!” she quickly said, correcting herself.

  “You are a slave, aren’t you?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course!” she said.

  “Of course, what?” I asked.

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  “Of course, Master!” she said.

  “You have nice breasts,” I said.

  “Thank you, Master,” she whispered.

  I slid my hands down her body, to her waist, and hips, holding her all the

  while.

  “You have a nice body,” I said. “I think you would bring a good price on the

  slave block.”

  “Do you think so?” she asked, pleased.

  “Yes,” I said. “But what is this cloth at your hips?” I asked. “Its quality,

  incidentally, seems a bit too good to be accorded to a mere slave.” My hands,

  reaching about her, fumbled at the strings on her left hip.

  “Do not remove it,” she begged, “please! “Please!”

  My hands paused.

  “As you are a mere slave,” I said, “what possible difference could it make?”

  “Please,” she begged.

  “Very well,” I said. I removed my hands form the string, but held her in place,

  facing away from me, by the waist.

  “May I turn around?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  She shuddered with pleasure, commanded, placed under the will of another.

  “There are doubtless slavers in the piazza tonight,” I said. “If you do not want

  the collar, you should not court it.”

  “As I am only a mere slave,” she said, “I could not possibly begin to understand

  the words of Master.”

  She cried out as I, half spinning her about, tore the cloth from her hips.

  “It seems your master forgot to brand you,” I said.

  She snatched back the cloth and, angrily, tearing it and pulling it, refastened

  it about her hips.

  “Take me to a pleasure rack,” she said.

  “You are a free woman, “ I said. “Go yourself.”

  “Never, never!” she said. “You know I cannot do that!”

  “Master,” said a voice. “I am a slave. Take me to a pleasure rack!”

  I looked down. Kneeling on the tiles of the piazza at my feet was a naked slave.

  “I have not forgotten your kiss,” she said. “Take me to a pleasure rack, I beg

  you!”

  I remembered her. She was the naked, colla
red slave who, a few moments ago, had

  seized me and kissed me. I had returned her kiss, in the fashion of a master.

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  “I have sought you in the crowds,” she said.

  The free woman cried out in fury.

  I reached down and drew the slave to her feet and then, holding her by the arm,

  turned away from the free woman.

  The free woman gasped, rejected, scorned, of less interest than a slave.

  The slave now held my arm, I permitting it, closely, that she not be pulled away

  from me in the crowds.

  “This is not the way to the pleasure racks,” she said.

  “You must be patient,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she moaned, pressing more closely against me. She would be

  patient. She had no choice in the matter. she was a slave.

  I looked back and saw the free woman, turned away, forlorn, her arms clutched

  about herself, half crouched over. Her body shook with sobs. She trembled with

  need. I saw that she had strong drives. I smiled. Such drives would bring her,

  sooner or later, to a man’s feet, the only place they can be satisfied.

  I paused to watch a portion of a farce. I would let the girl clinging to me

  increase in her heat.

  The girl playing the part of the Golden Courtesan was not unlike Rowena, whom I

  remembered from three nights ago in the holding of Samos. She had something of

  the same beauty, the same figure, the same long, golden tresses. The role of the

  Golden Courtesan, incidentally, when it occurs in more sophisticated Gorean

  comedy is usually played, like the other roles in such comedies, and in most

  forms of serious drama, masked. One possible reason for this, though I think

  tradition probably has much more to do with it, is the such roles in more

  sophisticated comedy, like roles in more serious drams, are generally played by

  men. In the major dramatic forms Goreans generally, mistakenly, in my opinion,

  keep women off the stage. Some feel this practice is a result of the fact that

  women’s voices carry less well than men’s voice in the open-air theaters. Given

  the superb acoustics of many of these theaters, however, in which a coin dropped

  on the stage is clearly audible in the upper tiers, I feel the practice is more

  closely connected with tradition, or jealousy, than acoustics. Too, it might be

  noted that many dramatic masks have megaphonic devices built into them which